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October 3, 2006

Is This Where SkyNet Got The Idea?

Hey, as if you and I don't have enough to be upset about, what about voting fraud next month aided and abetted by electronic voting machines?

Watch this video from Princeton University's Center for Information Technology Policy :

Key moments in the voiceover:

Every record kept by the voting machine shows the same fraudulent result.

[. . . .]

No evidence remains that the machine was ever hijacked. No evidence remains that any votes were stolen. As far as anyone can tell, the election was conducted fairly. But the result is fraudulent.

[. . . .]

These problems, taken together, pose a very serious threat to the security of the elections conducted on Diebold Accuvote TS voting machines.

Gee? Ya think?

- * - * - * - * -

The New York Times reports on the Princeton study and the shocking number of voting problems caused by Diebold machines last month during the midterm primaries. (The link may require registration or "Times Select," so I'll mention my favorite moments below.)

"...widespread problems with the new technology were reported this year in primaries in Ohio, Arkansas, Illinois, Maryland and elsewhere."

But...

"Deborah L. Markowitz, the Vermont secretary of state and the president of the National Association of Secretaries of State, said that while there might be some problems in November, she expected them to be limited and isolated."

I feel so much better!

Mr. Radke [director of marketing for Diebold Election Systems] dismissed the concerns about hackers and bugs as most often based on unrealistic scenarios.

“We don’t leave these machines sitting on a street corner,” he said. “But in one of these cases, they gave the hackers complete and unfettered access to the machines.”

Warren Stewart, legislative director for VoteTrustUSA, an advocacy group that has criticized electronic voting, said that after poll workers are trained to use the machines in the days before an election, many counties send the machines home with the workers. “That seems like pretty unfettered access to me,” Mr. Stewart said.

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There is no reason why electronic voting machines should not have a constantly-updated paper trail for every vote cast.

And there is no reason why voting machine software shouldn't be an open-source, transparent project to generate the best possible (i.e., simplest and most tamper-proof) program.

No reason except that you want your machines to be hackable.

Posted by reparent at October 3, 2006 8:46 AM