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Name :   Timothy Willhard
Organization :   N/A
Post Date :   9/9/2005

General Comments
Comment :  
Dear EAC Representative,  
I am shocked and appalled by the despicable voting machines that have been  
foisted upon the citizens of this country. With the endless litany of  
problems these machines have had, and bad faith efforts by the  
manufacturers of them, it is astounding to me that they were ever approved  
for any election, and continue to be used even after alarming problems  
were found, most of which have not been corrected.  
Among the most egregious problems:  
1. From the beginning they were based on older insecure programming  
(Microsoft Access) that programmers say nobody serious about securing data  
would ever use.  
2. Manufacturers have been allowed to use proprietary code that is not  
allowed to be inspected by public computer security experts. This flies  
directly in the face of the "many eyes" policy of holding fair and  
accountable elections.  
3. Manufacturers have felt so emboldened by their own political power that  
the president of one company even promised to deliver a state’s winning  
vote to his chosen candidate at a large political event. The candidate  
was  
a person who was given a large campaign contribution by the election  
machine company president. Doesn’t even the appearance of impropriety  
mean  
anything to someone who’s equipment has been entrusted with the very  
cornerstone of democracy- the right to vote in a fair election?  
4. Machines have not been sealed off from remote access via other  
computers during elections. Since the programming code does not preclude  
using negative numbers in vote tallies, programs can change the tallies  
by  
subtracting votes from candidate A, and give them to candidate B, without  
altering the total number of votes cast. Remotely installed code (be it  
by  
modem, phone line, or wireless) can even delete itself, leaving no record  
of it ever having ever existed on the machines.