Diebold Drops Out Of North Carolina... Again
from the but-will-rewrite-election-law,-if-wanted dept
It hasn't been a good couple of weeks for voting machine maker Diebold. After getting kicked out of one Florida county and all of California, the company has announced that it's withdrawing from North Carolina, as it cannot meet the election integrity standards in place by state law. The main complaint from Diebold is that it can't hand over all the source code, because not all of it belongs to them. In fact, Diebold claims that no vendors could possibly comply with the law, though the one remaining candidate in North Carolina, Election Systems & Software, doesn't seem to have a problem with it. Even more amusing is that Diebold has offered to help the state rewrite the law so that "all vendors will be able to comply with the state election law," which made the EFF crack: "Funny. I didn't realize that the purpose of election integrity laws was to ensure that an equipment vendor could do business with the state." Of course, don't count Diebold completely out yet. Remember they were dropping out of North Carolina a month ago too -- only to get certified anyway. What's really scary is that Diebold still doesn't seem to recognize why there's so much concern about their equipment. Instead of making jokes and trying to rewrite laws, maybe they should focus on building better voting equipment that isn't easily hacked, adding in a verifiable paper audit as a backup, and then letting people really attack the security so that everyone feels more comfortable that any election using their equipment is as fair as possible. If they really believe in their ability to make accurate and secure equipment, why would they possibly keep avoiding those things?
Thank you for reading this Techdirt post. With so many things competing for everyone’s attention these days, we really appreciate you giving us your time. We work hard every day to put quality content out there for our community.
Techdirt is one of the few remaining truly independent media outlets. We do not have a giant corporation behind us, and we rely heavily on our community to support us, in an age when advertisers are increasingly uninterested in sponsoring small, independent sites — especially a site like ours that is unwilling to pull punches in its reporting and analysis.
While other websites have resorted to paywalls, registration requirements, and increasingly annoying/intrusive advertising, we have always kept Techdirt open and available to anyone. But in order to continue doing so, we need your support. We offer a variety of ways for our readers to support us, from direct donations to special subscriptions and cool merchandise — and every little bit helps. Thank you.
–The Techdirt Team
Reader Comments
Subscribe: RSS
View by: Time | Thread
No Subject Given
[ link to this | view in thread ]
Re: No Subject Given
Diebold is just one more reason why staying home from elections looks like an increasingly good idea. Vote by absentee ballot. At least then your vote gets hand counted alongside dead people and convicted felons!
[ link to this | view in thread ]
Let's just hope all states are watching these thin
I'm glad to see they've left North Carolina though I'd be pretty sure in saying the shadow of North Carolina has not left them.
[ link to this | view in thread ]
Re: No Subject Given
Just for the record,whether you believe that the current administration somehow colluded to steal all your votes in the recent election or not, the real issue here is that it shouldn't be possible for ANY candidate to rig any FUTURE election. Electronic voting machines simply don't have enough penetration to cause that big of a change without raising concerns that people, who don't wear tinfoil hats (like experts), would bring up, yet.
In other words, we are trying to stop your crooked ass side of the aisle from being able to do what you are trying to stop our crooked ass side from being able to do, so offer something constructive or don't embarrass yourself. (Just as a matter of record I am neither red nor blue - their both dirty words in my house)
[ link to this | view in thread ]