Guest Blogged by John Gideon of VotersUnite.org
By John Gideon on 8/29/2008, 4:37pm PT  

Last week Premier/Diebold admitted that their GEMS software used in as many as 34 states may have failed any number of times over the last 10 years. The admission comes from their actions in Ohio but no jurisdiction in any of the 33 other states can truly say they have not had the same problem but just never caught it.

Then this week the same company had to admit that their software used in Florida has more problems, on top of the earlier admission. We also learned that their high-speed optical scan machines failed in Sarasota Co. to a point where Premier/Diebold is loaning the county older machines in hopes of not having problems in November.

All of these problems are still on the voting system that is presently awaiting EAC certification. All of these problems are forcing a change to that voting system. Now the vendors are working hard to lobby congress to force the EAC to go back to the old NASED type system. The vendors don’t want the test labs to be forced to actually test their systems and report problems. The vendors want a rubber stamp.

In no other industry do the vendors have so much power over the process of testing and approval. They should never have that power when it comes to our elections. If they can’t put out a product that they can stand-behind and be proud of then they need to get out of the business. Have a safe and sane Labor Day weekend...

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