An open letter to Sec. Galvin: Registering my worry about Diebold voting machines
This is what I emailed to elections@sec.state.ma.us -- I'm not sure that that is the
right email address to use, so we'll see/

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I'm a resident of Melrose, and I have heard that Sec. Galvin is considering using Diebold voting
machines on a trial basis in a few districts on Nov. 7th, with an eye to a larger use in the
future.

I am extremely uncomfortable with this.

The more we find out about Diebold voting machines, the more clear it becomes that they are not
designed appropriately for such an important task.

As a matter of fact, although it sounds paranoid, I'm starting to suspect that they are actually
deliberately designed to be "hackable".

They have many features that look good on paper, but, really, don't add any security.

One example of this is that the box they're in locks, because you obviously need to give some
physical security. And that looks good on paper.

But the lock they use is a standardized lock that you use on, for instance, hotel mini-bars,
and all the keys are interchangeable. So you can go to a hotel, take the mini-bar key, and
unlock any Diebold voting machine.

Their computerized security is basically the same, although it's more technical and therefore
harder to understand. But the machine is like that all the way through, from stem to stern,
so much so that I can't help but wonder if it was designed to be like that.

And now the Miami Herald is reporting that, in early voting from Florida, there are a number
of cases where people are trying to vote for Democrats and it is registering Republican.

In order for there to be a serious problem, you need two things: a system that can be dishonestly
manipulated, and dishonest people to manipulate it.

I am frankly not too worried that we have that many dishonest people in charge of elections in
Massachusetts, so I don't anticipate problems. But, still -- I think that elections are too
important to even have the possibility of fraud. And the Diebold system seems to be deliberately
designed to allow fraud.

I think that we in Massachusetts deserve a system of which we can be confident, a system that
is resistant to fraud. Our paper ballots with little ovals that we fill in with marker is
fraud-resistant, easy to use, simple, and robust. Touch-screen voting has many more things
that can go wrong, as is always the case with computers. As you can tell from the fact that
I'm emailing, I'm not against computers in principle -- I was a computer science major in
college. I didn't do very well, but I am still friends with everyone I met then -- and all
the professional computer programmers I know are deeply against Diebold touch-screen voting.

The more that someone knows about computers, the less confident they are with the Diebold machines.
They are too aware of how much can go wrong.

So I urge the Secretary to give up the plan to use Diebold machines. Even if nothing goes wrong
with the voting, I couldn't feel confident that the votes actually reflected the will of the
voters. The problems with Diebold are so pervasive that I deeply feel that they should not be
used in Massachusetts, at least not until the system is entirely redesigned to include true, robust,
and trustworthy security.

Thank you for your time;

- Ian Osmond
960 Main Street
Melrose, Massachusetts

cc: http://xiphias.livejournal.com