Posted on 07/29/2007 12:04:19 PM PDT by Sub-Driver
California: All Vote Machines Tested Are Hackable
(CBS) SACRAMENTO, Calif. California Secretary of State Debra Bowen released the first part of her review of the state's voting systems Friday, seven days before she must decide whether to decertify any of the systems for the presidential primary
It found that computer experts were able to breach all the systems they studied and change the machines' results. But the experts did that under artificial conditions, with unimpeded access to the equipment, a situation that ordinarily would not occur.
Matt Bishop, a computer scientist at the University of California, Davis, who led the team, said the findings must be evaluated in light of the security systems that county election officials have in place before any conclusions can be reached about whether the machines are reliable.
The review was conducted in response to public concerns about vote tampering.
Bowen, who has made electronic voting security the centerpiece of her administration, said she needed to spend the weekend reviewing the reports before commenting on them.
"I am still in analysis mode," she said during a conference call with reporters, "and do not have any conclusion based on reports I have not read."
(Excerpt) Read more at wcbstv.com ...
...unless local Rat officials were to allow such access.
Oh, this won’t get any MSM coverage...they’re fixated on who fired who at the Justice Department, and everyone knows that the Democrats benefit from voter fraud, so this wil never see the light of day.
“Those who cast the votes decide nothing.
Those who count the votes decide everything.”
-Josef Stalin
This is so lame! A bunch of idiot Democrats can’t figure out a butterfly ballot in 2000 so we spend seven years on voting machines that they can’t figure out how to use.
This is a continuation of Bowen’s little anti-Diebold snit. Any form of voting can be modified if one has unlimited access to the ballots. Think ‘erasers’, and ‘hand punches’. The security for any voting system is in the context in which it’s used, not in the hardware itself.
Most everyone knowledgeable about computer security wants paper based voting.
Here in Oklahoma we use a very simple method of voting. Ballots are printed on paper about 11 x 17. Each candidate or referendum is written in simple text and next to the name or question is a arrow with a gap in the line. Each voter is issued a special pen and simply connects the line for the candidate he or she is voting for. The ballots are then placed in a machine where they are both kept and safeguarded as well as counted. The count is kept electronically and the paper ballots are secured to verify and questions or irregularities. Its simple, cheap and easily understood.
Then if we catch anyone voting illegally we take them out and hang ‘em!
And if not, so what? There's many a one from a Republican precinct at the bottom of San Francisco Bay!
And this is bringing a smile to all Democrats.
nobody has election machines under armed guard in 2007 for 2008.
If anything the hacking could already be done.
Sounds like a good system. Would it have been secure enough to prevent the fraud in Cook County in 1960 or King County in 2004? Would Nixon and Rossi have been elected under your system?
My point is that security of any system is some combination of hardware, software, and procedure. To say that a system "can be hacked" does not give me a complete picture. We know from the Kennedy and Gregoire electoral success that indeed paper ballot systems can be hacked.
Shortly thereafter, she discovered that she had been "de-registered". She inquired why. The burocrat said, "I'll have to find out."
When she pursued it, she was told that when she moved to a new address and a new voting precinct, she became automatically "de-registered". She pointed out that her husband had not become "de-registered", though he had moved with her, for which the burocrat had no explanation.
Some time later, she discovered that once again she had become "de-registered". This time no explanation was given when she "re-registered".
Meanwhile, my son had never been "de-registered".
When I lived in Marin County, every time I put up a "Vote Republican" sign--no matter where, no matter how inaccessable, no matter what time of day or night--it was taken down within hours. This did not happen in the City of San Francisco. Just Marin.
No, I don’t believe it is 100% foolproof. But in order to commit voter fraud someone would have to compromise both the electronic record, recorded when the ballot is slid into the ballot box, and the paper record. Makes it a little harder but not impossible. I think the greatest vulnerability would be illegal voting or ballot stuffing. Photo ID for voters is not required. Each polling place has a printout of all registered voters for that polling location. I simply sign next to my name on the printout and take my ballot.
And those two areas are where fraud has definitely succeeded in electing dems.
There is a lot more involved in this issue than can be easily put on a postcard or bumper sticker.
If you're interested in a good analysis of the pros and cons of electronic voting, you might want to start by reading through this article. It puts you at a good starting point to understanding the issues.
Ping.
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