For Immediate Release: San Francisco, March 21, 2006 - A group of 24 California voters, including Dolores Huerta, social justice activist and co-founder of the United Farm Workers of America, announced at a news conference today that they have filed a lawsuit against California Secretary of State Bruce McPherson to nullify his "conditional" certification of the Diebold TSx electronic voting system and to block purchase or use of the TSx in California due to serious security, verifiability and disability access problems.
"A crisis is brewing in California when computerized slot machines used by gamblers in the state are more secure and auditable than the electronic voting systems used by California voters to decide the future direction of their government," said Lowell Finley, Esq., counsel for the plaintiffs and co-director of Voter Action. "Expert testing has confirmed that the Diebold system contains "interpreted" code --programming that is vulnerable to malicious hacking, and prohibited by the California Elections Code. The Diebold touch screen voting system is a severe security risk, and does not accommodate all disabled voters as required by law."
"California voters have the right to vote and to have their votes counted correctly. The last thing we need is to start using voting machines that deny access to disabled voters and create an unacceptable risk of fraud and vote manipulation," said John Eichhorst, co-counsel for the voter plaintiffs, and a partner with Howard, Rice, Nemerovski, Canady, Falk & Rabkin.
A spokesman for Diebold's law firm of Gonif, Swindle, and Finagle responded, "We will fight this tooth and nail with all the power for which we've paid Republican politicians and judges over the years. Besides, they're in the tank with voters and need us this November more than ever. There's no way they could win in California without cheating, and maybe not even then, but we have to try."I made that up to see if you were really watching - G.
Voter Action, www.voteraction.org, is a project of the International Humanities Center with members across the country. Voter Action recently led successful litigation in New Mexico to block purchase and use of the types of voting machines that are most error prone and vulnerable to tampering. In addition to California, Voter Action is currently supporting similar efforts in New York, Pennsylvania and other states.
Kudos to Voter Action for doing this. It's a start.
In my little town, we use a #2 pencil to vote with. Not very hackable.
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