Last month, we reported on yet another election botched by defective Diebold voting machines. Maryland primaries were plagued by machine crashes and human error, leading Governor Robert L. Ehrlich Jr. to insist that the state shelve the $100 million voting machines and return to paper ballots until the problems could be resolved. The state Board of Elections administrator vowed to "work around the clock" and put pressure on Diebold to ensure that the machines worked for the upcoming election. During a mock election yesterday intended to test Diebold's latest fixes, the problems continued but with much less severity.

How did Diebold fix the most serious problems that affected the digital poll books and voting machines? The company provided a mouse for each of the touchscreen devices, and insisted that users refrain from touching the screen. That's right, the Diebold touchscreens don't like to be touched. When a user neglected to heed Diebold's warning and operated the electronic poll book by touching the screen during the mock election, the device lost synchronization with other poll books and had to be rebooted. The company claims that it can develop a software fix for the problem, and they have offered to either provide the state with 5,500 mice or install the software update so that the touchscreen can be used.

Although many of the other problems with the machines seem to have been resolved, and crashes are no longer frequent occurrences, Governor Ehrlich remains unimpressed. The Republican Governor, who attended the mock election test run, continues to encourage voters to use absentee ballots in order to avoid the flawed machines.

Diebold has been hit with a steady stream of bad press for the past two years. Already banned in some states, the voting machine company's products are a frequent target of criticism as security experts continue to find egregious flaws in the technology, including vulnerability to self-propagating viruses. The voting machines recently disrupted elections in Alaska, where the state Democratic Party now considers voting machine accountability a high political priority. With considerable criticism from both sides of the political aisle in multiple states, it is hard to believe that anybody is willing to buy these machines at all. The Maryland election will be a major test. If it runs smoothly, it will be an indication that the technical problems with the machines can be resolved. Even if that is the case, security experts believe that the machines will have to be completely replaced in order to eliminate the most serious security defects. Without a paper-trail and the ability to perform election audits, voters will never be certain that the machines properly functioned.