Article: He Said/She Said: When is a Voting Machine Like an ATM?

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Several technicians have come forward to say that touchscreen machines are
notorious for losing calibration, that after a while the frames 'slip' and
the spot the user touches may no longer correspond exactly to the spot that
tallies a certain response.
Some are also super-sensitive, and a light brush or inadvertent touch can
register as a selection, so voters are supposed to be educated to be very
careful about touching the screens . . . (which does sound a little bit like
'blame the voter' to me, or 'blame the pollworker for not educating the voter').

They are also reporting that ATM machines are not as reliable as we all like
to think they are (although they do have the user-verification receipts
available).

I'm sorry I don't have the links at hand for this info, but I did want to
add this info to the discussion: vote-switching on touchscreen machines
can be a symptom of badly designed machines that are not reliable or not
well-maintained. Which to my mind is another indictment of those
responsible for foisting these machines upon us.

Diana Finch is a literary agent working with Greg Palast and Professor Steven Freeman and is concerned about election integrity. She testified about electronic voting machine security and the lack thereof in April, 2006 http://www.wheresthepaper.org/DianaFinch060424.htm

There is no comparison with ATM machines. ATM machines do not rely
on a Microsoft Access database. ATM machines cannot be opened with
mini-bar keys. The question of whether they are trying to steal
elections aside, Diebold raked in the $billions that HAVA made
available without spending one cent on computer security. From a
computer security point of view, these machines are children's toys
-- defenseless against a million forms of hacking -- whether or not
the manufacturer's ultimate objective was to fix elections or simply
to scam the government for easy billions.

Michael Bein

Michael Bein is an interested Canadian (and transplanted Kentuckian) who is still
chasing the rat he smelled in November 2004.

This is posted with the permission of both parties.