ELECTRONIC voting has been hit by a fresh blow. An entire ballot may need to be rerun after a software upgrade to touch-screen machines wiped key data.
Last Thursday California superior court justice Winifred Smith issued a voiding the results of a 2004 vote in Alameda county over restrictions on medical marijuana dispensaries. She called for the measure to appear on the ballot in the county鈥檚 next general election. 鈥淭his case could set a precedent,鈥� says e-voting expert Avi Rubin of Johns Hopkins University in Baltimore, Maryland.
The measure initially lost by just 191 votes, prompting a recount. Before the recount got the go-ahead, however, officials returned the machines to their manufacturer, who reset them, destroying 96 per cent of the data.
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