Hi there, BlackBoxVoting fans and anti-Diebold workers! It's December 2 now and we all know that the BBV/Harri Hursti hack was supposed to go down on November 30. I'm sorry to report that it didn't happen.
You'll have to look below the fold to find out why.
Usual caveat: I did the usual searches, but tell me this has already been diaried and I'll probably delete.
Here's the BBV link to why:
11-30-05: Nope, the hack test won't be today
With the lede:
What's going on with California Secretary of State Bruce McPherson?
- He asks Black Box Voting to do a test, but tells the press he's asked Finnish security expert Harri Hursti to do it, before he formally invites Hursti or obtains any agreement from Hursti to do the test;
- He gives Black Box Voting a Nov. 30 deadline, then tells the press he has no idea where the Nov. 30 date came from.
- He asks Black Box Voting to confirm they intend to do the test, they confirm. BBV never hears from the sec. state's office again.
- The participants in the test learn by reading in the newspaper that the test has been delayed (18 hours before it is scheduled to begin).
- In a related matter, while on the radio this week McPherson's office could not answer the simplest of questions about what transpired at a Nov. 21 Diebold hearing.
More explanatory info, timeline, correspondence, on the BBV site at the above link. Some of us were expecting a lot from this:
The End of Diebold? no less.
Yours truly, the carper, said
I expect this to dissolve into the usual welter of nonsense from BBV.
This may or may not be nonsense. I had heard it reported that Hursti said he hadn't gotten a plane ticket from BBV. You be da judge.
Too bad, anyway. I had hoped there would be some resolution. I can understand the CA SOS would want to impose some conditions: they'd like there to be one test with one set of results. I can't understand why BBV would ask the SOS to test without having first secured the public acknowledgement of participation from Hursti.
Right now, the position of North Carolina and now some other states (public or escrowed source code) seems the most fruitful avenue of approach to open elections.
Here's another clue: it sounds to me like the SOS would actually like Hursti to test, but wants to do it outside the perhaps inflammatory influence of BBV.
I couldn't find any information on the outcome of the SOS "Voting Systems Testing Summit 2005" November 28-29. Here's a DU post on that summit.