Per aspera

That quotation is from Cory Doctorow’s entry on BoingBoing about the latest security flaw found in Diebold voting machines.  This one is the most impressive yet.

SACRAMENTO, CALIFORNIA — “This may be the worst security flaw we have seen in touch screen voting machines,” says Open Voting Foundation president, Alan Dechert. Upon examining the inner workings of one of the most popular paperless touch screen voting machines used in public elections in the United States, it has been determined that with the flip of a single switch inside, the machine can behave in a completely different manner compared to the tested and certified version.

“Diebold has made the testing and certification process practically irrelevant,” according to Dechert. “If you have access to these machines and you want to rig an election, anything is possible with the Diebold TS — and it could be done without leaving a trace. All you need is a screwdriver.” This model does not produce a voter verified paper trail so there is no way to check if the voter’s choices are accurately reflected in the tabulation.

And of course, this machine is completely electronic, with no paper backup record of votes cast.  As I’ve said before, there is no good-faith reason not to have a hard-copy backup of every vote cast with an electronic voting machine.  In fact, it’s the very least measure that can be taken to ensure an accurate vote count.  People, companies, and political parties who resist a verifiable vote tally must be assumed to be acting in bad faith.