Hi Andy here....
I am a researcher on the BBV problem. I am running for office in Washington state as a Democrat on this issue. But the issue I am running on is non partisan! I would lay down my life for every Americans right to vote. The systems being deployed across the nation right now, are error prone and have been soundly denounced by every major computer expert in the country.
Diebold's software was left on the internet. We have all the release notes and bug tracks available for public scrutiny. It has been examined tested and vetted and found to be unsafe for elections.
Today there were problems with the smart cards all over in Md, GA, and CA. Read this note, one of 15k leaked to Bev Harris it refers to the smart cards.
"Do not install the windows software that comes with the Spyrus reader. If you install it, then COM1 will be locked out by the driver, and downldr.exe won't work. My hope is that the Spyrus CD and instructions be removed from the box in McKinney before shipping so this confusion is avoided.
Note that distributing this software is extremely dangerous. Our smart card format has absolutely no security, so if someone were to get a copy of this software and a reader, they could stand at the ballot station and quietly burn new voter cards all day. Of course that's also the case with PollBook.exe, but a notebook computer is a little harder to smuggle into a polling place, and besides most of our staff has trouble setting up a poll book, let alone outsiders. The Card Manager (Spyrus) is actually simple to use. Anyway, I can see the cover of USA Today in my head. Consider everyone warned.
Good luck,
Ken"
http://www.blackboxvoting.org/smartcardmemo.html We must all agree to
Paper Ballots not vapor Ballots
Andy
Here's hoping that LA stays with the Inka system if we aren't going to use the punch card.
Unfortunately, on John & Ken, people were calling in saying that they didn't realize there was a new system and were using the ink pen to PUNCH holes in the ballots. I guess that's a lot of votes in the garbage.
FYI, BlackBoxVoting is run by a DU lackey and left wing reactionary. As a computer programmer, I know full well the dangers and flaws with the concept of electronic voting, and I oppose it everywhere I see it. Still, you couldn't pay me to frequent the site of an avowed leftist.
And for the record: Modesto, CA. I walked in this morning and was handed a PAPER ballot and a PENCIL with the instructions "Fill in the appropriate bubble", which I did without any difficulties or technical screwups whatsoever. Of course, when I handed my ballot to the pollworker and commented "It's the perfect ballot, no chads and a paper trail!" she looked at me with ALL seriousness and said, "Yeah, but they discriminate against people with motor disabilities". I guess that's what I get for living in California :\