Researchers Conclude Voting Systems In the USA Are Vulnerable To Hacking And Errors

McClatchyDC reported:

"Pennsylvania is one of 11 states where the majority of voters use antiquated machines that store votes electronically, without printed ballots or other paper-based backups that could be used to double-check the balloting. There's almost no way to know if they've accurately recorded individual votes — or if anyone tampered with the count... These paperless digital voting machines, used by roughly 1 in 5 U.S. voters last month, present one of the most glaring dangers to the security of the rickety, underfunded U.S. election system."

I strongly suggest that all voters read the entire McClatchyDC article. It is an eye-opener. Let's unpack the above paragraph. There's plenty to consider.

First, a significant number of voting districts across the nation use only paperless digital voting machines. A prior blog post confirmed this usage:

"... half of registered voters (47%) live in jurisdictions that use only optical-scan as their standard voting system, and about 28% live in DRE-only jurisdictions... Another 19% of registered voters live in jurisdictions where both optical-scan and DRE systems are in use... Around 5% of registered voters live in places that conduct elections entirely by mail – the states of Colorado, Oregon and Washington, more than half of the counties in North Dakota, 10 counties in Utah and two in California. And in more than 1,800 small counties, cities and towns – mostly in New England, the Midwest and the inter-mountain West – more than a million voters still use paper ballots that are counted by hand."

That prior blog post also included a map with voting technologies by district. Second, the paperless digital voting machines make recounts difficult to impossible. Why? They lack printed ballots or paper backups to re-scan and verify against the machines' recorded totals. Optical-scan voting machines are better since they use paper ballots. Those paper ballots can be re-scanned during a recount to verify the machines' totals. Reportedly, advanced countries including Germany, Britain, Japan and Singapore all require scannable paper ballots.

Third, all of this means paperless digital voting machines are a hacker's delight. Or a corrupt politician's delight. If one is going to hack voting systems with a low to zero chance of getting caught, then smart hackers would target machines without paper backups where tampering would be impossible to detect during recounts.

Fourth, the vulnerabilities aren't just theory, or what-ifs. The McClathcyDC article also reported:

"But a cadre of computer scientists from major universities backed Stein's recounts to underscore the vulnerability of U.S. elections. These researchers have been successfully hacking e-voting machines for more than a decade in tests commissioned by New York, California, Ohio and other states."

You can easily find reports online about the vulnerable machines, such as the Sequoia AVC Advantage used in Louisiana, New Jersey, Virginia, and Pennsylvania. Another example: last year, the State of Virginia de-certified using the AVS WINVote made by Advanced Voting Solutions, which had previously been used also in Pennsylvania and Mississippi. The security review by the Virginia Information Technologies Agency (Adobe PDF) is available online.

The Brennan Center for Justice (BCJ) produced a report in 2015: "America's Voting Machines At Risk" (Adobe PDF). The BCJ interviewed more than 30 state and 80 local election officials, plus dozens of election technology, administration and security experts. They also gathered input from "computer scientists, policy analysts, usability experts, election security experts, voting equipment vendors, and various innovators in the field of election technology." The BCJ's report summarized the problem:

"... an impending crisis... from the widespread wearing out of voting machines purchased a decade ago... Jurisdictions do not have the money to purchase new machines, and legal and market constraints prevent the development of machines they would want even if they had funds..."

The BCJ found:

"Unlike voting machines used in past eras, today’s systems were not designed to last for decades. In part this is due to the pace of technological change... although today’s machines debuted at the beginning of this century, many were designed and engineered in the 1990s... experts agree that for those purchased since 2000, the expected lifespan for the core components of electronic voting machines is between 10 and 20 years, and for most systems it is probably closer to 10 than 20... 43 states are using some machines that will be at least 10 years old in 2016. In most of these states, the majority of election districts are using machines that are at least 10 years old. In 14 states, machines will be 15 or more years old.

Nearly every state is using some machines that are no longer manufactured and many election officials struggle to find replacement parts. The longer we delay purchasing new equipment, the more problems we risk. The biggest risk is increased failures and crashes, which can lead to long lines and lost votes.

Older machines can also have serious security and reliability flaws that are unacceptable today. For example, Virginia recently decertified a voting system used in 24 percent of precincts after finding that an external party could access the machine’s wireless features to “record voting data or inject malicious data... Several election officials mentioned “flipped votes” on touch screen machines, where a voter touches the name of one candidate, but the machine registers it as a selection for another... Election jurisdictions in at least 31 states want to purchase new voting machines in the next five years. Officials from 22 of these states said they did not know where they would get the money to pay for them."

The USA can do better. It must do better. State and local elections officials must find the money. Elected politicians must help them find the money. Our democracy is at stake.

There is a glimmer of good news. Researchers at Rice University have developed a digital voting machine prototype that prints a paper trail. The paper trail provide verification of voters' selections, which would facilitate recounts and should replace the paperless DRE equipment. It is one of three publicly funded projects across the country. Bidding is open for manufacturers to produce the equipment.

While Stein's recount efforts ultimately failed, the vulnerabilities still exist. As McClatchyDC reported:

"The U.S. voting system — a loosely regulated, locally managed patchwork of more than 3,000 jurisdictions overseen by the states — employs more than two dozen types of machinery from 15 manufacturers.

So, something needs to be done soon to increase the security of DRE or paperless digital voting machines. It's time for voters to demand better voting security and accountability from state and local elections officials (and their politicians) who selected paperless voting equipment for their districts. It seems foolish to tighten voter ID and registration procedures while both under-funding and ignoring the vulnerabilities with paperless digital voting machines.

What are your opinions?