U.S. Bars Lab From Testing E-Voting Machines

joshdick writes to point out a NYTimes story on the decertification of Ciber Inc. from testing electronic voting systems. It will come as a surprise to no-one here on Slashdot that experts say the deficiencies of the laboratory suggest that crucial features like the vote-counting software and security against hacking may not have been thoroughly tested on many machines now in use. From the article: "A laboratory that has tested most of the nation's electronic voting systems has been temporarily barred from approving new machines after federal officials found that it was not following its quality-control procedures and could not document that it was conducting all the required tests... The federal Election Assistance Commission made this decision last summer, but the problem was not disclosed then... Ciber... says it is fixing its problems and expects to gain certification soon."

Comments

Title misleading

[sjf]

I'm sure theres nothing stopping them from testing the machines, what they've been prevented from doing is approving them.

Re:WTF?

[OldeTimeGeek]

The Sequoia electronic voting machines that some of the California precincts use can do this, but only after you've already cast your vote. Unfortunately, the ballots have so many items sometimes that you can't show all of the results in the same window without making type that so small that it's unreadable without a magnifying lens.

even if they did test, it would be of minimal use

[rakerman]

Almost all the required testing is about machine performance and durability. Very little of the testing has anything to do with hardware or software security.

Misleading headline

[EQ]

RTFA! Ciber is not banned from TESTING, but from certifying the machines as properly tested. This is due to Ciber not properly performing the tests, including completing the proper paperwork and observing the safeguards that ensure the tests are accurate. A better headline would be "Government Halts E-Voting Machine Certification - Testing is inadequate"

Sheesh. Come on /. Editors, you should at least *rad* the linked article you are posting and put a *proper* headline on it, rather than the misleading inflammatory crap that you used. KDawson proves yet again that he is an utter boob when it comes to editorial selection and headlines. Time to fire his ass.