Last night, when I went to vote in the primary, I was asked if I would like a traditional ballot or "try out" the new electronic voting machine. I think you can probably guess which I chose.
Like it or not, electronic voting is here, and it's likely to stay. I'm not going to address here whether voting irregularities occurred in electronic voting machines (EVMs) in the past. I want to talk about what can be done to make sure EVMs are a reliable, secure and trustworthy means of voting in the future.
On election day 2004, over 2000 problems were reported involving EVMs. A
study of a Diebold Accu Vote-TS machine by Princeton University Computer Science professor Ariel J. Feldman and two graduate research assistants revealed recently that EVMs are "vulnerable to extremely serious attacks" and can be hacked within four minutes. The Princeton report concluded...
"· Malicious software running on a single voting machine can steal votes with little risk of detection;
· Anyone who has physical access to a voting machine or to a memory card that will later be inserted into a machine can install malicious software;
· Some problems can be eliminated by improving Diebold's software, but others cannot."
Full report of the study can be found
here.
What is clear from this study is that there are currently serious problems regarding the use of EVMs that must be addressed, and until they are, EVMs should be removed from polling stations.
To this end I propose the following letter be sent to your repective State's ranking voting official, in my case that would be the Washington State Secretary of State.
Note: This is just a draft and I welcome any comments or suggestions for improvement.
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Dear Mr. Secretary,
A recent study by the computer science department at Princeton University revealed that electronic voting machines (specifically a Diebold Accu Vote-TS) are "vulnerable to extremely serious attacks". Furthermore, the report concluded the following.
· Malicious software running on a single voting machine can steal votes with little risk of detection;
· Anyone who has physical access to a voting machine or to a memory card that will later be inserted into a machine can install malicious software;
The full report can be accessed on the internet at: http://itpolicy.princeton.edu/...
It is clear from this report that electronic voting machines cannot be considered secure and reliable due to current security, hardware and software issues. Given the problems in the use of electronic voting machines at this time, I respectfully request that electronic voting machines not be used until these issues are addressed and resolved.
Thank you,
Capt Stumpy
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I do think electronic voting machines can be made to be secure and reliable. To do so needs to address three areas of security. Hardware, software and tabulation.
A bi-partisan commission needs to formed to resolve these security problems. That commission needs to appoint a expert third party to examine these machines and the software and develop verification tests and improved security both in hardware and at the polling stations. There also needs to be a paper trail that can be used for vote recounts, or when there is software or hardware failure, (not an uncommon occurrance as anyone who uses a computer well knows). Until these procedures are developed and put in place, electronic voting machines should be removed from polling stations.