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.'"

Comments

Re:No shit, Sherlock

[ShaunC]

Where was Captain Obvious ten years ago?

She was (and still is) here. Alas, as you mentioned, no one wanted to listen.

Re:Meet the new guy

[DaHat]

if they don't give black people photo ID's.

Ok... can you please tell us where today there is a place with a "no blacks" sign with regards to getting photo IDs?

Or is there a place where there are certain requirements which all must meet, but somehow blacks are just too stupid/poor/lazy/etc to be able to meet them?

Re:Meet the new guy

[DaHat]

But if you are trying to dispute that voter ID requirements disproportionally affect minorities the facts simply are not on your side.

Oh this should be good.

The states that have instituted voterid laws are all cases where its clear that:

a) there has never been any indication that voter fraud of the type voter id will prevent isn't actually a real problem

Except for that we lack adequate mechanisms to even detect or act on such a thing. More on that later though.

b) as a percentage more republicans have the necessary voter id documents in their wallets and purses right now than democrats; so it places a larger burden on democrats.

Even if we assume everybody has equal access to government offices, and time off to visit them, it STILL means that more voting democrats are going to be too busy or too lazy to actually get their documentation together. Yes, some busy, lazy republicans will be excluded as well. But less of them overall.

If true... which I am not prepared to accept finding no evidence to support that just yet... if that is the case, is the solution to simply not require such IDs... or to make an effort to make sure as many as people have such IDs? Things which are more often than not required in plenty of other facets in life be it flying, driving, opening a bank account or just buying a six-pack of beer.

More so, if one accepts the premise that exercising rights should not unduly burden one side more than another... is it safe to say Republicans tend to be more likely to buy/own firearms then Democrats? Is it then also discriminatory that a photo id is required to buy a gun at an FFL, further burdening Democrats? Is not a photo id requirement in this case an infringement on their second amendment rights?

The upshot is indisputable. voter id laws are biased for republicans while really having no other effect.

What about increased turnout? Is that an effect?

Since the type of voter fraud it prevents is statistically irrelevant anyway.

Can you, or anyone conclusively say exactly what the rate of voter fraud is? Sure, you can point to a low conviction rate... but that's pretty specious evidence as no one can... as there are not adequate means to detect it.

If I show up at your polling place nice & early and claim to be you and vote on your behalf, I've just committed fraud, though unless the poll worker knows you and says "no you aren't! and tackles me to the ground while calling for police... how do you detect/prevent that later in the day when you show up?

Best case, because it's impossible to find the ballot I cast at 7:01 am that morning, you get a provisional ballot and vote a similar way to me and our candidate gets 2x the votes from 'you'. Worst case, you don't get to vote, or your real vote gets canceled out by my fraudulent vote.

What if instead I drive to various polling places early in the morning with a pre-determined list of people who I am going to vote on fraudulently behalf of and who I do not think are likely to vote later in the dead (recently deceased, homebound, hasn't voted in a while)... is that going to be detected at all? Probably not, and my chances of getting away with it are just as good, even if I have a few people joining me to help sway an election for our guy.

Where you've margins of 100k sure, such fraud doesn't really matter, but when you've got close local or state elections that come down to a few dozen or a few hundred ballots out of several million cast... we are beyond the margin of error or carelessness (accidently scribbling an identifying mark, double voting, etc)... it's almost certain that we are in the margin of fraud... granted only some kinds can be red