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E-Voting Security Plagues Diebold
John Stith
Staff Writer
2005-12-15
 Insider Reports RSS Feed
Electronic voting machine maker Diebold continues to have a number of problems. Most recently, the CEO of Diebold resigned the top position the company. This resignation happened on Monday, just before a shareholder lawsuit was filed by a Connecticut law firm charging the company execs tried to downplay voting system issues in the last election.
With voting issues plaguing the last two presidential elections, some felt the electronic voting systems offered by companies like Diebold would be an answer. The suit by Scott & Scott suggests Diebold couldn't control quality on the machines, needed oversight on business practices and misled their shareholders about the whole thing.
Diebold is already having problems with their machines. North Carolina booted them from the state after Diebold wouldn't allow North Carolina election officials to examine the code used in the Diebold computers. Lest we forget, the Electronic Frontier Foundation filed suit against those same voting officials, charging they certified the elections without being able to see all the code. Seeing the code is require by North Carolina state law.
Also consider that researchers examining machines in Florida were able to use a modified memory card to alter the outcomes of a vote tally. This was done in conjunction with the Black Box Voting project. This shows just how susceptible the electronic voting machines can be.
There are all kinds of cyber security issues in today's world. Most of the security issues discussed deals specifically in Internet-based cyber crime. As far as electronic security though, perhaps nothing is more important than maintaining the integrity of the voting booth. If a simple memory card change is all it takes, perhaps closer scrutiny is required for these machines in the future.
About the Author:
John is a staff writer for SecurityProNews covering cyber security.
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