Another little flaw has been discovered in the security of electronic voting machines. Sequoia's election machines have a little yellow button that, when used in proper sequence with some simple instructions, sets up a manual override so that a voter (or poll worker or election official or ?)
can vote as many times as they wish. This came to light in California, where the Secretary of State isn't too worried. Instructions have been sent out to poll workers to be wary of people taking too long to vote, and to listen for the beep..
BEEP!
The story is reported on the
Bradblog. I found it linked via Michael Rivero's
What Really Happened.com.
New Vulnerability Discovered on Touch-Screen Systems Made by One of Country's Largest Voting Machine Companies Will Affect Elections in Dozens of States!
California's Secretary of State Bruce McPherson Denies Knowledge of Vulnerability Well After His Office Had Been Notified...
"Just push the yellow button and you can vote as many times as you want," Tom Courbat, an Election Integrity advocate from Riverside County, California informed The BRAD BLOG tonight. Not that we're in any mood to report more such stories, but this seems to be a big one. A very big one.
It seems there's a little yellow button on the back every touch-screen computer made by Sequoia Voting Systems, that allows any voter, or poll worker, or precinct inspector to set the system into "Manual Mode" allowing them to cast as many votes as they want.
Concerns about the flaw were first reported some thirty days ago to California Secretary of State Bruce McPherson's office by Ron Watt, a Tehama County, CA precinct inspector who has been a poll worker in the county for the last fifteen years. And yet, as recently as a radio interview last Tuesday, McPherson -- who has been crowing about having the country's most stringent security process for voting systems -- denied he was aware of any security issues with Sequoia systems.
The article cross links to Bev Harris' Black Box Voting.org which reported on the flaw on Halloween. Tricks from Sequoia are not treat for voters!
Citizens -- not scientists or certifiers or testing lab authorities -- identified the problem and have now notified the California secretary of state, and emergency measures are reportedly being taken in California, but not yet in Florida, Illinois, New Jersey, or any other state using Sequoia Voting Systems, the third-largest voting system vendor in the U.S.
An extraordinary Southern California citizen, Ron Watt, verified the security problem, which Black Box Voting will explain in detail below. The California secretary of state was formally notified by the California citizens.
The California Secretary of State's office followed up on a conference call among Bruce McDannold (Sec. State's office), Riverside citizen Tom Courbat, and Tehama County citizen Ron Watt on Friday Oct. 28.
After hearing what these citizens revealed, the Sec. State had Sequioa demonstrate the process which, in effect, allows any citizen to cast multiple votes
Sequoia agreed it could be done, but claimed it would be difficult to do unnoticed (they focused more on voters doing it than the idea of an insider doing it)
The Secretary of State contacted every California county that uses Sequoia and confirmed with them that they were indeed aware of this feature.
California counties are to inform all their poll workers of this and instruct them to be very vigilant during the Election Day to anyone spending too much time in the booth, or reaching around to the back of the machine where the button is located. Poll workers are supposed to be instructed to listen for a beeping sound made when the yellow button is pressed.
Included in the article is a copy of the easy instructions from the poll worker's manual on how to yellow hack elections.
So please go to the polls! Watch, listen and learn. Take your recording devices and be sure those camcorders are recording sound to catch a beep.
update: an important transcript from the Brad blog article:
The transcript of the phone message left by Bruce McDannold on Tom Courbat's cell phone follows in full...
T-R-A-N-S-C-R-I-P-T
10-30-06 Voice Mail Message from Bruce McDannold - CA Secretary of State's Office, 4:34 p.m. [2 minutes, 40 seconds duration] left on cell phone of Tom Courbat.
Yes, Mr. Courbat. Bruce McDannold from the uh Secretary of State's office. We spoke Friday night and I just wanted to get back in touch with you.
Since we spoke, we have ah reviewed the information. Sequoia was actually in here this morning giving us a demonstration uh of the feature and how it works and how you would set it up and put it into that mode [the manual mode that allows continuous voting on any Sequoia Edge I or Edge II machine]. We've reviewed it with them and I have to at least notice or note that that's not an easy thing to reach around and go through that sequence unobserved.
We've also spoken with all the counties ah that are Sequoia users today and verified they were all aware of that as a feature for the backup purposes, of course, that we discussed and why that feature was put in. Uh, they're all aware of it, they have all of them been training their staff and are continuing to train their staff and their poll workers on observing that and watching the equipment um during the day for uh any use of that system or people reaching around certainly or too long in the voting booth or the audio beep that it automatically emits every time you try to put it in that mode there's also an audio warning that goes with that so, you know, it's an important kind of mitigation being aware.
They are all doing poll worker training ah they're all putting signs up to warn people about the severe penalties for tampering with voting equipment uh which is would fall under--- most of them are putting signs actually on the machines. They are also being very conscious of the placement of the equipment so that they can observe, actually many of them are - have already planned to assign staff members to do nothing but just watch the machines for that purpose to make sure ah nobody is reaching around or doing anything.
And then of course, um a final important component is, they're all required to do balloting accounting afterwards to verify and demonstrate that no one has ah tampered with the machines or put any extra votes on it. So ah we're confident at this point that there are effective mitigation strategies out there -- everybody's clear that the essential [potential?] danger and alert to it, confident that it won't be affecting the election. Hopefully that answers your questions and puts you at a little more at ease. If you have any further questions or want to get back in touch with me, my number of course is 916-653-7244.
Thanks