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