Susan Bysiewicz held a press conference to symbolically trash a lever voting machine and raise voter confidence in the implementation of our new voting machines. We applaud her formal announcement of the testing of memory cards by UConn, however, we beg to disagree with the lack of concern for the programming of the memory cards <read>:
LHS has nothing to do with our elections except that they program the memory cards,†Bysiewicz said.
While basically accurate that is far from reassuring – the memory cards have EVERYTHING to do with our elections. If the memory cards are corrupted, democracy is lost, all our efforts to vote, the time and expense of running elections, the time and expense candidates and their supporters put in is in vein. Sort of like saying the Fox has nothing to do with the chickens except that we send the chickens to Massachusetts to the Fox house for a little vacation.
Update:
Secretary Bysiewicz on Colin McEnroe calls concerned activists Conspiracy Theorists: “We’ve had the conspiracy theorists participate with us and give us good ideas”. <listen>. Colin to his credit was not drawn in. I was one of the concerned citizens that suggested part of the method being employed by the state to have UConn check the cards. No conspiracy theorists were present at the time. Perhaps there were other discussions with other individuals. Ironically, to rely on procedures to defeat significant vulnerabilities requires a large number of voting officials to follow all the procedures perfectly, every time.
Let me be clear, as I have said before: I do not believe it requires a conspiracy to fraudulently corrupt our elections.
It is not hard to hack or compromise the AccuVote-OS. It is relatively easy for computer professionals and easier for enthusiastic hackers. It does not take many people. The Brennan Center for Justice in “The Machinery of Democracy†chose computer fraud by insiders as the most dangerous threat out of some 190 they analysed because (a) it was so easy for knowledgeable insiders with access to the memory cards and (b) it took very few people for large statewide elections, as few as three. The Carter-Baker commission stated it this way:
“The greater threat to most systems comes not from external hackers, but from insiders… Software can be modified maliciously before being installed into individual voting machines. There is no reason to trust insiders in the election industryâ€
