Diebold/Black Box Voting Update

Remember that whole controversy over whether voting machines are secure? Looks like Black Box Voting has made some significant progress in showing that they aren't.

A test election was run in Leon County [Florida] on Tuesday with a total of eight ballots. Six ballots voted "no" on a ballot question as to whether Diebold voting machines can be hacked or not. Two ballots, cast by Dr. Herbert Thompson and by Harri Hursti voted "yes" indicating a belief that the Diebold machines could be hacked.

At the beginning of the test election the memory card programmed by Harri Hursti was inserted into an Optical Scan Diebold voting machine. A "zero report" was run indicating zero votes on the memory card. In fact, however, Hursti had pre-loaded the memory card with plus and minus votes.

The eight ballots were run through the optical scan machine. The standard Diebold-supplied "ender card" was run through as is normal procedure ending the election. A results tape was run from the voting machine.

Correct results should have been: Yes:2 ; No:6

However, just as Hursti had planned, the results tape read: Yes:7 ; No:1

The latest version of BBV's newsletter says this all comes on the heels of the resignation of Diebold CEO Wally O'Dell, and an announcement of a stockholder class action suit. Further "hack testing" is coming up in CA. Stay tuned.