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The Final Straw for Diebold in Maryland? |
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Sunday, 19 March 2006 |
Another Test of Diebold Machines Finds More Security HolesFOR RELEASE: March 19, 2006
Montgomery County, MD: Kevin Zeese, candidate for US Senate and co-founder of TrueVoteMD.org is urging Maryland to 'drop Diebold' in light of another study finding new security holes in the Diebold voting system.
"Most of the Maryland political leadership has already come to the conclusion that it is time for Maryland to drop Diebold in favor of precinct-based optical scan machines. This most recent security hole should convince the last remaining hold-outs," said Kevin Zeese. The House of Delegates unanimously passed legislation requiring optical scan for 2006 and Governor Ehrlich included funding for such machines in his supplemental budget. The Senate is considering the House Bill this week. "My hope is the Senate will come to the same conclusion as the House and Governor so we can have transparent elections in 2006," said Zeese.
Security Innovation, Inc. and Harry Hursti have discovered what security expert Hursti describes as “a potentially catastrophic security hole.” The finding was made when the security experts, working with an election official in Utah, Emery County Clerk Bruce Funk, tested Diebold's touchscreen machines. The testing was underwritten, videotaped and photographed by Black Box Voting.
The security hole is actually multiple security holes in multiple layers, and it is in the architecture of the system itself, not the software. According to Hursti: “These are not programming errors, but architectural design decisions.” A concise and more formal report will be released from Security Innovation, Inc., and this will discuss the procedures for preparing a recovery path for these security holes. The first article in the series describing the new security holes can be found on Black Box Voting at http://www.blackboxvoting.org/
A recent California security report said “It is hard to be confident that one has found all bugs….” and “None of the vulnerabilities we found would have been found through standard testing, so testing is not the answer.” (page 12 http://truevotemd.org/content/view/421/2/). California only approved the use of Diebold touchscreen because their machines, unlike Maryland's provide an independent audit record – a voter verified paper ballot.
“How can Maryland be confident with new security holes being found and security experts reporting that they cannot find all the bugs and none of the standard testing will find them? Combine the security problems with the history of breakdowns of the Diebold equipment (see litigation documents at www.TrueVoteMD.org) and it is clear Maryland bought a lemon,” said Zeese. “It is time to return the equipment, sue Diebold and put in place modern precinct-based optical scans. Maryland should stop flushing good money after bad down the Diebold toilet.”
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