Proof That It Can Be Done!
The Following is an Example of A Complete Voting System
That has Been Compromised:
Here you will play three types of roles: as voters, as election officials, and as nefarious programmers.
Instructions:
At this point the Voters have already voted and it is time to send the results
to the Election Central Tabulator.
1. Click on the "Send Results" button to see the HONEST election results.
2. Now the Democratic nefarious programmer no. 1 does not like those results so he activates his vote rigging software (click Democrat-1 button). As you can see, now the Democrat wins!
3. Press the Automatic Audit Check button to see that all the results total up correctly.
4. Now Republican-2 programmer does not like the results so click his "Rig Central Tabulator" button.
As you can see, now the Republican wins!
5. Press the Automatic Audit Check button to see (GOTCHA!) that all results DO NOT total up correctly!
6. At this point, Elections Officials are helpless to correct this situation!
Unless, they had required a printer to produce secret verified paper ballots.
To see how the paper ballots help, click on the "Restore Defaults" Button.
7. Lets see what Republican-1 programmer has up his sleeve!
Click his button to see the Republican win, again!
8. Now you (as the nefarious Programmers) can give those poor Elections Officials a "Nightmare at Election Central!"
By clicking all the different vote rigging buttons, one after the other in various orders.
Watch the scoreboard Ping-Pong back and forth between the Candidates!
Its FUN!
(But if it was a REAL election it would be the end of our Democracy!)
9. Now type in the boxes for each of the voting machine booths 1000000 votes for George W. Bush and 1 vote for John Kerry. Click on the"Send Results" button and see 3 votes for John Kerry and 3000000 votes for George W. Bush.
10. Now click on Democrat-1 button and watch millions of votes switch at the click of a mouse!
Really efficient, isn't it!
11. Notice that clicking the internal audit button shows nothing wrong!
FAQS:
1. If one (or more) of your electronic voting machines has a catastrophic breakdown in the middle of an election, is there any way to recover the votes already cast on that machine?
No! They will be lost unless the machine printed out voter verified ballots or used paper optical scan ballots.
Here is a link describing an actual REAL WORLD Election central Nightmare!
Real Nightmare!
2. Are not the voting machines' software tested and certified by a government agency and the state before the voting machines are used?
Yes, but the certifications and testing are jokes! After being certified by these agencies, this is what was found:
Thorough security reviews of a number of the biggest companies selling DREs have been commissioned recently by election officials in various states. Those reviews found high-risk vulnerabilities in the systems sold by Diebold Inc., Election Systems & Software Inc., Sequoia Voting Systems Inc. and Hart InterCivic Inc.
Diebold AccuVote/TS: 15 security risks: 5 high risk, 2 medium risk, 8 low risk
ES & S iVotronic: 17 security risks: 1 high risk, 3 medium risk, 13 low risk
Hart InterCivic eSlate: 10 security risks: 4 high risk, 1 medium risk, 5 low risk
Sequoia AVC Edge: 15 security risks: 3 high risk, 5 medium risk, 7 low risk
Ohio Compuware Study
Maryland's RABA Technologies Tests
3. Isn't it just a few cranks who are complaining about the new voting machines?
No! These two professional societies, who have many thousands of software professionals as members have made statements supporting the use of verified paper ballots and audit trails: The ACM and the IEEE!
Many University Computer Scientists at Universities and Colleges across the U.S. have done the same. Obviously, these are not a few cranks but a large number of experts who should know, and who have no reason to complain about new computerized technology unless there is something very wrong with it!
Here is a link to the ACM site:
ACM Computer Professional Society
Here is a link to comments on the IEEE:
IEEE Comments
4. Won't verified paper ballots make it difficult for disabled and blind people to use the voting machines?
Absolutely NOT! This is perhaps the most absurd objection ever made to the use of verified paper ballots!
In the first place the blind could be made an exception to the paper ballot rule, and allowed to use whatever accomodation was planned for them without paper ballots. However, one could have their ballots also printed out with barcodes that would be run back through the computer from the paper output ballot for them to verify from sound feedback.
I am a programmer and I am certain I could find numerous ways to accomodate the the blind and disabled. This is just a ploy by the voting machine companies to avoid using printers. So far, most of the voting machine companies have failed to provide an adequate solution for the blind, so the fuss should be to get those voting machine companies to design and deliver better equipment for these people!
Additional Commentary:
One needs to think in terms of business accounting. In the U.S. most large businesses are required to have outside accounting firms AUDIT their accounting "books" to verify that they are correct and have not been fraudulently tallied.
The external auditors require evidence of expenditures such as paper receipts showing that costly items were indeed purchased.
So in order to be AUDIT a voting system, as one would a business, there is a need for similar receipts, etc.
None of the current voting systems are capable of a complete, honest independent audit.
Therefore, similar to a business accounting system, a voting system must be assumed guilty of being compromised until proven innocent. That the mechanism for proving that innocence is a verified by multiple means audit trail that starts with voter verified paper ballots and is built throughout the voting system's structure. This audit trail should be the primary design focus of the entire voting system design. Failure to provide such a VOTER VERIFIED AUDIT TRAIL is evidence of extreme incompetence in the design of voting systems. It is the very minimum one would expect from a voting system!
For those that are interested, the Basic External Audit Method's details:
1. A voter uses the touch screen voting machine until he is sure his choices are correct.
2. The machine now prints out a corresponding paper ballot.
3 The voter must verify that the secret paper ballot is correct and then places it in an old fashioned ballot box..
4. When all the voters have cast their votes, a random check of a small percentage of the voting machines is then made by counting their paper ballots. If the paper count does not match those Machines' count there is evidence of computer fraud.
5. The ballots would then be locked away for safekeeping.
6. In addition, there must be some way of auditing the Election Central Tabulating Machine(s) which are known to be one of the weakest links in security and hence more likely to be rigged for fraud than the voting stations.
At this time some states actually have laws that block a system's ability to record and store, separately, the individual voting machine totals to the central vote tabulators. These are needed so that the totals there can be matched to totals obtained at the randomly checked machines to verify that they are the same (haven't been altered at the tabulator).
Hence, there is a great need for a National action to overcome these problem state laws.
7 An additional audit is to independently add up the individual machine totals in the central tabulator to verify that .the tabulator summed them correctly.
The most important point is this:
Because ONLY A FEW rigged machines in a critical State could throw a National election, one way or the other, local laws are NOT enough. The National Congress must pass a law mandating the use of a secret voter-verified paper ballot audit trail that includes the auditing of central tabulating machines, to assure that all machines in all States conform!
Promote "Voter Confidence" With a NATIONAL Voter-Verified Paper Audit Trail in 2004.
The Survival of Our Democracy is at Stake!
Some valuable links:
Senate Bill 2313 (Graham-Clinton-Boxer) would be the best bill on voting machines which we need to have passed as soon as possible, except, it does not mandate paper Ballots for 2004. Senate Bill 1980 does, which makes it the best choice at this time.
Senate Bill Comparison
Dr. Dill is the most effective advocate for VerifiedVoting.
VerifiedVoting
For extensive facts and details about voting machine fraud see the free Book at:
Blackboxvoting
or
Blackboxvoting Activism
Write your National Congressional Representative (requires zip code)
Write your Rep
This web page and its JavaScript software was developed by a software professional concerned about the development of voting systems that are incapable of an honest independent audit.
JavaScript was chosen because it can be made to download completely within a web page
to be used offline with no further requirements.
This web page is free to all who wish to copy it! NO copyrights, public domain!
It should be useful for voting activists who encounter friends, voters, elections officials and politicians who say things like "I can't imagine how an electronic voting machine could be rigged to throw an election."
Since it is only one page, it can be saved by clicking your browser's "FILE" in the upper left corner and then clicking on "Save as". The down loaded page will run on your computer without being connected to the Web.
It is also small enough to be copied on to a floppy disk.
It can be loaded on a laptop and taken to meetings!
Rather than put a link to this page on your web site, instead, I wish to especially encourage people to upload this page to their own web sites and incorporate it as part of their own site!
It can be uploaded to web sites and used as a page there. This will spread the band width around and increase the number of people viewing it.
If your vote doesn't count, nothing else matters!
The Following is an Example of A Single Voting Machine
That has Been Compromised: