[Full-Disclosure] Will a vote for John Kerry be counted by a Hart InterCivic eSlate3000 in Honolulu?

["Jason Coombs PivX Solutions" <jasonc@xxxxxxxxxxx>]

I just voted for John Kerry at a walk-in absentee ballot polling place in 
Honolulu County using an eSlate3000 (unit serial number A05A0B) made by Hart 
Intercivic: http://www.hartintercivic.com

I was told by the official who gave me the choice of voting on paper or voting 
electronically that the electronic voting machines weren't supposed to be here 
yet, but that since they arrived in time for the 2004 election, they were being 
used anyway.

Will my vote be counted? That depends on a number of unknowns, such as whether 
or not the unit on which my vote was cast subsequently malfunctions, rendering 
the entire vote tabulating memory card corrupt.

I did not receive a paper printout following the submission of my electronic 
ballot.

Excluding the obvious possibility that fraud may occur, either to stuff the 
electronic 'ballot box' with false votes, or to intentionally destroy or fail 
to count votes for a particular candidate, there are risks inherent to 
electronic voting that do not exist in the same way with paper ballots. And 
although there are technical safeguards possible that seem like common sense, 
these safeguards continue to be ignored. Why?

Will we ever see common sense safeguards added to the electronic voting process?

A search for known security vulnerabilities or potential flaws in voting 
equipment manufactured and sold by Hart InterCivic turns up:

http://www.conspiracyplanet.com/channel.cfm?channelid=31&contentid=1570

Prior to casting my vote, I provided a written 'application' to vote containing 
my current address and other contact information. Election officials have every 
bit of information necessary to inform me in the event of a memory card failure 
or other malfunction that causes my electronic vote not to be counted properly.

We know the very equipment that I just used to cast my vote has malfunctioned 
in the past. There have never been any reports that any voter has ever been 
allowed to revote following the loss of their electronic vote database record. 
Why not?

I find it absurd that common sense solutions to electronic voting problems are 
not being used. The vote I just cast could be made available for my anonymous 
review after it has been counted. For that matter, all votes made by all voters 
could be aggregated and published such that any voter could confirm that the 
vote that was counted was in fact the vote that they cast.

Such a safeguard would ensure that no fraud could occur without timely 
detection by those voters who are directly affected, and no vote would go 
uncounted or be miscounted by mistake unless voters choose not to perform such 
data validation.

If we're going to allow these electronic voting devices in our elections, then 
we the people must be empowered to become the all volunteer quality assurance 
army that validates the data output.

Reasonable people can live with the necessity to trust election officials to be 
honest, and the criminal justice procedures to hold them accountable when they 
are not, but who are we supposed to hold accountable when equipment failures 
and flawed computer disaster recovery planning result in the secret exclusion 
of members of the public from access to their right to vote?

If anyone has any further information about Hart InterCivic and the eSlate3000, 
please contact me directly.

Sincerely,

Jason Coombs
jasonc@xxxxxxxxxxx

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