which are being used for the Iowa straw poll this weekend.
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“It is very important, that’s why we’ve gone to all these extremes,” said Chuck Laudner, executive director of the Republican Party of Iowa. “We’re spending thousands and thousands of dollars to put in all these levels of security.”
But questions are being raised, particularly by supporters of Republican presidential hopeful Ron Paul, about the party’s plan to use optical-scan voting machines manufactured by Diebold Election Systems. Voting machines manufactured by the company have come under fire after California researchers found they might be vulnerable to computer hackers.
Although some of Paul’s most vocal supporters are taking to radio call-in shows and online blogs to cry fraud, his campaign is not sounding alarm bells.
No other campaigns have raised concerns about the voting process.
“We don’t have huge concerns,” said Jesse Benton, communications director for the Paul campaign.
He said Paul backers want a hand-count of paper ballots to confirm the machine count.
“We’re just asking for transparency to make sure there’s fairness in this whole voting process,” Benton said.
Laudner insisted that the Diebold machines being used at the straw poll to scan ballots are not the same machines sparking controversy in Florida, California and elsewhere. He said the devices will not be hooked to a network, so hacking would not be a threat to the straw poll.
http://www.qctimes.com/news/elections/doc46ba9133b39b2373106164.txt***