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Hacker Exposes Parts of Florida's Voting Database

Posted by Soulskill on from the many-things-are-exposed-in-florida dept.

Dangerous_Minds writes "Some people feel that elections can be rigged and votes tampered with. One hacker, who goes by the name of Abhaxas, decided to prove that votes aren't secure by exposing parts of the Florida voting database. Said Abhaxas while posting the data, 'Who believes voting isn't tampered with?'"

26 of 261 comments (clear)

  1. Good job on behalf of the hacker by Cito · · Score: 4, Insightful
    Hopefully this can help finally shed light on voting fraud to stuff the ballots in our election process. I've never been one for electronic voting as it's so much more easily tampered with. And only reason it's pushed so much is due to companies like diebold and the media who push so they can have up to the second voter tallies so they can sound like they are on top of everything when reporting.

    It needs to go back to the old way, which wasn't perfect, but was hell of a lot better than electronic voting.

    1. Re:Good job on behalf of the hacker by damiangerous · · Score: 4, Insightful

      Why not just go ahead and make it all verifiable? Coercion. An employer or union boss can easily make sure their people vote the "right" way if they want to keep their jobs.

    2. Re:Good job on behalf of the hacker by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 4, Informative

      In mexico we require ID and put some ink on the persons thumb. it's kinda hard to remove. no impossible by any means, but I'm sure someone could come up with something harder to remove, that would last for a few days.

    3. Re:Good job on behalf of the hacker by PopeRatzo · · Score: 5, Insightful

      This Ohio Republican representative got his license pulled because he was driving drunk. If the election was tomorrow he wouldn't be able to vote.

      He's the sponsor of a bill to require photo ID in order to vote.

      The sponsor of an Ohio bill which restricts access to the ballot box was arrested back in April on drunk driving charges while he had a 26-year-old woman in his car and Viagra in his system, according to police reports.

      On April 23, an Indiana state trooper pulled Rep. Robert Mecklenborg over for a burned out headlight on a 2004 Lexus he was driving. After failing three separate field sobriety tests, Mecklenborg allegedly refused to take a breath test and was placed under arrest. A blood test later revealed that he had recently taken a Viagra.

      Laws requiring photo ID to vote only exist to keep poor people from voting. Let's not bullshit, here. How did the United States last 235 years without requiring photo IDs to vote? How come we haven't had any scandals involving ineligible people voting despite the Bush Administration promising to make it a priority?

      If you want to do voter fraud by having ineligible people voting, it takes a lot of hard work. If you want to do it using electronic voting machines, it's trivial. How can you suggest that until we have laws keeping poor people from voting we shouldn't get rid of electronic voting? It's like ignoring the hole in the bottom of the boat because you want to make sure your captain's hat is on straight.

      --
      You are welcome on my lawn.
    4. Re:Good job on behalf of the hacker by PopeRatzo · · Score: 4, Interesting

      someone != everyone

      That statement was made obsolete with the Internet.

      --
      You are welcome on my lawn.
    5. Re:Good job on behalf of the hacker by damiangerous · · Score: 3, Insightful

      Everyone is not you. A great many people are poor, unskilled, uneducated laborers and often immigrants. They're already easily abused by employers due to lack of knowledge of labor laws, lack of resources to do anything about it and/or fear of repercussions.

    6. Re:Good job on behalf of the hacker by PopeRatzo · · Score: 3, Insightful

      In Texas a Non-Driver Identification Card is $16 and expires in 6 years. If you are too poor to afford a car to bother taking/passing the driving test you can get just a regular ID.

      You can go to senior citizen homes and not find a single photo ID among the residents. To get one, they'd have to get their birth certificate, which might require a trip to their home town if they were born before 1955.

      Photo ID voter laws are only meant to keep poor people from voting. If you look through YouTube, you'll find Republicans admitting as much. Then there are the new residency requirements meant to keep students from voting.

      This is not about the integrity of elections. Exactly the opposite in fact.

      --
      You are welcome on my lawn.
    7. Re:Good job on behalf of the hacker by The+Wild+Norseman · · Score: 5, Funny

      A blood test later revealed that he had recently taken a Viagra.

      Wow. Is that a non sequitur or what? Just what the hell are they screening for in Ohio?

      Erection fraud?

      --
      "A government is a body of people usually -- notably -- ungoverned." -Shepherd Book
    8. Re:Good job on behalf of the hacker by anorlunda · · Score: 4, Informative

      Everyone of your example's senior citizens is collecting Social Security, which has very strict requirements for identification.

      What the hell are you talking about? I'm a senior collecting SS. I applied online and was then interviewed by phone. No scrap of ID was ever requested. I have a drop box snail mail address. I never needed to appear in person. All I needed was a SSN and an account for deposits.

  2. None of this (except the passwords)... by John+Hasler · · Score: 4, Insightful

    ...should be secret anyway. The only part of an election that should be secret is how each individual voted.

    --
    Warning: this article may contain humor, sarcasm, parody, and perhaps even irony. Read at your own risk.
    1. Re:None of this (except the passwords)... by compro01 · · Score: 5, Insightful

      Why do you need a machine to vote? Why not just pencil in an X next to the candidate's name like they do in other countries?

      How is anyone supposed to profit from that kind of scheme?

      --
      upon the advice of my lawyer, i have no sig at this time
    2. Re:None of this (except the passwords)... by jc42 · · Score: 4, Informative

      Why not just pencil in an X next to the candidate's name like they do in other countries?

      Because that wouldn't produce income for the top people in the companies that make the electronic voting equipment. And, of course, those are people who have contributed to the re-election campaigns of the legislators who have promised to push electronic voting.

      Also, it's pretty well understood that secret, verifiable elections aren't exactly popular with "incumbent" legislators.

      Here in the US, we had that amusing case a couple of elections ago, where the CEO of Diebold (one of the main makers of electronic voting equipment) promised the Republicans in Ohio in writing that he would deliver Ohio to the Republicans in the next election. He delivered, too.

      Actually, I think the best comment on this issue was this story. (For the benefit of the whoosh-impaired, I'll point out that this is a satirical site. ;-)

      --
      Those who do study history are doomed to stand helplessly by while everyone else repeats it.
  3. To make a secure voting machine by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 4, Insightful

    That's the whole point of these voting machines, make it easier and save time for the users. A punchcard reader/sorta could easily accomplish that. You got physical validity and you get time saving. People can still mail in votes and a database that keeps only people who have voted already (and not who voted for who) could keep track of duplicate votes which puts up a *flag* for that person. If they done it this way, a database breach means little without physical access to the cards or machine.

    What about dead people voting fraud and vote coercion for mail in votes? Stricter law enforcement and record keeping as those things already happens i suppose.

  4. Total non-sequitur by artor3 · · Score: 3, Insightful

    So the fact that he was able to access a list of voters is supposed to prove that votes are rigged? How exactly does that follow?

    Voter fraud is a non-existent problem. It's a bogeyman used to get people scared so that they agree to more restrictions on voting, which in turn disenfranchises those who might otherwise resist the powers that be. It also serves the double duty of de-legitimizing any political opponents. Don't like the incumbent? Call him an imposter, and that way you can scream hatred and bile against him at every moment, and your supporters won't question it, because you've given them a way to rationalize all the hate.

    1. Re:Total non-sequitur by rwven · · Score: 4, Insightful

      The point is that if he hacked in and and got this junk, someone could just as easily have gotten in and altered the data. I don't put it beyond corporations to under-the-table hire hackers to accomplish their end-goals (namely because I've seen it happen), and hacking a voter database is a pretty obvious target.

      And that's only the corporation side of things....

    2. Re:Total non-sequitur by geek · · Score: 4, Interesting

      Sorry but you are full of shit.

      http://www.humanevents.com/article.php?id=39166
      http://missouri.watchdog.org/5937/dead-voters-in-missouri/
      http://www.washingtonpost.com/local/starting-friday-protective-orders-easier-to-get-dead-voters-votes-count-new-va-fiscal-year/2011/06/30/AGbcVtrH_story.html

      Voting fraud is almost a national tradition.

    3. Re:Total non-sequitur by dkleinsc · · Score: 5, Insightful

      Voter fraud is a non-existent problem.

      It's not quite non-existent. It's not hard to find residents of Chicago or Philadelphia who were part of political machines that regularly placed fraudulent votes. For instance, a common tactic was (maybe still is) to use dead people's names and addresses.

      However, efforts to restrict voting (at least in the US) have far more to do with disenfranchising poor people and black people than they do with any actual risk of fraud. For instance, photo ID requirements, a mere annoyance for middle-class white folks with a driver's license, are an insurmountable burden for members of the underclass that survive on public housing and food assistance. One tell-tale sign here is that the focus is on somebody who shows up to the polls and tries to cast a fraudulent vote, rather than the much easier ways of committing election fraud on a significant scale like manipulating the persons or machines responsible for counting the votes or effectively ballot-stuffing. If you were, say, a secretary of state with ties to a party's political campaign trying to commit election fraud, which would be easier - making a vulnerable voting machine and changing a number in Microsoft Access, or organizing hundreds of thousands of people to go to the polls and fraudulently casting votes?

      --
      I am officially gone from /. Long live http://www.soylentnews.com/
    4. Re:Total non-sequitur by ohnocitizen · · Score: 3, Informative

      I can counter your right wing sources with left wing ones:

      http://thinkprogress.org/politics/2011/03/27/153179/report-from-poll-taxes-to-voter-id-laws-a-short-history-of-conservative-voter-suppression/
      http://www.prwatch.org/news/2011/05/10711/voter-suppression-bills-sweep-country
      http://motherjones.com/kevin-drum/2011/06/voter-fraud-or-voter-suppression
      http://www.salon.com/news/feature/2008/10/15/voter_suppression

      While I do think there is some voter fraud in the modern era, and would point to Florida in the 2000 election and Ohio in 2004, it is often twisted and blown out of proportion to fuel a hysteria that we need to make it harder to vote. So we end up with laws that make it harder to vote for those who vote Democratic. I find it hard to believe that is an accident.

      What we need is a way to verify votes that does not end up constituting an effective poll tax, and keeping people who have a right to vote from the polls. I wonder if any slashdot readers have any suggestions? I'd be quite hopeful on that account, some rather clever people read this site and have left encouraging comments on past articles about voting.

    5. Re:Total non-sequitur by Sooner+Boomer · · Score: 3, Insightful

      For instance, photo ID requirements, a mere annoyance for middle-class white folks with a driver's license, are an insurmountable burden for members of the underclass that survive on public housing and food assistance.

      Pray, do tell, how people that are able to sign up and live off of the public dole, then become too stupid (or otherwise unable) to get a FREE photo ID. Make the photo ID part of the requirement to use these benefits, and you'll cut down on foodstamp fraud too. This whole idea about poor people unable to get ID (which can be verified) is a disingenuous strawman arguement. "insurmountable burden", my ass - just another reason to perpetuate voter fraud!

      --
      Chaos maximizes locally around me.
    6. Re:Total non-sequitur by Sooner+Boomer · · Score: 3, Insightful

      You are being disingenuous...
      Republicans are the ones with the strawman argument...

        The whole "I know you are but what am I" arguement doesn't work past the 5th grade.
      And I hardly think Chicago, widely known for voter fraud, is a Republican bastion. Want to try again?

      --
      Chaos maximizes locally around me.
    7. Re:Total non-sequitur by stdarg · · Score: 3, Insightful

      So if we made a photo ID a requirement for public housing and food assistance, problem solved?

      I assume there are mechanisms to stop people from signing up for public housing and food assistance multiple times. If no ID is required, how are they enforcing that? Why not use the same mechanisms when it comes to voting?

  5. This is public election data, not voting data by thesandbender · · Score: 3, Informative

    If anyone took 30 seconds to scan this scandalous "voting" data it's very apparent that this is data about the elections and not the actual voting or voters. All of this data can and should be public knowledge (e.g. Elections, Candidates, Races, what special interest groups are working the polls as well as voter statistics). A quick google search will give you almost all of this data because want it should be public knowledge.

    This would be a story if this data wasn't available.

    1. Re:This is public election data, not voting data by thesandbender · · Score: 4, Informative

      I'm assuming you're not from the U.S. A "race" here is referring to the election and not the ethnicity of the person or person(s) involved. The literal translation in this sense in "contest"... i.e. the "race" to the finish line. You'll notice that there's a "race" lookup table which contains Sheriff, Councilman, etc. It's referring to those "contests", not black, white, asian, latino, etc.

  6. Re:So what if pollworkers passwords are compromise by thesandbender · · Score: 4, Informative

    You're misunderstanding "poll workers"... these are lobby groups who are outside the polls trying to influence your votes, look at the pollworker_links table later in the dump. They're tracking who was there and who they represent... which is exactly what they should be doing. And yes, this data should be public (by law actually).

  7. Re:You know what this means by camperdave · · Score: 4, Funny

    How about the other way around? Tax everybody and then give them a refund if they show up to vote.

    --
    When our name is on the back of your car, we're behind you all the way!
  8. Re:Eat my GPL'd penis! by Moryath · · Score: 3, Funny

    DO WHAT YOU WANT CAUSE A PIRATE IS FREE Public License.

    Version 1.0, November 22, 1718

    TERMS AND CONDITIONS
    0. Do what you want cause a pirate is free. You Are A Pirate.
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