Thursday, September 21, 2006

Maryland's Governor wants to go all paper ballots for mid-term election

The Governor of Maryland, Robert Ehrlich, wants to go with all paper ballots, due to the continuing mess with e-voting machines (Diebold).

Diebold has such a poor record with respect to security, accountability, and auditability, that I have no idea why anybody would use their machines. Except that they either want "cool" gadgetry to demonstrate their openness to technology OR that they want to be able to manipulate the election results.

There is no honest reason to use the machines. They're crap and anybody who has a room temp IQ could circumvent all "security" measures the machines have built in.

And these guys don't just build shitty electronic voting machines. They build ATMs, too. Now don't you feel safe?

Further, the company is being investigated by the SEC over securities (as in, stock) violations, like insider trading. So the company, in its infinite wisdom, fired its CEO (the same guy, Walden O'Dell, who said he'd deliver the 2004 presidential election to George W. Bush) and gave him a really nice severence package (about $4 million, equal to two years' pay). Don't you wish you got two years' pay every time you got fired/laid off?

Diebold's stock symbol is DBD.

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