Just thought I'd say that I worked on ATM systems at a major bank when I was younger. I was there until they changed out the old 910 models for the 911 ATMs. ATMs haven't changed much in the last 15 - 20 years. Remarkably little.

For what it's worth, I wrote a scenario for the bank showing how to remove all the money from an ATM with no record. You see, the ATMs would not print either a journal entry or a receipt without a command to do so, which was independent of the command to dispense bills. Not much happened as a result except some meetings.

So even if you have printed receipts, that isn't anywhere near enough to ensure electronic voting machines are honest. You can only know if they are honest if you can easily count and compare the hardcopy record with the electronic record. There is no reason to believe that the receipt corresponds to the journal or the journal agrees with the vote recorded. They won't agree unless someone makes sure they do.

Additionally, why do people think that punch card ballots are on that thick card stock? It's because other kinds of paper can't be counted mechanically. So paper receipts are not much less useless than the evanescent electronic bits themselves. Unless you can really do a recount, you can't know.

Relative to the software in the voting machines, there are a whole host of procedures that need to be followed to make sure any computer system is doing what it is expected to and is running the software version that you think it is. No bank would run an accounting system that didn't have an auditable software source code which was used in a locked procedure to create the compiled version, verify that this compiled version checks 100% against the image of the compiled version from development, etcetera. None of that, from backend QA capability on the hardcopy, to front end compile, checkpoint/checksum, official release storage, and install - none of it is in place for voting machines. If you don't have it, you don't have a system, period. It's a joke.

The whole thing is an outrageous sham as a result. It makes less sense than going to Vegas and playing poker with a computer that deals you virtual cards. Yeah, sure the program ignores your cards. Right. I've got some bridges to sell you, right here.

Regards,
Brian Hanley
President
KonnectWorld, Inc
www.konnectworld.com