Siva Vaidhyanathan, assistant professor of Culture and Communication at New York University and blogger has a couple of important posts about the ongoing scandal regarding Diebold, one of the companies that is providing electronic voting machines to replace punch card ballots (Abusive Copyright Overenforcement Once Again Censors ... This Time Over Electronic Ballots and More on Diebold vs. Blackboxvoting: DMCA Abuse!!!!!!). There are a number of concerns regarding Diebold's system, and a fairly devastating report about holes was noted in this Washington Post article (
Md. Plans Vote System Fixes After Criticisms). My favorite quote from the article:
Further, as a result of the review, Diebold has rewritten its software to include better encryption coding and harder-to-crack passwords. The encryption and password upgrades will be made only for the machines destined for Maryland, Radke said, and would not be available for the 33,000 touch-screen machines already in use elsewhere.
Want to read the full report? Sorry. As Ed Felton notes, you only get to read a highly redacted version of the final report (Diebold Voting Machines "At High Risk of Compromise").
Which returns us to Blackboxvoting, an electronic voting watchdog site. Apparently Diebold is not happy that Blackboxvoting was publishing leaked insider emails that show Diebold in a very bad light. So, Diebold used the DMCA to shut down Blackboxvoting under the DMCA's notice and takedown provisions (Diebold Shuts Down Blackboxvoting.org With Legal Threats). See also, Slashdot (Diebold Audit Released, BlackBoxVoting.Org Shut Down).
Diebold features the following and sickening claims on their website: "We Secure the Declaration of Independence"; "We Protect the Bill of Rights"; and, "We Protect the Constitution." Frankly, this is pretty darn scary.