no
You may be interested in this story of computer hacking in India: http://www.theinquirer.net/inquirer/news/1730208/indian-voting-machine-hacker-released
Often the machines are loaded with votes before the polls open.
Add the dead and you have electorate victories by fraud.
no
The concern isn’t about the machines, but those who operate them!!!
I have been a computer programmer for over 26 years. I don’t know of any computer programmer, liberal or conservative, who thinks electronic voting is a good idea. We all know how easy it would be to skew the elections, either on purpose or by accident.
Sometimes paper is the right technology, and this is one of those times. What difference does it make if we don’t know the results of an election for a week or two? One of the lessons we should have taken away from the 2000 election is that we can go on quite well without knowing the outcome for several weeks. Another lesson is that electronic voting just exacerbates the problem of voter fraud. It does nothing to stop or minimize it.
They don’t have to hack the machines. Just station thugs outside the polling places to intimidate people. That is not a civil rights issue as long as they are ‘Holder’s people’.
Can the Voting Machines Used in American Elections Be Trusted?
Answer still NO.
If I had been asked to program such machines, I might have put in a back door method to transfer five percent of the stupid votes to make those voters appear more sophisticated.
ML/NJ
Now that 0bama won, it is the right concerned about voting machines?
Come on!
If it was even likely that 0bama would lose to McCain then there might have been a need to cheat. 0bama had about 53% of the voting public bamboozled before the election, and he got about 53% of the votes. Mystery of how he won the election solved. Occam's razor engaged.
Paper ballots, ID and ink stained fingers. That will be the only way we get fair elections.
You need only hack the cumulative results, not individual machines.
The NSA system has (presumably) greater security, yet it has been hacked....so how can anyone claim election results are believable.
Paper has problems, but auditing the results is much more convincing then the electronic replacement.
I believe Reid is still a Senator due to fraud with these machines in Nevada . . .
Reliability of electronic machines questioned? Surely you jest. Of course paper ballots remain the best possible answer—that’s why they are eschewed. (Not PC enough.)
No. But is interesting that the voting machines for Harris County Texas were all stored together and destroyed by fire right before the 2010 elections. Maybe someone was worried that the machines are hared to fix than paper ballots. After all we have a tradition of fixing paper ballots going all the way back to the infamous ballot box number 13 that won Lying Lyndon Johnson his senate seat.
The units are stand alone and not connected to an external network of any kind. AFAIK, the results of each machine is tallied at the voting site and the transmitted via voice over a telephone line.
The problem is with the programming. If there is no printed record of each vote, then the “total” is subject to whatever whims the programmer puts in the program. Many states are requiring that the machines keep a printed record of all votes.
I have long championed a system where you cast your vote on the electronic screens and then push a button that says “Verify printed ballot” where you review your votes on a screeen and then the machine prints a hard copy of all your ballots for you to view through a little window. If it is correct, then you hit “Correct - Cast Votes now” and the printed slip goes into the machine. If it is wrong, then you call over a judge who has a key to the ballot window only. You open the ballot window, remove the ballot, both of you initial it and it is preserved in a “ruined ballot” container. You then back up to see where you messed up and correct it.
Using this method, the number of electronic votes should always equal the printed votes.
It is far easier to stuff the ballot box with fraudulent paper ballots than it is to hack into a computer. It is very easy to simply throw away paper votes for your opponent and replace them with votes for your party.
Any type of voting system is capable of being used for voter fraud. Honest elections depend on the workers at the polling places. Most of them are volunteers or are paid a nominal amount but they are what keeps American elections honest. If they are dishonest, it doesn't matter what kind of voting system you have.
No.
when they go liberal Democrat, they’re trustworthy.
Otherwise no.