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Damning Report On Sequoia E-Voting Machine Security
TechDirt notes the publication of the New Jersey voting machine study, the attempted suppression of which we have been discussing for a while now. The paper that the Princeton and Lehigh University researchers are releasing, as permitted by the Court, is "the same as the Court's redacted version, but with a few introductory paragraphs about the court case, Gusciora v. Corzine." What's new is the release of a 90-minute evidentiary video — the researchers have asked the court for permission to release a shorter version that hits the high points, as the high-res video is about 1 GB in size. See TechDirt's article for the report's executive summary listing eight ways the AVC Advantage 9.00 voting machine can be subverted.
http://coblitz.codeen.org/citp.princeton.edu/voting/advantage/advantage-insecurities-redacted.pdf
California ordered a review of all the machines used in the state last year. They would give access to university security labs to one manufacturer's machines at a secure location. I mean the machines were held in cages over night and there was controlled access for only the researchers, etc.
They were asked to evaluate the machines.
UC Santa Barbara did ES&S, and their analysis is here.
They also have a short video on the subject, here it is on youtube
In short, all the machines were utter crap. The "seals" can by bypassed by bending some plastic. The locks can be bypassed with a screwdriver. Plus the software is susceptible to viruses, and they managed to make the machine vote for whoever they wanted. Even though all the machines have the VVPT (voter-verified paper trail).
boldly going forward, 'cause we can't find reverse
Pretty much 20 minutes into the video, it describes how a poll worker can simulate activating the machine so that everybody in the room believes it is active, and the voter will notice nothing suspicious, yet the vote cast is not counted. The activation chirp is played, and the correct light display when the voter picks the candidate, and even says "vote counted thanks you", when in reality, no vote has been cast. Unbelievable. It's obvious that a malicious poll worker could absolutely use this to his or her advantage and deny people votes.