As the headline explains in the August 17, 2008 editorial , "Suspicions of Ohio's voting systems are unwarranted and shouldn't worry voters", the Columbus Dispatch editorial board attempts to assure readers that all is safe with our voting system. Perhaps the board might want to do a little research including the most recent issue of Scientific American, 8/18/2008, entitled "Planning to E-Vote? Read this First" that suggests just the opposite. This article backs up studies by the GAO and Ohio's commissioned "Everest Report".
The Help America Vote Act (HAVA) was an epic failure pouring billions of tax dollars into a system that is not secure, not accurate and subject to tampering. Our elections are too important to allow a dysfunctional system to continue. It's time to address the problem head on and move forward to correct it.
AND STILL THEY PRINT THIS CRAP!
Planning to E-Vote? Read This First
With less than three months before the presidential election, the hotly contested state, Ohio, along with others, continue to have problems with E-voting technology
By Larry Greenemeier
from the article:
Suspecting problems with all of the e-voting technology that had so far cost Ohio $112 million, Brunner last year commissioned Project EVEREST, a comprehensive security review of the electronic voting technology used throughout Ohio, to identify any problems that might make elections vulnerable to tampering. During the 10-week project, teams of academic researchers from Pennsylvania State University, the University of Pennsylvania and WebWise Security (a security firm formed in 2005 by faculty and students from the University of California, Santa Barbara's security research group) examined DRE touch-screen and optical-scan voting systems from Premier,Election Systems and Software (ES&S) in Omaha, Neb., and Austin, Tex.–based Hart InterCivic as well as the software that manages these systems.
EVEREST researchers found exploitable security weaknesses in all three vendors' systems, Brunner said in a statement when the project concluded in December. "Many of these vulnerabilities represent practical threats to the integrity of elections as they are conducted in Ohio," she said. "We found vulnerabilities in different vendor systems that would, for example, allow voters and poll workers to place multiple votes, to infect the precinct with virus software or to corrupt previously cast votes—sometimes irrevocably."
"None of the systems out there are even remotely adequate given the importance of the data they handle," saysPatrick McDaniel, a Penn State professor of information security who led the EVEREST testing. A lot of the attacks that McDaniel and his team tested could be carried out at a polling place or county elections office in a matter of seconds. An example: when researchers placed a piece of white tape over part of an e-voting system's scanner, they were able to effectively block it from reading the entire ballot. In other words, a person could put the tape in a place that kept the system from counting votes for a particular candidate. The team also found that the keys to unlock Hart's ballot box could also be used to open the ballot boxes on the Premier systems.
http://www.sciam.com/article.cfm?id=electronic-election-day#commentsExamples of Voting System Vulnerabilities and Problems
• Cast ballots, ballot definition files, and audit logs
could be modified.
• Supervisor functions were protected with weak
or easily guessed passwords.
• Systems had easily picked locks and power
switches that were exposed and unprotected.
• Local jurisdictions misconfigured their
electronic voting systems, leading to
election day problems.
• Voting systems experienced operational
failures during elections.
• Vendors installed uncertified electronic
voting systems.
http://www.gao.gov/highlights/d05956high.pdf
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