Posted on 04/05/2011 11:59:30 AM PDT by pinochet
I recently heard someone mention that it is possible for computer hackers to get access to the electronic voting machines, and tamper with the results.
The only voting process that I trust, is one that involves a paper ballot, with the voter making a "X" mark on his paper ballot with a pen/pencil. That is how American democracy worked for 200 years.
With paper ballots, you can count actual paper votes, during recounts. But under the electronic voting system, you cannot have credible recounts, because it is so easy to hack into the computer system.
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’.
More bad news on those goddamn machines: http://www.engadget.com/2006/09/06/diebold-voting-machine-hacked-in-four-minutes-flat/
The machines are not on a network. They are stand alone machines like an ATM.
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
When they count the votes for the Oscars, they use an accounting firm to validate the results, why couldn't we do the same with the ballots for elections.
The software in each machine can be manipulated prior to the voting. As was said earlier, any software guy or gal worth their salt can fix them any way they want. Go to paper ballets.
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.
Also, there should be an enforced chain of custody for these machines. Have the company certify that the machines were without error and zeroed when they left the factory, and each person who is in possession of the machine would have to sign the chain of custody until the audit has been completed.
Then, have draconian penalties for precincts that have errors greater than a reasonable cut-off level (say 0.0 to 0.1% of the total votes) for those who signed off on the chain of custody.
Exactly! The way the media “calls” the elections before all the polls are closed I think skews the results as well.
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.
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