Voting Machine Activist Hacks the Vote in Washington, Gets Attention Elsewhere
Diebold dismisses ‘magic show,’ but impact is clear
By Dan Seligson
electionline.org
Paper trail activist Bev Harris said this week that the country faces serious threats in the upcoming election – not only from paperless e-voting machines, but from the centralized computer tabulators that will tally millions of votes on November 2.
To demonstrate, she hacked into Diebold’s tabulating program changing a hypothetical candidate’s vote total by more than 9,000 votes, all within a matter of minutes.
The vote counter, made by election giant Diebold Election Systems Inc., is so easy to hack undetected that even a chimp could do it, Harris said, and to demonstrate, showed a video of grinning “Baxter” doing exactly that.
Harris, an investigative reporter and author, told reporters in Washington on Wednesday that about 80 percent of votes cast in the upcoming election will be counted using Diebold’s GEMS (Global Election Management Software). The GEMS software, while seemingly secure with password protection and an apparently locked screen showing results, is a mouse click away from being completely vulnerable, she said.
Using Microsoft Access, a database program, a user without any password can open up the database that feeds the information to the tabulator, change the totals, and scrub the system of any evidence of tampering. Using a two-digit code, Harris said you can disengage the two sets of vote tables that are linked to prevent back-door tampering.
“Open up the GEMS program through Access, and you own that election,” Harris said.
Diebold spokesman David Bear said Harris offered the gathered activists and media “a magic show.”
“It’s a contrived demonstration where they are presenting something that they want you to believe,” he said. “In a real election environment, access to the system, the whole election system, is controlled and there is not a situation where there is unfettered access. They show you a conference room with a laptop … they do it on a stage. They put together a magic show for you so you believe what they want you to believe.”
In a two-page rebuttal entitled “reality vs. fantasy,” Diebold dispels Harris’ claims about GEMS’ vulnerability, dismissing Harris as an “anti-touch-screen voting activist” making claims that are “simply nonsense.”
Magic show or not, the criticism leveled at the Texas-based election giant has at least partially contributed to a slowing in sales, growing concerns about the security and integrity of touch-screen voting systems and financial troubles for the otherwise profitable banking security company.
With the election less than a month and a half away, who to believe is becoming less important than the impact the almost constant criticism of Diebold has had on the company, the voting machine industry and most importantly, the vote in November.
California will offer voters concerned with election system security the option to cast a paper ballot. Nevada’s touch-screen machines will have voter-verified paper audit trails, while Ohio’s long-standing plan to replace the punch cards used by millions in the state with DREs has been temporarily shelved. Other states concerned about some of the points Harris raises on her Web site, book and during appearances have delayed decisions about voting machines.
The voices of the activists are being heard, not just in Washington, D.C. conference rooms filled with allies, but in state capitals, in newspapers and news broadcasts around the country.
The touch-screen machines that were supposed to be the answer to the punch-card foibles of 2000 have turned out to be far more controversial. Paperless, accessible, flexible and impossible to over vote, the machines were hailed in the months after the Florida election supervisors peered at punch cards looking for hanging or pregnant chad.
But early enthusiasm gave way to criticism, by computer experts in some circles and conspiracy theorists in others, that electronic voting machines cannot be trusted without paper. With a notorious fundraising letter in support of President Bush that promised to “deliver Ohio’s electoral votes” to the incumbent, Diebold CEO Walden O’Dell placed his company in the crosshairs of just about every national critic of e-voting looking for an example of potential dirty dealings between voting system manufacturers and politicians.
Diebold has since barred any political donations by board members and workers at Diebold Election Systems. But that has done little to spare the company from near-constant criticism. One expert in an Ohio newspaper compared Diebold’s election problems to the Tylenol-cyanide scare in the 1980s that depressed stock prices at Johnson & Johnson, or the much more recent controversy embroiling Bridgestone/Firestone Inc. and Ford Explorers.
Except, unlike poison pills or shredding tires, Diebold’s Bear said, “there has never been a factual security issue with touch screens.”
“Talk like this six weeks before an election will unfortunately result in scaring or confusing voters,” he said.
Harris and others at the press conference indicated that fixes can be made. First, they say, voters should request a paper ballot, which they believe the federal government should make mandatory at every polling place. They also suggest that federal offices can be voted on paper, the rest on DRE, if necessary. Finally, they recommend that precinct vote tallies be posted or given to the media on election night, protecting against any fraud at the tabulating center.
“There is still time to implement changes,” Harris said. “If we don’t, we will destroy trust in the American election system.”
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