"Waiting To Be Hacked" Voting Machines Dropped Off - Left Sitting - Unsecured

[kpete]

NOVEMBER 3, 2008 11:57PM
Waiting to be hacked





Voting materials and machines dropped off and left sitting, unsecured in polling place on Wednesday

Tomorrow, my school will be used as a polling place for Washoe County, Nevada. As I was leaving school today, I happened to walk through our main gathering area which we call The Forum. The space is used for a cafeteria, assemblies, plays, and, tomorrow it will be a poll. The outside doors open directly onto this space and there is no way to secure it or lock it off from anyone entering the building.

Imagine my surprise when I came across this sight. Three large stacks of voting machines and the other equipment necessary to run them. Totally unattended and not secured in any way. Upon asking around, I found they had been delivered earlier in the day and were waiting for the poll workers to come and set them up. The Forum is a busy place and adults and kids were constantly passing these machines all day. Another teacher happens to be passing by and I ask her opinion. We both agree that this is not an ok situation. I get out my cell phone and take some pictures for the record.

much more at:
http://open.salon.com/content.php?cid=37894

[DS1]

1. It would appear to me that a lot of poll workers are some stupid stupid people

[groovedaddy]

3. Poll workers usually aren't on site until election morning. These machines

were left there last Wednesday. This is a county clerk/board of elections issue, I would guess.

[groovedaddy]

2. What does your county clerk or secretary of state (or other election officials) have to

say for themselves?
We have a Dem county clerk (an older guy) and he is just way too trusting of digital voting machines.

What they did by leaving those machines, sitting there without out security, should be regarded as a crime.

After this election, we should be ripe for some serious election reform.

[louis-t]

4. Your county clerk may be up for re-election.

You know what to do.

[sharp_stick]

5. It looks like the cases are sealed?

If so, it should be OK.

[bvar22]

6. This is the rule, not the exception.

I am a member of our Rural Fire Dept (Arkansas). Our firehouse is also the Polling Station for our precinct. The voting machines were dropped off several days ago, and remained stacked on the floor until this morning.
The Firehouse is not secure. Nobody stays there. Many people know where the key is.
It would be easy to gain access to these machines.

I don't believe that there is widespread hacking of individual machines by partisan political criminals on the local level.....the risks would far outweigh the rewards. It would take a HUGE conspiracy involving hundreds (thousands) of co-ordinated participants with tech skills sneaking into Polling Stations, gaining access to individual machines over a 24 hour timespan. Each machine would have to be opened, reprogrammed or patched, and resealed. The reward would be at most several hundred votes per machine. It would take too much time on scene....someone would get caught or someone would gain a conscience.

If there is on-goingmachine rigging, it is in the hardware, software, or at the compiling or network level. That could reap MILLIONS of votes, and involve only a few people.

[bertman]

9. bvar22, that is precisely correct. That's why the software is proprietary.

Hmmm.

[GregD]

7. Welcome back KP!

Have some nice time off?

[eppur_se_muova]

8. Drop-off service -- no waiting! Guaranteed complete within 1 hr or your hack is free*! nt

*meaning everyone pays for it