I just watched via Netflix an HBO documentary from 2006 called Hacking Democracy. I am not a big conspiracy theorist, but I have read enough to know that problems exist with electronic voting machines.
The most powerful part of the documentary came toward the end of the film. The company Diebold holds a large portion of the market for these electronic voting machines. When a person votes on one of these machines, their response is captured on a data card. At the end of an election day, the machine is switched to reporting mode and it spits out a paper tally. The data card is then removed and kept for verification.
An independent group, Black Box Voting, asked computer experts to review the Diebold machines and the data cards the company makes to record the raw data. What an independent computer expert found out was that the data cards don’t just hold data, but each card has a executable file – a computer program – on the card.
The computer expert easily hacked the card and wrote computer code to manipulate the data stored on the card. They ran a test vote with a county election commissioner in Florida. The hacked worked and the vote total turned out just as the computer expert said it would. The hacked program changed how people voted. The change is completely untraceable.
Why would a data card for a voting machine ever have a program on it? A program that could be hacked? Isn’t that a huge security risk?
That is more than scary. What is more alarming is how Diebold responds in the film. This film is worth a hour of your time. After all, it’s supposed to be our government.
Aye, Slim, there’s the rub. always been malfeasance in elections, but these are 21st Century Killer Angels who know ends justifies means, and they means to keep all the marbles. Amurica’s too valuable to leave to voters so technology kicks in. Relax, leave the driving to them. Buy Amurican Idol Ssn12, eat a couple bags of neon-orange CheesePuffs and all’s well. ~N