What’s All the Fuss About Intepreted Code in Florida and California?

By John Washburn, SilverTrain Inc. for VoteTrustUSA
December 29, 2005

What in the World is Interpreted Code and What’s Wrong With It Anyway?

See VoteTrustUSA's open letter to the EAC and the email action alert.

Earlier this month Leon County, Florida Supervisor of Elections Ion Sancho, invited computer experts to demonstrate the existence of a security flaw in Diebold optical scanners described in a report published on July 4, 2005. The test was repeated in December in order to refute specific denials by Diebold. In statements to two different election officials Diebold claimed it was not possible to alter the outcome of an election in such a way that the perpetrator would not need passwords and the tampering would not be noticed during normal canvassing procedures. Sancho set up the test environment on December 13, 2005 to prove these claims false. The outside experts had no access to the optical scanner and the complete canvassing procedure was followed for 8 test ballots. The result was that while the 8 paper ballots had a vote tally of 2 Yes and 6 No, all of the official reports - from the optical scanner on through to the publication of county results - showed an outcome of 7 Yes and 1 No.

Because of this design defect, which exists on all Diebold touchscreen machines (DRE) and optical scanners, the Secretary of State of California has demanded that the Diebold software be re-examined by the Independent Testing Authority (ITA), who originally certified that the systems were in compliance with the 2002 Federal Voluntary Voting System Guidelines. >>>cont

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