BBV: Dominoes falling: Evoting systems scrapped by Ireland, Venezuela, C

[BevHarris]

I was doing a whole series of interviews with Irish media about 3-4 weeks ago -- on radio, in newspapers, helping them overcome the onslaught of talking points used to defend the touch screen system put in place for June elections in Ireland, with systems built by a manufacturer from the Netherlands.

Now get this (posted 17 hours ago by a subscription only Irish news service):

Cullen e-vote fiasco leaves €50m bill

"(Irish Minister of the Environment) MARTIN Cullen was accused last night of wasting over €50 million after his electronic voting plans were scuppered by a devastating independent report.

"The bill for the Minister for the Environment's e-voting rollout was labelled a scandalous waste of taxpayer's money that could have covered the cost of the Government's "Savage 16" social welfare cuts.

"The Government was left reeling after the damning report confirmed all the warnings, despite the minister's combative dismissal of any criticism of the system's security and reliability.

"Fighting off calls for his resignation, Mr Cullen said electronic voting will not be used in the local and European elections in June, but added he still intended to introduce it for future polls.

"Voter confidence in this system is absolutely essential. That is why we have pulled the system. At best there would be a lot of confusion," he said.

"The Commission on Electronic Voting's report prompted the Government to pull the plug on e-voting after it found the system's reliability could not be established to its satisfaction.

"In a severe blow to the minister's endorsement of the system, the commission also said testing identified a software error that could lead to incorrect results and that it was easy to bypass security measures to manipulate the count.

"...The minister was reckless, arrogant, dismissive, abusive, he misled the Dáil repeatedly, he wouldn't consult and he wouldn't listen. This is nothing short of gross negligence," he said.

"As his party colleagues described the fiasco as a scandalous waste of money and contrasted the €52 million budget to the €58 million social welfare cuts, Labour environment spokesman Eamon Gilmore said someone had to take responsibility for a mistake that had cost the taxpayer so much

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And now, Venezuela : They have decided to scrap the Election Systems and Software (ES&S) voting system they've had for a new company based in Florida. More on this, I'm nosing around a bit more...

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We all know about California: They have decertified ALL touch screen machines, but some can try to get recertified, only after they prove that they will follow a lengthy set of security upgrades. Mischelle Townsend, from Riverside County, when called by the press yesterday, had not formulated a response yet. The TSx looks like it is dead in the water, as do all the Diebold touch screens, because one of the requirements is that the RABA report recommendations be followed to the last gnat's eyelash, and those recommendations, specific to Diebold, recommend some things it will be impossible for Diebold to comply with.

The Secretary of State's report is devastating. I will have it posted at BlackBoxVoting.org shortly.

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Watch the dominoes fall...
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Bev

P.S.: More dominoes: 4 lawsuits pending http://www.democraticunderground.com/discuss/duboard.php?az=view_all&address=104x1510113

and still more dominoes: 2 criminal investigations pending http://www.democraticunderground.com/discuss/duboard.php?az=view_all&address=104x1510082