EAC - Voluntary Voting System Guidelines

Name : | Timothy Willhard
Organization : | N/A
Post Date : | 9/9/2005
General Comments
Comment : | Dear EAC Representative, I am shocked and appalled by the despicable voting machines that have been foisted upon the citizens of this country. With the endless litany of problems these machines have had, and bad faith efforts by the manufacturers of them, it is astounding to me that they were ever approved for any election, and continue to be used even after alarming problems were found, most of which have not been corrected. Among the most egregious problems: 1. From the beginning they were based on older insecure programming (Microsoft Access) that programmers say nobody serious about securing data would ever use. 2. Manufacturers have been allowed to use proprietary code that is not allowed to be inspected by public computer security experts. This flies directly in the face of the "many eyes" policy of holding fair and accountable elections. 3. Manufacturers have felt so emboldened by their own political power that the president of one company even promised to deliver a state’s winning vote to his chosen candidate at a large political event. The candidate was a person who was given a large campaign contribution by the election machine company president. Doesn’t even the appearance of impropriety mean anything to someone who’s equipment has been entrusted with the very cornerstone of democracy- the right to vote in a fair election? 4. Machines have not been sealed off from remote access via other computers during elections. Since the programming code does not preclude using negative numbers in vote tallies, programs can change the tallies by subtracting votes from candidate A, and give them to candidate B, without altering the total number of votes cast. Remotely installed code (be it by modem, phone line, or wireless) can even delete itself, leaving no record of it ever having ever existed on the machines.