From the Richmond Times-Dispatch:
The State Board of Elections wants to prevent the public from seeing documents describing voting security assessments or audits by local electoral boards in Virginia.
Security of voting machines was a major issue across the nation during last month’s presidential election.
Yesterday at a meeting of the Freedom of Information Advisory Council, elections board representatives asked the council to endorse legislation that would make a new exemption for such documents in the Freedom of Information Act.
Such a change would have to be passed by the 2005 General Assembly.
Rosanna Bencoach,manager of the election board’s policy division, said the board is worried that hackers could break into new computerized voting equipment using information obtained from the audits.
We’ve handed over our voting system to a few private corporations, raising serious doubts among the American public whether we can trust the results of elections, and Virginia’s response is to make the results even more of a secret? This is a terribly regressive step.
Fortunately, I’m not the only one who thinks this.
J. Stewart Bryan III, publisher of the Richmond Times-Dispatch and a member of the advisory council, objected saying voting should be subjected to public scrutiny.
I hope that the Freedom of Information Advisory Council will let this proposal die. It’s of no good to anyone.