If You Want Your Vote to Count, Do Not Cast it with a Diebold Machine!

Speaking of E-Voting, Bev Harris of blackboxvoting.org has uncovered an exploit in the software that counts votes from Diebold electronic voting machines. This is a centralized "Tabulator" computer that receives tallies from polling stations across a state, and then sums up the votes for the final tally. Black Box Voting has found that if a two-digit code is entered into a hidden field in the Tabulator program, then the vote counts are copied into an editable buffer, where the operator may secretly change their values. The final count reported will be from the editable (and possibly edited!) buffer, not the actual vote counts. There would be no indication that this change had occurred.

It's important to note: this "double booking" exploit is not a bug, it was purposefully inserted by Diebold, and it exists in a number of versions of the Tabulator program. Bev Harris and Andy Stephenson are going to demonstrate the exploit to the U.S. Congress on Sept. 22nd.

The afffected Diebold voting machines are used in over 30 states, and will count tens of millions of votes in the upcoming Presidential election. It's unfathomable that Diebold has not been brought up on criminal charge of fraud, conspiracy to commit fraud, and election tampering. Until that happens, I recommend finding out whether your precinct is using these machines. If they are, vote with an absentee ballot.