Artifact Three

"Security Of E-Voting Systems Seriously Questioned; Computer researchers claim to have found 'critical flaws' in software used for U.S. electronic voting.(Diebold Election Systems)." InformationWeek (July 24, 2003): NA. Student Resource Center - Gold. Thomson Gale. Centennial High School (MD). 20 Dec. 2006 http://find.galegroup.com/ips/infomark.do?&contentSet=IAC-Documents&type=retrieve&tabID=T003&prodId=IPS&docId=A105829596&source=gale&srcprod=SRCG&userGroupName=elli29753&version=1.0.

"Three computer researchers from the Information Security Institute at Johns Hopkins University, with help from a computer scientist at Rice University, say they've uncovered vulnerabilities in the software purportedly used by Diebold Election Systems. As a result, one person can cast multiple votes, elections can be delayed, the anonymity of voters can be breached, and cast votes can be modified or even deleted, the researchers say." Later in the article it followed this statement later on by saying, "a 15-year-old computer enthusiast could make counterfeit smart cards that the system would accept as legitimate." As a computer enthusiast I find this information shocking that someone with basic computer skills could change the out come of and election if they felt the need.

This article also brings up the fact of how even after these flaws were exposed Maryland payed 56.6 million dollars for 11,000 Diebold touch screen systems. These were the same voting systems that have been bashed due to their security flaws. "A few months ago we didn't know what was going on inside these machines because no one would tell us, says David Dill, a computer science professor at Stanford University. Dill says he hopes the research will shed light on potential security problems with electronic voting. There are election officials that just don't want to hear about the potential security problems. They won't listen." David Dill has often been quoted in articles about voting flaws.

Did Maryland make a smart deal spending a record 56.6 million on these systems?