(Read the report: http://www.sos.state.oh.us/sos/info/EVEREST.aspx)
A key finding of the review was that ES&S had “failed to adopt, implement and follow industry standard best practices in the development of the system.” Many of these weaknesses have been known for several years, yet continue to exist in ES&S systems.
The report recommended that ES&S adopt these best practices. “Applications themselves need to be hardened against known forms of attack, while the various other components should be configured to enforce the basic security rules of the best practices frameworks.” Anti-virus software, firewalls, complex passwords, and malicious programming alerts also need to be added.
Montana law [MCA13-17-103(2)] requires that state approved voting systems , “… be based on commonly accepted industry standards for readily available technologies.” The EVEREST report reveals that ES&S machines used in Montana are not.
Montana’s Secretary of State Mark Johnson claims, “Montana’s counties and the Secretary of State’s office take a long list of measures to ensure the integrity of our voting systems,” but those measures, although critically important, are not sufficient as long as the machines themselves are vulnerable to malicious tampering by the public or insiders that could change election results.
Ohio’s EVEREST report has done Montana voters a huge favor. We now know the security weakness of our vote counting machines, what to do about them, and without spending $1.9 million!
Montana voters deserve to know that the machines that count their votes have, at the least, met industry standards for accuracy and security.
The League calls upon Montana's Secretary of State Mark Johnson to assure voters that their votes are secure and accurately counted by decertifying ES&S machines, then re-certifying them only if they meet the specific recommendations in the EVEREST report.
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