Unprecedented opportunities for electoral fraud: Gaurdian Article

[Lost in GA]

"The hacks in the machine"
http://www.guardian.co.uk/uselections2004/story/0,13918,1160482,00.html
Tuesday March 2, 2004

Stealing an election used to take some doing. Sometimes the dead had to vote. With new voting equipment in use today in California, Georgia and Maryland for the Super Tuesday primaries, it now may be possible to hijack the results with nothing more than a phone call into a computer modem. There is nothing fanciful about the possibility of things going wrong. In one election last year in Indiana, the new electronic equipment recorded more than 100,000 votes in an election with only 19,000 registered voters.

The biggest beneficiary so far has been Diebold Electronic Voting Systems, part of a company that makes bank vaults and automatic teller machines and has now become a leading supplier to the newly created voting systems market. Independent software experts concerned about the security of the systems found that Diebold had posted the source code for the software on the company's web site. In short order, they found ways to manipulate the code to produce fraudulent results and then hacked their way into a list of phone numbers for the modems being installed on Diebold servers. For more information see blackboxvoting.org. Diebold employees turned whistleblowers last year to reveal that the company had produced fixes for some flaws, then altered the software without consulting election officials. Whether the fixes worked or not, the fact that a vendor could alter a voting machine's operating system without the approval of the authorities has itself caused alarm.

Diebold's chief executive and other company officers have contributed more than $600,000 to the Bush re-election campaign and pledged to fellow Republicans that he would do everything in his power to ensure Bush's re-election (a statement he now regrets, according to a spokesman).

"Those who cast the votes decide nothing," said Josef Stalin. "Those who count the votes decide everything."

[rogerashton]

1. When Mickey Mouse gets a majority --

or maybe Errico Malatesta -- you will know that the anarchists hacked it last.

[librechik]

2. Lost in GA--Link missing?

also, FYI this excerpt needs to be edited down to 4 paragraphs for copyright reasons--a Mod will come along and delete you if you don't fix it!

Thanks for the article, and welcome to DU!

[Lost in GA]

5. thanks, I'll try and fix it (N/t)

[parasim]

4. Actually that would be the best thing to happen

to really show how vulnerable those boxes are.

Of course, we're not so lucky, because the hired hackers will get there first and do the cheat undetectable and all we'll have to go on are "anomolies" and "technical difficulties". and elections will be stolen right from under our noses.

It is a tragedy that more people aren't concerned about this.

[Vitruvius]

3. LINK to original article:

http://www.guardian.co.uk/uselections2004/story/0,13918,1160482,00.html

b/t/w, we're only supposed to post about 4 paragraphs from the article -- for copyright reasons -- and then provide a link so interested readers can look at the full article. Of course, you get to pick the most interesting paragraphs to post...

And welcome to DU!

[Lost in GA]

6. Thanks!