Reply #3: UT: Rolly: A real shock for voters?

[rumpel]

Salt Lake Tribune

Article Last Updated: 03/24/2006 1:49 AM MST

Rolly: A real shock for voters?
By Paul Rolly
Tribune Columnist

A national voting rights group claims the touch screen voting system Utah purchased for about $27 million has serious flaws and is vulnerable to voter fraud by easy manipulation of the software.
The preliminary report, placed last week on the Web site of Black Box Voting, a nonprofit organization devoted to ensuring fair and impartial elections, was based on tests performed recently by software scientists that Black Box brought to Utah at the request of Emery County Clerk Bruce Funk.
Funk has been questioning the system of Diebold Election Systems for about a year. But he has been a lone voice in Utah and has operated outside legal bounds, according to Utah Lt. Gov. Gary Herbert, who reiterated his confidence in the Diebold system.
According to Black Box, the tests found that the electrical socket easily falls out of the voting machine, exposing live wires and raising the possibility of voters getting shocked. The scientists also found "security holes" in the system, which could lead to software manipulation to change the outcome of voting, and some voting machines had less memory than others, leading to speculation that some of the machines purchased as new were actually used.
"It would be like buying a new car that actually had 100,000 miles on it," said Funk.

http://www.sltrib.com/utah/ci_3634490