California Secretary of State Debra Bowen, on the day of her election, assembled a committee of security experts and computer scientists to certify voting machines. Not one could be certified. So with an election coming up, they certified the ones we use; they at least have a paper ballot that's marked directly by the voter. Typically a recount runs those back through the machine again, making that vulnerable too, but at least there's a paper copy. Unfortunately, those get destroyed. Also, Humboldt County discovered that the Central Tabulator's delete key would instantly delete a precinct without confirmation and without a line in any report mentioning that! Lookee there, ma, San Francisco's plumb disappeared!
You also mentions paper tapes being found in the trash. So what? those are worthless. You have a machine, you press “Abraham”, and it shows you Lincoln, but the internal, invisible tape records that Benedict Arnold got a vote. The minute you voted it was changed, and there's no record anywhere of the truth (except in the voter's mind). For the same reasons, only hardcopy paper ballots can be recounted, and can PROVE their accuracy. And in Florida it's illegal to use a machine that produces a hard copy. That horribly Democrat state doesn't want honest elections (oh, wait…they're Republicans there).
The 2000 Florida election was thrown, sure by the Supremes, but also there were batches of punch cards that were manufactured mis-registered so the “hanging chad” problem was created; the punches didn't quite line up with the holes. That paper is cut to really strict standards, but seven employees of Boise Cascade, including some line workers and the company controller came forward and revealed a mysterious order printed on inferior stock from an unauthorized source (and they laughed that they had put xeroxed Boise labels on the rolls); these went to two counties in Florida. So obviously there desire to throw elections is strong in some folks. E-voting machines make this infinitely easier.
I have a friend that has designed a few industrial computers, and those were made for easy field programming; not just of the customer's operation, but the operating system itself. He was shocked to see the Diebold machines had three different ways to change any part of their software in the field. He told me if he was designing a system to be insecure, that's exactly what he'd do except that it costs more for three where one would do. And the cases were locked by your standard suitcase key, meaning they are all the same. And if you didn't have that, about six screws got you in. And MIT demonstrated a card: set the machine up at the poll, open a door and insert the card, start the machine, stop the machine, remove the card and shut the door, then watch votes that look right come out flipped (not all of them, only enough). What was Diebold thinking? Well, the President of the company DID say, publicly, that he would do anything in his power to hand Ohio to the Republicans.
Exit polling in a Russian election differed from the results enough (like about 3%) that a new election was called. In the US that's ignored. Yet in a Florida e-vote (I think in 2010) a candidate who was not known by anyone and had never campaigned, won by something like 21,000 votes over his popular rival, and the exit poll disagreed by over 50%. crickets.
There's a ton of more things wrong with it and it amazes me that no one cares. Internet voting is even worse, and vote-by-mail is equally stupid.
The Princeton (sorry, not MIT) video:
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=aZws98jw67g
A Diebold whistleblower; Diebold did throw an election and paid 27 million for it:
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=k_rMpQKqZhM
And Fox news misses the most important point of all, seen in video above, that the programming can be carried in a card that takes no time to install:
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=u4FPuLNjvAc
Voter fraud and voter ID are totally small potatoes (and don't really happen much) compared to throwing a whole precinct or state, which has happened a lot.
“I’m sure you’re proud of you’re husband’s law. The security laws are frequently not followed. But the machines can easily be hacked by a person in the County, and that’s where the danger lies.”
First comes the security laws because some people are criminals. Then comes the party chairman of both parties to make sure the county employees do their jobs according to law and that’s what we did. A county chairman can appoint someone (or him/her self) to watch every single election activity carried out in the courthouse (and polling places in early voting and election day).
We made sure the machines were checked and locked up according to law. Any party chairman can do that. You see, just writing law is the first part - then you make sure the county employees follow that law. If the machines are locked up according to law, no one can get to them. We made sure, after they were checked for accuracy, they were locked up and no single person could get in there. Due diligence is required every step of the way in an election.
People talk about going back to paper ballots. It is so easy to commit fraud with paper ballots. Anyone who thinks they are better have no idea how difficult it is to find fraud and prove it with paper ballots. Those are pieces of paper and pieces of paper are hard to keep together in pristine condition. They are handled by many people before the election is over. Thinking they are safer, is folly.
Mail ballots: I was the judge of the early voting ballot board and it took three days of work to validate mail ballots and easy voting ballots. At the end of every day, the sheriff came and locked that room. He had the only key. If the sheriff is on the ballot, he can’t have the key - it’s given to the county judge who in that year is not on the ballot. I had wire locks on the ballot boxes and I put a new one on each box at the end of the day and recorded the number of the locks. The next morning I checked to be sure that same locks were on the boxes. To get a wire lock off, the wire has to be broken and it is useless after that. If the number on the wire lock was still there the next morning, I knew no one had been in that box.
There is redundancy of security in elections, but it is up to the county chairmen to make sure their part of the election is fair and correct and that means checking up on what happens in the courthouse to make sure no criminal activity happens there.
Law allows elections to be monitored but humans have to do the monitoring.
As for California, that’s their problem.