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Top Voting Machine Vendor Admits It Installed Remote-Access Software on Systems Sold to States (vice.com)
Kim Zetter, reporting for Motherboard: The nation's top voting machine maker has admitted in a letter to a federal lawmaker that the company
installed remote-access software on election-management systems it sold over a period of six years, raising questions about the security of those systems and the integrity of elections that were conducted with them. In a letter sent to Sen. Ron Wyden (D-OR) in April and obtained recently by Motherboard, Election Systems and Software acknowledged that it had "provided pcAnywhere remote connection software ... to a small number of customers between 2000 and 2006," which was installed on the election-management system ES&S sold them.
The statement contradicts what the company told me and fact checkers for a story I wrote for the New York Times in February. At that time, a spokesperson said ES&S had never installed pcAnywhere on any election system it sold. "None of the employees -- including long-tenured employees, has any knowledge that our voting systems have ever been sold with remote-access software," the spokesperson said. ES&S did not respond on Monday to questions from Motherboard, and it's not clear why the company changed its response between February and April. Lawmakers, however, have subpoena powers that can compel a company to hand over documents or provide sworn testimony on a matter lawmakers are investigating, and a statement made to lawmakers that is later proven false can have greater consequence for a company than one made to reporters.
The statement contradicts what the company told me and fact checkers for a story I wrote for the New York Times in February. At that time, a spokesperson said ES&S had never installed pcAnywhere on any election system it sold. "None of the employees -- including long-tenured employees, has any knowledge that our voting systems have ever been sold with remote-access software," the spokesperson said. ES&S did not respond on Monday to questions from Motherboard, and it's not clear why the company changed its response between February and April. Lawmakers, however, have subpoena powers that can compel a company to hand over documents or provide sworn testimony on a matter lawmakers are investigating, and a statement made to lawmakers that is later proven false can have greater consequence for a company than one made to reporters.
It's plausible that an admin or tech installed it for convenience at certain trouble customers and current execs just weren't aware. It doesn't mean they lied. This was 15-20 years ago. Pretty common practice.
"But removing dead people from the voter roles is racist! Somehow. According to liberals."
WTF are you babbling on about magasnowflake? The list of things that republicans terrified of brown or poor people do to suppress the vote is long and well documented.
"No other nation in the world lets you go in, say "oh yeah, I'm a registered voter" and then just trusts you on that. But we do."
Citation please, mister expert on every voting process in the world...
Should we worry that this company thinks it is ok to routinely tell blatant lies about their security related practice?
Reading up on verified paper voting trails. (=My personal wishlist item for verifiable elections) reveals some disturbing stuff from 2016's election:
https://www.nbcnews.com/news/us-news/paperless-pennsylvania-can-swing-state-verify-2016-vote-n660266
"Even benign breakdowns of aging equipment — 43 states have machines that are more than a decade old ", i.e. states with voting machines from before 2006, the new standards didn't come in until 2007 and ESS only removed this software on machines made AFTER 2007.
You claimed it was 15-20 years ago, but the article says 2007 was the time they removed them and then only for new voting machines sold.
"when Pennsylvanians go to the polls to elect a new president in a month, more than 80 percent of them will be using machines that don't have a paper-backed audit."
Let me guess, Pennsylvania was polling strongly for Clinton yet elected Trump by a slim and plausible margin.
"Hillary Clinton leading by up to 12 points in Pennsylvania..."
(From Wikipedia after the article)
Trump wins Pennsylvania by 48.18% to 47.46%...
I'm guessing that this is odd.
2012, strong Obama, 2008 strong Obama, 2004 kerry, 2000 Al Gore....
Yeh right, and now you can't even verify it because you didn't have a paper trail to verify against.
FFS,
Bullshit. If you're incapable of getting a couple hundred together for an id, you don't have your shit together enough that you should be voting.
That's not what US law says. Everyone has the right to vote.
There's no systemic oppression keeping people down.
Some of the people implementing this voter suppression have been pretty open about it, especially when they were among friends and didn't realize what they said would be public. But their actions speak louder than words.
If you're legitimately discriminated against, it means a big payday. People who claim discrimination and oppression, or such on others behalf, do so out of ignorant sentimentality, or rationalization of poor life decisions.
If you honestly think that all discrimination in the USA leads to a 'big payday' you are sorely deluded. Possibly terminally deluded if you were a minority.