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Virginia Ditches 'America's Worst Voting Machines'
Geoffrey.landis writes: Computerized voting machines are bad news in general, but the WINVote machines used in Virginia might just have earned their reputation as the most insecure voting machine in America. They feature Wi-Fi that can't be turned off (protected, however, with a WEP password of "abcde"), an unencrypted database, and administrative access with a hardcoded password of "admin." According to security researcher Jeremy Epstein, if the machines weren't hacked in past elections, "it was because nobody tried." But with no paper trail, we'll never know.
Well, after ignoring the well-documented problems for over a decade, Virginia finally decided to decommission the machines... after the governor had problems with the machines last election and demanded an investigation. Quoting: "In total, the vulnerabilities investigators found were so severe and so trivial to exploit, Epstein noted that 'anyone with even a modicum of training could have succeeded' in hacking them. An attacker wouldn't have needed to be inside a polling place either to subvert an election... someone 'within a half mile with a rudimentary antenna built using a Pringles can could also have attacked them.'"
Well, after ignoring the well-documented problems for over a decade, Virginia finally decided to decommission the machines... after the governor had problems with the machines last election and demanded an investigation. Quoting: "In total, the vulnerabilities investigators found were so severe and so trivial to exploit, Epstein noted that 'anyone with even a modicum of training could have succeeded' in hacking them. An attacker wouldn't have needed to be inside a polling place either to subvert an election... someone 'within a half mile with a rudimentary antenna built using a Pringles can could also have attacked them.'"
Who says it has to be a fully electronic system?
A decade ago in South Dakota I used an electronic system which was actually more secure than what you describe.
You walk into the voting booth, insert your ballot, it scans it and displays a single race per screen, you make your choices, confirm your choices in the end, then marks your ballot and returns it to you.
Prior to putting your ballot in the final box, you visually confirm that each race is what you selected... so you have the convenience of a touch screen system but with the verifiability of paper.
Help Brendan pay off his student loans
> But the 'voter id laws' of states like Texas
> a) don't let you vote at all,
O Rlly? Prett sure I voted.
>b) make it illegal to use state funded college ID or an out-of-state Driver License to prove your identity even if you happen to be a College Student living in Texas for 9 months of the year
Yes, if you've lived in Texas for nine months, and want to vote in Texas elections (claiming the benefits of Texas residency) you should get a Texas ID. You can instead choose to vote by mail in your home state. Voting for the same candidate twice, in two different states, is frowned upon.
> c) make it very difficult to prove your ID and COSTLY in both time and energy.
Dropping your ballot in the mailbox is SO difficult and expensive. The mailbox is all the way outside! Damn you libs are lazy MFs. (No ID required for voting by mail.)
If you choose to vote in-person, it's convenient that you ALREADY needed to have yoir birth certificate handy to register for school, because yes you will need it if you want to stop by the DMV to get your FREE voter ID (only needed if you don't have a DL, other state ID and want to vote in pereon).