Reply #82: Whitewash?

[dill]

The report itself seems to be cunningly written to appear
neutral and objective while actually having a pro-DRE bias
AND providing nice sounde-bite-size quotes that give a totally
wrong impression.

On the one hand, it is a powerful condemnation of the Diebold
voting machine, GEMS, and Maryland's (and almost everyone else's
security practices).

The study makes quite a few good points, and the measures they
propose will make the system more secure. However, it purposely
avoids the really big issues. They explicitly limit the discussion
to how to minimize the risk with reasonable cost, etc. (there is
a paragraph saying this.) The report starts with the assumption
they are stuck with the machines and makes recommendations for how
to make the best of this bad situation.

There is a separate document, appendix B, that does a point-by-point
analysis of the Johns Hopkins/Rice report. SAIC should be downright
embarrassed about this. Most of the responses I checked were irrelevant or misunderstood the original argument. One particular point is about the need for a voter verifiable audit trail. The response says that voters can verify their votes on the screen (irrelevant) and that printers can have security problems too, unless you do manual recounts (duh!).

Ehrlich's summary of the report ("safest and most secure") has
NOTHING to do with the contents of this report. The most they say
is that they can recommend measures to minimize the risk.