Diebold Must Comply With Law (You Mean They May Not Have?)

Why would a voting machine company seek to evade transparancy rules? Proprietary security? Nah...

"Responding to arguments made by the Electronic Frontier Foundation (EFF), a North Carolina judge today told Diebold Election Systems that the e-voting company must comply with tough North Carolina election law and dismissed the company's case seeking broad exemptions from the law.

EFF intervened in the case earlier this month, after Diebold obtained a broad temporary restraining order that allowed it to evade key transparency requirements without criminal or civil liability. The law requires escrow of the source code for all voting systems to be certified in the state and identification of programmers. In today's hearing, the judge told Diebold if it wanted to continue in the bidding process for certified election systems in the state, it must follow the law and if it failed to do so, it would face liability.

'The North Carolina legislature showed great leadership and courage in passing one of the most robust voting machine transparency laws in the country,' said EFF Staff Attorney Matt Zimmerman. 'The court decision reiterates what EFF had been arguing on behalf of our client all along: Diebold is not entitled to special rules.'"