    
Bev Harris
Board Administrator
Username: Admin
Post Number: 10316
Registered: 12-2004
Best of Black Box? N/A
Votes: 0 (A keeper?) | | Posted on Thursday, February 19, 2009 - 8:54 am: | 
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Despite the NIST study, linked below, showing that ALL touchscreen (DRE) machines are prone to altering votes without detection, one of the recently released Congressional Research Service studies claims that DRE machines are the "only" machines that comply with the Help America Vote Act. But if real research was used for decisionmaking, things would change. Except for those who require assistive devices, ALL votes should be cast on voter-marked paper ballots. This article by excellent researcher Michael Richardson provides more details on the DRE fiasco:
Federal study says all touch-screen voting machines allow undetectable hacking
The National Institute of Standards and Technology has issued a nationwide review of electronic voting machines. Buried in the technical jargon of computer programmers are some alarming findings that should trigger a public outcry against touch-screen voting machines.
The NIST Voting Team provided a definition of 'voting system' that highlighted points of attack from hackers. "Equipment (including hardware, firmware, and software), materials, and documentation used to define elections and ballot styles, configure voting equipment, identify and validate voting equipment configurations, perform logic and accuracy tests, activate ballots, capture votes, count votes, reconcile ballots needing special treatment, generate reports, transmit election data, archive election data, and audit elections."
The NIST experts recommended, "All voting systems SHALL be auditable."
Defining auditability of software-driven voting machines involves "high-level auditability requirements that essentially demand that any error, whether randomly occurring or maliciously introduced, is detectable (error is defined essentially as an incorrect vote total result)."
The big news of the study comes in the form of a warning. "Note: It would have to be clear, however, that the methods for voting systems to be auditable must be highly reliable and robust, and that today's DRE [Direct Recording Electronic] voting systems would not meet this requirement."
In other words, all touch-screen voting machines in use throughout the entire country cannot detect malicious code. Hackers, using self-deleting software code, can rig voting machines without detection.
In the 2006 general election in Sarasota, Florida, thousands of votes were 'lost' in a close Congressional race on touch-screen voting machines. Despite considerable effort to find out what happened to the missing votes no final conclusion was reached. Florida election officials would not admit the machines had been hacked and concluded that voter error was to blame.
Modern election fraud, even on a massive scale, leaves no clues because of an inability to examine software when it is running a machine. If malicious code was introduced into a touch-screen voting machine by a hacker using self-deleting script, it is impossible to detect the intrusion.
The NIST investigators have warned the U.S. Election Assistance Commission, which certifies electronic voting systems, that there is no protection. "Successful attacks against all voting system components may be capable of causing an undetectable change to an election outcome."
Critics of software-driven devices in polling places urge paper and pencil. The battle cry of voting machine critics is, "Hand count paper ballots in public".
For more info: www.eac.gov/program-areas/voting-systems/docs/nist-response.pdf/attachment_downl oad/file
Boston Progressive Examiner - Feb 18, 2009, by Michael Richardson
http://www.examiner.com/x-1969-Boston-Progressive-Examiner%7Ey2009m2d18-Federal- study-says-all-touchscreen-voting-machines-allow-undetectable-hacking
This article is also archived in the US - National section of this Web site.
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