E-Voting Machines: A "Hacking" Demonstration

Princeton University demonstrates how they can easily manipulate and hack into an e-voting machine to distort the votes cast in an election. The machine used in the demonstration is a Diebold Accuvote-TS electronic voting machine.

Interesting stuff! As I've said before these items just don't seem to be very reliable and concern me as to whether or not our country is on the right course.

Abstracts and full research papers can be found here.

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President Pervez Musharraf Admits WMD's Led Him to Impose Emergency Rule in Pakistan

Reuters Slideshow

In two news reports released today through Reuters and BBC, Pakistans' President Pervez Musharraf met with U.S. Deputy Secretary of State, John Negroponte, in which they discussed the lifting of the emergency rule and continuance of the democratic election process in Pakistan.

During the meeting Musharraf admitted that it is the WMD's that led him to impose emergency rule in Pakistan and that the country was safe as long as the military was in charge.

"They cannot fall into the wrong hands, if we manage ourselves politically. The military is there -- as long as the military is there, nothing happens to the strategic assets, we are in charge and nobody does anything with them," he said.

"President Musharraf made it clear to the visiting US envoy that the emergency can only be lifted once the situation regarding law and order improves," Gen Musharraf's aide told AFP news agency.

The aide added, "He told the envoy that the emergency is meant to reinforce and strengthen the law enforcement apparatus in the fight against militancy and extremism."

Musharraf was also upset that his image, as portrayed in Western media, has been skewed lately and demanded to know why. "Did I go mad? Or suddenly, my personality changed? Am I Dr Jekyll and Mr Hyde?" he asked. "Have I done anything constitutionally illegal? Yes, I did it on 3 November. But did I do it before? Not once."



As regards Benazir Bhutto, Musharraf referred to her as "the darling of the West" and stated that her party was in no position to win the election at all. He said that she ruined her chances of a "deal" in which she could have served as prime minister under his presidency. He called her confrontational and said that she "disturbed the entire environment."

Musharraf also stated that he will resign as head of the army once the Supreme Court approves his next term as President.

Dr Jekyll and Mr Hyde? Yes, I think you are President Musharraf and you said it yourself. 'Nuff said.

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E-Voting Machines

ES&S IVotronic

States were required to have e-voting machines in place by January 1, 2006 as mandated by the Federal Election Commission which instituted the Help America Vote Act of 2002 (HAVA), Public Law 107-252. HAVA was instituted to replace the punch card system which seemed to be so flawed and antiquated.

This past November 7th an election in Ohio leaves us wondering if e-voting machines are all that they are praised to be...

The company that supplied the machines to Lawrence County, Ohio, Election Systems and Software (ES&S), sent in technicians to check out the machines but it seems that ES&S is having quite a few problems with their machines. And not just in Ohio...

Recently, San Francisco charged ES&S with material breach of contract since they did not, allegedly, notify the city of changes made to the machines. ES&S claims no wrong doing but SF is not satisfied and is currently hand counting all ballots cast in their election of 11/7.

Connecticut voters discovered that rainy, dreary weather can impact e-voting machines causing them to jam. Evidently, voters allowed their ballots to contact their wet clothing and this caused problems with the machines.

A faulty e-voting machine was blamed for causing voter delays in Henderson County, Illinois.

Even though e-voting machines are shown to be faulty and "hackable" states are still required to use them in elections. There are also concerns about not having a paper trail of the votes cast so, as in the case of the Ohio election, results can be skewed and the wrong officials could be elected.

Voting Soldiers

In a recent article by Rady Ananda, US to NY: You Gotta HAVA Faulty Voting Machine, Rady points out that though the USG mandates that the e-voting machines are required a state should be allowed enough time to secure a safe and accurately working machine - it should not just be a matter that the state has to put a machine, even a faulty one, in place.

Are we any better off with the electronic version over the punch card machine?

I don't think so... Me thinks that the 2000 election was "fixed" and it was not the punch card machine's fault. But there's always a fall guy in every scenario and the punch card machine was the fall guy. Unfortunately, the punch card machine didn't have anyone to stick up for it so it was tossed to the side like yesterday's mashed potatoes. And the shiny slick e-voting machine slid into it's place.

And, boy, that shiny slick e-voting machine isn't so slick after all. It's more like a pretty girl who, when she smiles, you find she has yellow, crusted, crooked teeth... brrrr

Bad Teeth

To learn more about e-voting machines read Is E-Voting Safe?

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