Irish e-voting booths hacked! Now playing Chess.

The Register:

"IT professionals in the Netherlands have demonstrated that the type of e-voting machines chosen by the Irish government for election counts can be secretly hacked.

Using documentation obtained from the Irish Department of the Environment, Dutch IT experts ... went on ... television ... to reveal that NEDAP e-voting machines could be made to record inaccurate voting preferences and even be reprogrammed to run a chess program."

Personally, I don't share the views of anti-electronic voting advocates. I think we need to make electronic balloting work. Making the vote easier, more accessible, more easily and accurately reported should be universal goals. On the road to those goals there are going to be bumps, ditches, and even accidents. Over eager vendors are going to make promises they can't keep. Vandals will interfere and luddites will unflinchingly decry electronic voting can never be made safe. Despite those obstacles, this is a thing we can make work and we must.