Suppose I were one of those people with a voice in my head telling me either that Democrats or Republicans were evil and must be stopped. Or suppose, for some other reason, I believed it my patriotic duty to illegally alter election results on November 4. Here's one way, with just a couple hours of simple internet research and a call or two to my fellow "patriots," that I might go about it:
1. Find a voting precinct that uses the ES & S M100 ballot tabulator
The gunmetal gray Elections Systems Software machine, which resembles a mid-'80s office copier, can be found in 6,842 voting precincts in 137 counties. On November 4, as many as nine million voters will feed their marked-up paper ballots into the M100's optical scanner, making it America's third most popular voting machine.
Note: I might consider Sacramento County, which has 1,000 of the machines at 571 its voting precincts. Also Sacramento County offers a race where a few votes could make the difference: the 4th Congressional District contest between Tom McClintock (R) and Charlie Brown (D).
2. Replace the PCMCIA card
The PMCIA card is the component that essentially tells the M100 how to keep score. Technically, swapping one out is simple -- supposedly, if I'm able to swap out a digital camera's memory card, I could do this.
First, I would need a new PMCIA card. They're widely available online for about $90.
Next I'd need assistance from a software engineer, and it would help if he knows a little about QNX Real Time Operating Software for embedded devices. "This isn't a big deal," said the software engineer I called. "The software is the easy part."
With my replacement PCMCIA card good to go, I'd have to know how to remove the M100's existing card. Fortunately, there's a manual online with helpful diagrams.
The hardest part would be actually making the swap, because I'd have to physically access the M100, which is watched at voting precincts by volunteers. I might make my move during the middle of Election Day, when polling places are quietest. Or perhaps later on, when I could blend into the crowd. In either case, it would probably make the job easier if I become a volunteer myself. Sacramento County takes volunteers on a first-come, first-serve basis as long they are U.S. citizens of at least sixteen years of age on Election Day (students need at least a 2.5 grade average). I would even get paid $120.
I would probably choose to make the swap before the M100 arrives at the precinct, however. In Sacramento County, on the Saturday prior to Election Day, precinct captains pick up the M100s from county storage and drive them to a "secure" location, most often their homes. From Saturday afternoon until Tuesday morning, the machines are a common sight in carports. My software engineer likened the safeguarding of the M100 to "a wall a hundred feet high around it, except for one small stretch just four feet high that anyone can step over." The Saturday-to-Tuesday period, known as the "sleepover," is the four-foot-high part.
With my hands on the machine, I'd still encounter some security measures. According to tests commissioned by California's Secretary of State Debra Bowen, however, the physical key locks can be picked in "five seconds to one minute" and the wire and paper tamper-evidence seal can be easily bypassed. Also, Bowen's test concluded, the "attack would be unlikely to be detected."
I would need to a new seal, though, to cover my tracks. The seals have no magnetic code, just a number, so with a little help from the Photoshop jockey who works nights at the local Kinko's, making one would be a piece of cake.
Troubleshooting
On Election Day in Sacramento County, one percent of precincts are randomly selected for a manual count of the ballots, to check voting machine accuracy. On top of that, a handful of M100s fail during each election -- dead batteries and so forth. Accordingly, the chances of successfully hacking a machine are about 98 in 100.
It bears noting that due to the security and auditing measures Sec. Bowen has implemented, it's probably more difficult to hack M100s in California than in any other state. According to Dan Wallach, an associate professor of Computer Science at Rice and a participant in Bowen's testing, Texas is the antithesis of California in terms of safeguards. Ohio may be even worse.
One thing that might thwart hackers is security personnel above and beyond election workers. Sec. Bowen sought to hire a bonded service like Brinks to deliver the voting machines. The plan was a casualty to feasibility, largely in terms of logistics.
Civilian law enforcement officers could do the job, but since several are elected themselves, concerns of bias would be difficult to surmount.
An alternative might be the National Guard. In California, only about 2,000 of the 25,500 full and part-time Guardsmen are currently deployed. Safeguarding machines, particularly at precinct captains' homes, could fall under the organization's purview -- I was surprised to learn that, in addition to responding to emergencies, the National Guard runs homeless shelters and helps children learn to read. "We're like a Swiss Army knife," said Lieutenant Colonel Jon Siepmann of California National Guard's Public Affairs Office. He also informed me that "Any mission we receive is a decision for civilian leadership."
Individual Guardsmen would cost counties approximately $25 per day more than election volunteers. Just one Guardsman, sitting with a thermos of coffee in a car across from the precinct captain's house, would probably deter hackers. Guardsmen could learn their assignments just a short time prior to dispatch. Thus -- the integrity of the National Guard aside -- they would be as unlikely as anyone to be involved in hacking, and far less likely than volunteers.
Alice Jarboe, the assistant registrar of voters in Sacramento County, told me she thought using the National Guard was a good idea, provided the Guardsmen wore plain clothes at polling places, so as not to disenfranchise voters. (This would not be an issue, of course, were the Guardsmen stationed away from precincts during the critical period before the election.) In addition, Jarboe said, California would need a priority system so Guardsmen could be deployed first to hotly-contested areas, like the 4th District. She expressed budgetary concerns as well, but took into account the wisdom of a senior colleague: "Money's no issue when it comes to an election."
At present there are no plans in California to bring in any security personnel or implement additional safeguards. Secretary of State Bowen's press secretary, Kate Folmar, has not yet returned calls on this topic.
Next up:
Can the National Guard Safeguard Voting Machines in Ohio, Florida, and North Carolina?
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What is the rush? It takes a few days to certify an election, a few more to elect the electors and the electoral college does not even vote until sometime in December. So why can't we go back to simple paper ballots?
Heck, there is so much unemployment we could hire thousands of people to count ballots at the minimum wage for the cost of some of these voting machines Every ballot gets counted three times, Twice by partison poll watchers and once by an independent appoint of the election district. This can be the only true way of verifying the legitimacy of an election.
Voting machines, all of which have been shown to be tamperable (see article), SHOULD NOT BE USED IN ELECTIONS.
(Is there any way to check on voting day, before polls open, to find out if the card has been tampered with? That would be the only voting machine I would countenance. And then a very severe lock on the card's door. (Why isn't there a lock on it in the first place!)
In fact, ACORN submits EVERY registration it gets -- it is required by law to do so. It tries to contact each one three times before putting it into one of three piles. One pile is 'confirmed', one is 'likely OK' and the other, the 'MickeyMouse' registrations they are bound by law to put into the other pile even though they know these are not real people. There have been virtually NO instances of any of these unreal 'registrations' -- if they get past the voting office and onto the rolls -- actually attempting to vote.
Republicans have jumped on the very few of the people hired to register voters who have simply made up names in order not to do work. These individuals have been fired. In any case, their 'registrations' do not lead to voter fraud because, as explained above, the made-up names do not vote -- they don't exist in any respect.
ACORN DOES NOT COMMIT VOTER FRAUD. READ THE FACTS. SEE DEMOCRACYNOW.ORG's TRANSCRIPT THIS WEEK (possibly Tuesday, maybe Monday) ABOUT THE FACTS ABOUT THIS. IF YOU DON'T WANT TO GO THERE AND READ IT, I CAN'T MAKE YOU. OR MAKE YOU BELIEVE THE FACTS.
Also, this--""He also informed me that "Any mission we receive is a decision for civilian leadership.""
This gentleman is laboring under a misconception--with the new Military Commission Act, President Bush has taken into the executive branch, for himself, the right to take control of ALL military, police, or other law enforcement in the entire nation and order them to do whatever he wants. This is what you get when you don't read the fine print! The death of Posse Comitatus, which is not just some weird Latin phrase about cowboys, but one of our most important protections from the establishment of a Military/Fascist dictatorship.
However, there should be no voting machines, given that they are eminently tamperable. The fact of loosely guarded and easily tamperable-with voting machines is unconscionable. I'm off Deborah Bowen, whom I voted for so that she could get rid of voting machines.
Given my research, Lt. Col. Siepmann is correct: For 1,000 of his soldiers to be deployed to Sacramento County, Sacramento County essenitally need only call.
I am trusting the Obama team to challenge any voting machine fraud, and not let us down as Kerry did. BUT MORE IMPORTANT, I AM HOPING THEY WILL BE THERE TO DOUBLE CHECK MACHINES FOR HAVING BEEN TAMPERED WITH. They have hired, I thought I heard, '2000' lawyers to 'make sure there is no funny business. But we don't know what they are actually doing, do we? We need technicians who can check voting machine cards -- on the day! And guard machines so that no one can get into them on the day. WHY HAS NO ONE ASSURED US THAT THESE VOTING CARDS WILL BE CHECKED AND THEN PERMANENTLY SEALED -- by soldering, not padlocks? NOT left, vulnerable (see well-researched article above) to hackers in someone's carport?
Where is Jimmy Carter's Center when we need them to monitor the polls?
Debra Bowen has done admirable work in this area:
http://www.sos.ca.gov/elections/elections_vsr.htm
Come on! And nobody can pick up the stench but Rolling Stone magazine (and thank god for them !!)
The simple fact is more than a million vote were not counted at the last election, and if democrat don't fight NOW for every one of their vote to count, you will see McCain securely in place of the new Banana Republic of the USofA.
The machines are a fraud: it is a way for the people to lose control of the democratic process. If a machine breaks call a repair man?!! That's a joke!! Their should be bi-partisan observers and counters at each station or nobody can assure the fairness of the process. Surely not the "Here-my-big-check-for-the-Republican-party-that-come-with-the-machines" Diebolt's tech man !!!!
Why are partisan politicians permitted to control the process?
Swallow your pride, and learn from countries that have corruption-free systems.
Sorry I don't have the link but if you go to YouTube and search for "Spoonamore electronic vote fraud," you will see a series of clips outlining how the machines will swing the vote for the republicans.
This is extremely scary stuff....all the National Guard troops in the country are not going to be able to stop the electronic theft!!! Get the word out to everyone you know!!! The more we publicize it, the less able they will be to pull it off!
Not all districts will have rigged machines. It is far too costly to do that. You need to pick the key races that can bring you the desired outcome for a presidential race. The people who perpetrate election fraud aren't interested in rigging elections for local goals, they are looking at the big prize.
DNC do your job and make sure us Democrats do not get cheated out of another presidency, we legitimately won.
http://www.rollingstone.com/politics/story/23638322/block_the_vote
While I certainly agree that physical security of the machines is highly desirable you are handwaving around the ability to detect the changes in the PCMCIA card. To start with each PCMCIA card has or could be given a serial number and it recorded as to which serial number is in which machine, making it a whole lot harder to have your card prepped beforehand and greatly complicating the crime.
But more than that once the PCMCIA cards for a particular voting district are prepared the software engineers should run an MD5 hash of the code section of the data on the card. When the machines are returned a similar MD5 hash is run on the cards and if the numbers don't match up you know that the card has been altered. It is a check that would take only a few minutes per machine and is impossible to hide. (Changing a single byte in a data stream will allways result in a different MD5 and it is impossible to know what other changes would be needed to the data to restore it.)
This is what is required: a non-partisan Electoral Commission, as a sub-branch of the Judiciary, that oversees all elections, boundaries and returns, and ensures their fairness.
As an example: http://www.aec.gov.au/About_AEC/index.htm
"The Australian Electoral Commission (AEC) is responsible for conducting federal elections and referendums and maintaining the Commonwealth electoral roll. The AEC also provides a range of electoral information and education programs and activities... The AEC is headed by a Chairperson (a Judge or a retired Judge of the Federal Court), the Electoral Commissioner, and a non-judicial member (usually the Australian Statistician)."
"The AEC has seven core business functions. These are to:
* manage the electoral roll which is used by all levels of government
* conduct elections, referendums, including fee for service and industrial elections
* educate and inform the community about electoral responsibilities
* provide research, advice and assistance on electoral matters
* provide assistance in overseas elections and referendums
* administer election funding, financial disclosure and party registration requirements
* undertake electoral redistributions."
You don't get voter fraud, rigged machines, gerrymanders, hanging chads, roll purges and downright illegitimate nonsense in Australia. Just free and fair elections.
How about giving them a call after January 20th, Barack?