The center of the investigation is the log design which allows "election official or someone else to delete votes without leaving an electronic trail." But according to a previous statement by Justin Bales, general service manager of the company making the machines, it's not so much a flaw in design as it is in planning:

We never . . . intended for any malicious intent and not to log certain activities," Bales said. "It was just not in the initial program, but now we're taking a serious look at that.

Whatever the cause or reason, at least new versions of the voting machines include more comprehensive logs as well as safeguards against alterations, but it's about damn time the previous ones are being investigated. [Wired]

Results from "How Many Times Has Your Xbox 360 Gone Down With a RROD?"

0: 32%
1: 28%
2: 17%
3: 9%
4: 4%
More than 4: 11%

Technically Astronaut voters cast an electronic Absentee ballot that is prepared by the County Clerk's office in Harris and Brazoria counties. The secure document is then transferred to Mission Control at the Johnson Space Center, while an email with login instructions is sent to the astronaut. The astronaut logs in, votes and beams the ballot back down to mission control. The completed ballot is then sent back to the Clerk's office to be tallied. The first astronaut to do this was in 1997 when Michael Wolf voted from the Russian Space Station Mir and—OH MY GOD DID THOSE COMMIE RUSKIES GET TO WOLF AND HIS BALLOT AND CORRUPT OUR SACRED DEMOCRATIC PROCESS?! [Space.com via MSNBC]

The dude being beamed across the country next to Wolf will have 44 cameras trained on him, with 20 computers in his location crunching the video feeds to produce 360-degree imaging data. All of that stuff is sent to New York, where the images are processed and projected by another array of cams and comps. then, plasma TVs back in Chicago and Phoenix will let the interviewees see Wolf and the other CNN people. CNN can project two different views from each city, so Wolf can be flanked by two different holograms.

Man, I so know where I'm watching the election coverage. The future. [USA Today via The Guardian via Waxy via BBG, Whew]

The Price: Free with registration

The Verdict: Unclear.

There have been lots of criticisms of the betas and early releases of the reliability of the touchscreen models, but all that matters is them working on the release day. And today is finally the release day for these super-hot gadgets after an agonizingly-long two-year marketing push, so expect lines as long as the iPhone lines in certain markets. Plan ahead!

We need more hands-on with these, but luckily, they're free for all American citizens today, so go out and use them and then let us know how it went. Take pictures or video if you're up for it. We want a really comprehensive review here, so make sure you use them. They're the most important gadgets you can play with, after all.

I'm not suggesting you have to use Twitter—or know what Twitter is—to make sound judgments as a leader of the free world. It's not about being pro-net neutrality, either. These things are trivial. It's the long view—can someone who doesn't know how to read a newspaper online by himself truly comprehend just how connected the world is? (How can someone who can't read newspapers online function at all when they cease to be printed on paper?)

How can the techno-illiterate appreciate that technology is both the cause and the cure for our bruised economy, from the globally connected financial crises at hand to America's potential economic revitalization through a charge into green energy systems that spur innovation, create jobs and help to shatter our dependence on oil? Temporarily cheaper gas is a not a means to economics growth—and we will run out in our lifetime. US entrepreneurship is driven by technology and innovation, and it's key to maintaining our superpower status. A green energy—i.e., technology—economy would reboot all of that.

Technology constantly redefines the way we wage war, but it also aims to assuage the global food crisis. It will heal sick people who couldn't be cured before better. Hell, it's what will make flights finally arrive on time. The person at the wheel should know how to use a GPS—and Google, online newspapers, maybe even a smartphone.

That's a small list, but there's a big point. No, I'm not naïve enough to think this will change anyone's mind—in fact I hope your decision is not made so lightly that it possibly could. But I wanted to be clear: The future of this country, on many fronts, is tightly tied up with technology and what we do with it. I don't think it will ever again be possible to vote for someone who doesn't understand that. So why do it now?

[Left Image: Giz Photoshop Contest; Center Image: Thirty30 Photography; Right Image: Gary He]

Waybright actually seems like a really stand-up guy on people being able to vote the way they want, and details some of the measures they're taking to make sure that happens. The machines have confirmation screens, and they'll have techs at the polling places, just in case problems do pop up. It looks like an easy enough fix too—the same machine, when properly calibrated, should work just fine. So just be sure to double check your vote on Tuesday, wherever and however you're voting. [Video the Vote]

The Princeton University Center for Information Technology Policy has gone and published a report detailing the security vulnerabilities of the Sequoia e-voting machines and exactly how they hacked them. It turns out you just need to replace a single ROM chip, a process that takes about 7 minutes. Just tell the poll workers that you're undecided and need to really think about it in the booth.

Even better? Once you install fraudulent firmware on one machine, it can virally spread itself to other machines, meaning you can commit widespread voter fraud across your entire state by just messing with one single machine. Isn't that awesome! And it'll keep propagating itself, effecting the next election as well, and the election after that.

Oh, and that fraudulent firmware? It's a mere 122 lines of code and took them 2 days to write. They say that anyone with a computer science background could cook it up pretty easily.

America! Wooooooo hoo! [Ars Technica]

Besides being ironically hard drive-less, they have most of the parts turned off for extra security. Even with essentially iron-clad dumb terminals, security remains a huge issue like it was when internet voting was considered in 2004, so we're still a couple elections away from voting while pre-ordering our next Nintendo system just one tab over. But at least we're getting there. [Pop Mechanics via Dvice]

Some officials blamed it on user error for not touching the screens properly—Jackson County Clerk Jeff Waybright said that 400 people voted early using Election Systems & Software's machines without any problems at all. Oh and:

"I hate the fact that stories like this are printed. It makes everybody get scared. That is not good for anybody. Where the fault is, I don't know and the voter doesn't know. There needs to be good communication between the voters and the poll workers."

After being contacted by the Secretary of State's office, though, they've agreed to re-calibrate the machines. Ones of the counties with touchscreen wonkiness, Putnam, will actually use an optical scan machine with a full-size paper ballot on election day—the touchscreens are just for early voting, so it hopefully won't be an issue.

The takeaway is that whoever you're voting for, wherever you're doing it, whatever you're using, double-check it to make sure it was properly recorded before you walk out of the booth. If it's not, call the poll person over, it's what they're there for. Of course, if you see voting machines doing anything particularly crazy, be sure to let us know about it. [Wired]

It supposedly tracks Obama tech news and events, but it does a pretty crappy job at it, even though there's a ton of stuff to cover, which would go to their whole point—no mention of the Dems' digital billboard at the Palin rally, the fact that the $3 million dollar projector he supported is sweetass, or most surprisingly, the Obama iPhone app.

They don't talk about the fact that Joe Biden sucks on tech stuff, either, but that's kind of expected. He's, like, old and stuff.

Update: Here's Wired's take on both candidates. [Tech for Obama]

P.S. Please keep all flaming to a low smolder, thanks.

REDMOND, Wash. — Aug. 21, 2008 — A leading gaming and entertainment platform just became a leading platform for change. Microsoft Corp. and Rock the Vote today announced a groundbreaking partnership that will allow Xbox 360 owners to register to vote, participate in presidential polls and voice their opinions to the presidential candidates. It will all happen through Xbox LIVE starting Monday, Aug. 25, the first day of the Democratic National Convention.
“Xbox is a natural partner to help us reach out to youth voters,” said Heather Smith, executive director, Rock the Vote. “To realize our goal of registering 2 million young Americans by this fall, we need to go where young Americans are, and there’s no doubt in our minds that many are on Xbox 360 and Xbox LIVE.”
This is the first time that Rock the Vote has joined forces with an entertainment partner such as Xbox to reach voters under 30. Xbox LIVE is the largest online social network connected to the television, with membership totaling 12 million — if Xbox LIVE were a state, it would rank as the country’s seventh largest, giving it approximately 20 electoral votes.
“The Xbox LIVE community is active, vocal and passionate,” said Marc Whitten, general manager of Xbox LIVE. “We’re thrilled to partner with Rock the Vote to make it easier than ever for youth voters — and our members — to register and be heard.”
Through the Rock the Vote partnership, Xbox LIVE members will be able to register to vote, voice their opinions to the candidates through an exclusive forum and participate in potentially election-predicting polls. They will also be able to download Rock the Vote public service announcements.
Xbox also will have a presence at both the Democratic and Republican conventions, promoting the Rock the Vote partnership and educating delegates about creating a safer entertainment environment on Xbox 360 and Xbox LIVE using the built-in parental controls known as Family Settings. These industry-leading settings allow parents to limit their children’s access to video games and movies and manage their activity and communications on Xbox LIVE. For more information on Family Settings and other safety-enhancing gaming tools and resources, delegates can stop by the Xbox on-site kiosk or visit http://www.xbox.com/isyourfamilyset.

The Diebold machines achieved notoriety in the 2004 presidential election, losing hundreds of votes and exhibiting several serious security flaws. This is equipment proven to be vulnerable to attack, and Michael I. Shamos, professor of computer science at Carnegie Mellon University and an official examiner of Pennsylvania electronic voting systems, said the machines had "the most severe security flaw ever discovered in a voting system." In 2006, dropped votes were discovered in 11 of the 44 Ohio counties in which the equipment was used.

Premier pre-emptively sued Brunner and the Cuyahoga County Board of Elections, seeking a court order that they have held up their side of the contract. This is evidently a standard move when one party believes they are about to be sued, as a decision in Premier's favor would prevent Cuyahoga County from suing for breach of contract. Brunner's suit, actually a countersuit, is an attempt to recover taxpayer money spent on the faulty machines, to the tune of $22 million.

The scariest part of the story is that these machines are still somehow in use, and it is too late to make the change to the recommended optically-scanned paper ballots by this November's election. Brunner says Ohio residents should remain calm as they vote this fall, and that officials will be on hand to make sure all votes are tallied. There, now you Ohioans can vote in total confidence! [Ars Technica]

Apparently, a candidate's name was marked as withdrawn on a number of voting machines and the internal audit capability on the machines had been manually disabled by election board programmers, which is pretty shady. And Ohio doesn't exactly have a great record when it comes to voting.

Two Cuyahoga election officials were convicted of rigging a recount in May 2004 because they literally admitted to doing precounts and displayed the evidence while being recorded on videotape. A different Cuyahoga county recount, for a November 2007 local election, was equally marred when Brunner turned the state's voter-verifiable paper audit trail law into a mockery by conducting the recount with paper ballots reprinted after the election from voting machine memory cards.