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Legal Troubles Continue To Mount For Diebold
dstates writes "The State of Maryland has filed a $8.5M claim against Premier Election Systems (previously known as Diebold), joining Ohio in seeking damages from the company. The claim alleges that election officials were forced to spend millions of dollars to address multiple security flaws in the machines. Previously, Diebold paid millions to settle a California lawsuit over security issues in their machines. The dispute comes as Maryland and Virginia prepare to scrap the touch screen electronic voting systems they bought after the 2000 presidential election. California, Florida, New Mexico, and Iowa have already switched to optical scanners, and voters in Pennsylvania are suing to prevent the use of paperless electronic voting systems in their state. Meanwhile, Artifex Software is suing Diebold for violations of the GPL covering the Ghostscript software technology used in the proprietary voting machines."
elections in the USA for what, to replace one corrupt politician with another?
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=efKguI0NFek
The truth is that while paperless may sound sexy it is not really practical. They are trying to apply technology to what is a social problem.
"The stupid neither forgive nor forget; the naive forgive and forget; the wise forgive but do not forget." -Thomas Szasz
As a lone rant it won't make a difference, but as a group you can change what's happening in Washington. Get rid of the aspects of the US that clearly go against your espoused morals, including but not limited to Guantanamo Bay (the weakest excuse ever to perpetrate atrocities), move towards the principles of the Constitution once more and go after ANYONE who tries to get away with anything dodgy. INSIST on transparency, also from all the agencies. You may have to bury a bad past, but that's no excuse for an equally bad future.
The latter includes the judges who were supposed to guard your legal system but has sat back and let it become the playground of the rich and unprincipled, the security "services" that willingly break the law with the excuses of "terror" and "for America". Even now, the US has heaps of potential but the Bush administration has willingly ruined the standing the US had in the world.
Last but not least, think again about impeaching people. If you impeach one president because he's human you should CERTAINLY impeach those who trampled the very founding principles and imperilled the entire world with their grab for money. I'm not against making money, but I am against slaughtering the goose with the golden eggs to benefit just a few.
The US standing has never been so low, the currency never so weak, the national debt never so high. Yet, you can still overcome this - if you back to core principles.
I refuse to believe that a nation that can produce people like the late Randy Pausch can be all bad, but you sure worked hard making it appear that way. There are very few nations left who would trust the US as the basic assumption is that you won't hold yourself to any laws, even your own, and you will cheap, bully and blackmail to get your way. Quite a nice image to have as the formerly leading "democracy".
On the bright side, it can't possibly get any worse. Unless you start another war..
Grubby little paws? Corporations I know have huge powerful sucking tentacles, and they're in everything.
Paperless shouldn't even be attempted.
This is the system used to elect leaders. Trillions of dollars and millions lives are affected by election results.
Whatever system you choose must have full audit capabilities ... and that means paper.
The only reason for using electronics is to get faster results to those with short attention spans.
No sig today...
It's funny, but you know, its people like you that have let the people like Bush get away with what they have.
Enjoy what you've been arguing for, because we'll be a long time digging out.
I'm usually not someone who sides with people trying to drain a company through legal means, but in this case I'm willing to make an exception. Bleed them. Make them go bankrupt. If they go under, that's the last we'll see of EVoting, because nobody would willingly touch it again with a ten foot pole.
Bah, if there's any proof that they tampered with election results, surely that should be grounds for a criminal case, not a civil one?
Heck, as far as I'm concerned screwing with the democratic process amounts to high treason.
People replying to my sig annoy me. That's why I change it all the time.
Who cares? I know that it's fun to bash Bush, but geez, let's stick to bashing diebold.
It is Diebold in Ohio that enabled the shrub to get re-elected.
For the record, I have no problem with computerized entry machines, but the final output that I turn-in needs to be easily readable paper that is counted by human eyes at some point in the process, IMO.
One of my first jobs, right out of high school, was as a bank teller. Right around the time of the introduction of the ATM in the late 70s/early 80s.
More or less 30 years have passed and a measurable percentage of the population are afraid or are incapable of using one. What makes anyone think that this is appropriate technology for voting?