Analysis Finds E-Voting Machines Vulnerable (USA Today)

[kpete]

Analysis finds e-voting machines vulnerable
Updated 6/26/2006
By Andrea Stone, USA TODAY

WASHINGTON — Most of the electronic voting machines widely adopted since the disputed 2000 presidential election "pose a real danger to the integrity of national, state and local elections," a report out Tuesday concludes.

There are more than 120 security threats to the three most commonly purchased electronic voting systems, the study by the Brennan Center for Justice says. For what it calls the most comprehensive review of its kind, the New York City-based non-partisan think tank convened a task force of election officials, computer scientists and security experts to study e-voting vulnerabilities.

The study, which took more than a year to complete, examined optical scanners and touch-screen machines with and without paper trails. Together, the three systems account for 80% of the voting machines that will be used in this November's election.

While there have been no documented cases of these voting machines being hacked, Lawrence Norden, who chaired the task force and heads the Brennan Center's voting-technology assessment project, says there have been similar software attacks on computerized gambling slot machines.

"It is unrealistic to think this isn't something to worry about" in terms of future elections, he says.

more at:
http://www.usatoday.com/news/washington/2006-06-26-e-voting_x.htm

[Botany]

1. IN THE USA TODAY?????????

Get the word out

BTW

<While there have been no documented cases of these voting machines being hacked, Lawrence Norden, who chaired the task force and heads the Brennan Center's voting-technology assessment project, ....>

Ah, Volusia County Florida 2000, one Dieblod Machine produced a negative 16,000 votes for
Gore after ABC, CBS, NBC, & CNN all had called the state for Gore.

[Peace Patriot]

2. I don't know. This is such B.S. It took them a YEAR OF STUDY to figure

out that electronic voting systems run by Bushite corporations, using TRADE SECRET, PROPRIETARY programming code to "count" all our votes--all engineered by the biggest crooks in the Anthrax Congress, Tom Delay and Bob Ney--MIGHT be insecure!

As Mopinko said, in the other thread about this, it's damage control. Keep the corporations in charge of our elections and their results. Claim to be investigating a "serious" problem but ignore its most serious aspects--blatant, egregious, NON-TRANSPARENCY, and Bushite corporate control of the SECRET vote tabulation code. And try to stop the movement for REAL vote counting--vote counting that everybody can SEE and UNDERSTAND.

"Rumors" of a rigged system that these kinds of half-assed "reports" foster are not likely to help. They only feed cynicism and non-voting--and help put people to sleep. We need TRUTH and TOUGH ANALYSIS of the facts that are right under our noses! And here's one fine article about it, by Bob Koehler....

Bob Koehler (-- four recent election reform initiatives in Ohio, predicted to win by 60/40 votes, flipped over, on election day, into 60/40 LOSSES!--the biggest flipover we've seen yet; the election theft machines and their masters are now dictating election policy! Title: "Poll Shock" 11/24/05)
http://commonwonders.com/archives/col321.htm

And another: Bob Koehler's latest: "Trust us: Take this box and stuff it" (3/16/06)
http://commonwonders.com/archives/col337.htm

And one by Amaryllis...

Amaryllis (Diebold, ES&S, Sequoia lavish lobbying of election officials - Beverly Hilton, Aug. '05) -"Election officials for sale to the highest bidder."
www.democraticunderground.com/discuss/duboard.php?az=view_all&address=203x380340

Big, big money involved in keeping this "trade secret" vote tabulation a SECRET!

"...there have been no documented cases of these voting machines being hacked..." because the hacking is INSIDER HACKING, and the system was DELIBERATELY DESIGNED to be NON-TRANSPARENT--to have these Bushite corporations OWN AND CONTROL the TRADE SECRET programming code!

See the comments at the other thread on this "think tank " report:
http://www.democraticunderground.com/discuss/duboard.php?az=view_all&address=102x2358491

[mopinko]

3. mood swings

haha i had to look back at the reply you cited. i kinda had a positive "glo" about this story for a minute. maybe because i did not catch in the other thread that this was in usa today. not that i don't stand by the other comment. but any article questioning machines in such msm, i'm for it. or maybe i am just in a different place today.

[blm]

5. I agree - the corporate media will CYA with limited amount of attention

paid on part of the story.

They will never reveal the whole nasty angle that shows GOP corruption behind the rigged machines.

[me b zola]

7. But doesn't that happen with *any* story

that we work our butts off to get press coverage?

I don't know. It just seems to me as though we need to double our efforts to get "the rest of the story" out there and push for REAL reform.

[blm]

8. We need to increase our numbers. Rolling Stone said that they had more

feedback from that article than any other previous issue.

We need to grow that - I'd like RS to do some follow up stories, and I wrote them snail mail saying exactly that.

[Theres-a]

4. kick

[originalpckelly]

6. Kickadee

:kick:

:woohoo: Democracy might have a chance of being saved!

[ItsTheMediaStupid]

9. Well, duh, no shit sherlock.

nt

[Peace Patriot]

10. I know we all need good news, and I'm glad to see even 5% of this vital

matter covered (as with this Brennan "think tank" report, and so many others)--because it can work along with those telling the WHOLE story to help create critical mass for restoring election transparency. In that sense, it's all to the good. But look at the wording here:

"'It is unrealistic to think this isn't something to worry about' in terms of future elections, he says." In terms of FUTURE elections. I mean, that is just crap. It is mealy-mouthed, compromising crap.

And so often the gist of statements like these is to KEEP the corporate rulers in charge--in this case in charge of our ELECTION SYSTEM, which they have completely corrupted. Groups like this worm their way into positions of influence in the government and in the two dominating political parties, to determine policy. And one can see what that policy will be by what they LEAVE OUT of this report--that the WORST aspect of this system is the TRADE SECRET, PROPRIETARY, private, corporate vote tabulation software. They're going to keep that, and try to "fix" the peripheral problems. Because why? Because of MONEY, for one thing. Our elections are now a BIG BUSINESS, tied into a lot of OTHER electronics in government (not the least of which is SPYING technology). But PRIMARILY because fascists can now "elect" fascists with SECRET vote counting. THIS was the system in place in 2004. It obviously produced a wrong outcome--an unaccountable TYRANT as president, who thinks he can unwrite Congressional laws, and feels free to let his friends loot the federal government with impunity.

So I'm not overjoyed. I just hope it will ultimately work to the benefit of election transparency, when more people start asking: Why do we HAVE this crapass technology in our elections at all? Why not just count the votes in plain view? It's simpler, much cheaper, and much more reliable!

That's what we need--REAL questioning. And it doesn't take a "think tank" to figure it out!

[SoCalDem]

11. It's "safe" for papers to be all over the story NOW

because "it's too close to do anything before THIS election coming up"...so of course the story is fun to write about NOW because not much can be done in a few months..

And as soon as the elections are over, there will be mass wringing of hands and gnashing of teeth, but the "story" will die down again until the NEXT election..

Nothing gets done, because neither side really gives a hoot about it..

Win or lose, the "candidates" and their families will be just fine, and they run on other people's money or a small fraction of a gazillionaire's worth, so it's only a "biggie" for those of us who lost our vote:(

[UrbScotty]

12. There's NOTHING to worry about!

Why does everyone think something's wrong?

:sarcasm:

[Peace Patriot]

13. Here are some of the findings of the report...

The story concludes by saying that, "Lawsuits have been filed in at least six states to block the purchase or use of computerized machines," that, "Election officials in California and Pennsylvania recently issued urgent warnings to local polling supervisors about potential software problems in touch-screen voting machines after a test in Utah uncovered vulnerabilities in machines made by Diebold Election Systems," and then lists these findings:

• Using corrupt software to switch votes from one candidate to another is the easiest way to attack all three systems. A would-be hacker would have to overcome many hurdles to do this, the report says, but none "is insurmountable."

• The most vulnerable voting machines use wireless components open to attack by "virtually any member of the public with some knowledge and a personal digital assistant." Only New York, Minnesota and California ban wireless components.

• Even electronic systems that use voter-verified paper records are subject to attack unless they are regularly audited.

• Most states have not implemented election procedures or countermeasures to detect software attacks.


The news article ends with this statement, "The report said state election officials could improve voting-machine security if they conduct routine audits comparing voter- verified paper trails to the electronic record and ban wireless components in voting machines, and a quote from Rep. Rush Holt, D-NJ, a chief sponsor of a bill to improve electronic-voting security: "A voting system that is not auditable contains the seeds of destruction for a democracy."

-------------------------------------------------

Now I ask you: WHAT ARE WE *DOING* WITH AN ELECTION SYSTEM THAT IS *THIS* VULNERABLE TO TAMPERING???!!!

How did it happen? How many "elections" are now QUESTIONABLE because of it? And why aren't we GETTING RID OF IT?

Apologists for electronic voting--including Russ Holt, whose bill LEGITIMIZES electronic voting with more security patches--NEVER ASK the right questions? The questions that zero in on the truth. It's NOT that these systems are egregiously insecure. It's WHY they are egregiously insecure! It's WHO designed them that way--and WHY. It's WHO pushed them on us, and WHY.

Transparent elections are not difficult. People vote, and you count their votes in public view.

The people who wrote HAVA, who pushed electronic voting upon the states prior to the 2004 election, who fought against a paper trail, who permitted TRADE SECRET programming of the machines, who permitted secret industry "testing" of the machines, who permitted lavish lobbying and all the rest, DID NOT WANT A TRANSPARENT ELECTION IN 2004 OR EVER AGAIN!

And you don't fix that with security patches and paper trails. You fix that by throwing their whole goddamned election theft scam OUT, and starting over.

[Peace Patriot]

14. A word for Russ Holt...

In the heat of my rhetoric, I may have been a bit hard on Russ Holt and his bill. His bill has been the subject of much controversy here at DU. (*See below.) My primary concern about it is that it has no chance of passing in this largely Diebold-selected Congress. The Bushites took away our right to vote. They are not about to give it back. There is NO CHANCE of a federal remedy. We need to fight this battle at the state/local level, where ordinary citizens still have some influence, and where the decisions about voting systems are still made. Russ Holt's bill is something of a DISTRACTION.

*Russ Holt's HR 550 requires a real paper ballot, bans secret software in "voting machines", and has more than 170 co-sponsors, but the audit required is too weak, it promotes electronic voting and centralized power, and the secret software might be permitted to continue in the central tabulators (the bill is not clear). At lot of discussion at DU of the loopholes/pitfalls in HR 550 (many DUers support the bill):
http://www.democraticunderground.com/discuss/duboard.php?az=view_all&address=203x422926
http://www.democraticunderground.com/discuss/duboard.php?az=view_all&address=203x421136
http://www.democraticunderground.com/discuss/duboard.php?az=show_mesg&forum=203&topic_id=422967&mesg_id=422967
To sign the HR 550 petition: http://www.rushholt.com/petition.html

(Note: Senate Bill-SB 330 and House-HR704 simply require a "voter verified paper audit trail" (VVPAT), which some say may be best idea for the moment--so as not to institutionalize a weak audit requirement.)

But most of all, there is no chance of any good bill passing, and there is much danger in the Diebold Congress addressing this issue. They could (and likely would) make things worse.

[kpete]

15. Wow -

Wolf - just brought this up on CNN (1:50 p.m. pst)

[joeunderdog]

16. Reports like this are why the Democratic landslide will be re-decided

in court. These kinds of reports have been around from the start. They're only convenient because the support for Dems is so overwelming, that there will need to be a way to cast doubt on their victories. They will probably rig it so that the Dems win by 30% instead of 8% just so that they can cry foul. Then they will tag some poor schmuck with tampering with the software and won't turn over the offices they should get thrown out of.

Crazy? nah.

:tinfoilhat:

[Wilms]

17. K&R n/t