Posted on 10/23/2006 6:03:21 AM PDT by AKSurprise
Cheryl Kagan, a former Maryland Democratic legislator, was shocked when she opened her mail Wednesday morning.
Inside, she discovered three computer discs. With them was an anonymous letter saying the discs contained the secret source code for vote-counting that could be used to alter the votes cast through Maryland's new electronic voting machines.
"My understanding is that with these disks a malicious person could skew the outcome of an election," Kagan said.
Diebold, the company that makes the voting machines, told ABC News, "These discs do not alter the security of the Diebold touch-screen system in any way," because election workers can set their own passwords.
But ABC News has obtained an independent report commissioned by the state of Maryland and conducted by Science Applications International Corporation revealing that the original Diebold factory passwords are still being used on many voting machines.
The SAIC study also shows myriad other security flaws, including administrative over-ride passwords that cannot be changed by local officials but can be used by hackers or those who have seen the discs.
The report further states that one of the high risks to the system comes if operating code discs are lost, stolen or seen by unauthorized parties — precisely what seems to have occurred with the discs sent to Kagan, who worries that the incident indicates the secret source code is not that difficult to obtain.
"Certainly, just tweaking a few votes in a couple of states could radically change the outcome of our policies for the coming year," she said.
(Excerpt) Read more at abcnews.go.com ...
Another words, the Dems will lose another election and they have to blame something else other than their bad policies and bad views.
I hope they continue to carry the same tune because the American public is not buying it.
The story line goes like this:
We had the pre-election polls going our way, we had the exit polls going our way, how could we have lost. It must be fraud and stolen elections.
Moonbats ALWAYS claim victimhood for their lack of suport....yet never have anything to propose, but just have an attack/whine/complaint platform.
And the dem. turned them over?? We are supposed to believe that an *outraged* democrat turned these disks over to protect the election outcome from a *malicious person*??Bwhahaha.
Regardless, the electronic voting machines need to go. i think if we were seeing these tests with Democrats in power, we would also be crying foul over the process. These machines are notoriously easy to manipulate.
I think the answer to our voting problems are touch screen voting machines that PRINT your ballot. You verify it, then drop it in the ballot box just like the good ol' days. Those ballots are then run through a separate machine for official results. We could then compare the number of cast ballots to the number of counted ballots to verify the results.
New talking point for the dems......voter machine malfunction
That having been said, I can see admin passwords never being changed. The people at my polling place dont look overly computer literate.
I'm getting sick and tired of the DemocRATS playing these games. The only safe, sure-fire way to prevent voter fraud.....is to do what the Iraqis did......use your finger print. That's the only way I know of since any other method can be tampered with.
However, since no one will go along with finger-prints, then for God's sake go back to punched or X marks the spot voting method. Have a volunteer look at the ballot before it is put in the box to make sure that it is readable. This will help prevent liberals from having any credence when they cry "foul."
If anyone is afraid to have their ballot looked at, then don't vote. The chances of a volunteer remembering how I voted out of all the other thousands they'll look at in one night, is probably slim and none.
That's my opinion and I'm sticking to it.
There is a Princeton Prof running around claiming he and his grad students proved they could hack the system. I would like to know who got his vote in 2004. Ever ntice the RATS are the only party whining about vote fraud?
I'd be inclined to agree. This country needs two things to have clean elections. We need to verify who people are when they show up to vote, and we need to have a non-electronic record to tally votes. I like your idea, as far as using the touch screen to generate a printed ballot.
Most people simply aren't going to be comfortable with a purely electronic system. It may be more efficient, but elections have more riding on them than a need to be timely.
They're already setting it up. Problems with electronic voting machines was the front page story in the local NJ paper this morning.
Are you kidding? Ever since the Legion of Undead Voters started pulling for the Democrats, it's been an issue with most people. Most big cities like Chigaco have legendary issues with voter fraud.
You are right, and it drives me crazy.
Democrats are holding these disks and mailing them around. Democrats are paying money to their buddies in colleges to study how to crack the machines and change the election results.
Democrats have the passwords, and in many places have access to the machines.
They have done everything they need to do to steal an election using electronic machines.
But somehow, the story is about REPUBLICANS doing so, because somehow "diebold" is a republican party operative.
Have there been ANY stories about the current security of voting machines?
Are there guards? Are the machines protected?
They could still claim the counting code was hacked.
Of course, you could hack the punch card counting machines. We know that because in 2000, they were writing new 'instructions' for the florida machines which would specifically look for over and undervotes and sort them out. Heck, they were just programmable punch card machines, and could be programed to say anything.
It's just a little easier for people to grasp the idea of changing computer software.
There is NO way in hell the dems. would be bringing this up if they were truly in the lead. The last thing they would want is a challenge in the courts that the electronic voting machines were skewed. To me, this is the clearest proof that they know they're about to lose these elections.
You'll see a raft of these stories in the run up to the election
Remove the tin hat. These machines are about as secure as my daughter's glue-and-paper house, open to any election worker (probably Dim) to tamper with elections. It is a valid concern.
I'm not saying that electronic voting machines shouldn't be used, I'm saying that Diebold's machines shouldn't be used since the company has shown it has neither the talent nor the inclination to make its voting machines reasonably secure. Diebold prefers to sue states rather than comply with their election laws.
For example, the ballot tells you to sign your name exactly as it appears in your voter registration. Maryland forces you to use your full middle name (and women their full maiden name), but most people don't normally sign their names that way. So, unless you force yourself to sign in an unnatural way, your vote is subject to being invalidated.
Another tripwire is making sure you vote only for the right number of candidates for a particular office (e.g., three candidates for state delegate out of a list of six). The machine won't let you vote for too many, but no such constraint is present on the absentee ballot. Again, possible grounds for invalidity.
They don't tell you how much postage to put on the ballot, and there is no place for a return address. How many ballots will be lost for insufficient postage?
I could go one, but I think you get the point. Absentee ballots are sprinkled with little landmines, each of which could cause the vote not to be counted. And how likely is that to happen? A great many election workers (probably the majority) are Democrats, and the Republicans have been openly pushing their voters to vote by absentee ballots. In a normal election year, it would be reasonable to assume the absentees break more or less evenly between the parties. This year, it would be reasonable to assume they will be heavily Republican. I don't think Democratic poll workers are going to cut much slack for any absentee ballot that isn't perfect. I fear Republicans in Maryland may have shot themselves in the foot over this issue.
No, we send in the swat team and start mass arrests, it's the only way they'll ever learn. And this time they need to be prosecuted and punished for their dangerous mentality of fomenting social unrest and talk of revolutions.
If things were as bleak as bill kristol and the rest of the DC beltway, testosterone challenged castroti try to portray, dims would not be planting these "election stolen" propaganda pieces.
If we were losing in Iraq, al qaeda would not be promoting the dims.
LLS
I personally don't much care for Bill Kristol, he's a pessimist when it come to elections.
Absolutely wrong.
The answer is a process like the one my local polling place uses. Paper ballots where you complete an arrow to select you candidate. This is read by the machine. This is better than a touch-screen machine for a couple of reasons: First of all, there is a paper trail (I might suggest adding a place for an optional signature on the ballot). Second, you don't need a lot of machines at each polling place as one machine can handle LOTS of voters since they take virtually no time at the machine itself.
Why would anyone (other than the machine salesperson) suggest that we spend so much money on all these machines when there are far better and cheaper solutions.
I agree completely.
We wait and see and if needed, let the professionals do it. They did a damn good job in Chicago and Miami some years ago.
LLS
I'm convinced that Americans are so
fed up with polls and political flak
evolving from pollsters' figures
that many of them out-and-out lie
about their true intentions at the
voting booth. This would also account
for the confusion the Talking Heads see
in the disparity between results
of certain questions which should mesh.
... but not if the Dems win.
I agree. But she could be saying the same about unrigestered voters, dead people whose names still appear on voter rolls, college kids voting via absentee ballot at home and in person on campus, and carloads of blank ballots in a democRAT official's car.
I just don't care for kristol... period! ;-)
LLS
Yeah I've been voting on those same machines since 1996, fast, simple, and secure. I like them.
If paper ballots were used someone could steal and replace paper ballots with just as much ease if not more ease than they could get access to the computer systems and modify the results.
Individual accounts on the computer systems provides better logging of who modified anything and how than was previously available. Being able to use someone else's password would circumvent that additional protection and leave them with the same level of protection they had in the past.
Elections officials not changing passwords from the defaults is not an issue with the software. It's an issue with incompetent elections officials.
The most important aspects in preventing fraud in the counting of ballots is, and always has been limiting access to the voting machines and ballots, logging transactions carefully, and making sure that no one can access the records or counts unobserved so they can't change the results secretly.
None of that is changed with electronic voting machines, and when used properly the machines obviously provide better tracking of what was done when and by who than was available with previous systems.
For someone to "tweak" the votes they need not only the passwords, but they need access. The machines also produce paper records, so it is obvious if the votes have been "tweaked" after the fact.
ABC News knows this, or should know this if they have remotely competent journalists.
Kagan also either knows this or is a moron.
This is just another glaring example of how liberals rely on lies transparently hollow conspiracy theories to misinform and motivate their base.
The fact that it is so effective provides a sad message about American society today.
It's not that surprising that liberal have such a low opinion of the general population and feels they can't be trusted or allowed to be self sufficient or able to defend themselves. Considering how many people are so easily swayed to believe this crap, there's apparently a lot of people out there that can't think for themselves.
That's Edward Felten, one of the premiere computer security researchers in the country. He does do a bit of activism on the side, but it hasn't been partisan AFAIK, only policy and law. For example, he had a big run-in with the DMCA (signed by Clinton) after he successfully filtered the watermarks out of audio files. The work was begun during Clinton's reign, and the RIAA tried to silence him in 2001.
You don't remember Florida, 2000? St. Louis? Philly? Chicago? Virtually every large liberal city is plagued by voter fraud, and they continually get away with it. Why? Because the democRATs control the election.
The republicans have been pointing out fraud for decades, but only the libs get the ear of the media.
If you're talking about Felten, you're bordering on slander.
This is why when you see opinion polls that support the idea that "America is going in the wrong direction", or that "there is decreasing support for the GWOT/Iraq" it portrays an inaccurate picture that the liberal media (knowingly) hopes to promote. In fact the polls look like that not because conservatives don't support Bush or the GWOT/Iraq, but because they think Bush has not gone far enough in prosecuting the war and in pointing out and rejecting the inconsistencies between what Muslims say, and what they do/don't do. The results of these polls also do not mean conservatives will vote democrat, or that they will not vote. We know what the alternative is, and we will vote en masse this November. I guarantee the Dems will not gain control of either house of Congress.
Depends if they do it in conjunction with other groups or not. DUers along I would just crack a beer and start laughing.
Except one quick access to a computer can change thousands of votes undetectably under the Diebold systems. No need to carry around big boxes, as it can be done virally.
Individual accounts on the computer systems provides better logging of who modified anything and how than was previously available.
Logs can be wiped, indeed falsified, if system security is not set up well enough, which it isn't.
The most important aspects in preventing fraud in the counting of ballots is, and always has been limiting access to the voting machines and ballots
True, but with thousands of precincts around the country mostly operating with different rules, people are left alone with the machines, and people are even allowed to take them home. An operative only needs one minute alone with a Diebold machine to steal thousands of ballots.
None of that is changed with electronic voting machines, and when used properly the machines obviously provide better tracking of what was done when and by who than was available with previous systems.
I completely agree. Unfortunately, the machines most people will vote with are not designed, managed or used properly. Diebold has even done software updates after the machines were certified for elections without accountability to state election officials, which was a violation of election law. The company just doesn't care about security or adhering to election law.
For someone to "tweak" the votes they need not only the passwords, but they need access.
You only need access. One minute will do it, and you can get the key for the machines at an office supply store. Yes, their physical security can be picked in seconds, or the lazy can just buy a key.
But secretly, internal polls are trending Republican control of both houses. Democrats have already paid for the catering, lined up the Hollywood stars! Damn! OK, Plan B: set up the Diebold stolen election story. And get me those caterers on the phone! Tell them we made a mistake. Right, tell them the order was called in by Republican pranksters. Yes I know Barbra Streisand is part of it. Just do it! Where are those Diebold disks?
Agreed.
They do print your ballot. You don't actually see what is printed. It's stored on a roll of paper in the machine until all the votes have been recorded, but it provides a paper record of the votes.
These conspiracy theorists aren't suggesting that people can modify the software so that it prints the wrong thing on the paper, or that the paper ballots aren't recorded accurately. They just leave out the fact that there are paper ballots, and that if someone were to change the results on the computers, the totals in the computer wouldn't match those recorded on the paper records.
It has also always been theoretically possible for someone to change the records after the votes have been recorded. This is prevented by preventing access to those records.
In the case of electronic records, the records can't simply be changed by getting on any computer. You need to have access to the proper machine, the proper account, and have the proper password.
Limiting access is always part of providing a secure system. As are methods of verifying that changes have not been made such as the pater record.
The conspiracy theories always narrow in on a single thing that is only a security flaw if you ignore the rest of the system that is in place, and even then it usually assumes that both corruption and incompetence by a large group of people is required, and that they will be able to keep such a conspiracy secret.
Let me suggest that the most controversy-free solution might be for the touchscreen to print an easily-read ballot card and present it TO THE VOTER, who can then read and confirm that the card says what they intended. Then the ballot card can be placed in a ballot box by the voter, not to be opened until the inevitable Democratic demands for a recount. That way each voter can say that yes, there is a nonvolatile hard copy of my vote, and I verified what it says.
Normal use of these Diebold machines includes taking the flash card from several of them to be inserted into one machine, which would combine the tallies onto one machine. Even if only one machine were compromised, Felten's virus would mess with the votes of all machines once the card is plugged into the tally machine.
The conspiracy theories always narrow in on a single thing that is only a security flaw if you ignore the rest of the system that is in plac
The whole system is screwed up. Procedural, physical, hardware, software and even cryptological security is lacking in the Diebold system.
What the RATS want is to plug the Zogby poll results into the voting machines so that the results meet MSM expectations.
Early and Absentee Voting Laws
| Early voting. No excuse required. Starts 33 days before election day and ... Early voting shall be available to any qualified elector who applies to the ... Now, she's interested. |
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