Posted on 07/14/2021 10:04:00 AM PDT by Red Badger
In recent closed meetings the government’s Election Assistance Commission (EAC) eliminated the requirement that banned voting machines from connecting to the Internet. The AP reported (emphasis added):
Key elements of the first federal technology standards for voting equipment in 15 years should be scrapped because language that would have banned the devices from connecting to the internet was dropped after private meetings held with manufacturers, according to a federal lawsuit filed Tuesday.
The lawsuit against the U.S. Election Assistance Commission [EAC], filed in U.S. District Court in Washington, D.C., claims those meetings should have been open and that changes to the draft standards should have been shared with the commission’s advisory and standards boards. The lawsuit seeks to have those changes set aside.
The standards, approved in February, did not include draft language that would have banned wireless technology from voting equipment under federal certification guidelines. Voting security experts say the machines will be vulnerable to hacking without such a ban.
While the commission’s certification guidelines are voluntary, multiple states use them to set mandatory requirements for voting equipment.
We’ve written about the EAC before. This entity certified their only two election auditors within four hours after we reported that these firms were not certified.
(Excerpt) Read more at thegatewaypundit.com ...
Wrong back at you.
Electronic voting and voting equipment is here to stay. All systems of voting have their down falls. Witness the hanging chads of Florida fame. Nothing is perfect. The goal is to achieve the same or better level of security.
The anti tamper / locked port was first developed for the paper ballot card reader machines.
Repeat after me....PAPER BALLOTS. NO Voter Fraud Machines Allowed!!
Voting machine software must be open-source capable of being examined before the election, monitored during the election, and examined after the election.
The software must register ONE MAN ONE VOTE. No fractional or weighted counting.
Proprietary voting machine software amounts to a secret, unmonitored tally of votes by a third party.
Fool. The long list you made in your initial post is all designed to prevent fraud in electronic voting. And you only scratched the surface. There is always away to cheat with those systems. And now they are going to have federal permission to hook them to the internet. They are not going to have to sneak it anymore.
There should be no internet board, keyboard, wifi, or USB ports.
The computers should be locked in a steel box.
We should just go back to the machines with the big curtain.
If it's connected they can change the software and put it back the day of the election.
Paper ballots, ink wells and voter ID
In recent
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.closed meetings
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the government’s Election Assistance Commission (EAC) ......
.....
private meetings
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.held with manufacturers
/\
Houston ,
I think we have a problem.
Looks like two of the four commissioners, including the chair, were Trump appointees. The other two from Obama:
https://www.eac.gov/about_the_eac/commissioners.aspx
The federal government already has stringent cybersecurity standards for systems of national interest. IMO voting machines/tabulators would apply as a system of national interest. We should apply the standards. The case could easily be made that it would prevent foreign hacking/meddling in our elections.
air-gapped standalone systems
No wifi/bluetooth hardware/software capability
robust non-alterable logging & auditing
mandatory scans & security updates
software/hardware certification
records retention standards
access controls
cybersecurity training and accountability
etc....
Its all industry standard stuff. Just need someone to say that voting systems are essential to the security of the country (which they obviously are) and mandate that it happens.
Interesting things that I would add are:
- election software should be fully open source and freely available for review
-Paper summary of electronic vote displayed to voter and saved in machine. Just like a cash register (my county already has this)
- If no ID, ballot is provisional (pending verification) with signed identity affidavit, thumbprint & pic of voter attached.
- All ballots should have watermark & unique serial number which matches voter roll. Duplicate votes become provisional pending investigation
- Voting machine output only by screen & uniquely serialized cdrom which must have a chain of custody. Encrypted based on specific machine. Lightscribe label the serial numbers, precinct, totals, timestamp, encrypted machineID on disk.
- Historically problemmatic tabulation sites should have internet firewalls closed to all but essential election ports. All router traffic retained and fully audited. There should be Wifi/cellular jammers in place as well.
Non-tamperable live feed cameras mandatory at tabulation sites.
And State Police with arrest authority also funded to evacuate & secure tabulation sites upon closure. Using FEC grant funding. Lol!
Speaking of which.... where has the FEC been throughout this whole mess???
Just silly ponderings.....
I agree with your statements. I conduct both control audits and penetration testing for banks and financial institutions. I have long wondered why these are not being applied to elections and equipment providers. I guess that it has not had the prioritization that it needs.
You said ...There is always a way cheat ...
That is a true statement and it applies to both paper and electronic voting.
It takes about 10 seconds to falsify 100,000 vote in electronic voting. How long does it take with paper ballots?
less than a day
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