Bev Harris: Voting Company Reverses Stand
Tuesday, 5 August 2003, 8:17 pm
Press Release: Bev Harris

NEWS RELEASE
From: Bev Harris - www.blackboxvoting.com

Voting Company Reverses Stand:
Flawed software WAS used in Georgia and other elections

- There are “kinks” in touch screens
According to an Aug. 4 article in Wired.com: Diebold company spokesman Mike Jacobsen “confirmed that the source code Rubin's team examined was last used in November 2002 general elections in Georgia, Maryland and in counties in California and Kansas.”

Actually, the software may have been used in as many as 13 states and 197 counties, according to Diebold documents given to Santa Clara County in Feb. 2003 - list of counties at bottom.

Earlier, Diebold had told reporters that the software which contained “stunning security flaws” that made hacking easy, was an older version and never used in any election.

Yet it was used, and provably so. The Diebold software version was easily verifiable:
- The FEC requires certification of voting machine software by version number
- The certified version number matches what was studied by the Johns Hopkins scientists.

STILL “KINKS” IN THE TOUCH SCREENS: John Silvestro, a voting machine representative in Boston who sells Diebold machines, said the touch-screen system would cost the city about six times as much money as optical scan machines which have a paper audit trail, and that companies like his are still working the kinks out of the touch-screen machines. Silvestro told the Boston City Council that Boston was better off with optical scanners.

Georgia, perhaps hardest hit by the growing Diebold scandal, is now facing renewed questions about missing memory cards and other irregularities. On election night during the 2002 general election, 67 memory cards, containing thousands of votes, went missing in Fulton County. Also, according to documents provided to Santa Clara County, Diebold machines experienced “buffer overrun” problems during the election, requiring poll workers to turn them on and off, and if not done properly, this can also cause loss of votes.

Read Article