Maryland Election Official Tries To Shut Down U of Iowa Webpage
According
to an email obtained by Blog for Iowa, Dr. Douglas W. Jones, Associate
Professor of Computer Science at the University of Iowa and
nationally-renowned expert on electronic, paperless voting and computer
security, was informed yesterday that the U of I Director of University
Relations, Steven Parrott, had received a request to remove a U of I
webpage created by Professor Jones.
The request came from a staff member of the Maryland State Board of Elections, State Administrator Linda Lamone.
Lamone asked Parrott to remove a webpage that specifically addressed a brochure issued by the Maryland State Board of Elections, called “Maryland’s Better Way to Vote – Electronic Voting: Myth vs. Fact.”
According to Jones’ webpage,
the Maryland State Board of Elections brochure “was intended to counter
widespread public criticism of the voting system in use in
Maryland.” Maryland has purchased and used the allegedly
notoriously-inaccurate Diebold DREs, or touch-screen voting machines,
and according to Ellen Theisen in Myth Breakers for Election Officials,
Maryland appears to be moving toward an election system that consists
entirely of fully paperless DREs (Version 4.0, page 35).
Maryland’s
“Myth vs. Fact” brochure was first brought to Jones’ attention by Van
Smith of the Baltimore City Paper on July 9, 2004. Jones
describes the problems with the brochure on his U of I webpage:
“Maryland's Myth versus Fact defense contains a sufficient number of
misleading assertions, straw-man arguments and outright errors that it
may well do more to fuel public distrust than it does to assure the
trustworthiness of the system it defends. In sum, many of the
statements in this brochure would be more nearly accurate if the labels
myth and fact were exchanged. A more appropriate defense might have
involved squarely admitting the defects in the current system and
clearly documenting, for each, the actions taken by the Board of
Elections to deal with the problem.”
Jones
outlines on his webpage, point by point, the flaws and glaring
inaccuracies in the Maryland brochure. This is the page that
Lamone requested the U of I take down.
Jones
adds that before he put the webpage up for public consumption, he had
actually invited comments and corrections from the Maryland Board of
Elections.
According
to Jones, Parrott, the Director of University Relations, refused to
remove the page, holding “that the webpage fell within the bounds of
[Professor Jones’] academic freedom.”
On a related note, on Monday, eight Maryland voters filed motions asking the Court of Appeals of Maryland to force the State Board of Elections to fix alleged problems with the Diebold system.
Linda Thieman
Blog For Iowa 
This was posted to the John Kerry blog, for those that might be interested:
http://blog.johnkerry.com/blog/archives/002415.html
LikeLike
Oh, you are referring to the Farmers for Kerry sign – I thought you meant someone had taken my scoop and posted it somewhere else! LOL
LikeLike