Four minutes to penetrate voting machine security seals! Just how secure did you say your elections are?

SAVE AS FAVORITE

VIEW FAVORITES

By Black Box Voting, Posted by Joan Brunwasser (about the submitter) Page 1 of 3 page(s)

opednews.com Permalink

For OpEdNews: Posted by Joan Brunwasser - Writer

A couple of 54-year old women with $12 worth of tools penetrated the memory card seals, removed, replaced the memory card, and sealed it all up again without leaving a trace. The seals do nothing whatever to protect against access by insiders after testing, and the seals also are worthless in jurisdictions where voting machines are sent home with poll workers before the election.

See photos below - a couple of 54-year old women from Black Box Voting bought $12 worth of tools and in four minutes penetrated the memory card seals, removed, replaced the memory card, and sealed it all up again without leaving a trace. This experiment shows that the seals do nothing whatever to protect against access by insiders after testing, and the seals also are worthless in jurisdictions like Washington, Florida, California, and many other locations where voting machines are sent home with poll workers for days before the election.

The Busby-Bilbray contest in San Diego now has proof that the optical scan machines sent home with poll workers subjected the tamper-friendly memory cards to an non-recoverable lapse in chain of custody. The recipe for tampering has been on the Internet for over a year: http://www.blackboxvoting.org/bbvreport.pdf

The photos below blow apart claims by elections officials that voting machine "sleepovers" -- sending voting machines home with poll workers for days or weeks prior to elections -- are secure because of seals over the memory card.

Two Black Box Voting studies in Leon County, Florida proved that election results can be altered in such a way that the supervisor of elections cannot detect the tampering. Not to worry, we were told by elections officials. The memory cards are sealed inside the machines.

But then Black Box Voting purchased an optical scan machine and obtained discarded voting machine seals from King County, Washington. Here's what we found:

(photo)
http://www.blackboxvoting.org/accuvote-memory-door-inside-nut.jpg

The cover can be removed without detection by removing five screws. Inside, all that stands between a pollworker (or an insider at the warehouse or elections office) and the open-for-business memory card is a washer which you can unscrew.

http://www.blackboxvoting.org/accuvote-memory-card-put-in.jpg

See the memory card: It is the item in the slot that says "this side up." Diebold's first line of defense is a metal door that pivots down over the memory card slot.

http://www.blackboxvoting.org/accuvote-memory-door-in-out.jpg

See how the door works: The hole in the right side of the door is over-large, so you can move the right-side bolt in and out at will. Therefore, they seal the right-side bolt.

http://www.blackboxvoting.org/accuvote-memory-card-door-hole-in-bolt.jpg

See the hole in the top of the right-side bolt: The plastic seal is threaded through that.

http://www.blackboxvoting.org/accuvote-sealed.jpg

1 | 2 | 3