New concerns about electronic voting machines being hacked

[MelissaB]

New concerns about electronic voting machines being hacked

By:Mike Deeson



Tampa, Floirda - As voters were going to the polls this past fall some were raising concerns about electronic machines, but supervisors of elections officials throughout the state said there was no worry.

Buddy Johnson, Hillsborough Supervisor of Elections:
“Our systems are very secure the voters are confident, they love the machines for the most part.“

But when the message "Are We having Fun Yet?" appeared on the screen of a voting machine in test in Tallahassee last week, new concerns arose that the machines can be hacked.

Buddy Johnson, Hillsborough Supervisor of Elections:
“The policy and the procedures in Hillsborough county where nothing like that would ever happen.“

And even though the system was penetrated in Tallahassee, Johnson says he believes it is impossible for that to happen with the voting machines that are used here.

Buddy Johnson, Hillsborough Supervisor of Elections:
“By definition it can't happen, because there is no connection to the internet. Can't hack in to it, there is no way to get in to it.“

Mark Kamleiter:
“If it is electronic and computer based it's hackable.“

Attorney Mark Kamleiter who is pushing for a paper back up to the electronic machines, points out that poll workers have access to hardware where the electronic votes are stored. Kamlieter says the internet is necessary to manipulate the vote.


More: http://www.tampabays10.com/news/news.aspx?storyid=14806



Note: Please go to the link and watch the video clip. I can't post a link to it here.

[Tandalayo_Scheisskopf]

1. The sysstems have an OS.

That means they can be hacked. That fact is increased by orders of magnitude by the fact that the predominant OS is Windows.

[Peace Patriot]

2. Excellent! Thanks for the post! Word is getting getting out!

But it's important that this not just cause a muddle in peoples' brains--causing them to flee from politics ("they're all dishonest"), and not vote ("elections are all fixed"), and not fight back with

election reform!
at the local/state level!

Sounds like somebody ought to send Mr. Deeson a copy of...

"Myth Breakers: Facts About Electronic Elections" (2nd edition): www.votersunite.org

...and a few other things, say...

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Easy demo of how insecure voting machines are, by Republican hacker Chuck Herrin:
http://www.chuckherrin.com/hackthevote.htm

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or (and?)

Johns Hopkins report on insecurity of electronic voting: "Analysis of Electronic Voting System"
http://www.scoop.co.nz/mason/stories/HL0307/S00196.htm#5
by Tadayoshi Kohno, Adam Stubblefield, and Aviel D. Rubin of the Information Security Institute, Johns Hopkins University, and Dan S. Wallach, Department of Computer Science, Rice University
July 23, 2003

From the Abstract:

"Our analysis shows that this voting system is far below even the most minimal security standards applicable in other contexts.

"We highlight several issues including unauthorized privilege escalation, incorrect use of cryptography, vulnerabilities to network threats, and poor software development processes. For example, common voters, without any insider privileges, can cast unlimited votes without being detected by any mechanisms within the voting terminal. Furthermore, we show that even the most serious of our outsider attacks could have been discovered without the source code. In the face of such attacks, the usual worries about insider threats are not the only concerns; outsiders can do the damage. That said, we demonstrate that the insider threat is also quite considerable. We conclude that, as a society, we must carefully consider the risks inherent in electronic voting, as it places our very democracy at risk."

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or/and the UC Berkeley report...

Florida: 130,000 to 230,000 phantom votes for Bush--paper vs. electronic voting—in Florida's 3 biggest Democratic counties (Miami-Dade, Brower and Palm Beach); calls for investigation:
http://ucdata.berkeley.edu
Report issued 11/18/04, by Dr. Michael Haut, & U.C. Berkeley Quantitative Methods Research Team; Haut is a nationally-known expert on statistical methods and member of the National Academy of Sciences and the U.C. Berkeley Survey Research Center

"UC Berkeley Research Team Sounds 'Smoke Alarm' for Florida E-Vote Count
Statistical Analysis - the Sole Method for Tracking E-Voting - Shows Irregularities May Have Awarded 130,000 - 260,000 or More Excess Votes to Bush in Florida
Research Team Calls for Investigation"
Press release: http://www.commondreams.org/news2004/1118-14.htm

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or/and, articles like this...

http://www.news4jax.com/politics/3890292/detail.html

Broward Vote-Counting Blunder Changes Amendment Result 11/4/04

"'The software is not geared to count more than 32,000 votes in a precinct. So what happens when it gets to 32,000 is the software starts counting backward,' said Broward County Mayor Ilene Lieberman."

"Putney said there is a lot of finger-pointing going on in the elections department. Lieberman blames ES&S Systems, which manufactures the software in question. She says they've known about the problem for at least two years because there was a Broward County mayoral race in which the same thing happened. She said nothing was done about it."

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or/and

sports commentator Jim Lampley's and Chic Trib columnist Robert Koehler's articles on election fraud (don't have the urls handy).

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or/and

Cite for Diebold CEO Wally O'Dell's letter about "delivering" Ohio to Bush/Cheney in '04, and for ES&S rightwing funding (don't have them handy).

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FLORIDIANS, TAKE ACTION! (I've got my hands full with California right now.)

[tommcintyre]

3. kick

[Melissa G]

4. kick