E-Voting Companies Answer Critics With ... Spin

Whammy666 writes "Wired has a follow-up article which tells of how Diebold and other E-Voting machine manufacturers have enlisted the Information Technology Association of America (a trade public relations and lobbying group) to 'generate positive public perception' of the companies and to 'reduce substantially the level and amount of criticism from computer scientists and other security experts about the fallibility of electronic voting systems.' It seems the concerns about the lack of an audit trail are finally being heard as the industry is reconsidering its opposition to giving the voter a paper receipt of his vote. Of course, a paper receipt given to the voter still doesn't allow for a manual recount should an election dispute arise unless the receipts are collected and secured by election officials." Reassuring PR is Stage Two; remember that Stage One is silence your critics.

Comments

Re:Perhaps if they focused on solid engineering...

[StarOwl]

Decent product? I can see it now:

Welcome to Microsoft OvalOffice[TM]. Please deposit $300, enter a 32-digit authorization code, and permit us to scan your hard drive to disable non-Microsoft products if you wish to begin voting.

Clippy, the voting assistant

[HermanAB]

I see you are voting for George Bush, do you need help to change that?