Texas Election System Examiners' Meetings Shrouded in Secrecy
Lawsuit Pushes for Public Access to Meetings Where E-voting Machines Are Evaluated
Austin, TX - On January 19, a Texas court is scheduled to determine whether to force the state's voting examiners to open their meetings to the public. The ACLU of Texas and a Texas voter filed a lawsuit last year, ACLU of Texas v. Geoffrey S. Connor, demanding that the public be admitted to meetings where the examiners decide which electronic voting machines to certify. While these groups waited for a response from the court, the examiners held yet another closed meeting on January 4 and 5.
"There's no technical reason for keeping these meetings closed to the public," said Dan Wallach, a Rice University computer science professor and outspoken critic of electronic voting systems. "By allowing outside experts in security, accessibility, and election procedure to attend the meetings, the voting system vendors will receive better feedback from the ultimate users of the machines. Likewise, if outside experts find problems, the state can demand the vendors address those problems before the machines are used in the field."
Recently, the Texas Safe Voting Coalition obtained videotapes of previous meetings, including one involving Diebold Election Systems, that suggest a lack of rigor and failure to address properly security and certification compliance issues. If the court grants a temporary injunction on the 19th, the voting examiners will have to admit the public to certification meetings.
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http://www.eff.org/news/archives/2005_01.php#002212YEAH! Good stuff!
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