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EFF Sues NC Election Board

Posted by CowboyNeal on from the rocking-the-vote dept.

Kludge writes "The EFF is suing the NC elections board. The board certified several voting machine manufacturers although none of the manufacturers would comply with the state law (passed unanimously) that the machine code be kept in escrow."

3 of 247 comments (clear)

  1. democracy? no... by joe+155 · · Score: 5, Funny

    Will this stop my dead cat from voting 43 times in the election again?... I know it has rights but it keeps voting republican...

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  2. Re:How Is This Possible? by D.A.+Zollinger · · Score: 5, Insightful

    Most people are not logical. As an example, math is logical, and the majority of people suck at math. But I digress...

    I believe what you are missing is politics. The director of the elections comission wanted to show to his superiors that he is doing something useful and tangible. Was the director/members aware of the state law? I am sure they were. Do they have the power to force vendors to open their code? Not really. All they can do is tell the vendors, "We're not going to certify you until we can review your code."

    My guess is that they were put under pressure to get some sort of electronic voting system in place for the 2006 elections, and instead of doing what would be right for the people (follow the law, protect the voters, etc), they did what would be better for someone else's political career ("See what wonderful things we are doing with state money?" and "No more antiquated voting methods for our citizens!").

    I'm glad the EFF called them to task on this one.

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  3. Re:"even though", not "because" by megabunny · · Score: 5, Insightful

    This whole voting machine issue is so lame.

    We just had municipal elections here in British Columbia and I used a 'voting machine'. You mark off your votes on a letter size piece of paper by darkening the circles. Then you feed it face down into a scanner, which deposits the page in the ballot box after tallying it.

    Election results are available quickly from the machine.

    Hand recounts are perfectly possible because of the hard copy record.

    What is so difficult about requiring hard copy records? Votes are worth one sheet of paper.

    Chuck

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