“Steal All The Votes” Undetected
It is possible to “steal all the votes in [Clayton or Fayette] county without being detected” according to a “respected computer scientist who is familiar with the inner workings of the ES&S iVotronic electronic voting system.” The iVotronic is the only voting machine available in Clayton and Fayette counties. It is also used by some voters in Emmet, Calhoun, Jasper, Lee, Johnson, and Clinton counties.
The charge of insecure voting machines has been made to the federal Election Assistance Commission following a study of the machines in Florida. These machines were responsible for the 18.000 missing votes in Sarasota’s Congressional race last November. The news of this vulnerability is being withheld by the EAC but has been leaked to VotersUnite.org. The anonymous computer scientist concludes
One consequence for advocates is that this is further evidence that it’s not just one vendor who has serious security problems; it’s a second instance this sort of virus vulnerability. Don’t let anyone tell you that if we just “kick Diebold off the island” all of the security problems will go away.
The scientist warns local officials,
Don’t use the iVotronic in major elections until the security problems have been verified to be fixed. . . . Because making these kinds of changes to a voting system and getting approval from testing labs and certification authorities is a lengthy process, if we are to fix this problem before the 2008 primary, it is important to get this process underway immediately.
I have a better idea. Switch to paper ballots.