The voting systems offered by these vendors are so poorly made and so unreliable that the vote count produced by these machines cannot be relied on. There is no way voters can have any assurance that their votes are being accurately counted as cast. Thus these machines have the effect of potentially disenfranchising millions of voters and thwarting the will of the people.
The worst of the performance violations of course is the extreme vulnerability to manipulation of these voting systems. All computerized voting systems can be rigged without detection, as established in numerous government and university reports. It is not just that all of the voting systems are capable of being, but the ease with which these systems are broken into. In fact, most of the voting machine models the SBOE is slated to start testing for New Yorkers use have already been readily hacked by independent testers or computer scientists. Other models the SBOE plans on testing have been the subject of numerous security reports in other states which have either exposed a myriad of unacceptable security flaws or already rejected these machines.
All the Voting Systems Being Tested in New York Are Too Insecure to Entrust Our Sacred Ballot To
– The Sequoia Advantage DRE, the model the SBOE will be testing, was recently hacked in February, 2007. It took a professor of computer science at Princeton University only seconds to hack a Sequoia Advantage DRE, the very model our tax payers' dollars will be used to test for certification in New York. The Princeton professor revealed not only that the machine could be hacked "in seven seconds" but that Sequoia's software could be programmed to perform fine during testing and count and rig an election on election day, without detection! Sequoia relies on Microsoft for its operation and election management system.
– The Avante DRE the SBOE is planning on testing is problematic because Avante, like Sequoia, chose to use Microsoft software in its operating system. It also relied on Microsoft for its election management system. As revealed in numerous security reports, Microsoft software is not secure and remains untested. Microsoft refuses to escrow its source coding, which is why Avante has been attacking New York's escrow requirement rather than changing its system to comply with NY's law. It would rather keep the security problems a secret, but have the public continue to use these machines.
– The ES&S Unity software, used by the Unity 3.0.1 Opscan the SBOE is scheduled to test, has been the subject of official review in Connecticut. The report found the Unity software was responsible for causing the mistabulating of votes in numerous states. The software is responsible for causing optical scanners to malfunction. Because Unity is a Microsoft Windows application it is even less secure. The report found: "In Unity it is possible to insert or alter unofficial vote totals manually. These operations are logged. However, it is possible to modify the logs to eliminate any trace of the modification, making it impossible to audit the election or explain irregularities.... Unity’s log files are unprotected and can be modified easily using Windows accessories.......Unity provides insufficient security for election and log files. They are too easy to modify outside Unity using Windows."
–The Liberty DRE New York will be testing has also been hacked easily by a Dutch group in the Netherlands. A report published by the group revealed how open these DREs were to undetectable control. After a commission in Ireland studied this same model DRE it concluded that the results obtained from this voting system could not be considered accurate and that there's no way to insure the integrity of the software installed. A review of the Irish security reports noted that the insecurity of this machine was complicated by the fact that it is dependent on Microsoft, noting " The fact that a company with the resources of Microsoft has not been able to guarantee the security of its own web browser (let alone the entire Windows operating system) despite years of effort and large incentives, suggests that a fully secure and trustworthy electronic voting system may be an unattainable goal."
– The SBOE is also planning on testing the Diebold Accu Vote optical scanner; a machine that has been the subject of numerous security reports. This was the machine that was first revealed to be capable of being hacked without detection by Harry Hursti in 2005. Hursti showed how memory cards on the opscan could be changed. Before the Hursti Hack, the RABA Report from Maryland had found Diebold's election management software lacked several critical security updates from Microsoft. One can insert a CD that will automatically upload malicious software, modify or delete elections.
In February, 2006 the state of California examined this same Accuvote Optical Scanner New York wants to test and confirmed Hursti's findings and more, stating:
"successful attacks can only be detected by examining the paper ballots. There would be no way to know that any of these attacks occurred; the canvass procedure would not detect any anomalies, and would just produce incorrect results. The only way to detect and correct the problem would be by recount of the original paper ballots."
In October, 2006 the University of Connecticut examined this same Diebold optical scanner and identified a number of new vulnerabilities, which if exploited maliciously can invalidate the results of an election process.
Notwithstanding the proven unreliability of these five voting machines, the SBOE plans to start testing each of them next month and possibly certifying all or some of them by the year's end. The county election commissioners would then be free to purchase these theft-enabling devices unless the State acts responsibly and recognizes it is prohibited form contracting with these vendors pursuant to any reasonable interpretation of its procurement guidelines.New York State Cannot Permit Private Interests to Conflict with its Official Duties to Hold Free and Fair Elections
Not only is the SBOE enjoined from contracting with these vendors due to their lack of qualification under the State's Procurement laws, but because of these vendors' conflict of interest, New York must eschew any private vendor from running elections in New York. Given the level of control these vendors exercise over the running of elections, election officials can not fulfill their legal and ethical duties to the people who:
are entitled to know that no substantial conflict between private interests and official duties exists in those who serve them.
McKinney's Public Officers Law, Declaration of Intent § 74, Code of Ethics
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