While perusing the Denver Post this morning, I caught this letter to the editor that is precisely in line with what Jim March has been repeatedly warning us about. Clipped it to share with THR, but the writer's name was partially obscured by wear on the page fold. Martin, whoever you are, thanks.
After Florida 2000, can we trust voting systems?
Re "Jittery about voting," Sep 5 Perspective article
Perspective editor Todd Engdahl expressed a level of confidence in Direct Record Electronic voting machines which will be widely used this November, that I and many others do not share. There are many reasons to be skeptical about these machines. There is the lack of proper certification, the lack of auditable results, the lack of security on the part of Diebold and other companies, the lack of security in the programming code or the systems themselves.
Last spring, I watched an episode of “The screen Savers†on Tech TV, where a member of the Electronic Frontier Foundation, using a Diebold voting machine loaded with Diebold software, and using only the buttons available to ordinary voters, hacked into the source code of the machine, and was able to set the machine to obtain any result he wanted. And because there was no way to audit the machine to verify the accuracy of the results, this “hack†was untraceable and undetectable.
This shows the level of risk that is much higher than “theoretical†or “possible.†It’s no wonder that people are worried about conspiracies and stolen elections. Watching Leo LaPorte on “The Screen Savers†cast 10 votes for one candidate and watching the machine tally eight of those votes for the opponent is an image that is burned in my brain forever.
Martin -----
I know this is old news to Jim, but I know that I, for one, wasn't aware of quite how much the integrity of the voting process is at risk using these machines.
After Florida 2000, can we trust voting systems?
Re "Jittery about voting," Sep 5 Perspective article
Perspective editor Todd Engdahl expressed a level of confidence in Direct Record Electronic voting machines which will be widely used this November, that I and many others do not share. There are many reasons to be skeptical about these machines. There is the lack of proper certification, the lack of auditable results, the lack of security on the part of Diebold and other companies, the lack of security in the programming code or the systems themselves.
Last spring, I watched an episode of “The screen Savers†on Tech TV, where a member of the Electronic Frontier Foundation, using a Diebold voting machine loaded with Diebold software, and using only the buttons available to ordinary voters, hacked into the source code of the machine, and was able to set the machine to obtain any result he wanted. And because there was no way to audit the machine to verify the accuracy of the results, this “hack†was untraceable and undetectable.
This shows the level of risk that is much higher than “theoretical†or “possible.†It’s no wonder that people are worried about conspiracies and stolen elections. Watching Leo LaPorte on “The Screen Savers†cast 10 votes for one candidate and watching the machine tally eight of those votes for the opponent is an image that is burned in my brain forever.
Martin -----
I know this is old news to Jim, but I know that I, for one, wasn't aware of quite how much the integrity of the voting process is at risk using these machines.