Virginia halts use of voting machines considered vulnerable to hacking

[Eugene]

Also see this GD thread: BREAKING: Virginia Board of Elections Votes Unamimously to Remove All Paperless Voting Machines

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Source: Reuters

#U.S. SEPTEMBER 8, 2017 / 7:05 PM / UPDATED 7 HOURS AGO

Virginia halts use of voting machines considered vulnerable to hacking

Dustin Volz
2 MIN READ

WASHINGTON (Reuters) - Virginia on Friday agreed to stop using paperless touchscreen voting machines that had been flagged by cyber security experts as potentially vulnerable to hackers and lacking sufficient vote auditing capabilities.

The action represented one of the most concrete steps taken by a U.S. state to bolster the cyber security of election systems since the 2016 presidential race, when U.S. intelligence agencies say Russia waged a digital influence campaign to help President Donald Trump win.

Virginia’s board of elections voted to accept a recommendation from its state election director, Edgardo Cortes, to decertify so-called direct-recording electronic machines, which count votes digitally and do not produce paper trails that can be checked against a final result.

Barbara Simons, the president of Verified Voting, a nonprofit that advocates for auditable elections, applauded the decision as “a critical step toward securing its elections”.

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Read more: http://www.reuters.com/article/us-usa-cyber-election-virginia/virginia-halts-use-of-voting-machines-considered-vulnerable-to-hacking-idUSKCN1BJ2PY

[ATL Ebony]

1. Really hope this becomes a trend. GA is fighting against this change; however, they've

modified the voting experience to produces a paper result of your votes. The paper is intended to confirm for the voter that their votes have been recorded as they intended. The paper result is then inserted into the machine to finally cast their vote, thus also providing a paper trail if needed. This modification will reportedly be ready this Fall for municipal elections.

[Gothmog]

2. It is time to replace these machines

These machines are past their intended life and need to be replaced