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back to article E-voting vendor sued over machine change

California's chief elections official has sued a popular e-voting device vendor for almost $15m in a suit that claims Election Systems & Software (ES&S) repeatedly violated state laws requiring it to receive certification for a ballot-marking device before selling it to county voting officials. The suit (PDF here), filed by …

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  1. yeah, right.

    same?

    "the relocation of two circuit boards, the redesign of cables and "various changes" in mounting brackets" is hardly "exactly the same configuration" seeing as the point of the changes was the CHANGE the configuration to make maintenance easier (apparently).

    So there's liars, damned liars, and voting machine manufacturers.

    I wonder if the USA will see a third corrupt federal election in a row? The utter lack of control they seem to have over their voting mechanisms would point in that direction.

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  2. Aubry Thonon

    And we should believe them because...?

    Company makes changes to a device that requires certification before being used. The previous version of this device was already certified and the company tells us that "the changes didn't change anything worth re-certifying the device for".

    Really...? And we should believe you simply because you tell us so? If this were true, then certification would not have been required in the first place.

    Bottom line, you change the configuration - *any* part of the configuration - of a system that needs certification and I damn well am going to want the entire system recertified. Too many times have I seen a change "that doesn't affect anything else" have unforseen side-effects.

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  3. Colin Wilson
    Black Helicopters

    What's to stop...

    ...the firmware of the device being pre-programmed to put its' own spin on the voting, with the "authorised" software running in a sandbox environment so it looks real-enough, just not doing what it's supposed to ?

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  4. Anonymous Coward
    Anonymous Coward

    hacking democracy

    The bigger picture of the voting machine manufacturers (not just this one) and their dodgy dealings has been the subject of at least one TV documentary, which you can find by the title of "hacking democracy".

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  5. Darren7160
    Unhappy

    Just a symptom of so much more...

    The Republicans really believed they would always be in power. Contrary to over 200 years of history, they believed that this time they would take over the country once and for all. They redistricted congressional seats to minimize minorities and Democrats. They had almost unlimited funding through their K-Street project with lobbiests, they gutted the Justice Departments voting rights department, purged voter rolls in minority areas, threated people with jail for voting if they have ANY criminal record... you name it, they did it.

    I honestly believe that the e-voting machines were just another part of it. They would put more than sufficent numbers in heavily Republican polling places and seemed to have "problems" with quantity and operating the ones in Democratic precincts. Hmmm.

    We also need to finally get rid of the electoral college and go straight to the winner of the popular vote being the winner. Alas.

    What keeps me sane is knowing that no one party has ever maintained power... so when neocons yammer on about Unitary Presidental powers and how we all need to roll over for the President... I just laugh and think about giving all that power one day to Hillary!!!!

    It saddens me so much at times that the American people are so ignorant and so easily manipulated by the shiny distrations that political puppet masters dangle before them. Entire worldwide issues boiled down to a bumper sticker sized quip.

    Thank God we have someone who is standing up and saying that there is a line in the sand! I don't care if they change versions .000001%.

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