Rage against the voting machine

One. Two. Three. Forty-five. Wait, what? 46. 47. 48. 79. What's going on? 80. 81. 1,583,027 ...\nIf the people who count the votes really do decide everything, the next president of the United States could be Thomas Swidarski, CEO of Diebold. One of the primary manufacturers of electronic voting machines, Diebold has been repeatedly accused that its product has the potential to be tampered with, causing an incorrect ballot count. \nIt starts with a screw driver, according to pictures available on the Open Voting Foundation Web site. Having pried off the plastic casing that surrounds a 12-inch monitor, the would-be hacker has access to some wires, some computer chips and a whole mess of other completely unidentifiable computer innards. According to the 501(c)(3) nonprofit -- probably partisan -- organization, the trick to rigging an election is flipping off switches JP2 and JP8, without touching JP3. Then it's just a matter of reassembling the machine and explaining to the election staff what all the noise was coming from behind the curtain.\nThe editorial board hopes the irony of posting directions to the very activity the group is fighting to stop is not lost on anyone.\nThe foundation is just one of many similar organizations worried that the votes being cast are not the votes being counted. Verify the Vote Indiana is protesting the use of unaccountable electronic ballots in Monroe County and around the state. The uproar mostly stems from a study done by the Brennan Center for Justice, which found "all three of the nation's most commonly purchased electronic voting systems are vulnerable to software attacks that could threaten the integrity of a state or national election."\nAt a public meeting held Sept. 13, Verify the Vote members argued in favor of returning to paper ballots here in Monroe County and across Indiana. They acknowledged, however, that it was too late for the approaching November elections, so they plan to get approval to verify that the machines are accurate. \nBut in the interest of preserving democracy, does it make sense to let a lobbying group get anywhere near an already vulnerable voting machine? In fact, the machines are scheduled to be tested on Oct. 4, and if there's any shred of hope for fair elections, the process will be overseen by representatives of both the Republicans and Democrats, a judge, Verify the Vote and Mr. T. \nConsidering how time-consuming and conspicuous hacking a voting machine appears, the likelihood of it happening seems slim. That's not to say electronic voting machines are fool-proof. The much likelier scenario is a machine crashing and wiping out thousands of votes or faulty touch screens. For these reasons more than anything else, voting machines should be regularly serviced. The maintenance should be done by an independent government agency and no one else. Verify the Vote says the public can't trust the makers of voting machines; voting machine companies say the public can't trust ballot counters. The editorial board says the public can't trust either of them.