NYT: Certified but Not Guaranteed

[tbyg52]

From the "well, duh" and "better late than never, I guess" departments.

Electronic voting machines are notoriously unreliable, but their defenders insist that they can be trusted because they are rigorously tested before they are certified for use. Now Congressional investigators have issued a report confirming that the federal certification program needs work.

The serious problems with electronic voting machines are well-known. They are prone to miscounts — including “vote flipping,” in which votes for one candidate are recorded for another — and computer scientists have shown how easy it is to hack these machines and change the vote totals.

We agree with the many computer scientists, voting rights activists and voters who insist that there must be voter-verified paper records. Still, no state or locality should be using machines that have not met rigorous certification standards.

More:
http://www.nytimes.com/2008/09/28/opinion/28sun3.html?_r=1&th&emc=th&oref=slogin