Originally Posted By: sini
Derid, do you know if these flaws can be exploited remotely? From what I read they require local access, as such your comparison does not hold.

Additionally, do you know if they all use the same system? I was under impression that there are multiple types of machines, am I wrong?

Last but not least, I was under impression that there are still some places that do hand-counting and/or require paper trail. Is this not the case?

As applicable to "close call" sites, any of them would fall into above-mentioned categories?


There are many different systems, I am familiar with some of them in Ohio. The fact that there are many different systems actually adds to the security concerns, as opposed to detracting from them. A prospective attacker has years to devise tools and methods of attack while the defenders have X more scenarios and vulnerabilities to look out for during an extremely small window of time when 1000 things are occurring simultaneously.

In Ohio I can state with confidence that electronic voting is the norm, and security protocol is lax.

Not all flaws require someone to be on location. The centralized vote tallying servers can also be attacked. As can the path between the voting machines and the server. There was actual a considerable body of circumstantial evidence that this occurred in Ohio in 2004. Circumstantial evidence is not proof, but it can certainly raise valid concerns about the process.

It is worth noting that some areas, including Ohio have tighter regulation on how results are officially reported than in 2004 - including not allowing official results to be transmitted over the internet. But that does not mean there not still many issues.

Some long but worthwhile reading here:
http://www.huffingtonpost.com/art-levine/mia-in-voting-machine-war_b_2054411.html

For who could be free when every other man's humour might domineer over him? - John Locke (2nd Treatise, sect 57)