The voting machine fight is heating up. This time, the IEEE committee charged with creating the standard has become badly politicized, and is working to create a situation where actual performance metrics — you know, like on accountability and auditability — aren’t part of the picture. Diebold, et. al., badly want these standards in place quickly, and with a minimum amount of fuss — but if we get machines without adequate safeguards, fair elections will become a thing of the past. These firms are also lobbying to have the mechanisms of their electronic voting machines labeled trade secrets, which means “trust us; it works just fine.” Does this strike you as a good idea?

The Electronic Frontier Foundation has a petition. Go there, read, and sign if you agree. You can read more about this via this BoingBoing post and this post from JWZ’s livejournal; both link to other stories as well.

This is important, people. Pay attention.