I just watched a program on HBO called hacking democracy. This was one of the scariest shows I have ever seen. It shows how a particular brand of voting machine can be compromised fairly easily. It also showed the total lack of regard that some of our elections officials have for the system. One man who I am sure committed political suicide by going forward with the test he allowed should be giving an award for patriotism. I can’t remember his name, but will look it up and post it here. He is or at the time of the taping was the head of elections in Tallahassee Florida. He allowed a small group of people to run a somewhat controlled test of the ballot machine. They proved that it could be hacked. This was later backed up by a group at Berkley who found 16 other security flaws in the system. The scariest part is that what I saw them doing was not hard.
The systems maker is called Diebold. They remind me of big tobacco before they feel. On tape claiming time and time again that their systems are safe and that the people running these tests are wrong. Just like when big tobacco said cigarettes don’t kill people; all those crazy doctors are wrong.
What I saw as a computer programmer scared me. Their system is run using Microsoft Access. An extremely simple database and what I saw didn’t look hard to mess with. A simple virus on the tabulating machine and look I am president or at least I could win a county or two. These systems are self contained but still hackable before the fact until you get to the tabulating system. That is run on a basic windows machine that can be on the internet. True there is a paper trail which in the show was proven to be hackable as well. But a small virus and you could change the out come of an election with very little to say “hey there is something wrong here.” The recount process where a bunch of disinterested humans counted the ballots seemed no better in Ohio. I am so disappointed.
Then there are the people elected by these machines. Most of whom seem to turn a blind eye to it. And why not? If it could be proven that hey you really weren’t elected and we are going to have to redo your election. You might lose and in turn lose your job, I would be disinterested too. Especially as a greedy, special interest politician.
I am not going to accuse either party of fraud at the polls. I am sure they both are doing it. I am going to accuse them of not being really Americans though. FIX WHAT IS WRONG WITH THE SYSTEM.
This is my opinion on how to fix it. First off the system should be entirely stand alone. No easy to remove memory cards. Each system should be like a vault. Can not be messed with from the outside until such a time that each elections data is to be archived and the machine reset. Each machine at each polling place should be moved by armored car to the final collection location and the results downloaded to another system that is not on a public network which should include power grid. Each machine is local machine is plugged into the main tabulation system and results downloaded to it. Each local machine is still in tact. The download system is read only. No erasing of data at this point. Each system can only be downloaded once. No results can be seen until all the local machines have been downloaded. A final count is then printed and stored on a write once system for later inspection.
After you vote there should be two paper copies of your vote printed. One for you and one for verification that is signed and notarized. It is then slipped into an armored box. This insures that the computer collect the votes properly as the voter intended and that if the machine has any error a hand recount can be preformed and validated. The fact that our election system is this much of a cluster is amazing to me. One of the most important American rights and it is treated so poorly.
If this country is scared of terrorism, well here is a huge gap for them. Election results are much to easy to manipulate. If a terrorist network with their abilities can pass encrypted data using images as the encryption method then cracking our very unsophisticated election system will be no problem.
I watched this show in true terror. There should not be competition in this market. It should be like building a war plane. You want the gig, show us the best you have. Ok company A is going to build the system and this is what we will use. There is no room for shotty work here. There are some very smart people in this country. This is not that complex a system to build and secure. It is time that it is done and the people taking office are with out a doubt the people elected. Also stop making it hard for people to vote in certain areas. That is just straight bullshit. It has been true for ever that politicians don’t want you to vote. It is important that each persons vote be counted. Stop with the bullshit games.
It is each person’s right and their duty to vote. Make sure you do it at what ever cost.
