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Inside Electronic Voting Machines

Posted by michael on from the vote-for-buchanan dept.

Alien54 and several other people wrote in about a couple of stories published in a New Zealand webzine: an examination of an electronic voting system, and some less interesting political speculation about it. Diebold voting systems are in fairly wide use, and apparently provide zero security to keep election officials from writing in whatever election totals they want.

17 of 398 comments (clear)

  1. First vote! by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 5, Funny

    We should have a slashdot poll about this.
    And then rig the results. :)

    1. Re:First vote! by ethx1 · · Score: 3, Funny

      Hey! We are not all in Florida you know.

    2. Re:First vote! by Detritus · · Score: 4, Funny

      Sorry, the City of Chicago has been granted a "business process" patent on fixing elections.

      --
      Mea navis aericumbens anguillis abundat
  2. Voting by Pinguu · · Score: 1, Funny

    Diebold voting systems are in fairly wide use, and apparently provide zero security to keep election officials from writing in whatever election totals they want.
    Obviously the ones used in Florida :)

    --
    --
  3. I need my meds.. by grub · · Score: 4, Funny


    [tinfoil_hat]In the near future we will be given ballots containing RFIDs which will tie the voter to the vote. mwahahahaha![/tinfoil_hat]

    --
    Trolling is a art,
  4. Of course by DNS-and-BIND · · Score: 4, Funny

    It's not a bug, it's a feature!

    --
    Shutting down free speech with violence isn't fighting fascism. It IS fascism!
  5. Does it really take a computer... by el-spectre · · Score: 5, Funny

    ... to tabulate the votes of the supreme court? Those are the votes used to selec..., er elect the pres...

    --
    "Faith: Belief without evidence in what is told by one who speaks without knowledge, of things without parallel." - A.B.
  6. Wow... by Hank+Reardon · · Score: 1, Funny
    This story, while somewhat informative if you can read between all of the hyperbole, reads like something out of the movie "Consipricy Theory".

    Yeah, there's a security flaw in the voting program. Yeah, they didn't configure their servers correctly. Yeah, their math is funky...

    And the Republicans did it?

    Give me a break...

    --
    There's so little difference between politics and jihad lately...
  7. Re:Solve all voting machine problems by cK-Gunslinger · · Score: 4, Funny
    why not at least require a literacy standard for voting
    Because everyone in the US is affected by US policy, therefore everyone in the US needs to be represented. If illiterates weren't allowed to vote, should they also not be required to pay taxes since they are not represented by lawmakers? Anyway, why stop at illiteracy. Why not require IQ scores of 145+ or high SAT verbals? Or anything that would exclude you from voting. Would you like that?

    Try this cool Slashdot method I've developed:

    1) THINK
    2) THINK AGAIN
    3) POST!
    4) :-)
  8. Re:Need paper trail by garcia · · Score: 3, Funny

    with less than half the population deciding it's important to vote, I don't see how it would really matter.

    Find 99% of 18 year old's SSNs, enter into voting machine, instant winner.

  9. No different than from voting in South Texas by christoofar · · Score: 5, Funny

    Politicians here have to spend lots to get the dead to vote... but they manage to turn out year after year. How failful to their citizenry after they're gone...

  10. Oh My God ... by DogIsMyCoprocessor · · Score: 3, Funny
    This week's sign the apocalypse is upon us -

    (From the article - emphasis mine)

    At the county office, there is a "host computer" with a program on it called GEMS.

    GEMS receives the incoming votes and stores them in a vote ledger. But then, we found, it makes another set of books with a copy of what is in vote ledger 1. And at the same time, it makes yet a third vote ledger with another copy.

    The Elections Supervisor never sees these three sets of books. All she sees is the reports she can run: Election summary (totals, county wide) or a detail report (totals for each precinct). She has no way of knowing that her GEMS program is using multiple sets of books, because the GEMS interface draws its data from an Access database, which is hidden.

    What's next? NASDAQ running off of Access?

    --

    "And this is my boy, Sherman. Speak, Sherman." "Hello." "Good boy."

  11. oh yeeh? by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 1, Funny

    ssh george@vote.gov -p 2943
    Password:
    Last login: Tue Jul 8 19:13:54 on goatse.cx
    [vote:~] george% ls -a
    . ..
    gore.vote
    gore2.vote
    gore3.vote
    bush.vote
    gore4.vote
    gore5.vote
    [vote:~] george% rm gore*
    [Process completed]

  12. Re:Solve all voting machine problems by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 1, Funny

    Hey, I live in Chicago, and if the dead can vote, so can the illiterate!

  13. Re:Abuse potential by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 1, Funny
    If they ever try to get such devices in my district without making them open and easily accountable, my congressional district is going to hear holy hell about it from me.
    Ah yes, they may get holy hell from you, but they'll be compensated by sweeping to an unrivalled election victory on an electronically-recorded wave of popularity!
  14. Re:Abuse potential by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 1, Funny

    I believe they use "La Pluma y el Papel"

  15. Peruvian voting mechanisms by Aropax20 · · Score: 2, Funny
    Surely they'd use quipu to keep track of the voting, just as their Incan forebears did?

    Thank you, thank you, I'll be in town all week