Most Colorado voting machines DE-certified

Bradblog - the source for news of electonic voting shenanigans of our major voting machine companies - documents the utter failure of machines purchased by Colorado's various electoral officials:

A summary of the decertified and conditionally certified systems follow (links to more information on each, at the end of this article):

• All voting systems made by Election Systems & Software, Inc. (ES&S), both paper-based optical-scan and DREs, were completely decertified. Their op-scan systems tested, according to Coffman, "both failed because of an inability to determine if the devices work correctly and an inability to complete the testing threshold of 10,000 ballots due to vendor programming errors." Their ubiqutous, and fatally flawed iVotronic DRE system "failed because it is easily disabled by voters activating the device interface, and the system lacks an audit trail to detect security violations."
• Paper-based optical-scan systems made by Sequoia Voting Systems were conditionally certified, while their DRE systems were completely decertified for use, as they "failed due to a variety of security risk factors, including that the system is not password protected, has exposed controls potentially giving voters unauthorized access, and lacks an audit trail to detect security violations."
• Paper-based optical-scan systems made by Hart Intercivic were decertified "because test results showed that they could not accurately count ballots"(!), while their DRE voting system was conditionally certified.
• And finally, both optical-scan and DRE voting systems made by Diebold/Premier were conditionally certified for use in Colorado.

Even though EPC's status wasn't affected, that doesn't mean we should blindly trust Bob Balink, who tends to go off the elected official reservation, too. Some of Colorado's other Republican voting officials put us in the spot we're in today:

All of Colorado's electronic voting systems were decertified just prior to the November 2006 election when a state judge ruled, in a lawsuit brought by state voters, that testing and certification procedures for e-voting systems in the Centennial State were inadequate, largely non-existent, and in violation of state law. As the judge's decertification order came just prior to that years' elections, the systems were allowed for use, but decertified immediately thereafter. The state was forced to begin the certification process from scratch thereafter...

"I had to strictly follow the law along with the court order," Coffman said in a statement [PDF] released this afternoon summarizing the findings. "If I’m too lenient in determining what passes then I risk having the state taken to court by activists groups who will ask for an injunction on the use of electronic voting machines for the 2008 election, and if I exceed the requirements of state law and the court order, then I will be sued by the vendors who manufacture and sell the equipment."

Yes, you do risk that, Mr. Coffman. I hope you don't feel too put upon by having to follow the law.