Voting Machines

[sharingwisdom]

State Vote Machines Lose Test To Hackers
2007-07-28, San Francisco Chronicle (SF's leading newspaper), Front Page
https://www.sfgate.com/cgi-bin/artic...NGP6R8TJO1.DTL

State-sanctioned teams of computer hackers were able to break through the security of virtually every model of California's voting machines and change results or take control of some of the systems' electronic functions, according to a University of California study. The researchers "were able to bypass physical and software security in every machine they tested,'' said Secretary of State Debra Bowen, who authorized the "top to bottom review" of every voting system certified by the state. The review included voting equipment from every company approved for use in the state.

Warning on voting machines reveals oversight failure
2008-08-24, McClatchy Newspapers
https://www.mcclatchydc.com/251/story/50485.html

Disclosure of an election computer glitch that could drop ballot totals for entire precincts is stirring new worries that an unofficial laboratory testing system failed for years to detect an array of flaws in $1.5 billion worth of voting equipment sold nationwide since 2003. Texas-based Premier Elections Solutions [formerly Diebold Inc.] last week alerted at least 1,750 jurisdictions across the country that special precautions are needed to address the problem in tabulation software affecting all 19 of its models dating back a decade. Voting experts reacted skeptically to the company's assertion that election workers' routine crosschecks of ballot totals would have spotted any instances where its servers failed to register some precinct vote totals. Like nearly all of the nation's modern voting equipment, Premier's products were declared "qualified" under a voluntary testing process overseen from the mid 1990s until 2005 by the National Association of State Election Directors. Computer scientists, some state officials and election watchdog groups allege that the NASED-sponsored testing system was a recipe for disaster, shrouded in secrecy, and allowing equipment makers to help design the tests. As a result, charged Susan Greenhalgh, a spokeswoman for watchdog group Voter Action, the systems on which Americans will decide the race between Barack Obama and John McCain in November are "scandalously flawed"' and "the integrity of this election is in question."
Note: Why isn't this important news being picked up by other major media?

[Photoguy]

Thanks for this great post. Every independent organization that has ever tested voting machines has found them faulty or easily hacked. Saving money should never be a reason to give up transparent democracy. The popular right wing saying "Freedom isn't Free" should apply to protecting the mechanics of a free and open democracy, not just for supporting the use of poor peoples children as cannon fodder.