I keep trying to tell people, including my husband, that Diebold owns our elections. Someone recently posted a diary with loads of examples of Diebold machines "malfunctioning" by voting Bush when Kerry is pressed. It has also been documented that in some precincts there were more votes cast, and even more votes cast FOR BUSH, than there are voters in the precinct.
Today, courtesy of The Smirking Chimp, I read this article about an intentional security hole in Diebold machines you can drive a truck through.
(Fair Use quotes below)
Computer security experts say they have found the worst security flaw yet in the oft-criticized touch-screen machines that Maryland voters will use in this year's elections, leaving one computer scientist to warn that the state should have "stacks of paper ballots" on hand in case of a complete Election Day breakdown.
The machines, made by Diebold Elections Systems, are "much, much easier to attack than anything we've previously said," said Avi Rubin, a Johns Hopkins University computer science professor who first cast doubt on the reliability of the technology in a 2003 report.
"On a scale of one to 10, if the problems we found before were a six, this is a 10. It's a totally different ballgame," he said.
The new problem is being described as an intentional hole left in the system to allow elections workers to update voting software easily. Instead of using pass codes or other security protocols, anyone with access to a voting machine could install new software that could easily disable a precinct full of machines, Rubin said.
So, are you getting this loud and clear, naysayers? Do you need to physically with your own eyes see someone with a black cloak and curly mustache hack into a Diebold machine on election day to believe that this can, and probably has, happened?
What will it take for you to finally wipe the sleep from your eyes and see that the one thing keeping this country from being a fascist dictatorship has now become extremely unreliable? This has been shown over and over again.
Because once the American people lose faith in free and fair elections, then faith in the government and the very nation herself are stabbed through the heart.