Expert Says Electronic Voting Not Ready

"I'm certainly concerned, and my biggest concern is that it's really too late to address the problem for November 2nd. The election officials, who could have done something about the problem, instead dismissed us and dismissed the report, and now it's too late to make changes. My crystal ball doesn't tell me if we're going to have a major meltdown on November 2nd. If something goes wrong, if there are irregularities, if exit polls do not synch with election tallies, then people will have legitimate reasons to suspect that things are wrong, and that could undermine confidence in the entire electoral system." ---Rice University computer sciences professor Dan Wallach, co-author of an exhaustive 2003 report from the Johns Hopkins University (Analysis of an Electronic Voting System, July 23, 2003), which outlines more than half a dozen key ways in which the security, accuracy, and overall functionality of an electronic voting system could be compromised.