TUESDAY 19 AUGUST 2008


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Officials Say Flaws at Polls Will Remain in November
Friday 15 August 2008

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by: Ian Urbina, The New York Times


In California, Secretary of State Debra Bowen required all counties to reinstall or reburn all the firmware on electronic voting equipment before the presidential primary in order to provide greater assurance of a secure vote. Many voting machine flaws will not be fixed in time for the presidential election because of a government backlog in testing the machines' hardware and software. (Photo: Kiichiro Sato / AP)
Flaws in voting machines used by millions of people will not be fixed in time for the presidential election because of a government backlog in testing the machines' hardware and software, officials say.

The flaws, which have cast doubt on the ability of some machines to provide a consistent and reliable vote count, were supposed to be addressed by the Election Assistance Commission, the federal agency that oversees voting. But commission officials say they will not be able to certify that flawed machines are repaired by the November election, or provide software fixes or upgrades, because of a backlog at the testing laboratories the commission uses.

"We simply are not going to sacrifice the integrity of the certification process for expediency," said Rosemary E. Rodriguez, the chairwoman of the commission.

As a result, machine manufacturers and state election officials say states and local jurisdictions are forgoing important software modifications meant to address security and performance concerns. In some cases, election officials in need of new equipment have no choice but to buy machines that lack the current innovations and upgrades.

The federal government does not require that states use machines that the commission certifies, but most states depend on the commission to approve new machines and software, and at least 10 states have rules or laws requiring federal certification.

In Ohio, for example, which requires federal certification, election officials found that in this year's presidential primary the touch-screen machines used in 43 counties, or by more than three million voters, dropped at least 1,000 votes as memory cards sent data to the central server in each county. The discrepancy was caught and corrected before final tallies were calculated, but election officials say the risk is too high. The newer software being provided by manufacturers fixes the problem, but it has not been certified, and so the state cannot use it.

http://www.truthout.org/article/officials-say-flaws-polls-will-remain-november

I am sure glad we are going back to paper ballots here. This is ridiculous, how can one know that the voters really spoke on who wins?