Electronic voting was originally hailed as the solution to all voting problems. Hanging, pregnant and otherwise illicit chads would be a thing of the past, and confusing butterful ballots would be replaced with state-of-the-art touchscreen displays. But now that such voting machines have been implemented in many states, Florida 2000 is beginning to look like a walk in the park.
Electronic voting machines manufactured by Diebold, Inc. have recently come under intense scrutiny. This comes after several security flaws were discovered within the source code of the voting software, and after leaked internal Diebold memos revealed lax security polices and other concerns.
In the wake of these revelations, states should reconsider the use of electronic voting machines, especially those purchased from Diebold. Any security flaw or software bug, regardless of how large or small, can taint the legitimacy of an election. A system that could possibly lend itself to election fraud should not be used.
The internal Diebold memos were originally obtained by a hacker who broke into the company’s records using an employee ID number. The hacker downloaded thousands of documents, including internal memos, e-mails and announcements. These documents were then distributed around the Internet to college students, computer programmers and voting activists.
Following the leak of the memos, Diebold has filed cease-and-desist orders to those who have published copies on the Internet. While some are abiding by the orders, many copies of the memos are still available online.
The memos include conversations among Diebold software engineers discussing bugs in the system and other security concerns. According to one message, a programmer shrugs off concerns about a lack of certification for customized software, even though the Federal Election Commission required independent certification. Another e-mail asks why a precinct in Volusha County Florida returned -16,022-that’s negative 16,022 votes-for Al Gore.
Diebold’s response to the memos-the issuing of cease-and-desist letters-does not do much to help their case. The Federal Election Commission and states that use Diebold machines should, at the minimum, conduct a full examination of the Diebold systems while also rethinking the use of such systems all together.
