Bradblog has an instructive post bringing home the limitations and possibilities of optical scan paper ballot elections: Caught on Tape: Election Officials Behaving Badly
Truth: Conspiracies exist. People, corporations, and governments are frequently discovered to have committed conspiracies, often charged, and even convicted of Conspiracy to Commit [some crime]. The recent Libor financial scandal comes to mind, the Tobacco companies covering up studies linking tobacco to cancer, the recent disclosure that Exxon hid studies predicting global warming for decades, the NSA cover ups exposed by Snowden, and the FBI conspiring with Whitey Bolger, to name a few.
Myth: If Conspiracy X were true, too many people would know and it would have come out by now.
Truth: There are may conspiracies that remain unknown or not well-known for years or decades. Some may never be known. Many actually take only a few individuals who are highly motivated by fear of consequences, real intimidation, or perceived intimidation. Many suspected conspiracies are not investigated, even some where participants come forward publicly or surface their concerns through channels.
Over the years, we an others have pointed out that voting systems cannot be tested to assure performance before an election. Not the system itself before it is setup/programmed for a particular election. Not a setup and programmed system either. Not even if a system is completely secured and is somehow proven to run approved/certified software.
Here is some proof, not from a voting system – from a crime by an automaker. In this case it only puts the environment and lives in danger, rather than Democracy.
Are Larry Wilkerson’s concerns justified? Without sufficient audits and recounts, we can never be certain. As he tells us, history tends toward cheating whenever it is possible.
Our position is that paper ballots and optical scanning followed by sufficient security, audits, and recounts is the optimum system available. Yet, in Connecticut we need stronger security, audits, and recounts to achieve justified integrity and confidence in our elections.
In late June a respected source published a non-peer-reviewed article: The case for election technology Which despite its title is actually a marketing piece disguised as science, not for election technology but for electronic voting, including Internet voting. The case actually made is for skepticism and peer-review.
That skepticism is well addressed in posts by Jeremy Epstein and E. John Sebes: How not to measure security andA Hacked Case For Election Technology
An independent report by the state auditor general found Florida’s voter registration database flawed.
Susanna Randolph, one of the candidates running for Alan Grayson’s 9th district congressional seat, sent a letter today asking Attorney General Loretta Lynch to launch a Department of Justice probe into the state’s voter system.
The election system is particularly vulnerable because it involves a combination of state, local, and federal government agencies with their own systems, software, hardware, and security protocols. Often, government departments are running old “legacy” computer systems that are extremely vulnerable to malware and hacking; and even if they have new systems, these are often put into place without a comprehensive security audit and performance review.
Who exactly is in charge of securing these overlapping networks isn’t always clear in government either.
My friend, Duncan Buell, sent along a .pdf with a blog post of his, Computer Security and the Risks of Online Voting, along with another blog post about drones Meet A.I. Joe
