Ether St. Vying
2004-11-23 10:29:03 UTC
Security studies of e-voting from Johns Hopkins:
http://avirubin.com/vote/analysis/index.html
Analysis of an Electronic Voting System
IEEE Symposium on Security and Privacy, Oakland, CA, May, 2004.
Authors
Tadayoshi Kohno
Adam Stubblefield
Aviel D. Rubin
Dan S. Wallach
Abstract
With significant U.S. federal funds now available to replace
outdated punch-card and mechanical voting systems, municipalities and
states throughout the U.S. are adopting paperless electronic voting
systems from a number of different vendors. We present a security
analysis of the source code to one such machine used in a significant
share of the market. Our analysis shows that this voting system is far
below even the most minimal security standards applicable in other
contexts. We identify several problems including unauthorized privilege
escalation, incorrect use of cryptography, vulnerabilities to network
threats, and poor software development processes. We show that voters,
without any insider privileges, can cast unlimited votes without being
detected by any mechanisms within the voting terminal software.
Furthermore, we show that even the most serious of our outsider attacks
could have been discovered and executed without access to the source
code. In the face of such attacks, the usual worries about insider
threats are not the only concerns; outsiders can do the damage.
That said, we demonstrate that the insider threat is also
quite considerable, showing that not only can an insider, such as a poll
worker, modify the votes, but that insiders can also violate voter
privacy and match votes with the voters who cast them. We concludethat
this voting system is unsuitable for use in a general election. Any
paperless electronic voting system might suffer similar flaws, despite
any "certification" it could have otherwise received. We suggest that
the best solutions are voting systems having a "voter-verifiable audit
trail," where a computerized voting system might print a paper ballot
that can be read and verified by the voter.
[]
SAIC Report
In early August 2003 the state of Maryland hired a third-party
consulting firm (SAIC) to perform an analysis of Diebolds AccuVote-TS
voting system. On
September 24, 2003, Maryland made SAICs report public. To quote the
SAIC report, [t]he system, as implemented in policy, procedure, and
technology,
is at high risk of compromise. Despite the problems identified in our
report and in the SAIC report, Maryland is still planning to proceed
with the 55.6 million
dollar purchase of Diebold AccuVote-TS voting terminals.
To help mitigate the risks identified in the security analyses, Maryland
proposed a set of technological changes to Diebolds voting machines as
well as
procedural changes to the election process. While this may help raise
the bar, it is impossible to know whether any security analysis
identifies all the
possible vulnerabilities present in an analyzed system. By only patching
the known vulnerabilities, Maryland is not actually ensuring that the
voting system will be secure. Rather, Maryland should follow security
engineering best practices, which state that security can only be
assured through a rigorous design process that considers security from a
projects conception, not through a set of patches applied after the
fact.
It appears that the state of Maryland has had to compromise on
the security of the voting system due to the election calendar. The
Maryland State Board of Elections states that an alternative system
could not be implemented in time to conduct the March 2004 Presidential
Primary election and could jeopardize the November 2004 Presidential
General election. Unfortunately, by compromising on security, the
integrity and privacy of these elections may still be in jeopardy.
[]
RABA Report
The consulting firm, RABA, has issued a report on the security of the
Diebold machines. They validated our findings and found other problems
as well.
Perhaps the best coverage of this study is in a Wired report by Kim
Zetter.
-----------------------------------
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/2004_U.S._Election_controversies_and_irregularities
After the 2004 U.S. presidential election there were allegations of data
irregularities and systematic flaws which may have affected
the outcome of both the presidential and local elections. Unofficial
results currently indicate a victory by George W. Bush over John
Kerry. Allegations range from significant exit poll and other data
irregularities potentially characteristic of fraud, to complaints voting
was not conducted equally for all citizens, for example, uneven voting
machine distribution which might lead to long voting lines and
disenfranchisement.
Investigations and enquiries - The major challenger, John Kerry
(Democrat), has stated he will not contest the anticipated result.
However, some groups and individuals (including the media, Ralph Nader
(independent), David Cobb (Green), Michael Badnarik
(Libertarian), the Electronic Frontier Foundation, electronic voting
machine criticism organizations such as BlackBoxVoting.ORG
(http://www.blackboxvoting.org), Kerry's brother and legal advisor
Cameron Kerry, members of the House Judiciary Committee, PD's
and academics, computer security specialists, and citizen bloggers) are
currently compiling, analysing and investigating these
allegations.
Data analyses have been made public by a variety of commentators. Much
data was released by Diebold Election Systems
inadvertently, and other data has been obtained from official records or
freedom of information requests. A preliminary report from
CalTech stating that there is no evidence of discrepancies was strongly
challenged for serious methodological errors (it was unsigned,
had many graphs but little academic substance, and used seriously flawed
data pre-adjusted to the official votes, among other
issues). A second, more rigorous preliminary analysis at the University
of Pennsylvania calculated that the odds of the difference
between exit polls and actual vote counts being due to chance is less
than 1 in 100 million. A third paper by UC Berkeley (which
provided full data and was reviewed by several professors prior to
publication) allowed for many economic, political, ethnic patterns
and past voting tendencies, and concluded "No matter how many factors
and variables we took into consideration ... the data show with
99.0% [sic, tested at 99% actual figure 99.9%] certainty that a countys
use of electronic voting is associated with a disproportionate
increase in votes for President Bush". They calculated the Bush vote was
130,000 - 260,000 overstated in Florida.
Voting machine and voter suppression - There were reports of problems
with and controversy over electronic and optical-scan
voting machines, many precincts reporting more voters than they had, or
inexplicable numbers of votes cast, the fact the exit poll
discrepancies only seemed to show up in swing states. Allocation of
ballots and voting machines led to some disenfranchisement,
particularly in high-population areas and in closely contested states.
Other issues are the perception of a discrepancy between party
registration statistics and results in some counties, and the varying
and controversial procedures for counting provisional ballots.
Manufacturer and testing issues - In addition, the extensive
affiliations of some major voting machine companies have been at issue,
together with documentation and litigation suggesting that some
colluded. Some company owners had multiple prior convictions and
bans for bid-rigging elsewhere, and at least one knew for some years
(and had deceived the public) about the full extent of lack of
security. They also knowingly breached the law regarding voting
machines, attempted to collude to "eliminate side attacks" and
"criticism ... of fallibility" from "computer scientists and security
experts" and "other people" who were "somewhat credible", and
attempted to establish an 'unconnected' and deniable PR group to
manipulate official perception. The Senior Vice President of one
voting machine company who wrote and maintained thousands of lines of
voting machine code was found to have previously "served
time in a Washington state correctional facility for stealing money and
tampering with computer files in a scheme that "involved a high
degree of sophistication and planning." Increasing evidence of incidents
where untoward modification to voting machines took place
has led to the companies themselves coming under examination for their
various political and economic ties.
"[E]ven if the election were viewed as "successful,"
it would not alleviate the vast majority of my concerns with the
machines.
Voting machines that are vulnerable to wholesale
rigging can still perform perfectly normally. It is possible that nobody
exploited the vulnerabilities this time around, and
it is also possible that there was fraud or serious error, but that they
went
undetected. Electronic voting will be judged on the
noticeable failures, and the unnoticeable ones are the most serious." -
Aviel
D. Rubin [1] (http://www.avirubin.com/judge2.html)
---------------------------------
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Diebold_Election_Systems
Their Diebold GEMS central tabulator software, version 1.18.15 of which
counted most votes in the United States in the U.S.
presidential election, 2004, is at the center of extreme controversy for
apparent irregularities versus the U.S. presidential election,
2004, exit polls. The Diebold AccuVote voting machine has also come
under extreme scrutiny especially by Ralph Nader's campaign.
The GEMS software, certified by NASED via Ciber Labs employee Shawn
Southworth of Hunstville, AB is at the center of an alleged
Diebold Election Systems electoral fraud, 2004 that is much more serious
than the previous allegations in the U.S. presidential
election, 2000 and U.S. midterm election, 2002 in which Diebold also
came under scrutiny.
[]
Together Election Systems & Software, Inc. and Diebold Election Systems,
Inc. are responsible for tallying around 80% of votes cast in
the United States. The software architecture common to both is a
creation of Mr. Urosevich's company I-Mark. Some critics claim that
this structure is easily compromised, in part due to its reliance on
Microsoft products including Microsoft Windows and Microsoft Access
databases. Britain J. Williams, responsible for certification of voting
machines for the state of Georgia has provided a negative
assessment based on her accounting of potential exploits.
In August 2003, Walden O'Dell, chief executive of Diebold, announced
that he had been a top fund-raiser for President George W.
Bush and had sent a get-out-the-funds letter to Ohio Republicans. In the
letters he says he is "committed to helping Ohio deliver its
electoral votes to the president next year." Critics of Diebold
interpreted this as implying that he might rig the company's electronic
voting machines to give an unfair advantage to Bush. The letter also was
seem as an indication of a perceived conflict of interest by
critics. He has responded to the critics by pointing out that the
company's election machines division is run out of Texas by a
registered Democrat. He also claims the statement about delivering
Ohio's electoral votes to Bush was simply a poor choice of words.
Nonetheless, he vowed to lower his political profile lest his personal
actions harm the company.
DES claims its systems provide strong immunity to ballot tampering and
other vote rigging attempts. These claims have been
challenged, notably by Bev Harris in her book Black Box Voting and on
her website [1] (http://www.blackboxvoting.org) with the same
name. According to critics, the I-Mark and Microsoft software each
represent a single point of failure for the vote counting process,
from which 80% of votes can be compromised via the exploit of a single
line of code in either subsystem. Harris and C. D. Sludge, an
Internet journalist, both claim there is also evidence that the Diebold
systems have been exploited to tamper with American elections.
Sludge further cites Votewatch for evidence that suggests a pattern of
compromised voting machine exploits throughout the 1990s,
and specifically involving the Diebold machines in the 2002 election.
The controversy regarding electronic voting machines is related to a
larger debate concerning the relative merits of open source and
proprietary security products. Advocates of the open source model say
that systems are more secure when anyone can view the
underlying software code, identify bugs and make peer-reviewed changes.
Advocates of proprietary systems claim that so-called
black box systems are more secure because potential weaknesses are
hidden.
Aviel Rubin, Professor of Computer Science at Johns Hopkins University
and Technical Director of the Information Security Institute has
analyzed the source code used in these voting machines and reports "this
voting system is far below even the most minimal security
standards applicable in other contexts." [2]
(http://avirubin.com/vote/analysis/index.html) Following the publication
of this paper, the
State of Maryland hired Science Applications International Corporation
(SAIC) to to perform another analysis of the Diebold voting
machines. SAIC concluded [t]he system, as implemented in policy,
procedure, and technology, is at high risk of compromise. [3]
(http://www.dbm.maryland.gov/dbm_publishing/public_content/dbm_search/technology/toc_voting_system_report/votingsystemreportfinal.pdf)
The voting machines, which are made by Diebold Election Systems (DES),
have caused a public uproar among some opponents.
In September 2003, a large number of internal Diebold memos, dating back
to mid-2001, were posted to the Web by the website
organizations Why War? and the Swarthmore Coalition for the Digital
Commons, a group of student activists at Swarthmore College.
Congressman Kucinich (D-OH) has placed portions of the files on his
websites. Diebold's critics believe that these memos reflect badly
on Diebold's voting machines and business practices. For example: "Do
not to offer damaging opinions of our systems, even when
their failings become obvious." (Election Support Guide; pg. 10 -- [4]
(http://www.equalccw.com/ElectionSupportGuide.pdf))
In December 2003, an internal Diebold memo was leaked to the press,
sparking controversy in Maryland. Maryland officials requested
that Diebold add the functionality of printing voting receipts. The
leaked memo said, "As a business, I hope we're smart enough to
charge them up the wazoo [for this feature]".
[]
-----------------------------------
http://ucdata.berkeley.edu/new_web/VOTE2004/index.html
from pdf: Summary of Findings
The Effect of Electronic Voting Machines on Change in Support for Bush
in the 2004 Florida Elections Summary:
- Irregularities associated with electronic voting machines may have
awarded 130,000 excess votes or more to President George W. Bush in
Florida.
- Compared to counties with paper ballots, counties with electronic
voting machines were significantly more likely to show increases in
support for President Bush between 2000 and 2004. This effect cannot be
explained by differences between counties in income, number of voters,
change in voter turnout, or size of Hispanic/Latino population.
- In Broward County alone, President Bush appears to have received
approximately 72,000 excess votes.
- We can be 99.9% sure that these effects are not attributable to
chance.
Details:
Because many factors impact voting results, statistical tools are
necessary to see the effect of touch-screen voting. Multiple- regression
analysis is a statistical technique widely used in the social and
physical sciences to distinguish the individual effects of many
variables.
This multiple-regression analysis takes account of the following
variables by county: - number of voters - median income - Hispanic
population - change in voter turnout between 2000 and 2004 - support for
President Bush in 2000 election - support for Dole in 1996 election
When one controls for these factors, the association between electronic
voting and increased support for President Bush is impossible to
overlook. The data show with 99.0% certainty that a countys use of
electronic voting is associated with a disproportionate increase in
votes for President Bush.
The data used in this study come from CNN.com, the 2000 US Census, the
Florida Department of State, and the Verified Voting Foundation ? all
publicly available sources. This study was carried out by a group of
doctoral students in the UC Berkeley sociology department in
collaboration with Professor Michael Hout, a member of the National
Academy of Sciences and the UC Berkeley Survey Research Center.
-------------------------------
http://www.wired.com/news/business/0,1367,62109,00.html
Computer security experts hired to hack electronic voting machines
manufactured by Diebold Election Systems found that flaws in the
machines could result in malicious insiders or outsiders stealing an
election.
The findings, released in a report late Thursday afternoon, culminated a
weeklong test undertaken by security experts at RabaTechnologies, a firm
hired by Maryland's legislative services department to hack the voting
machines. The report (PDF) stated that the Diebold machines did
accurately count the votes but could be compromised. The Raba
researchers concluded that for less than $750 someone could purchase and
program a card for this purpose. Furthermore, the red team was able to
easily guess the passwords for the smart cards. Even if they could not
guess them, they noted, Diebold had
written the passwords into its source code, a version of which was
leaked on the Internet last January after Diebold failed to secure a
company FTP server.
The Raba report is actually the second report commissioned by Maryland.
In September, the state commissioned Science Applications International
Corporation, or SAIC, to audit the Diebold machines after the Johns
Hopkins report came out.
----------------
http://avirubin.com/vote/analysis/index.html
Analysis of an Electronic Voting System
IEEE Symposium on Security and Privacy, Oakland, CA, May, 2004.
Authors
Tadayoshi Kohno
Adam Stubblefield
Aviel D. Rubin
Dan S. Wallach
Abstract
With significant U.S. federal funds now available to replace
outdated punch-card and mechanical voting systems, municipalities and
states throughout the U.S. are adopting paperless electronic voting
systems from a number of different vendors. We present a security
analysis of the source code to one such machine used in a significant
share of the market. Our analysis shows that this voting system is far
below even the most minimal security standards applicable in other
contexts. We identify several problems including unauthorized privilege
escalation, incorrect use of cryptography, vulnerabilities to network
threats, and poor software development processes. We show that voters,
without any insider privileges, can cast unlimited votes without being
detected by any mechanisms within the voting terminal software.
Furthermore, we show that even the most serious of our outsider attacks
could have been discovered and executed without access to the source
code. In the face of such attacks, the usual worries about insider
threats are not the only concerns; outsiders can do the damage.
That said, we demonstrate that the insider threat is also
quite considerable, showing that not only can an insider, such as a poll
worker, modify the votes, but that insiders can also violate voter
privacy and match votes with the voters who cast them. We concludethat
this voting system is unsuitable for use in a general election. Any
paperless electronic voting system might suffer similar flaws, despite
any "certification" it could have otherwise received. We suggest that
the best solutions are voting systems having a "voter-verifiable audit
trail," where a computerized voting system might print a paper ballot
that can be read and verified by the voter.
[]
SAIC Report
In early August 2003 the state of Maryland hired a third-party
consulting firm (SAIC) to perform an analysis of Diebolds AccuVote-TS
voting system. On
September 24, 2003, Maryland made SAICs report public. To quote the
SAIC report, [t]he system, as implemented in policy, procedure, and
technology,
is at high risk of compromise. Despite the problems identified in our
report and in the SAIC report, Maryland is still planning to proceed
with the 55.6 million
dollar purchase of Diebold AccuVote-TS voting terminals.
To help mitigate the risks identified in the security analyses, Maryland
proposed a set of technological changes to Diebolds voting machines as
well as
procedural changes to the election process. While this may help raise
the bar, it is impossible to know whether any security analysis
identifies all the
possible vulnerabilities present in an analyzed system. By only patching
the known vulnerabilities, Maryland is not actually ensuring that the
voting system will be secure. Rather, Maryland should follow security
engineering best practices, which state that security can only be
assured through a rigorous design process that considers security from a
projects conception, not through a set of patches applied after the
fact.
It appears that the state of Maryland has had to compromise on
the security of the voting system due to the election calendar. The
Maryland State Board of Elections states that an alternative system
could not be implemented in time to conduct the March 2004 Presidential
Primary election and could jeopardize the November 2004 Presidential
General election. Unfortunately, by compromising on security, the
integrity and privacy of these elections may still be in jeopardy.
[]
RABA Report
The consulting firm, RABA, has issued a report on the security of the
Diebold machines. They validated our findings and found other problems
as well.
Perhaps the best coverage of this study is in a Wired report by Kim
Zetter.
-----------------------------------
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/2004_U.S._Election_controversies_and_irregularities
After the 2004 U.S. presidential election there were allegations of data
irregularities and systematic flaws which may have affected
the outcome of both the presidential and local elections. Unofficial
results currently indicate a victory by George W. Bush over John
Kerry. Allegations range from significant exit poll and other data
irregularities potentially characteristic of fraud, to complaints voting
was not conducted equally for all citizens, for example, uneven voting
machine distribution which might lead to long voting lines and
disenfranchisement.
Investigations and enquiries - The major challenger, John Kerry
(Democrat), has stated he will not contest the anticipated result.
However, some groups and individuals (including the media, Ralph Nader
(independent), David Cobb (Green), Michael Badnarik
(Libertarian), the Electronic Frontier Foundation, electronic voting
machine criticism organizations such as BlackBoxVoting.ORG
(http://www.blackboxvoting.org), Kerry's brother and legal advisor
Cameron Kerry, members of the House Judiciary Committee, PD's
and academics, computer security specialists, and citizen bloggers) are
currently compiling, analysing and investigating these
allegations.
Data analyses have been made public by a variety of commentators. Much
data was released by Diebold Election Systems
inadvertently, and other data has been obtained from official records or
freedom of information requests. A preliminary report from
CalTech stating that there is no evidence of discrepancies was strongly
challenged for serious methodological errors (it was unsigned,
had many graphs but little academic substance, and used seriously flawed
data pre-adjusted to the official votes, among other
issues). A second, more rigorous preliminary analysis at the University
of Pennsylvania calculated that the odds of the difference
between exit polls and actual vote counts being due to chance is less
than 1 in 100 million. A third paper by UC Berkeley (which
provided full data and was reviewed by several professors prior to
publication) allowed for many economic, political, ethnic patterns
and past voting tendencies, and concluded "No matter how many factors
and variables we took into consideration ... the data show with
99.0% [sic, tested at 99% actual figure 99.9%] certainty that a countys
use of electronic voting is associated with a disproportionate
increase in votes for President Bush". They calculated the Bush vote was
130,000 - 260,000 overstated in Florida.
Voting machine and voter suppression - There were reports of problems
with and controversy over electronic and optical-scan
voting machines, many precincts reporting more voters than they had, or
inexplicable numbers of votes cast, the fact the exit poll
discrepancies only seemed to show up in swing states. Allocation of
ballots and voting machines led to some disenfranchisement,
particularly in high-population areas and in closely contested states.
Other issues are the perception of a discrepancy between party
registration statistics and results in some counties, and the varying
and controversial procedures for counting provisional ballots.
Manufacturer and testing issues - In addition, the extensive
affiliations of some major voting machine companies have been at issue,
together with documentation and litigation suggesting that some
colluded. Some company owners had multiple prior convictions and
bans for bid-rigging elsewhere, and at least one knew for some years
(and had deceived the public) about the full extent of lack of
security. They also knowingly breached the law regarding voting
machines, attempted to collude to "eliminate side attacks" and
"criticism ... of fallibility" from "computer scientists and security
experts" and "other people" who were "somewhat credible", and
attempted to establish an 'unconnected' and deniable PR group to
manipulate official perception. The Senior Vice President of one
voting machine company who wrote and maintained thousands of lines of
voting machine code was found to have previously "served
time in a Washington state correctional facility for stealing money and
tampering with computer files in a scheme that "involved a high
degree of sophistication and planning." Increasing evidence of incidents
where untoward modification to voting machines took place
has led to the companies themselves coming under examination for their
various political and economic ties.
"[E]ven if the election were viewed as "successful,"
it would not alleviate the vast majority of my concerns with the
machines.
Voting machines that are vulnerable to wholesale
rigging can still perform perfectly normally. It is possible that nobody
exploited the vulnerabilities this time around, and
it is also possible that there was fraud or serious error, but that they
went
undetected. Electronic voting will be judged on the
noticeable failures, and the unnoticeable ones are the most serious." -
Aviel
D. Rubin [1] (http://www.avirubin.com/judge2.html)
---------------------------------
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Diebold_Election_Systems
Their Diebold GEMS central tabulator software, version 1.18.15 of which
counted most votes in the United States in the U.S.
presidential election, 2004, is at the center of extreme controversy for
apparent irregularities versus the U.S. presidential election,
2004, exit polls. The Diebold AccuVote voting machine has also come
under extreme scrutiny especially by Ralph Nader's campaign.
The GEMS software, certified by NASED via Ciber Labs employee Shawn
Southworth of Hunstville, AB is at the center of an alleged
Diebold Election Systems electoral fraud, 2004 that is much more serious
than the previous allegations in the U.S. presidential
election, 2000 and U.S. midterm election, 2002 in which Diebold also
came under scrutiny.
[]
Together Election Systems & Software, Inc. and Diebold Election Systems,
Inc. are responsible for tallying around 80% of votes cast in
the United States. The software architecture common to both is a
creation of Mr. Urosevich's company I-Mark. Some critics claim that
this structure is easily compromised, in part due to its reliance on
Microsoft products including Microsoft Windows and Microsoft Access
databases. Britain J. Williams, responsible for certification of voting
machines for the state of Georgia has provided a negative
assessment based on her accounting of potential exploits.
In August 2003, Walden O'Dell, chief executive of Diebold, announced
that he had been a top fund-raiser for President George W.
Bush and had sent a get-out-the-funds letter to Ohio Republicans. In the
letters he says he is "committed to helping Ohio deliver its
electoral votes to the president next year." Critics of Diebold
interpreted this as implying that he might rig the company's electronic
voting machines to give an unfair advantage to Bush. The letter also was
seem as an indication of a perceived conflict of interest by
critics. He has responded to the critics by pointing out that the
company's election machines division is run out of Texas by a
registered Democrat. He also claims the statement about delivering
Ohio's electoral votes to Bush was simply a poor choice of words.
Nonetheless, he vowed to lower his political profile lest his personal
actions harm the company.
DES claims its systems provide strong immunity to ballot tampering and
other vote rigging attempts. These claims have been
challenged, notably by Bev Harris in her book Black Box Voting and on
her website [1] (http://www.blackboxvoting.org) with the same
name. According to critics, the I-Mark and Microsoft software each
represent a single point of failure for the vote counting process,
from which 80% of votes can be compromised via the exploit of a single
line of code in either subsystem. Harris and C. D. Sludge, an
Internet journalist, both claim there is also evidence that the Diebold
systems have been exploited to tamper with American elections.
Sludge further cites Votewatch for evidence that suggests a pattern of
compromised voting machine exploits throughout the 1990s,
and specifically involving the Diebold machines in the 2002 election.
The controversy regarding electronic voting machines is related to a
larger debate concerning the relative merits of open source and
proprietary security products. Advocates of the open source model say
that systems are more secure when anyone can view the
underlying software code, identify bugs and make peer-reviewed changes.
Advocates of proprietary systems claim that so-called
black box systems are more secure because potential weaknesses are
hidden.
Aviel Rubin, Professor of Computer Science at Johns Hopkins University
and Technical Director of the Information Security Institute has
analyzed the source code used in these voting machines and reports "this
voting system is far below even the most minimal security
standards applicable in other contexts." [2]
(http://avirubin.com/vote/analysis/index.html) Following the publication
of this paper, the
State of Maryland hired Science Applications International Corporation
(SAIC) to to perform another analysis of the Diebold voting
machines. SAIC concluded [t]he system, as implemented in policy,
procedure, and technology, is at high risk of compromise. [3]
(http://www.dbm.maryland.gov/dbm_publishing/public_content/dbm_search/technology/toc_voting_system_report/votingsystemreportfinal.pdf)
The voting machines, which are made by Diebold Election Systems (DES),
have caused a public uproar among some opponents.
In September 2003, a large number of internal Diebold memos, dating back
to mid-2001, were posted to the Web by the website
organizations Why War? and the Swarthmore Coalition for the Digital
Commons, a group of student activists at Swarthmore College.
Congressman Kucinich (D-OH) has placed portions of the files on his
websites. Diebold's critics believe that these memos reflect badly
on Diebold's voting machines and business practices. For example: "Do
not to offer damaging opinions of our systems, even when
their failings become obvious." (Election Support Guide; pg. 10 -- [4]
(http://www.equalccw.com/ElectionSupportGuide.pdf))
In December 2003, an internal Diebold memo was leaked to the press,
sparking controversy in Maryland. Maryland officials requested
that Diebold add the functionality of printing voting receipts. The
leaked memo said, "As a business, I hope we're smart enough to
charge them up the wazoo [for this feature]".
[]
-----------------------------------
http://ucdata.berkeley.edu/new_web/VOTE2004/index.html
from pdf: Summary of Findings
The Effect of Electronic Voting Machines on Change in Support for Bush
in the 2004 Florida Elections Summary:
- Irregularities associated with electronic voting machines may have
awarded 130,000 excess votes or more to President George W. Bush in
Florida.
- Compared to counties with paper ballots, counties with electronic
voting machines were significantly more likely to show increases in
support for President Bush between 2000 and 2004. This effect cannot be
explained by differences between counties in income, number of voters,
change in voter turnout, or size of Hispanic/Latino population.
- In Broward County alone, President Bush appears to have received
approximately 72,000 excess votes.
- We can be 99.9% sure that these effects are not attributable to
chance.
Details:
Because many factors impact voting results, statistical tools are
necessary to see the effect of touch-screen voting. Multiple- regression
analysis is a statistical technique widely used in the social and
physical sciences to distinguish the individual effects of many
variables.
This multiple-regression analysis takes account of the following
variables by county: - number of voters - median income - Hispanic
population - change in voter turnout between 2000 and 2004 - support for
President Bush in 2000 election - support for Dole in 1996 election
When one controls for these factors, the association between electronic
voting and increased support for President Bush is impossible to
overlook. The data show with 99.0% certainty that a countys use of
electronic voting is associated with a disproportionate increase in
votes for President Bush.
The data used in this study come from CNN.com, the 2000 US Census, the
Florida Department of State, and the Verified Voting Foundation ? all
publicly available sources. This study was carried out by a group of
doctoral students in the UC Berkeley sociology department in
collaboration with Professor Michael Hout, a member of the National
Academy of Sciences and the UC Berkeley Survey Research Center.
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http://www.wired.com/news/business/0,1367,62109,00.html
Computer security experts hired to hack electronic voting machines
manufactured by Diebold Election Systems found that flaws in the
machines could result in malicious insiders or outsiders stealing an
election.
The findings, released in a report late Thursday afternoon, culminated a
weeklong test undertaken by security experts at RabaTechnologies, a firm
hired by Maryland's legislative services department to hack the voting
machines. The report (PDF) stated that the Diebold machines did
accurately count the votes but could be compromised. The Raba
researchers concluded that for less than $750 someone could purchase and
program a card for this purpose. Furthermore, the red team was able to
easily guess the passwords for the smart cards. Even if they could not
guess them, they noted, Diebold had
written the passwords into its source code, a version of which was
leaked on the Internet last January after Diebold failed to secure a
company FTP server.
The Raba report is actually the second report commissioned by Maryland.
In September, the state commissioned Science Applications International
Corporation, or SAIC, to audit the Diebold machines after the Johns
Hopkins report came out.
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