Glad They've Noticed! But that said...
By Brad Friedman on 5/11/2006, 9:51pm PT  

An article in the conservative Wall Street Journal tomorrow covers a number of E-voting meltdown/train wreck issues around the country, including the nine lawsuits currently in progress around the country to push back these damned, untested, unsecure, hackable machines and other points of which The BRAD BLOG has been reporting over the last many many months.

We're glad to see them finally take notice and report on these problems to the nation.

The niceties now set aside, the article minimizes the myriad severe problems and security issues throughout. One way of doing that, is referring to these problems as "glitches" no less than five times by our count. Another way of doing that, is quoting Election Integrity attorney Lowell Finley of VoterAction.org in half a sentence. And devoting the rest of the quotes in the piece to spokespersons from Diebold (known liar, David Bear) and ES&S, along with unsecure electronic voting proponent (and cowardly disinformation expert), AZ Sec. of State, Jan Brewer.

None of the many Election Integrity advocates, computer science or security professionals, apparently, were allowed to refute the silly apologists disinformation statements of Brewer, Bear or Ken Fields of ES&S.

Still, one passage from late in the article is just flat wrong:

Despite common charges that the machines lack adequate security, no cases have emerged proving that a hacker or an insider has or could electronically manipulate the vote.

Sounds a whole lot like David Bear talking there. The fact is, the so-called "Hursti Hack" in Leon County, Florida in December, 2005, covered in some detail by the mainstream media, confirmed by CA SoS and Diebold proponent Bruce McPherson's own independent analysis [PDF], proved beyond a shadow of a doubt that both a hacker and an insider could electronically manipulate the vote.

We're happy to see the national coverage. It would be nice if they could avoid such statements that are demonstrably wrong and misleading.

National media may feel free to contact us. We'll be happy to help you avoid such easily avoidable errors and will put you in touch with all manner of experts who can help you understand what's really going on here.

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Article Categories: Diebold/Premier, Mainstream Corporate Media, Election 2006, Mainstream Media Failure