'Dan Rather Reports' Reopens Investigation on the Accuracy of Electronic Voting Machines

DALLAS, Oct. 26 /PRNewswire/ -- Tonight's "Dan Rather Reports" returns with new information on a topic covered a few years back – the security and accuracy of ballots tallied from electronic voting machines.

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After the Florida voting fiasco in the 2000 Presidential election, the federal government has spent billions to "fix" the system.  The question remains whether or not the system has indeed been repaired or has the new technology just made the problem worse?

In the Netherlands, a small group of activists led by a renowned Dutch computer hacker were able to obtain one of the country's new voting machines and, after several weeks of work, found a way to hack into the system.  These activists sent proof of their findings in the form of a sixty second video sent to media outlets – the video shook the foundations of Holland's democratic process and sent tens of millions of dollars of these machines to the scrap pile.  

In 2008, the Dutch government became the first in Europe to use electronic voting machines, and the first to ditch them.

In the meantime, the Governments of Ireland and Germany had also invested in the same machines, and were also fighting off doubts cast by local activists who said the machines could easily be tampered with.  They too would soon follow the Netherland's lead and ban the voting machines.

In Germany, it was ruled that the machines violated a citizen's right to a transparent electoral process.  German Justice Rudolf Mellinghoff, who ruled on the hearing in Germany's highest court explained this concern.

"The problem with these machines was that you just only could cast your vote and you didn't know what the machine does with the thing you have pushed on the touchscreen. You really didn't know anything about it," said Mellinghoff.  "And early in the evening, the machine came out with some result and you didn't know whether it was correct or not. So, it was behind a black curtain, a black box."

Now that these three countries have gone back to voting with pencil and paper, what is next for the United States?  Watch tonight on "Dan Rather Reports."

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"Dan Rather Reports:  Das Vote" airs TONIGHT on HDNet at 8:00 p.m. ET with an encore presentation at 11:00 p.m. ET.

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