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9 June 2006 Reports have emerged that according to the San Diego registrar of voters, poll workers in San Diego county took tamper-susceptible Diebold voting machines home on the eve of the election. In some cases, poll workers may have had unsupervised access to the machines for a week or longer. In a race where 125,882 votes were reportedly cast, the Republican candidate was showing an advantage of 4,732, a margin of 3.76%. But that result reportedly did not include the counting of 68,500 provisional and absentee ballots, which could of course reverse a margin of so few votes, despite the comfortable percentage. The special election was held to determine who would fill the seat of indicted former congressman Rep. Randy "Duke" Cunningham (R-CA-50th). There had been a lot of attention focused on the election, due to concern in the national Republican party that a series of corruption scandals could affect the party's chances of holding onto control of Congress in the fall elections. The security flaws which would allow these machines to be tampered with were already well known, but recently concerns were serious aggravated when a study showed what experts have termed "astounding" susceptibility to sabotage and "the most severe security flaw ever discovered in a voting system". Reports included a disclaimer that the vulnerability was so severe it could not be fully made public, because it would place in jeopardy the integrity of so many elections across the country. But information reported on the severe flaw indicates massive alterations in the software can be implemented with little detectability and little time spent, or that in the worst case, the software can be wiped clean in just a few minutes. One of the key security gaps relates to the use of memory cards. According to the study conducted by California Sec. of State Bruce McPherson, "Anyone who has access to a memory card... and can tamper with it (i.e. modify its contents), and can have the modified cards used in a voting machine during election, can indeed modify the election results from that machine in a number of ways." Leon County, Florida, conducted a mock election in December 2005 in order to determine the security and effectiveness of new voting machines and to investigate findings related to apparent security flaws. The procedure revealed that tampering with memory cards used to manage encryption of data could reverse the outcome of an election by modifying the count. One problematic feature of these events has been the media coverage, which has openly touted the questionable election process as a clear victory, even going as far as to suggest it was a major relief for Republicans, who feared losing the seat due to the corruption scandal. But that relief should only be cited if the results are clear and incontrovertible. In this case, the results are clearly a matter of genuine controversy, whether or not such a reality is immediately apparent to reporters. Uninitiated commentators and reporters for the national media have been quick to run headlines like "Closing the Books on CA 50", "California victory is right tonic for Republican jitters", "Busby falls short", "Republicans prove they're tough to beat", "Republicans dodge disaster with House win" and in the eyes of Forbes: "Midterm Bar Set High for Democrats". The Chicago Sun Times, however, ran the following headline: "GOP exults in Calif. win, but Dems point to slim margin", noting the narrow margin raises questions, and suggesting Republicans may face tough races in districts they have until recently controlled with comfortable margins. And the New York Times titled their analysis "Narrow Victory by GOP Signals Fall Problems". Obviously, these stories are not aimed at the key issue of the day: namely, whether or not the system itself is presenting a fully fair procedure for determining the will of the voter. At present, the science is simple: new touchscreen balloting machines and modified optical scan readers are proven to suffer grave security flaws. The Internet enjoys far more sophisticated encryption and security, though vulnerable to hacking. Until there is real proven evidence that those security flaws have been righted and the software made genuinely secure and tamper-proof, there is no way to know for sure whether an electronic count is right without counting every paper ballot or "paper trail" by hand. [s]
BACKGROUND: The Supervisor of Elections for Miami-Dade County, Florida, announced Friday that her office had recovered missing electronic records of touch-screen votes from the 2002 primary elections in the race for Florida Governor. The records had been reported lost, after a series of computer crashes appeared to have wiped out the electronic files containing the record of the votes. [Full Story] EAC RECOGNIZES NEED FOR "ENHANCED SECURITY MEASURES" IN TOUCHSCREEN BALLOTING The Election Assistance Commission, set up by the 2002 Help America Vote Act to provide nationwide oversight of election processes and to seek to prevent any debacle resembling the 2000 Florida recount, has voiced support for "paper verification" and "enhanced security measures" to guarantee legitimacy of touch-screen votes. For some time, verified voting activists have been troubled by the unwillingness of members of Congress to support legislation to require a paper record of electronic votes until the EAC makes its recommendations. [Full Story]
ELECTRONIC VOTING MACHINES FAIL IN PRIMARIES
5 March 2004 As the United States shifts as much as 20% of its balloting devices to electronic voting systems, new doubts arise about the integrity, security and fairness of the systems being implemented. In the "Super Tuesday" primary vote across 10 states, serious glitches occurred, erasing and preventing votes: 10% of machines in San Diego county experienced technical problems; 1 in six voters in Alameda county were turned away by machine glitches. The CEO of Diebold, which makes most widely used electronic balloting machines has declared partisan allegiance and his desire to "deliver... electoral votes to the president" in 2004. [Full Story]
29 January 2004 Since the 2000 presidential election, and the revelation of flaws in the Florida process, the nation has moved toward new balloting techniques. Today, an article in the New York Times reported that a "Red Team" security test conducted for Maryland's legislature revealed troubling security gaps in the state's new electronic voting system. The test demonstrated a wide range of rudimentary tactics that could be used to taint or even steal an election. Over 100,000 votes were lost in Florida's 2002 elections, "due to a software error". VerifiedVoting.org recommends a Google News search for "electronic voting", to locate a wide range of newspaper reports on the subject. [Full Story] |
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