US election could be hit by hackers

[KurtNilsen]

Elections used to be rigged. In the future they may also be hacked, warn computer experts who believe America's new touch-screen voting machines, to be used in this year's presidential election, are vulnerable to computer fraud.

The machines are supposed to replace the punch-card voting machines that failed so spectacularly during the 2000 presidential election, that ended up in Florida courts and took five weeks of legal argument before George Bush was declared the winner.

About 50 million Americans, 29 per cent of registered voters, will use the touch-screen machines when they vote for a president in November.

One of the main suppliers, Diebold Inc, said its machines were virtually hack-proof and a "dramatic improvement" on the old punch-card machines. But when the state of Maryland asked computer experts to hack its Diebold machines, they did so with ease.

One tester took just 10 seconds to hack a machine and change the results. Off-site hackers needed less than 60 seconds to gain access via a modem and insert fictitious numbers.

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Diebold has also come under fire for its links to Mr Bush. The company's head, Walden O'Dell, has pledged to raise $US100,000 ($A126,000) for his re-election campaign and recently told a group of Republicans in Ohio that he was "committed to helping Ohio deliver its electoral votes to the President".

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http://www.theage.com.au/articles/2004/02/16/1076779903589.html
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[zonmoy]

1. Anybody want to bet

that they are using hackers to cover up and excuse their own tampering of all elections using their machines. I will be very surprised if any democrats win any offices in the next election.

[ozymandius]

2. I imagine some Dem hackers skewing the results.

This is, at the same time, a partisan issue and a bi-partisan issue. There is heavy Republican partisanship among the makers of these machines. And no honest Dem or Repub likes vote fraud. Imagine if some Democratically inclined hackers were to alter the results for at least two big reasons. Among consideration: either to point out the inherent fallibility of the machines (such as many more votes cast than there are registered voters) or to change the outcome of an election.

Any way to look at this is to entertain electoral chaos. In too many states like Georgia, the voting laws have either not caught up with the new technology or the laws reflect inherent infallibility of said technology. Meaning: there is no legal recourse to correct the election's accounting methods. So what do we do when massive vote fraud is discovered?

[enki23]

3. i hope someone does it

and i hope they make it very obvious it was done. a whole pack of write-ins for schwartzeneggar, whatever. i don't care who the votes are for, so long as it's obvious they aren't legitimate. the nation needs a fucking giant, screaming, in-your-face object lesson. it will never truly get the issue until such an event happens.

[icymist]

4. I'm voting absentee

This is a concerning issue, one that should've been addressed years ago. The election will be upon us all soon.