California Decertifies Diebold Paperless Voting Machines

(This posting contains the full text of the linked article.)

California's Voting Systems Panel voted unanimously on April 22 to decertify use of the Diebold TSx paperless electronic voting system in California elections. Although the final decision is up to California Secretary of State Kevin Shelley, he is expected to follow the recommendation of the board before April 30, 2004, and remove paperless Diebold electronic voting machines from California polling places in time for the November 2004 election.

The Voting Systems Panel did not recommend against continued use of the Diebold TS electronic voting machines or use of optical-scan voting machines. The GEMs software is also not affected by this decision.

VerifiedVoting.org Legislative Analyst Bob Kibrick testified at the Voting Systems Panel hearings as well as yesterday at the California Senate Elections and Reapportionment Committee which then voted unanimously to support Senate Bill 1438 requiring e-voting machines with an disabled-accessible paper trail by January 2005.

My email was preceded with:

This is a special Verified Voting breaking news alert about a
dramatic victory for verified voting in California that will
hopefully have a ripple effect nationwide. Thanks to all of the
advocates in our Verified Voting network who helped to make this
success a reality! - Will Doherty, Verified Voting Foundation

Here's hoping that's true; getting California to acknowlege the truth behind the paperless-voting-is-bad argument is huge step indeed.