Moby
12-15-2007, 02:29 PM
Did anyone not see this coming? Of course the voting system is flawed. It was designed to be flawed. Tax payer money went to ensure that it was flawed.
http://www.newsdaily.com/TopNews/UPI-1-20071215-07411900-bc-us-ohioelections.xml
http://news.enquirer.com/apps/pbcs.dll/article?AID=/20071214/NEWS01/312140070
COLUMBUS – Ohio’s chief elections official Friday cast doubts on the security of the state’s entire voting system, less than a year before the state is likely to play a major role in picking the nation’s next president.
In a new report, Secretary of State Jennifer Brunner declared that – despite spending more than $100 million in federal money on new voting machines after the 2004 election – the voting systems all carry “serious risks to voting integrity.”
“To put it in everyday terms, the tools needed to compromise an accurate vote count could be as simple as ... using a magnet and a personal digital assistant,” she said.
The impact is unclear: many of the changes recommended in the report will require legislative action. But the report clearly jarred Columbus and local election boards, with Gov. Ted Strickland saying the report “raises serious issues that deserve serious review and consideration.”
The $1.9 million study, spanning nearly 1,000 pages, drew praise from Butler County Board of Elections Director Betty McGary, a Democrat, but scorn from Hamilton County Board of Elections Director John Williams, a Republican. Officials from Clermont and Warren counties did not return calls.
Neither election official was happy to hear they may have to drastically change their methods for counting votes – again – for next year’s presidential election.
Brunner’s report recommends eliminating touchscreen voting machines in 57 of Ohio’s 88 counties, including Butler.
The study also said memory cards used to keep a tally of votes at polling places that use paper “optical scan’’ ballots, such as Hamilton County, are not secure and should no longer be used. That would mean election officials would have to collect all the paper optical scan ballots at polling places and take them to a central location to be scanned and counted.
Williams said counting all votes at one location could extend Election Day by four days: “You might see the 11 o’clock news results on Saturday.”
The process already was slowed by the replacement of punchcards, Williams said. The county used to count 1,000 punchcards per minute, he said. It now takes an hour to count 1,000 optical scan ballots, he said. Brunner’s study calls for a more tedious, time-consuming process.
“Certainly this report that has just now today hit Boards of Elections, I will guarantee you . . .will just absolutely throw Ohio into a complete tailspin going into the presidential election,’’ McGary agreed.
Williams said he’s unaware of anybody ever hacking into an election system in a real-world environment, with the procedures that are in place, with any system. “I don’t think there has ever been a documented case of that happening,” Williams said. "There certainly has never been a prosecution. . .If you gave me the keys to the bank and combination of the safe, do you think I could break in? I could. Those again are not real-world scenarios under which we operate.”
Former Secretary of State Ken Blackwell delayed the purchase of new electronic voting equipment for the 2004 election citing 57 potential security risks within software and hardware of two companies’ voting systems. But Congress mandated the eventual replacement of punchcards through the federal Help America Vote Act.
McGary said Butler County has spent as much as $10 million, half of which was paid with federal tax dollars, installing Diebold touchscreen voting machines starting with the November 2005 election.
“The punchcard system isn’t looking all that bad now, is it?” said McGary, who has worked for the Board of Elections since 1978, but said voters have lost all confidence in the integrity of the system.
But Chris Riggall, a spokesman for Diebold, now known as Premier Election Solutions, said Friday, “There has not been a single documented case of a successful attack against an electronic voting system.”
Brunner, a Democrat, said she considered recommending delaying the March 4 2008 presidential primary election by a couple months to fix the system.
New machines were purchased using more than $100 million in federal tax dollars after Congress mandated eliminating punchcard ballots used by 69 of Ohio’s 88 counties in the 2004 election. Half the counties bought new equipment for the 2005 general election, while the rest complied in 2006.
“The implications of this report are serious,” Brunner wrote. “Swift and specific changes are needed to improve the quality of Ohio elections so that Ohio is prepared to successfully execute next year’s presidential election.”
Brunner’s study drew praise from Strickland, Ohio House Speaker Jon Husted, R-Ketttering, and Democratic leaders of the House and Senate.
Strickland, a Democrat, said, “The report raises serious issues that deserve serious review and consideration. Our work now is to take these findings and, working closely with the Secretary of State and the legislative leaders, determine the appropriate direction to ensure the people of Ohio have confidence in their election system.”
But Ohio Republican Party Chairman Bob Bennett, former chairman of the Cuyahoga County Board of Elections, said it’s clear that bipartisan board officials are concerned that this study is biased. Bennett was referring to a review by some county board officials who questioned Brunner’s conclusions, calling them “leaps of logic” and “poor reasoning.”
Because the Ohio General Assembly approved the purchase of new equipment, it would likely be up to state legislators to order any replacement. But it was unclear Friday how quickly machines could be replaced and what the ramifications are for the presidential election.
Brunner, who succeeded Blackwell, a Republican from Cincinnati, called the findings startling and said the review revealed “critical security failures” that could affect the integrity of elections in the state.
Some of the tests seeking to hack the voting machines built by Election Systems & Software, Hart Intercivic and Premier (formerly Diebold) required high levels of sophistication from corporate and academic scientists, but others did not, she said.
Reviewers said voting was potentially vulnerable on all three companies’ machines, Premier and Hart machines did not protect properly against “malicious insiders,” ES&S machines did not protect against improper access to election data and Premier machines did not adequately protect voters’ privacy.
The report does not address how likely it is someone would attempt to tamper with the machines, which are operated under the supervision of 88 county Boards of Elections and citizens who volunteer as poll workers.
“The 2000 election in Florida was to the elections business what 9/11 was to the airline industry,” Williams said.
“If you don’t believe that, then look at what we’ve done since 2000 in terms of change, in terms of systems, in terms of controversy, in terms of report after report, after lack of direction, after false start after false start, changing on the dime in midsteam. These are all things that do not certainly contribute to good election process. . . It’s ridiculous.’’
“At this point, we need to stop for awhile and let us digest this and figure out what’s going on.”
The Associated Press contributed to this story.
http://www.newsdaily.com/TopNews/UPI-1-20071215-07411900-bc-us-ohioelections.xml
http://news.enquirer.com/apps/pbcs.dll/article?AID=/20071214/NEWS01/312140070
COLUMBUS – Ohio’s chief elections official Friday cast doubts on the security of the state’s entire voting system, less than a year before the state is likely to play a major role in picking the nation’s next president.
In a new report, Secretary of State Jennifer Brunner declared that – despite spending more than $100 million in federal money on new voting machines after the 2004 election – the voting systems all carry “serious risks to voting integrity.”
“To put it in everyday terms, the tools needed to compromise an accurate vote count could be as simple as ... using a magnet and a personal digital assistant,” she said.
The impact is unclear: many of the changes recommended in the report will require legislative action. But the report clearly jarred Columbus and local election boards, with Gov. Ted Strickland saying the report “raises serious issues that deserve serious review and consideration.”
The $1.9 million study, spanning nearly 1,000 pages, drew praise from Butler County Board of Elections Director Betty McGary, a Democrat, but scorn from Hamilton County Board of Elections Director John Williams, a Republican. Officials from Clermont and Warren counties did not return calls.
Neither election official was happy to hear they may have to drastically change their methods for counting votes – again – for next year’s presidential election.
Brunner’s report recommends eliminating touchscreen voting machines in 57 of Ohio’s 88 counties, including Butler.
The study also said memory cards used to keep a tally of votes at polling places that use paper “optical scan’’ ballots, such as Hamilton County, are not secure and should no longer be used. That would mean election officials would have to collect all the paper optical scan ballots at polling places and take them to a central location to be scanned and counted.
Williams said counting all votes at one location could extend Election Day by four days: “You might see the 11 o’clock news results on Saturday.”
The process already was slowed by the replacement of punchcards, Williams said. The county used to count 1,000 punchcards per minute, he said. It now takes an hour to count 1,000 optical scan ballots, he said. Brunner’s study calls for a more tedious, time-consuming process.
“Certainly this report that has just now today hit Boards of Elections, I will guarantee you . . .will just absolutely throw Ohio into a complete tailspin going into the presidential election,’’ McGary agreed.
Williams said he’s unaware of anybody ever hacking into an election system in a real-world environment, with the procedures that are in place, with any system. “I don’t think there has ever been a documented case of that happening,” Williams said. "There certainly has never been a prosecution. . .If you gave me the keys to the bank and combination of the safe, do you think I could break in? I could. Those again are not real-world scenarios under which we operate.”
Former Secretary of State Ken Blackwell delayed the purchase of new electronic voting equipment for the 2004 election citing 57 potential security risks within software and hardware of two companies’ voting systems. But Congress mandated the eventual replacement of punchcards through the federal Help America Vote Act.
McGary said Butler County has spent as much as $10 million, half of which was paid with federal tax dollars, installing Diebold touchscreen voting machines starting with the November 2005 election.
“The punchcard system isn’t looking all that bad now, is it?” said McGary, who has worked for the Board of Elections since 1978, but said voters have lost all confidence in the integrity of the system.
But Chris Riggall, a spokesman for Diebold, now known as Premier Election Solutions, said Friday, “There has not been a single documented case of a successful attack against an electronic voting system.”
Brunner, a Democrat, said she considered recommending delaying the March 4 2008 presidential primary election by a couple months to fix the system.
New machines were purchased using more than $100 million in federal tax dollars after Congress mandated eliminating punchcard ballots used by 69 of Ohio’s 88 counties in the 2004 election. Half the counties bought new equipment for the 2005 general election, while the rest complied in 2006.
“The implications of this report are serious,” Brunner wrote. “Swift and specific changes are needed to improve the quality of Ohio elections so that Ohio is prepared to successfully execute next year’s presidential election.”
Brunner’s study drew praise from Strickland, Ohio House Speaker Jon Husted, R-Ketttering, and Democratic leaders of the House and Senate.
Strickland, a Democrat, said, “The report raises serious issues that deserve serious review and consideration. Our work now is to take these findings and, working closely with the Secretary of State and the legislative leaders, determine the appropriate direction to ensure the people of Ohio have confidence in their election system.”
But Ohio Republican Party Chairman Bob Bennett, former chairman of the Cuyahoga County Board of Elections, said it’s clear that bipartisan board officials are concerned that this study is biased. Bennett was referring to a review by some county board officials who questioned Brunner’s conclusions, calling them “leaps of logic” and “poor reasoning.”
Because the Ohio General Assembly approved the purchase of new equipment, it would likely be up to state legislators to order any replacement. But it was unclear Friday how quickly machines could be replaced and what the ramifications are for the presidential election.
Brunner, who succeeded Blackwell, a Republican from Cincinnati, called the findings startling and said the review revealed “critical security failures” that could affect the integrity of elections in the state.
Some of the tests seeking to hack the voting machines built by Election Systems & Software, Hart Intercivic and Premier (formerly Diebold) required high levels of sophistication from corporate and academic scientists, but others did not, she said.
Reviewers said voting was potentially vulnerable on all three companies’ machines, Premier and Hart machines did not protect properly against “malicious insiders,” ES&S machines did not protect against improper access to election data and Premier machines did not adequately protect voters’ privacy.
The report does not address how likely it is someone would attempt to tamper with the machines, which are operated under the supervision of 88 county Boards of Elections and citizens who volunteer as poll workers.
“The 2000 election in Florida was to the elections business what 9/11 was to the airline industry,” Williams said.
“If you don’t believe that, then look at what we’ve done since 2000 in terms of change, in terms of systems, in terms of controversy, in terms of report after report, after lack of direction, after false start after false start, changing on the dime in midsteam. These are all things that do not certainly contribute to good election process. . . It’s ridiculous.’’
“At this point, we need to stop for awhile and let us digest this and figure out what’s going on.”
The Associated Press contributed to this story.