Re: [UACCESS-L] New Voting Systems Assailed

["Kelly Pierce" <kellyjosef@earthlink.net>]

The book was released a couple of months ago and I don't believe it is
currently available in an accessible format.

I think the problems are being discounted here.  It seems clear that the
technology is not as stable and the system and procedures are not as
secure as automatic teller machines used by banks and the financial
services industry.

If all of this is sensationalistic, it might be because whole states have
adopted it before the technology and voting approach could be fully
developed and thought through.


Kelly


----- Original Message -----
From: "Robert Carnegie" <Robert.Carnegie@seemis.com>
To: <uaccess-l@trace.wisc.edu>
Sent: Monday, March 31, 2003 3:58 AM
Subject: RE: [UACCESS-L] New Voting Systems Assailed


> -----Original Message-----
> From: Kelly Pierce [mailto:kellyjosef@earthlink.net]
> Sent: 29 March 2003 17:14
> To: VICUG-L@MAELSTROM.STJOHNS.EDU; blindtech@yahoogroups.com;
> blindnews@yahoogroups.com; uaccess-l@trace.wisc.edu;
> ADA-Laws@yahoogroups.com
>
>
> Wow.  That's a lot of mailing lists for one general message.
>
>
> "Subject: [UACCESS-L] New Voting Systems Assailed
>
> "While the new electronic voting systems offer independent access for
the
> first time to the blind and the print impaired, serious questions are
> being raised about their security.  In a new book, "Black Box Voting:
> Ballot-Tampering in the 21st Century", it is revealed that Diebold
places
> the source code of its voting machine software on a publicly accessible
> unsecured website.  There is no paper audit trail to verify the
accuracy
> of the machines. No one except the machine companies examines and tests
> the source code and checks for system integrity.  States allow voting
> machine companies to upgrade software at will without even testing it
> themselves.  The machines have lost or miscalculated thousands of votes
> in a particular race, resulting in awarding the election to the wrong
> candidate when the election was not a close race."
>
>
> Publishing your software doesn't make it insecure.  If the software is
built
> right, a bad guy can know exactly what's inside the box, except for
certain
> random-number security keys, and still have no way to break it.  And if
it
> isn't built right, but isn't published, presumably the bad guy only has
to
> find a politically sympathetic - or corruptible - employee of the
company,
> to smuggle out a copy of the program.  Not necessarily hard.
>
> Publishing software also allows interested persons to satisfy
themselves
> that a politically sympathetic or corruptible employee hasn't already
> rigged the software to cheat on votes.
>
> Oh, does anyone want to ask what "source code" is?  It isn't (probably)
> what goes straight into the voting machines.  Obviously they'd be
morons
> if they did /that/ from a Web site with no security.
>
> "Unsecured site", without reading further, probably just means that you
> don't need a password or SSL to look at the site.  (If you don't know
> what SSL is, don't worry right now.)  And the site certainly /ought/
> to be just for looking at.
>
> I'm mostly not in a position to comment on the other alleged defects
> of these machines.
>
> Voting systems should be fair and should be seen to be fair, and should
> be scrutinised closely.  This needn't formally exclude sensationalist
> journalism.  But the net effect might be to add to the hundred million
> votes lost in 2000 from Americans who decided not to vote.
>
> Incidentally, is the book available in Braille or speech?
> ####################################################
> This e-mail may contain confidential material.
> If you are not an intended recipient, please notify
> the sender and delete all copies.
> We may monitor e-mail to and from our network.
> This message has been scanned by F-Secure Anti-Virus.
>                                 The SEEMIS Group
> Please visit our website at www.seemis.com.
> _______________________________________________
> UACCESS-L mailing list
> UACCESS-L@trace.wisc.edu
> http://trace.wisc.edu:8080/mailman/listinfo/uaccess-l