Holy cow. This is a VERY big deal. If you are a Maryland resident, you may want to get on the phone right now to find out from your Secretary of State how they can assure clean elections.
Diebold Election Systems Inc. expressed alarm and state election officials contacted the FBI yesterday after a former legislator received an anonymous package containing what appears to be the computer code that ran Maryland's polls in 2004.
Cheryl C. Kagan, a longtime critic of Maryland's elections chief, says the fact that the computer disks were sent to her - along with an unsigned note criticizing the management of the state elections board - demonstrates that Maryland's voting system faces grave security threats.
[..]In the wake of the problems, Gov. Robert L. Ehrlich Jr. and other politicians renewed their call to jettison the equipment. The governor has urged state voters to request absentee ballots, although use of the paper alternative raises different concerns about fraud.
A spokesman for the governor said the apparent distribution of the voting-machine software was troubling. Read on...
Tipster MrEMan reminds us of the problems experienced during the September primary and BradBlog points us to a letter by Governor Erlich expressing a loss of faith as far back as February of this year. And yet, to the disadvantage of all voters, nothing has been done.
