WIRED news - Another Blow to E-Voting Company

Just got this in an e-mail:

November 28, 2005

EFF Convinces North Carolina Judge To Throw Out Diebold E-Voting Case

E-Voting Company Forced to Comply with Election Transparency Laws

Raleigh, North Carolina - Responding to arguments made by the Electronic Frontier Foundation (EFF), a North Carolina judge today told Diebold Election Systems that the e-voting company must comply with tough North Carolina election law and dismissed the company's case seeking broad exemptions from the law.

EFF intervened in the case earlier this month, after Diebold obtained a broad temporary restraining order that allowed it to evade key transparency requirements without criminal or civil liability. The law requires escrow of the source code for all voting systems to be certified in the state and identification of programmers. In today's hearing, the judge told Diebold if it wanted to continue in the bidding process for certified election systems in the state, it must follow the law and if it failed to do so, it would face liability.

"The North Carolina legislature showed great leadership and courage in passing one of the most robust voting machine transparency laws in the country," said EFF Staff Attorney Matt Zimmerman. "The court decision reiterates what EFF had been arguing on behalf of our client all along: Diebold is not entitled to special rules."
more ...
http://www.eff.org/news/archives/2005_11.php#004203

Apparently this is from the web site of EFF, the company that argued against Diebold.

Definitely a lot more attention is being brought to the subject of election fraud, which is all good.

Eventually, the questions about security and reliability might start to impact confidence in their other systems (ATMs in particular). Once their sales reps have to start explaining to clients why their ATMs are more secure and reliable than their voting machines, they may find it best just to get out of the election business.

The bad press is finally getting to investors

http://biz.yahoo.com/ap/051128/voting_problems.html?.v=5