…from a couple of minutes ago:
SMARTCARDS GO MISSING IN TENNESSEE; CONTROL ELECTRONIC VOTING MACHINES
Fri Nov 03 2006 10:09:31 ET
Political insiders have expressed alarm after 12 voter smartcards have gone missing from one Shelby County, TN early vote location!
The cards are used to activate electronic voting machine.
The location at the center of the controversy is Bishop Byrne High School on E. Shelby Drive in Memphis.
The polling place started out with 25 cards. By Wednesday, 11 were missing, says an eyewitness. The location was given 5 more smartcards on Thursday. And another card went missing! As of Friday morning, a total of 12 smartcards had gone missing, out of the 30 give to the location.
Someone possessing a smartcard could use ‘off the shelf equipment’ [equipment that reprograms the card] and alter it to be used multiple times, and cast multiple votes. One concerned insider explains: “Shelby County Board of Elections has been notified. They said is was ‘not a big deal’ because, they said, the cards are deactivated. But the reality is, you can buy the equipment at computer stores to reactivate them. It’s on the Internet how to reactivate the cards!”
Meanwhile, The Tennessee Bureau of Investigation is reviewing reports by the Shelby County Election Commission that two people voted twice during early voting in Memphis.
Dist. Atty. Gen. Bill Gibbons said he’s referred the cases to the TBI for investigation along with other matters he declined to discuss.
Poll watchers are expected to turn out Tuesday to observe voting in Tennessee’s heated U.S. Senate race between Chattanooga Republican Bob Corker and Memphis Democrat Harold Ford Jr.
Developing…
…with voting systems where the voter marks a paper ballot that gets automatically read by the machine? You then have a machine count (fast, accurate, no hanging chads) and paper ballots (backup if the computer crashes, available for hand recount if the election is close).
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What the hell is wrong with this? Is there any reason to be for other voting technologies besides (1) favoritism to the companies that make them and — shudder — (2) potential for vote stealing?
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If D’s win both houses of Congress, this should be the subject of a bill that they put on Bush’s desk.
FWIW, when I asked John Kerry what we could expect from a Democratic Congress, “making sure everyone’s vote counts” was the first thing out of his mouth.