This story came out yesterday and at first I kind of skimmed over it. I went
back for a reread this morning and got thinking about it a little more and now
that I have, it is starting to piss me off.
The story is from WESH
in Florida. They talk about some of the Diebold voting machines used in
elections there and say its possible some were hacked in 2000.
There’s new evidence that computer hackers could change election results
without anyone knowing about it, WESH 2 News reported.The supervisor of elections in Tallahassee tested voting machines several
times over the last several months, and on Monday, his workers were able to
hack into a voting machine and change the outcome. He said that same thing
might have happened in Volusia County in 2000.The big controversy revolves around a little black computer card that is
smaller than a floppy disk and bigger than a flash drive. The card is
inserted into voting machines that scan paper ballots. The card serves as
the machine’s electronic brain.But when Ion Sancho, Leon County’s Supervisor of Elections, tested the
Diebold system and allowed experts to manipulate the card electronically, he
could change the outcome of a mock election without leaving any kind of
trail. In other words, someone could fix an election and no one would know.“The expert that we used simply programmed it on his laptop in his hotel
room,” Sancho said.Sancho began investigating the problem after watching the votes come in
during the infamous 2000 presidential election. In Volusia County precinct
216, a memory card added more than 200 votes to George W. Bush’s total and
subtracted 16,000 votes from Al Gore. The mistake was later corrected during
a hand count.
View complete article
here.
If you have read my previous posts about Diebold then you know that I
strongly question their choice in operating systems. I wonder why they go with
Windows, which is one of the least secure systems, to protect our democracy
instead of using a much more secure (and free) operating system – Linux.
Now my next question is – why have these cards? There is NO REASON at all for
someone to have to go in and change votes like that. Not one single reason. Its
not as though this is some security hole. This is something that was added and
for what reason? To change votes.
There is no reason for these systems to be unsecured. They already work in an
extremely secure environment by not being connected to the internet. That
practically eliminates any security threat. The fact is the security threats are
built into these machines purposely.
A program to record votes should actually be one of the simplest programs out
there. The sad part is the script I use to run my polls on this blog is far more
secure than the programs used to ensure we have a democracy.
Imagine if the online banking industry operated with security as lax as
Diebold is. No one would conduct their banking online and the people that did
would most likely end up victims of identity theft or have their accounts
drained. It would destroy that industry and the same should be thought of for
electronic voting.
States should reconsider their laws. If they use electronic voting then there
should be no way to alter votes. The machine is sealed and the only way it can
be open is with representatives from both parties present. Furthermore the data
in the machines can only be erased via a hardware method and then only after a
certain time frame from the close of voting, say not until 30 days after the
election. That gives ample time to validate all returns.
Until something like this is achieved, there is nothing stopping companies
like Diebold from selecting our leaders instead of the citizens electing them.