Electronic Voting Machine article in Mother Jones

[in_cog_ni_to]

"Chad 2.0" Computer voting was suppose to revolutionize elections. But has it just updated old problems?

Great article in Mother Jones. It gives a very simple, step by step...1-5...of what the problems are. Some highlights.

1.Brand X....talks about ES&S being sued because their machines failed to boot up in time for the 2002 elections. They use a 1985 processing chip. Diebold posted their source code on the internet.

2.Good touch bad touch......dozens of Dallas voters tried to choose a Democrat on a ES&S machine but their taps on the screen highlighted a REPUBLICAN! Voters in Georgia were having the same problems on Diebold machines....Hmmmmmm. North Carolina....300 votes weren't counted on 6 ES&S i-votronic machines.

3.Code Red....voting machines are subject to VOLUNTARY federal guidelines. "Slot machines are more heavily regulated," says Adam Stubblefield, who studied voting machines at John Hopkins. No federal authority examines the terminals' computer code, leaving open the possibility that a schemeing programmer could insert a "Trojan Horse" program--hidden code that could switch vote totals and then cover it's tracks.

4. Not So Smart....Several terminals rely on "Smart Cards" to record unique votes. Diebold's encryption was so flimsy a "15 year old computer enthusiast could make counterfeit cards in a garage." MORE alarming, a hacker could use a home brewed card to change the display of candidates on the touch-screen ballot. "People will think they are voting for Alice, when they are actually voting for Bob." says computer scientist Dan S. Wallach of Rice University.

5. Hard (Drive) Evidence...Given the low levels of encrytion that protect the hard drives and networks used to store and transmit votes, a skilled hacker could add votes at an individual terminal or tamper with votes transmitted electronically. Internal Diebold memos from 2001 show the company intentionally left the database that tallied votes from it's terminals UNENCRYPTED----as a convenience to the election officials.The same feature could allow anyone with the proper access to change vote totals without a trace. Fake votes would be indistinquishable from the real ones.

Then it goes on to talk about Diebold's CEO donating big $$$ to the GOP, holding a $1000.00 a plate fund raiser for the shrub and promising to do everything in his power to get the shrub elected.

More and more people are writing about this! I don't see the republicans getting away with this anymore....too many people know about it...Thanks to Bev Harris and BBV!

[Bushfire]

1. Nice find! Thanks for posting. n/t

[Oracle]

2. Got my Mother Jones today in the mail, haven't had a chance to read it yet

...I will check it out.

[leftchick]

3. thanks....

I will run out and get one....

[Nlighten1]

4. Link? nt

[in_cog_ni_to]

5. No link.

That is out of my paper copy of Mother Jones. I looked on the web site and they don't have this issue up yet.

[Silverhair]

6. Bad News. 9th circuit court upholds BBV

Here is the link: http://www.sfgate.com/cgi-bin/article.cgi?f=/news/archive/2003/10/29/state0331EST0005.DTL

[in_cog_ni_to]

8. We need to get H.R.2239

passed.

As you posted below, freepers are nervous now because this is such a widespread KNOWN issue. A Dem hacker can hack away just as easily as a RWer can. They aren't too thrilled with the Dems being able to subvert THEIR vote, are they? When this was first exposed they tried to poo-poo it as another Dem conspiracy theory. Now that the same can be done to them, all of a sudden, it's legitimate. If Congress doesn't pass H.R.2239 I hope the Dems hire some very talented hackers. :7

[Silverhair]

9. Could you tell me more about that bill?

Maybe post a link to a synopsis of it?

[Silverhair]

7. Freepers don't want BBV either.

I did some surfing on the conservative sites. Here is one freeper's comment:

"Every leftie European hacker must be salivating at the prospect of getting rid of GWB..."

It seems that the freepers are just as mistrustful of BBV as we are. Looks like we have something in common.

BTW - About slot machines. There are electronic devices that can be won on the body that will cause the machine to hit paying combinations. It has been some years since I have worked with a casino so I don't know if that is still true. There are loads of sites that give information on how Diebold machines can be hacked.

I didn't like the old voting machines. They were easy to rig too. Put a toothpick under a lever and break it off - stops the lever from registering. Lots of other tricks too.

I like a paper trail. If we have to start counting chads again then that's OK. At least the chads are there to be counted.