Tuesday, August 07, 2007

The ghosts in the voting machines

Following concerns about the accuracy of the electronic voting systems used in last year's the California state legislature commissioned computer science and cryptography experts at the University of California to review the main players and ensure that 'California voters are being asked to cast their ballots on machines that are secure, accurate, reliable, and accessible'.


Anyone looking for reassurance will have had their hopes dashed, as the recently published report into e-voting systems from Diebold, Hart InterCivic and Sequoia found massive security holes in the source code which, combined with poor physical security and badly-designed procedures, make it impossible to rely on them to record votes accurately.


The report says that 'the security mechanisms provided for all systems analyzed were inadequate to ensure accuracy and integrity of the election results and of the systems that provide those results', which is about as bad as it gets.



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Tags: Accuracy | accurate | badly-designed | Bill Thompson | California | electronic systems | ensure | ghosts | HART INTERCIVIC | massive holes | program code | SECURE | Sequoia | Technology | variable | VOTING MACHINES

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