In this recent article from BlackBox Voting the scandal of Diebold's influence on democratic processes is further examined. An excerpt:

Diebold Optical Scan Voting System Hacked (3 Ways)
Tuesday, 31 May 2005, 1:10 pm
Article: www.blackboxvoting.org
Diebold Optical Scan Voting System Hacked (3 Ways) - BBV Exclusive

http://www.blackboxvoting.org/ - Source URL

"Tallahassee, FL: "Are we having fun yet?"

This is the message that appeared in the window of a county optical
scan machine, startling Leon County Information Systems Officer
Thomas James. Visibly shaken, he immediately turned the machine off.

Diebold's opti-scan (paper ballot) voting system uses a curious
memory card design, offering penetration by a lone programmer such
that standard canvassing procedures cannot detect election manipulation.

The Diebold optical scan system was used in about 800 jurisdictions
in 2004. Among them were several hotbeds of controversy: Volusia
County (FL); King County (WA); and the New Hampshire primary
election, where machine results differed markedly from hand-counted
localities.

New regs: Counting paper ballots forbidden

Most states prohibit elections officials from checking on optical
scan tallies by examining the paper ballots. In Washington, Secretary
of State Sam Reed declared such spontaneous checkups to be
"unauthorized recounts" and prohibited them altogether. New Florida
regulations will forbid counting paper ballots, even in recounts,
except in highly unusual circumstances. Without paper ballot hand-
counts, the hacks demonstrated below show that optical-scan elections
can be destroyed in seconds.

A little man living in every ballot box

The Diebold optical scan system uses a dangerous programming
methodology, with an executable program living inside the electronic
ballot box. This method is the equivalent of having a little man
living in the ballot box, holding an eraser and a pencil. With an
executable program in the memory card, no Diebold opti-scan ballot
box can be considered "empty" at the start of the election.

The Black Box Voting team proved that the Diebold optical scan
program, housed on a chip inside the voting machine, places a call to
a program living in the removable memory card during the election.
The demonstration also showed that the executable program on the
memory card (ballot box) can easily be changed, and that checks and
balances, required by FEC standards to catch unauthorized changes,
were not implemented by Diebold -- yet the system was certified anyway.

The Diebold system in Leon County, Florida succumbed to multiple
attacks.

Ion Sancho: Truth and Excellence in Elections

Leon County Elections Supervisor Ion Sancho and Information Systems
Officer Thomas James had already implemented security procedures in
Leon County far exceeding the norm in elections management. This
testing, done by a team of researchers including Black Box Voting,
independent filmmakers, security expert Dr. Herbert Thompson, and
special consultant Harri Hursti, was authorized by Mr. Sancho, in an
unusual act of openness and courage, to identify any remaining holes
in Leon County's election security.

The results of the memory card hack demonstration will assist
elections supervisors throughout the U.S., by emphasizing the
critical importance of accounting for each and every memory card and
protecting access.

Findings:

Computer expert Harri Hursti gained control over Leon County memory
cards, which handle the vote-reporting from the precincts. Dr.
Herbert Thompson, a security expert, took control of the Leon County
central tabulator by implanting a trojan horse-like script.

Two programmers can become a lone programmer, says Hursti, who has
figured out a way to control the entire central tabulator by way of a
single memory card swap, and also how to make tampered polling place
tapes match tampered central tabulator results. This more complex
approach is untested, but based on testing performed May 26, Hursti
says he has absolutely no reason to believe it wouldn't work.

Three memory card tests demonstrated successful manipulation of
election results, and showed that 1990 and 2002 FEC-required
safeguards are being violated in the Diebold version 1.94 opti-scan
system."...