In the newspaper Jewish Times, Joel N. Shurkin wrote on October 29: "Last month, U.S. Sen. Barbara A. Mikulski decided to try one of Maryland's new voting machines in Takoma Park. It was a brand-new Diebold AccuVote-TS. The state of Maryland has just spent $55 million for the ATM-like electronic voting devices to be used in the upcoming presidential election. The AccuVote, acting just as a demonstration, offered two choices: 'yes' and 'no.' Sen. Mikulski pressed 'no.' The machine registered 'yes.' The cackling sound you heard was Avi Rubin, technical director of the Information Security Institute at John Hopkins. But, as Dr. Rubin will openly confess, it really wasn't funny."