PRESS RELEASE: ASST SEC. STATE OF NH TO ADDRESS ELECTRONIC VOTING, 10/27/04

[Bill Sconce]

Follow-ups with respect to our quarterly GNHLUG meeting, at which we
discussed electronic voting machines:

1.  By coincidence, at the time we were meeting 60 Minutes was airing
a segment on electronic voting machines.  One of the people whom Mr.
Stevens cited for us, Ari Rubin, of Johns Hopkins University, was
interviewed at some length.  (We almost got Ari Rubin to join us at
our meeting, incidentally, but schedules didn't permit.)

2.  Today's (Sunday 10/31) _New Hampshire Sunday News_ has an article
on the contrast between electronic voting machines and our elections
system in New Hampshire.  "Warnings from NH unheard elswhere" (page
headline), page A5:

      "I tell people beyond a shadow of a doubt that New Hampshire is
    the one state in the union that is the safest from voter fraud."
    Hyde [a computer systems instructor] cites three reasons for that:
        o The 1994 state law that requires voting machines to
          read paper ballots.
        o Elections are run by local communities, which allows
          for greater oversight.
        o The integrity and foresight of the secretary of state's
          office in safeguarding elections.
      [...]
    
      "The New Hampshire law actually outsmarts the bad guys
    in HAVA [Help America Vote Act]," he said.
    
      [...Manchester's Leo Pepino], now an eight-term Republican
    legislator, said he, too, is upset by reports that other states
    are spending millions in taxpayer dollars to purchase the same
    systems New Hampshire rejected a decade earlier.
            
3. A big Thank You to everyone who came to the meeting on the 27th.  
We had a great evening.

-Bill