Why Do Elections Officials Always Seem To Side With E-Voting Companies Over Voter Concerns?

from the vote-here-and-let-us-know dept

For years, every time yet another report would come out about e-voting vulnerabilities, we'd quickly see responses from elections officials defending the e-voting systems. It wasn't a surprise to hear the e-voting manufacturers defend their machines, but why would elections officials almost always take the side of the e-voting manufacturers over various computer security experts and the very voters whose votes they're supposed to be protecting? There are some obvious possibilities, such as embarrassment over buying faulty machines or (more likely) fear at the cost of replacing those machines. However, Tim Lee points to a potentially more troublesome reason: many elections officials move in and out of jobs for the e-voting companies before and after their state jobs. Conflict of interest? Apparently it's just politics as usual.

Filed Under: corruption, e-voting, politics

Bad Week For E-Voting Machines; Florida Follows California In Issuing Report About Security Holes

from the anyone-else? dept

E-voting firms aren't having a particularly good week. Just days after research commissioned by the state of California showed vulnerabilities in many e-voting systems, a study commissioned by the state of Florida found serious security issues with Diebold's optical scan technology. While the article suggests that this is one of the first times the security has been questioned on optical scan machines (where there is still a paper trail, but these machines are used for counting the votes), there have actually been numerous studies pointing out the problems with Diebold's optical scanners, and how they can easily be hacked. Of course, what's amusing here is that some of the first tests that found the problems with Diebold's optical scanners were done two years ago by a "rogue" elections official in Florida. Of course, back then, the state of Florida didn't launch an immediate investigation. The state hung the elections official, Ion Sancho, out to dry, as the e-voting companies cracked jokes about the vulnerability and teamed up to conspire against him. So, now, years later, we find out that the security vulnerabilities he pointed out then are actually there is anyone apologizing? Doesn't sound like it. In fact, it sounds like Florida politicians are downplaying the security problems with these machines.

Filed Under: e-voting, florida
Companies: diebold

Security Experts Able To Hack Into Nearly Every E-Voting Machine

from the seems-a-bit-troublesome dept

Back in March, California decided that after years of negative publicity about the security of e-voting machines (and certainly enough evidence to suggest they weren't very secure) that it would allow independent security experts to try to hack into any machine before it got approval to be used in California elections. Those researchers have gone ahead and found that every machine they tested was hackable -- often very easily. The researchers were able to hack into Diebold, Sequoia and Hart InterCivic machines. They didn't get a chance to test ES&S machines because, as you may recall, ES&S stalled before handing over their source code (and included a nasty threatening letter with it). To be fair, these machines were tested in non-normal conditions, where the researchers had access to all sorts of documentation, the full source code and no election going on where people might spot them tampering with a machine. That is, this doesn't mean that it's necessarily easy to hack an election. It just means that all of the machines have some insecurities -- most of which we didn't know about before. The key here is that we can now understand these insecurities and whether or not they're adequately protected by other measures. What still doesn't make sense is why the e-voting firms are so against this process. All it's really doing is helping those companies improve their products to make them more secure. Of course, one key reason is that the researchers found that many of the security problems are because the machines weren't built with security in mind -- but only had it added as an afterthought. In other words, these companies probably should be redesigning their machines from scratch, which they don't want to do. Of course, does it worry anyone else that the machines weren't designed with security in mind in the first place?

Filed Under: california, e-voting, security
Companies: diebold, es&s, hart intercivic, sequoia