BBV: Volusia County example illustrates the security flaws...

[althecat]

The following paragraph from a story about Volusia County problems dealing with early voting kind of neatly illustrates the problems faced in terms of computer security in vote counting.

"Six county employees will be sent to the Department of Elections to help with other tasks there. The county also got a commitment by the manufacturer, Diebold Elections Systems, that seven additional vote tabulation machines would be delivered by Friday -- one of the major hurdles cited earlier by officials."

http://www.news-journalonline.com/NewsJournalOnline/News/Politics/LocalWVGov/03WVolHEAD01POL101304.htm

On the face of things Diebold is being helpful.. and in fact they probably are. But one thing... these machines are going to arrive by Friday and presumably go straight to work "tabulating votes".. there is no way they will be tested prior to going into service and I would guess - based on Diebold's prior history - that they will probably be running uncertified (i.e. illegal) software.

In circumstances like this Diebold and the county are effectively being forced to cut corners in security in order to enable people to have their votes counted.

In other words Volusia voters are being screwed from both ends and paying for the privilege.

This sucks... but I guess we are used to that.