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An open invitation to election fraud
Not only is the country's leading touch-screen voting system so badly designed that votes can be easily changed, but
its manufacturer is run by a die-hard GOP donor who vowed to deliver his state for Bush next year.
By Farhad Manjoo
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Sept. 23, 2003 | As if the public image of punch-card voting machines had not already been bruised and battered enough,
on Sept. 15 the 9th Circuit Court of Appeals went for the K.O. Punch-card voting, a three-judge panel of the court said
in its ruling halting the California gubernatorial recall election, is an embarrassment to our high-tech times: "Just as
the black and white fava bean voting system of revolutionary times was replaced by paper balloting, and the paper ballot
replaced by mechanical lever machine, newer technologies have emerged to replace the punch-card, including optical
scanning and touch screen voting."
But according to Bev Harris, a writer who has spent more than a year investigating the shadowy world of the elections
equipment industry, the replacement technologies the court cited may be worse -- much worse -- than the zany punch-card
systems it finds so abhorrent. Specifically, Harris' research into Diebold, one of the largest providers of the new
touch-screen systems, ought to give elections officials pause about mandating an all-electronic vote.
Harris has discovered that Diebold's voting software is so flawed that anyone with access to the system's computer can
change the votes without leaving any record. On top of that, she's uncovered internal Diebold memos in which employees seem to suggest that the vulnerabilities are no big deal.
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