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Scary Voting Videos
 Diebold AccuVote-TS voting in Princetons Voting
Studies Lab |
Ariel J. Feldman, J. Alex Halderman, and Edward W. Felten have completed a security study using an Actual Diebold AccuVote-TS voting machine. The study will no doubt provide some good information for people, but what’s really eye-catching is the video they prepared showing how you can install software in under a minute that not only steal votes, but is also viral so that it spreads from machine to machine as workers update software.
These kinds of results make one wonder how any elections official can remain sanguine about the security of elections conducted on DRE equipment in the absence of concerted efforts to create processes and policy that not only take results such as this into account but also are continually updated to reflect emerging threats.
The move to DRE voting equipment has opened a Pandora’s box of security issues that elections officials have never had to deal with before. If they insist on using DRE equipment, for whatever reason, they have to also be willing to engage in the security threat assessment and mitigation exercises that come with that equipment.
Posted by windley on September 15, 2006 2:39 PM
Comment from James Robertson at September 15, 2006 3:47 PM
If you have physical access to a device - electronic or otherwise - your ability to muck with the outcome is greatly enhanced.
This looks scary, but people with photocopied paper ballots and access to a ballot box can do bad things as well.
The bottom line question is, do you trust the people you have in place?
Comment from Phil Windley at September 15, 2006 5:12 PM
The difference here is that if you photocopy ballots and stuff the ballot box a routine canvass can catch that (compare the number of ballots with the number of people who voted). This is completely transparent once it's done and without a paper audit trail, it's auditable.
If your sole defense is the integrity of people, then elections are for sale. Some people can be bought. Our system of government wasn't built on a "trust me" principle and our elections shouldn't be run on one either.
Comment from James Robertson at September 15, 2006 5:43 PM
I don't really like touch screen systems either, I just wonder how serious this particular problem is. What I really prefer is the system we used to use here in my part of Maryland - optical scan ballots. Easy to machine count, but also easily counted by hand, if there's an issue. The touch screens we have now - no possible recount. There's one count, and if that's tampered with in any way - fraud (or, more likely to my mind, bad programming), then that's it.
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