Following the messy 2000 election that made Florida’s punchcard voting system famous, many of the Votomatic machines at the center of the controversy got a glamorous second act, Abby Goodnough writes in today’s New York Times. Fox News anchor Greta Van Susteren, the Smithsonian Institution and even New York art galleries made an effort to get ahold of the machines.

Seven years later, the Votomatic’s replacement, the touch-screen voting machine, is losing favor amongst election administrators, voting rights and research groups nationwide because of security concerns. In Florida, the machines will all but disappear by the 2008 election. Goodnough says that unlike their predecessors, these machines may not get the same star treatment on the way out the door. Possible destinations: a Veterans Affairs hospital and the scrap pile. (more…)

Posted in Election Reform, Electronic voting, Florida, Optical scan machines | Comments Off

Following a study by University of California voting security experts during which they were able to hack into electronic voting machines, Friday California Secretary of State Debra Bowen put into place new security procedures for electronic voting, and decertified the use of a certain type of voting machine used in Los Angeles County. She issued the order just minutes before a midnight deadline in order to ensure the changes to go into effect before the February 5 California presidential primary election. From LA Times:

[Bowen] withdrew state approval of the InkaVote Plus machines used in Los Angeles County, saying that the machines’ maker, Election Systems and Software, had failed to submit its equipment to her office in time to analyze its vulnerability to hacking.

She said her office would examine the InkaVote machines and expressed optimism that they would win approval in time to be used in next year’s elections, but did not say what would happen if the machines failed her tests.

“When NASA discovers a flow or a potential safety concern in the space shuttle, it doesn’t continue launching the missions…,” Bowen said. “It scrubs the missions until the problem is fixed.”

(more…)

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