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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.'"
Where was Captain Obvious ten years ago? Why is there no outrage over "trivial to hack" and "we can never know"? Little else is as sacrosanct to our system of law and government as the integrity of the electoral process. That those who knew better were unable to get attention focused on this problem until now is deeply troubling.
electronics, and to a lesser extent voting machines, just exponentially increase the amount of attack vectors
of course you can still fake votes with paper voting, but then you are talking about a crazy conspiracy involving delivery trucks and teams of people. it's a lot harder to hide
rather than one well placed hacker
the poorest democracy and the most advanced democracy should all vote the same way
the overriding point is legitimacy: people have to trust their vote counted. replacing paper and pencil with a black box of gears or electronics does not engender trust
this is far, far more important than getting results a couple hour earlier
intellectual property law is philosophically incoherent. it is your moral duty to ignore it or sabotage it
The issue isn't the $10. You don't simply fork over $10 and get an ID; you need some proof of identity, like a _certified_ birth certificate. Don't have one? They're not free either. Moreover, you often need a government issued ID to get a certified birth certificate. That's a bit of a catch-22, right? The solution varies by state. Sometimes you can use a combination of utility bills, W-2s, car registration, bank account, etc. The first requires a permanent residence. The second requires a real job. The latter two probably required a photo ID in the first place. Almost all states allow an attorney to request a certified birth certificate, but attorneys aren't free either. The situation of not having a real job, permanent residence, and certified birth certificate is probably totally foreign to /. users, but there are a non-trivial number of (usually poor) American citizens in that situation, but they still deserve the right to vote.
Now, some states try to avoid this mess. E.g. in WI the non-driver IDs are free if you need one to vote. Also, if you don't have the documentation you need, you can fill out a form and the DMV will take care of everything -- at least in principle. I don't know how well it works; the WI DMV is already stretched kind of thin.
I have mixed feelings about all this. Voter fraud is simply not a problem in the US. (Yes, some idiots filled out fake voter _registration_ forms last election because they were paid to fill out lots of registration forms. That's not voter fraud since no fraudulent votes were cast.) Voter ID laws are there to make life difficult for poor people who tend to vote for Democrats. End of story. What's the upside? Because of the political angle, voter ID laws have lead to organizations assisting poor people to get ID cards. I don't know how effective the organizations have been, but the people who get an ID probably benefit.
They want to make it harder for people that don't readily have ID to vote. Why?
Because voting is a right reserved for citizens of the US and the political subdivision holding the election. Stopping people who aren't citizens from voting is a good thing for all of us.
There are continuous claims that voting is ineffective because "my vote doesn't count" when it is because someone is voting for a losing candidate, why should we dilute the vote even further by letting everyone who walks into the polling place vote? Why SHOULDN'T voting be reserved for citizens?
Oh please! Show me a case of where in person voter fraud is more than an occasional occurrence. The GW Bush administration made it a point of emphasis with the US Attorneys and they found basically nothing. Voter ID is a solution looking for a problem. I thought the R's were against more regulations and bureaucracy.