Diebold's voting system uses MS Access as the database to store the Ballot definition, Audit logs and Tally results. The Database has no password protection. The audit logs and the tally results can be changed.
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CONGRESSIONAL RESEARCH SERVICE, Election Reform and Electronic Voting Systems (DREs): Analysis of Security Issues. (Order Code RL32139) November 4, 2003. click here This is a comprehensive report on several expert studies of electronic voting systems. Problems noted include:
There appears to be an emerging consensus that in general, current DREs do not adhere sufficiently to currently accepted security principles for computer systems, especially given the central importance of voting systems to the functioning of democratic government.
The ballot itself consists of redundant electronic records in the machine's computer memory banks, which the voter cannot see. This is analogous to the situation with mechanical lever voting machines, where casting the ballot moves counters that are out of view of the voter. In a lever machine, if the appropriate counters do not move correctly when a voter casts the ballot, the voter will not know, nor would an observer. Similarly, with a DRE, if the machine recorded a result in its memory that was different from what the voter chose, neither the voter nor an observer would know.
The same is true with a computerized counting system when it reads punch cards or optical scan ballots. Even if the ballot is tabulated in the precinct and fed into the reading device in the presence of the voter, neither the voter nor the pollworker manning the reader can see what it is recording in its memory.
Malicious computer code, or malware, can often be written in such a way that it is very difficult to detect.
DRE software is moderately complex, and it is generally accepted that the more complex a piece of software is, the more difficult it can be to detect unauthorized modifications.
Most manufacturers of DREs treat their software code as proprietary information and therefore not available for public scrutiny. Consequently, it is not possible for experts not associated with the companies to determine how vulnerable the code is to tampering.
The most extensive examination of security was performed by scientists at the California Institute of Technology and the Massachusetts Institute of Technology. The Caltech/MIT report identified four main security strengths of the electoral process that has evolved in the United States:
• the openness of the election process, which permits observation of counting and other aspects of election procedure; • the decentralization of elections and the division of labor among different levels of government and different groups of people; • equipment that produces "redundant trusted recordings" of votes; and • the public nature and control of the election process.
The report expressed concern that current trends in electronic voting are weakening those strengths and pose significant risks.
The current election system contains significant threats to inventory control of mission critical election assets, error-free vote tabulation, and tabulation transparency.
The machines' four sources of vote totals – VVPAT individual ballots, VVPAT summary, election archive, and memory cards – did not agree with one another.
In 2004, Rady Ananda began contributing to the Web, as part of the growing community of citizen journalists. Focusing mainly on elections, her blogs also address religious, gender, sexual and racial equality, as well as environmental issues; and are sprinkled with book and film reviews on various topics. She spent most of her working life as a legal investigator for lawfirms, and about 5 years as an editor. She currently serves as a senior editor at OpEdNews.
All material offered here is the property of Rady Ananda, copyright 2006, 2007, 2008. Permission is granted to repost, with proper attribution including the original link.
In a time of universal deceit, telling the truth is a revolutionary act. Tell the truth anyway. Sign this petition: http://www.electiondefensealliance.org/ny_levers_petition
This is an exceedingly useful resource. I hope that you will be able to update it soon with the latest NIST Draft, and then its bastard brother, the amended follow up report. And other reports as they come in.
by
Nancy Tobi (69 articles, 4 quicklinks, 0 diaries, 53 comments)
on Wednesday, January 3, 2007 at 3:24:50 PM
