CALIFORNIA: Hacker to try to attack state voting machines

A computer hacker will be trying to break into one of California's electronic voting machines next week, with the full cooperation of the secretary of state.

Harri Hursti, a computer security expert from Finland, will be trying to demonstrate that voting machines made by Diebold Election Systems are vulnerable to attacks by computer hackers seeking to manipulate the results of an election.

"This is part of our security mission,'' said Nghia Nguyen Demovic, a spokeswoman for the secretary of state's office. "We want to make sure that every vote is counted and registered correctly.''

The stakes are high for Diebold, one of the nation's largest manufacturers of electronic voting systems. The company is trying to get its new voting system approved for use in California, the nation's biggest market, but Secretary of State Bruce McPherson refused certification after 20 percent of the new, printer-equipped voting machines malfunctioned during a July test in San Joaquin County.

The new security test, tentatively scheduled for Wednesday, will play a role in Diebold's future certification efforts.

Last May, Hursti and another computer security expert tested a Diebold system for the elections supervisor in Leon County, Fla. They quickly broke into the system, changed the voting results and inserted a new program that flashed the message "Are we having fun yet?" on the computer screens.

Electronic trails are more easily manipulated, en masse, than paper ballots.

The state has mandated that all electronic voting machines have a paper-ballot backup to record votes by the June 2006 primary.

This is a wise audit procedure. I've been a system designer for 32 years, and would insist on this.

gitmo

I'd trust a machine with an electronic trail a hell of a lot more than a bunch of democrats hauling around boxes of paper ballots.

Uh.. There is no such thing as an "electronic" trail. Computerized voting machines are a joke and rife for abuse. Punch card ballots had served the state well for 50 years into some morons in Florida couldn't figure them out.

LOL! We had the Diebold's with the "add on" paper ballot printer on the side. I was the second voter at the machine and it jammed immidiately. Since the poll workers had no access to the printer (since it wouldn't be secure) there was no way for them to fix it and the machine was out of order until whomever came to fix it.

electronic voting machines = complete and utter joke.

Yes. I would prefer that each voter have his completed ballot spit out of the machine and that the voter carry that to the precinct worker. They would then take those separate ballots and have a scanner reader read them.

If there is no electronic communication that performs a unified count, then there's no way for a hacker to screw with the election. The electronic machine simply prints the ballot that the voter fills in electronically, checks for accuracy, tears up if necessary, and eventually takes to the precinct worker for scanner counting.

In the kind of real voting excercised by properly eligible, properly registered and properly identified real Local Citizen Voters in real elections in really civilized countries, all the votes are counted where they are cast. Counted, that is, by real Local Citizens under the scrutiny and supervision of other real Local Citizens.

And after being counted and recounted and checked and scrutinized by real Local Citizens only the tallies are electronically transmitted, under further strict Local Citizen scrutiny, to a public and open and Citizen-scrutenized central tally center.

Before, where they were cast, the physical voting papers are sealed real Local Citizens in really secure boxes before being transported by real Local Citizens scrutinized by other real Local Citizens to Absolutely Secure storage facilities to be kept for later access, in case of any legitimate vote-count challenge.

Only in America are "votes" cast by mail and on touch screens and "voting machines" and the like by anyone or any thing - dog, cat, fish, gerbel - anywhere on Earth who cares to bother or whose owner or next-door neighbor fills in a form and mails it in.

And only in America is the counting of said "votes" entrusted to and done by vote counters who are the wholy owned and operated activists of one of the only "two" parties permitted to participate in "elections."

Permitted, that is, in accordance with the rules of the coercive cartel comprised of only the said "two" parties.

Go figger.

Happy Thanksgiving, B4, to you and all of those you love. Plan to be home for several months from January. Hope I can make it up this time. Blessings - B A

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