Of course, I believe some of the blame should go to the Ohio elections people, but I can't fault them for being pulled in by slick salesguys (if that's what actually happened). Either way, at least they're fessing up and making sure to hold Diebold accountable for their flop.

The touch-screen voting setup used in half of Ohio's 88 counties doesn't work properly, and the former Diebold Election Systems should pay as a result, Secretary of State Jennifer Brunner said in a court filing yesterday.

Well duh. Better yet, they should scrap the system and get something that actually works. In theory, my state has which is good since I'd hate to be blocked from voting again this year.

In case you didn't know already, voting machines are hackable and otherwise, just plain poop. Any state that's using them should be sued. Now a man has used voting machine print-outs to prove that they are adding votes incorrectly.

So not only was Diebold dumb enough to use a universal key for all their voting machines, and not only did they sell those keys off their website (though supposedly only to "authorized people" as if we could trust them to handle who's authorized or not), but they posted a picture of the keys on the Internet which allowed at least one researcher to make a perfect working copy at home with a key blank bought from the store and a file.

This story came to light a while ago, but there's been some updates such as:

In a classic Diebold bury-the-evidence move, they've now replaced the entire page in their online store featuring the mechanical, copyable key with a page featuring a "Smart Card, Security Key Card." A digital key card. Same link, different key entirely. Which can only be done, given the database they use for their online store, quite deliberately in order to try to fool folks again. Par for the course. And, of course, shameless.

Whee.

(H/T to Slashdot for the link)

Several states are still using e-voting despite the disastrous security they provide. Because of that, voting advocacy groups have labeled six of the 24 states in the primary as being high risk for miscounts due to tampering or malfunction. Best of all, these miscounts would be undetectable due to lack of a paper record for audit or recount.

How after all this time can they still allow these dumb things? Even Maryland has seen the light and removed e-voting!

I found this picture on Digg.com that has an easy 5 step process to hacking the voting machines to do your bidding. Remember when you go to vote soon, to thank your state's voting commission if they are using these well known, hackable, substandard, and completely worthless machines. Better yet sue them for incompetence or corruption (or both).

Well good.

(H/T to Slashdot for the link)

I should make a song. I'll call it "Duh" and repeat the word "duh" over and over. Then I'll send it to all the state election boards who have been using e-voting.

Here's an excerpt from Ars Technica's writeup of this startling revelation:

To put it in every-day terms, the tools needed to compromise an accurate vote count could be as simple as tampering with the paper audit trail connector or using a magnet and a personal digital assistant," Brunner said in a statement. Note that Brenner here is describing machines that have been in use in Ohio since before the 2004 presidential election. This isn't some glimpse of how bad things might be in November 2008. It's a look at how bad they've been all along.

*sigh*

As it should. No better way to encourage voters than to give them e-voting machines that have been proven faulty. Yeah… I really feel my vote counts now.

Anyway, let's hope a well placed lawsuit or two can set them back on the right track.

Finally, some federal guidelines for e-voting have been released. Of course, they're voluntary so we'll see if they actually do any good.

I don't know what authority or noteriety this group has, but if you want to have a say in what their recommendations for e-voting guidelines are, now's your chance.

(H/T to Slashdot for the link)

HR 811, which I've previously covered here, has been cut back some, but is still being recommended by the EFF. Above all, this bill requires a paper trail which has been lacking until now.

Check out this article detailing the short version of all Diebold's sins with the most recent being their new name. Diebold, who has really died and did so boldly, is now known as Premier Election Systems.

From Google:

Premier: The first in importance or rank, the chief.

How fitting. They are indeed the first, most important, and chief example of how e-voting can be implemented completely wrong, completely insecure, with complete and absolute failure.

A quick summary of the article author's explanation for the name change:

Why the name change? Well, Diebold's got a lot of other businesses — it makes ATMs and security systems for health firms and for the government, and the election subsidiary has always been something of a sideline. Lately it became an embarrassing sideline, dragging down Diebold's good name. That's why, a couple of years ago, Diebold moved to sell the unit. Shockingly, it found no takers.

(H/T to the EFF for the link)

California did an audit on three of the major e-voting products and found them all to be seriously lacking.

To keep a long story short, my view on this is simply: how does a company release products this bad for something this important and not expect it to blow up in their face? Every state that has used these machines should sue Diabold etc.