Open Source Program Reveals Diebold Bug

Mitch Trachtenberg writes "Ballot Browser, an open source Python program developed by Mitch Trachtenberg (yours truly) as part of the all-volunteer Humboldt County Election Transparency Project, was instrumental in revealing that Diebold counting software had dropped 197 ballots from Humboldt County, California's official election results. Despite a top-to-bottom review by the California Secretary of State's office, it appears that Diebold had not informed that office of the four-year-old bug. The Transparency Project has sites at humetp.org and http://www.humtp.com." Trachtenberg also points to his blog for the Transparency Project, and his own essay about the discovery and the process that led to it.

Comments

Oh noes!!

[Anonymous Coward]

Oh noes Obama loses now!!

Nobody want's that.

[HornWumpus]

Why do you think there is a constant drum beat for paper ballots?

Because one political party (in the USA) has cheating on paper ballot elections down pat (via registration fraud and corrupt county boards that 'find' as many ballots as they need, e.g. Washington state Gov race of 2004, Minnesota's current senate race, the attempted theft of Florida in the 2000 pres contest).

Electronic systems have the potential to one day deliver very difficult to cheat on elections. Nobody from Illinois wants that.