BBV: ES&S Official Says "Touchscreens Easiliy MANIPULATED!"

[the ether]

BBV: ES&S Official Says "Touchscreens Easiliy MANIPULATED!"


Tell this to every election official you know!




Election commission hears last pitch on vote machines
By Richard Duke

Courier Staff

The Saline County Election Commission, faced with having to revamp the county voting system by 2005, listened to the final presentation by independent companies about new and technologically advanced voting machines.

Representatives from Election Systems & Software spoke to officials Thursday morning, highlighting a feature that will assist the visually impaired with marking their ballots. Each county will have to provide assistance of this kind in the future.

The demonstration featured a terminal with a touch screen pad and an audible ballot that can be heard through headphones. The process marks the ballot, but it does not count it. The ballot can then be taken to a ballot box.

Mike Devereaux, who gave the presentation, said that touch screens, which many once thought would be the wave of the future, will never replace a paper ballot. The technology of touch screens, however, can greatly help those needing assistance in marking their ballot.

"The problem with touch screens as vote counters is that they can be easily manipulated," Devereaux said. "If someone were to go to a polling place that had a large turnout for John Kerry, that person could vote for John Kerry falsely, and when they got their receipt for John Kerry, they could report to an official that their vote was counted wrong. The entire machine would then have to be shut down with all of those votes still inside."


http://www.bentoncourier.com/articles/2004/06/25/news/46tnews.txt

[SophieZ]

1. Yeah well.

The problem with paperless electronic voting machines is not so much that one voter will mess with them. It's that when they put them in statewide, one hacker or one insider can change the votes of the entire state, and sneak off undetected.

THAT is the problem, and the Big Four vendors refuse to admit it.