SPENCER MICHELS: Computer scientists at Johns Hopkins University released a study this summer that indicates the software in some Diebold voting machines “had significant and wide- reaching security vulnerabilities” and that “a malevolent developer could easily make changes to the code.” That prompted Maryland and Ohio to put orders for the machines on hold. Seiler says the Hopkins study was flawed.

DEBORAH SEILER: They made assumptions about this being like a personal computer, which it isn’t. They made assumptions about this being hooked up to the Internet, which it’s never hooked up to the Internet. Neither this machine is hooked up to the Internet, nor is the ballot tabulation server hooked up to the Internet.

The above comment should give voters pause. For the sake of argument, let’s assume there is no conspiracy, no fraud in the works. Seiler’s semi-articulate criticism of the John’s Hopkins study was made in the same year Diebold was hacked
and internal documents exposed admitting there were “unauthorized” replacement electronic votes cast in Florida in the 2000 election. The fact that Seilers was such a cheerleader for these machines, and gave them clearly unqualified praise in the same year her own company was proven to know there were problems with them, would make any reasonable person suspect of her objectivity and automatically disqualify her from this position.