'Blinking Red': Top U.S. Election System Vendor, ES&S, Lied About Remote Access Software: 'BradCast'

[Sancho]

At the same time, after the FBI informed Maryland just days ago that its entire election system was being hosted on a private commercial server said to be owned by a Russian oligarch tied to Putin (as discussed in detail on yesterday's BradCast), we learn this week that the top U.S. election system vendor, ES&S, has been lying about remote access software and modems installed, for many years, on systems still used by a majority of U.S. voters.

The new revelations may help explain an exclusive special report published by The BRAD BLOG back in 2011, with an officially-commissioned independent analysis finding that, among other concerns, Venango County, Pennsylvania's ES&S election management system had been accessed by an unknown and unauthorized computer for "several hours" from a remote location. As we reported at the time, ES&S and the County's Board of Commissioners went to considerable lengths, after those revelations, to block a further, independent forensic analysis of the system.

And now, perhaps, we may know why. Kim Zetter reports this week at Vice's Motherboard that the company lied to her and New York Times' fact-checkers earlier this year in advance of her February article at the paper on the inclusion of modems and pcAnywhere remote access software included with the election management systems sold to customers from 2000 to 2006. After previously insisting the company had no "knowledge that our voting systems have ever been sold with remote-access software", ES&S reversed itself in a letter to U.S. Senator Ron Wyden, she reports. But they have refused to respond to the Senator's subsequent follow-up queries or to appear at recent Senate hearings on U.S. election system vulnerabilities.

http://bradblog.com/?p=12648

[malaise]

1. Get thee to the greatest page

Brad blog has been exposing voter theft longer than most folks here

[Sancho]

2. Here's another link...

https://motherboard.vice.com/en_us/article/mb4ezy/top-voting-machine-vendor-admits-it-installed-remote-access-software-on-systems-sold-to-states?utm_campaign=sharebutton

The nation's top voting machine maker has admitted in a letter to a federal lawmaker that the company installed remote-access software on election-management systems it sold over a period of six years, raising questions about the security of those systems and the integrity of elections that were conducted with them.

In a letter sent to Sen. Ron Wyden (D-OR) in April and obtained recently by Motherboard, Election Systems and Software acknowledged that it had "provided pcAnywhere remote connection software … to a small number of customers between 2000 and 2006," which was installed on the election-management system ES&S sold them.

[malaise]

3. Thanks

The article came up and thence disappeared with a 404 error - strange

[CrispyQ]

4. Paper ballots counted by human beings.

No more electronic screens! No more tabulators! I can't believe someone (dems?) hasn't started this campaign yet. ???

[shadowmayor]

6. Hear Hear

Why aren't the Democrats screaming for paper ballots?

[sandensea]

9. Exactly. Silence is understood as consent.

And with big political issues, when the opposition is silent, it leads most people to believe that there's no problem.

The closest recent example is what happened in Argentina last year.

Their right-wing president, Macri (widely known as the "Argentine Trump" ) attempted to ram nationwide electronic voting through Congress. With the opposition divided as to what to do, it actually looked as though it would go through.

Until IT security experts showed them how easy it would be to flip votes, and even read who voted for whom.

The opposition came together against it, made some noise in Congress and the nightly news, and the bill was defeated.

Had they refrained from "being irresponsible" (as Macri put it), Argentines would no doubt no longer have their hard-won democracy - restored in 1983 after a brutal, far-right dictatorship, you may recall.

Some things really are worth fighting for - and preventing ballot stuffing is definitely close to the top of the list in any democracy worth its salt.

[AllyCat]

11. Why isn't EVERYONE except the GOP calling for paper?

[sandensea]

14. Problem is that public opinion seems to have bought the "electronic is new, nifty and better" canard

Sure it is - for vote flippers.

[TheFrenchRazor]

8. word. nt

[elleng]

5. Glad bradblog's still around,

sorry it's necessary.

[TheFrenchRazor]

7. Noooo... i'm shocked.... NOT. nt

[Mc Mike]

10. Remote access for our entire ES&S election management system? THAT

seems rather unsecure. Thanks, Sancho and Bradblog.

[rurallib]

12. Remember back in I think 2004 when the Diebold CEO said that

he would guarantee a Bush win in Ohio? This is from memory but I think it is close.

Now we finally know how he could do that.

[karin_sj]

13. They're poised to steal yet another election

Between the easily hacked election machines, voter suppression, gerrymandering, and other dirty tricks, everything is all lined up perfectly for the Republicans to steal the mid-term election. On top of all that, the Republicans have refused to renew election security funding and are not taking the Russian attack on our last election seriously (probably because they don't care if Russia messes with the voting machines as long as it benefits them).

It will take a hell of a lot to overcome this, even with a huge turnout of Democratic voters. And until we have paper ballots, there will be no way for us to know if all the votes were counted and that the will of the people is done. Very depressing and infuriating.