ANNAPOLIS, Md., Oct.20, 2006
New Questions Over Electronic Voting
Mailing Of Disks Containing Maryland's Voting Machine Software Raises Concerns Over Security
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Play CBS Video Video Are Voting Machines Reliable? With midterm elections looming, Congress held hearings on the use of new electronic voting machines. Chief investigative correspondent Armen Keteyian reports on concerns over their reliability.
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Video How To Steal An Election Only On The Web: Prof. Ed Felten of Princeton University demonstrates how a computer virus can cause a voting machine to steal votes and alter the outcome of an election.
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More than 80 percent of this year's ballots will be cast or counted electronically, but there are questions about the reliability of voting machines. (CBS)
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A basket full of memory cards, used to record votes made on electronic voting machines, at the Cuyahoga County Board of Elections in Cleveland, Ohio. November 7 marks the first general election in which the county's 1 million voters will be using electronic voting machines, after an initial trial in May's primary was marred by delays, lost disks, and uninformed or tardy election workers. (AP Photo/Jamie-Andrea Yanak)
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The disks were delivered with an unsigned note to former Democratic Delegate Cheryl Kagan, an outspoken critic of the paperless electronic voting machines. The note said the disks had been "accidentally picked up" in the state election board offices.
Michelle Crnkovich, a spokeswoman for the FBI in Baltimore, said she could not comment on the investigation except to confirm that the agency had been contacted and asked to look into how the tapes reached Kagan's office.
Ross Goldstein, deputy elections administrator, said the disks did not belong to the Maryland board, but acknowledged that the software was used in the 2004 election. The disks contained labels indicating they came from testing labs that the state paid to test the reliability and security of the touch-screen voting machines made by Diebold, Inc.
Gov. Robert Ehrlich questions the reliability of the touch-screen machines and has suggested that Marylanders use absentee ballots if they have any doubts whether their votes will be counted accurately.
"This raises yet another unanswered question with regard to Diebold technology," said Henry Fawell, a spokesman for the governor.
This is another recent instance in which the security of electronic voting machines was brought into question, just weeks after a Princeton University study published in September demonstrated how at least one version of Diebold's electronic voting machines could be easily hacked to switch votes without leaving any trace of the corrupting software. A virus could also be spread from machine to machine via the memory cards used to tabulate votes. Diebold claims that the machine software studied is no longer in use.
In other developments:
In Maryland, the computer disks mailed to Kagan contained software for both the touch-screen machines and for the state board's computer election management system, which tabulates votes from the individual machines when voting ends on election day.
Mark Radke, a spokesman for Diebold, said the software now used for the touch-screen machines in Maryland has many new security features not included on the earlier computer code. He said the labels on the disks refer to code that is no longer used in Maryland, but is used in "a limited number of jurisdictions."
Avi Rubin, a Johns Hopkins University computer scientist who was among the early critics of paperless electronic voting systems, examined the disks at the request of The Washington Post. He said Friday he could not say whether the fact that the disks were turned over to Kagan represents any additional security threat for the general election in Maryland and elsewhere.
"The code gives somebody the opportunity to define the weaknesses in the system," he said. "Maybe another copy went to somebody else."
A statement issued by Diebold said it would "take years for a knowledgeable scientist" to break the encryption used on the software disks delivered to Kagan. But Rubin said the data files were not encrypted on the disk containing the Ballot Station software that runs the voting machines.
EDITOR'S NOTE: In a previous version of this story, The Associated Press reported erroneously that Diebold Inc., a maker of voting machines, acquired LHS Associates. LHS, which is based in Methuen, Mass., is a vendor of Diebold equipment but it is not part of the company.
©MMVI, The Associated Press. All Rights Reserved. This material may not be published, broadcast, rewritten, or redistributed.
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- Be Ever Vigilant. Bush and Rove will do anything to stay in power up to an including flooding key districts with fake absentee ballots tampering with electronic voting machines, and bussing in voters who are not from the districts to vote, or even starting another war with and suspending civil liberties postponing the mid term vote. There is a great possibility for this administration to tamper with the electronic voting machines to the point that very subtle differences will take place in Key races just enough to tip the vote in their favor but not enough to cause a full scale American Revolution leaving some doubt, but just enough to throw key races in the Republican Favor. Watch out for this election coup.
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- Let Diebold do your voting for you!
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- Janem4 apparently you have not been reading all the posts.
http://www.cbsnews.com/stories/2006/10/20/world/main2110011.shtml
Here is a story about the IDIOT who is president of Iran calling for it's destruction.You and I have agreed and disagreed on politics however here we should share mutual ground.The majority of posters are anti semitic.I have spoken my peace about there insane thinking.As a fellow american can you not reach across party lines and address this idiots.I have tried to get you to comment on this story on other sites along with anyone else that opposses anti-semitic thought. - Reply to this comment
- I am in favor of the old paper system, because we had people involved, and we could recount.
This electronics can be rigged very easily, and there will be no trace of it ever happening.
The one thing I really don't trust is having a large corp. like Diebold, with their fingers in the pie. Large companies are not to be trusted, they have demonstrated this time and time again, and they spend big money to get people in office.
I am not willing to trust big business or politicians with my vote, they lie and cheat until they get what they want.
Why the big push for all of this? Let%u2019s face it, the correct way to have handled the Florida recount was to let another state count the votes.
And just for the record. The 2002 election was decided by the US Supreme court when they permitted 2,000+ ballots to be thrown away. This is in its self against the law. - Reply to this comment
- "Having a certain familiarity with the subject, being a digital design engineer for more than two decades myself, I can certify that if electronic voting machines have not been dramatically compromised in favor of those in power, a miracle has indeed occurred."
SearingTruth
A Future of the Brave - www.searingtruth.com - Reply to this comment
- Posted by janem4 at 10:41 PM : Oct 20, 2006
If you had been paying attention over the last few years, you would know that many on both sides of the aisle consider this to be a great problem.
The mainstream media has been highly negligent by not reporting this story more prominently. However this is not a new story. CBS did not just come up with this idea for a story today.
There have been many reported stories, by varied news outlets, of the problems associated with elections across the country held earlier this year. Did you miss all of that information, too?
Why in the world would you be so willing to have your vote not counted? Or worse, counted for a candidate for which you did not vote?
Apparently you have little respect for Democracy and the right to vote.
How sad. - Reply to this comment
- Janem4 said, "I just want to know why only the last 2 elections lost by the dems is there such a issue of fraud."
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1. Actually, the GOP has cried foul before, when it lost-- as recently as the victory of WA governor Gregoire over Rossi, a GOP rival. At GOP urging, Rossi demanded not one but two recounts, and still took the matter to court for a THIRD try. He lost again.
2. The last two presidential elections were very close, accompanied by a huge (some say, irresistible) window of opportunity for vote fraud to manipulate minor margins into a major victory. The familiar "hanging chads" issue from 2000 derailed early predictions of GOP success, and when Secretary of State Harris heard implications of the recount on the final tally, she called the recount off by quickly declaring the election over-- before all ballot boxes had been located and counted. Harris feared the results of a complete recount, which experts afterward said favored Gore.
3. In 2004, new opportunity for even more massive vote fraud appeared in physically sealed but electronically insecure electronic voting machines. Outsiders with technical expertise can "hack" the machine code before-- or even during-- election to generate the desired results. Few states have a complete, paper-based audit trail for their machines, which lack vastly complicates any recount.
Better cherish your civic right-- on principle-- to challenge elections. Even Bush endorses such a right (for his party). - Reply to this comment
- If you use an atm you can get a receipt of your transacton.So why cannot these manufacture's do the same providing a receipt for the individaul and the polling places.
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- All electronic vote readers or electronic voting machines violate one of the most basic rights of the electorate: The right to witness and verify the vote counting process. When all the counting process happens behind the screens using hidden proprietary code, John Q Public is unable to ever know whether or not the process was accurate or fair.
Paper and pen may be old fashioned and low tech but a crowd of people can all look at the ballots and tell what they say conclusively without any of them needing to know how to read geek. - Reply to this comment
- As the President of LHS Associates Inc., it is news to me and my stock holders that our company was purchased by Diebold. LHS has been in operation since 1972 as a privately held Massachusetts company. I and my business partners purchased LHS in 1991 and have owned it since. We have been selling election equipment and services since 1984
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- After the fiasco of the 2000 Florida primary which cast the entire first term of Bush into illegitimacy, congress in 2002 passed the $1.5 billion Help America Vote Act, partly to deflect growing criticism of the paper-based voting machines. In 2004, congress appropriated another $1.5 billion.
The only problem is HAVA money was a boondoggle, a fat bag of cash for Republican manufacturers of electronic voting machines, but an actual decline in the reliability of the nation's voting system.
Nationally, there is no system in place to verify the vote you cast is the vote which will be recorded-- hence the term "black box voting". Critics point to the fact there is often not even a "paper trail" to verify what these machines do is accurate. Computer science consultants have "hacked" Diebold voting machine code to demonstrate there is little to prevent vote fraud.
The mainstream media have been largely silent on this issue, even after questions arose in the 2004 election. Despite receiving a few years worth of emails and calls about the issue since then, the MSM is still largely silent. Its professional journalists do recognize and pursue a story when they find it-- unless instructed otherwise. This is clearly a coverup from higher levels of the various news organizations. - Reply to this comment
- So the Diebold spokesman says the discs mailed to Kagan were old, with "code that is no longer used in Maryland, but is used in 'a limited number of jurisdictions.'" He also says "the software now used for the touch-screen machines in Maryland has many new security features not included on the earlier computer code."
In other words, there are jurisdictions out there using machines with code that doesn't have the new security features.
I don't know what additional significance these discs have two years after the fact, but the fact that by their own admission their machines don't all have the same security features is already a red flag.
I'm with nikosk1, let's have a system we can all have confidence in, rather than selling us more of this junk. Anyone who says this isn't a problem is working against their own voting interests, no matter which way they vote. - Reply to this comment
- I agree with nikosk1. I have lived in many states and Oregon has the best election system I have seen. Not only is the voting by mail which eliminates having to go to the polls and provides a verifiable paper trail, but they also provide every voter with a very concise and informative voter pamphlet, so that all voters can make a well informed decision. In most states, unless you have a lot of time and energy to put into informing yourself, you have very little information about the issues and candidates. In Oregon, if you can read, you have all the information you need.
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- The only way to make sure your vote is NOT counted is to NOT vote. I've already sent my paper ballot in and I hope each and every one of you Dem, Rep, Ind--whatever will do the same. To NOT participate in the process is the biggest disservice you can give to the nation. (P.S. To my Republican friends, remember, your party election date is Nov 8...) :^)
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- Rove and Bush have a plan. Fix the Election but only in limited areas of Tight Races. Be aware.
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