Breaking The Code

If anyone wonders why the Democracy Campaign and other critics of Wisconsin's contract with Accenture to develop a computerized statewide voter registration list made such a big deal about the underlying computer source code remaining the private property of the company under the original agreement, take a look at this. (You need RealPlayer to view it. If you don't have it, go here.) The video clip features sworn testimony computer programmer Clinton Curtis gave at a congressional hearing. Curtis describes how easy it is to alter vote totals and fix election results, and says it can be done without a trace . . . unless you can inspect the source code.

Our citizen lawsuit challenging the Accenture deal ultimately fell short of the goal of getting the contract cancelled, but it did succeed in forcing changes to the contract to permit inspection of the source code.