Reply #22: DUI case may set black box voting precedent.

[Wilms]

by Paul -V-

Thursday, October 20, 2005

People who are fighting for open and honest elections in this country may soon have those accused of Driving Under the Influence (DUI) to thank for an important precedent working its way through the courts.

According to vnunet.com:

A Florida court will hear arguments on Friday in a case where the accuracy of a breathalyzer is being scrutinized because the manufacturer has refused to release the source code.

Lawyers representing more than 150 defendants who have been charged for driving under the influence of alcohol in two Florida counties will file the request.

They argue that they have a right to see the source code of the alcohol breath analyzer that was used to determine their clients' guilt.

"None of the programs that was used here is approved," said Robert Harrison, a lawyer representing some of the defendants.

"The question is whether the difference is material or not. Without seeing the source code, we do not know."


Most people who are concerned about the accuracy of computerized Black-box voting (BBV) machines would heartily agree with the last sentence.

A lot has been written about the dangers of the BBV machines that now tally most of the votes in this country. Since the computers are run off proprietary code: If the election results are in dispute, not only is there no paper trail, no independent investigation is allowed to analyze the software that the machine used to come to its conclusion.

The defendants in the Florida DUI case are arguing that proprietary code that is above scrutiny is like having a witness against you that does not need to testify in court. I'm not a lawyer, but the Sixth Amendment to the US Constitution seems to favor the defendants:

snip/more

Thanks to brainshrub for posting

http://www.democraticunderground.com/discuss/duboard.php?az=view_all&address=203x397758