E-voting Machines: North Carolina Board of Elections sued by EFF

The Electronic Frontier Foundation (EFF) has filed a complaint against the North Carolina Board of Elections, asking a state superior court to void what the EFF calls an illegal certification of three electronic voting systems.

"This is about the rule of law," EFF staff attorney Matt Zimmerman said in a statement. "The Board of Elections has simply ignored its mandatory obligations under North Carolina election law."

North Carolina law requires the Board of Elections to review all voting system code "prior to certification." Ignoring this requirement, the Board of Elections on Dec. 1 certified voting systems offered by Diebold Election Systems, Sequoia Voting Systems and Election Systems and Software (ESS) without having first obtained the system code.

Now the question of the day is:
Will this stop my dead cat from voting 43 times in the election again?... I know it has rights but it keeps voting republican...

Sources:
http://www.internetnews.com/...
http://yro.slashdot.org/...

"This statute was enacted to require election officials to investigate the quality and security of voting systems before approval, and only approve those that are safe and secure," Zimmerman said. "By certifying without a full review of all relevant code, the Board of Elections has now opened the door for North Carolina counties to purchase untested and potentially insecure voting equipment."

The EFF is seeking a temporary restraining order preventing North Carolina's 100 counties from purchasing any of the recently certified systems unless and until the Board of Elections reviews and certifies the code of each system.

"North Carolina voters deserve to have their election laws enforced," said co-counsel Don Beskind. "Election transparency is a requirement, not an option. The General Assembly passed this law unanimously, and it is now time for the Board of Elections to meet their obligations."

E-voting has sparked criticism and controversy since it was first rolled out in the 2002 elections. Most of it has come from the technology community, pitting security experts against e-voting machine vendors like Diebold and Sequoia Systems.

North Carolina experienced one of the most serious malfunctions of e-voting systems in the 2004 presidential election when over 4,500 ballots were lost in a voting system provided by e-voting vendor UniLect Corp.

Last month, the EFF convinced a North Carolina judge to dismiss a lawsuit by Diebold, which is seeking to an exemption from the state's transparency laws. Diebold represented to the court that it would be "unable" to comply with the code escrow requirement of the statute.

The Board of Elections certified Diebold despite its admitted inability to comply with the law.

•  The is what I hate about news items

  What did the board say about certifying Diebold?  Why did it go ahead and certify?  Our Board seems to feel it has to comply with the handicapped restrictions of the voting act and those areas seem to mandate touch screen to them.

  by glitterscale on Sat Dec 10, 2005 at 10:30:02 AM PDT

  •  the person who selected it worked for diebold

    http://www.bradblog.com/...
    

    
    And who made the decision to go ahead and ignore the code and certify Diebold? A gentleman by the name of Keith Long was hired to be in charge of the process for the state. And what are Mr. Long's credentials to handle this job? Mr. Long was one of the Diebold representatives responsible for previously selling the Diebold voting system to the state of Georgia.

    http://www.news-record.com/...
    

    
    RALEIGH -- The man hired to help North Carolina determine which voting machines counties should use has extensive experience working for two of the manufacturers submitting bids to the state.

    Whether that experience should be considered asset or liability depends on who's talking.

    Keith Long's job is to find vendors to sell voting equipment to local election boards and determine whether that equipment meets federal and state guidelines.

    As recently as Oct. 1, 2004, Long worked for Diebold Election Systems, and between 1983 and 1992 he worked for Sequoia Pacific Voting Systems. Both Diebold and Sequoia are bidding to work in North Carolina.
    

    by AHiddenSaint on Sat Dec 10, 2005 at 11:34:06 AM PDT

    •  Boy - talk about conflict of interest

      or hiring the fox to guard the chickens.  Yuck!

      by glitterscale on Mon Dec 12, 2005 at 09:19:37 PM PDT

•  Glad to hear of this.

  The Internetnews article states that a hearing is set for Wednesday.  Keep us updated on the decision, OK?

  by Ellicatt on Sat Dec 10, 2005 at 10:32:39 AM PDT

•  Wisconsin

  The State Senate concurred in Assembly Bill 627 (pdf), mandating paper trail, and escrowed source code, to be made available to any party to a recount.  Any recount would use manual count of the paper printouts, not a machine re-read.

  Governor Doyle is expected to sign.

  by ben masel on Sat Dec 10, 2005 at 10:37:04 AM PDT

  •  I have a question about that

    Any recount would use manual count of the paper printouts, not a machine re-read.

    from what I understand, in California the reciepts would not be used for a recount

    my question is:

    there is a provision of the election laws that say the recount shall determine the will of the voters

    could this provision of the law be used to invalidate the the provision that says the reciepts shall not be used ???

    I know some of the superior court judges in my county, and I am convinced that this could happen

    what I don't know is if this theory would stand an appeal

    if you have an opinion on this possibility, I'd apreciate hearing it

    by knowthings on Sat Dec 10, 2005 at 12:34:11 PM PDT

    •  If I grasp your question...

      "will of the voter," presuming the voter's had a chance to examine the printout after the initial electronic data entry, would seem to be discernable thru the printout, in the event there's a discrepency.

      by ben masel on Sat Dec 10, 2005 at 01:32:33 PM PDT

      •  is there any case law that specifies which ...

        would take prescedent ???

        does case law matter in a Gore v Bush world ???

        basically, the law here says that the reciepts are not valid ballots, so I wonder how to force a comparison test into the process

        as I understand it, the "reciepts" will not be a part of the logic and accuracy audit, and will not be counted or considered during a recount

        I want to find some case law to force a change in that after the fact, because nobody is going to listen before the fact

        by knowthings on Sat Dec 10, 2005 at 06:08:03 PM PDT

•  Rule of slaw

  That's all North Carolina will have, if it doesn't enforce its own statutes.

  by cskendrick on Sat Dec 10, 2005 at 02:24:00 PM PDT