Voting-Machine Vendor Put Remote-Access Software on Systems Sold to U.S.

[DonViejo]

Source: The Daily Beast



The nation’s top voting-machine maker has admitted installing remote-access software on election-management systems that it sold over a period of six years, in what one U.S. senator described as “the worst decision for security short of leaving ballot boxes on a Moscow street corner.” In a letter sent to Sen. Ron Wyden (D-OR) in April and obtained by Motherboard, Election Systems and Software admitted 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. Election-management systems are not the voting terminals used to cast ballots: They stay in county election offices and contain software used to program the voting machines and count up final results from the voting machines. The remote-access software created an opportunity for hackers to breach the machines. Election-management systems and voting machines are supposed to be disconnected from the internet and from any other systems that are connected to the internet for security reasons. ES&S customers who had pcAnywhere installed also had modems on their election-management systems so ES&S technicians could dial into the systems and use the software to troubleshoot.

READ IT AT MOTHERBOARD

###

Read more: https://www.thedailybeast.com/voting-machine-vendor-put-remote-access-software-on-systems-sold-to-us?ref=home

[truthisfreedom]

1. Putin calling!

[Zoonart]

2. And there it is...

What are we going to do about it?

[cstanleytech]

41. If by it you mean a potential way for someone to manipulate and change election results

then sure.
If you mean evidence that someone managed to do that on a large enough scale to tip the balance nationwide for the Repugnants? Not really.
No, the biggest factor that helped the Repugnants is the long term campaign strategy they engaged in of working to gerrymander as many districts across the country as they could.

[Crash2Parties]

76. I'd say voter/vote suppression was at least equally important

In Michigan there were 34 times more voters purged than Trumps margin of victory. Other Crosscheck states had lower numbers but most were at least 5-10 times more purged than trump's margin. GOP Governors were bragging about it before election day.

Also - that remote access software could've been used to steal voter roles which would then be passed on to Crosscheck & similar lists.

[sandensea]

3. Modern-day ballot stuffing.

Whose still thinks Cheeto won MI, PA, and WI (and possibly FL and others) fair and square?

[Roy Rolling]

4. I'm calling my registrar today

I want to know if the geniuses in charge of my vote know. Everyone reading this should do the same.

[FarPoint]

5. Our Late Andy Stephenson knew this in 2004...

Black Box voting, Diabold voting machines with out paper trail and essentially, the need for papper ballots. He went even to Congress to educate...He unfortunately died just afterwards..our DU loss and loss tho America.

[Hekate]

44. Andy...

DU old-timers knew. Gods help us.

[FarPoint]

64. That's us....

We have fought so long and hard....still treading water.

[IthinkThereforeIAM]

56. +1...

... I used to chat with him in the old Yahoo politics chat rooms. So sad that his plight...

[AlexSFCA]

6. which states have used these machines?

[FakeNoose]

12. It doesn't matter - all brands are suspect

Since the first use of the electronic voting machines - even when they were still being tested out - the GOP has known that the machines could be used for fraud. They have made sure the machines were installed in most states and most large counties. Taxpayers shouldered the cost, and certain private contractors have made huge profits. But that's not even the point.

The machines can be rigged, and the GOP will do anything to win elections. We don't even have to ask if they've rigged these machines, of course they have! Maybe the original manufacturers had honest intentions, but it doesn't matter. The rigging happens when the machines are installed or updated, not when they were built. The Republicans do NOT have honest intentions. They want to steal elections, and this is how they've been doing it.

We must trash these machines in every state, and use paper ballots only.

[lagomorph777]

33. The purpose of the 2000 election theft was to lay the groundwork for electronic machines,

and vastly amplified theft.

[usaf-vet]

45. Dead on!! It was a plan the was ready to be implemented. Review the time line from Bush being handed

POTUS to the time it took to fund and push electronic voting machine out across the country. It was intended to make elections easier to manipulate (steal).

Remember the "vast right wing conspiracy" Clinton spoke about. She had no idea just how VAST IT IS.

Proof..... 16 years later electronic voting enabled an idiot to be put in the WH with the help of a foreign adversary.

Wake up people.

[Brother Buzz]

16. In California, counties choose the system, and ES&S is used in a few counties

California Elections Code section 19201 requires the Secretary of State to review and approve all voting systems before they can be bought or used in a California election.

Although I can find no info on the optional back door ES&S offered for the years in question.

http://votingsystems.cdn.sos.ca.gov//oversight/county-vsys/vot-tech-by-counties-2018.pdf
http://votingsystems.cdn.sos.ca.gov/oversight/county-vsys/vote-sys-used-by-counties-06-06-06.pdf

http://www.sos.ca.gov/elections/voting-systems/oversight/voting-systems-used-counties/

[Crash2Parties]

77. Yikes! Diebold, Sequoia & ES&S for the vast majority!

https://webcache.googleusercontent.com/search?q=cache:cCSVl_e5l_0J:https://www.eastbaytimes.com/2006/06/19/sequoias-ownership-raises-new-concerns/+&cd=2&hl=en&ct=clnk&gl=us

And then a few years later,
https://www.huffingtonpost.com/brad-friedman/exclusive-on-heels-of-die_b_620084.html

[Brother Buzz]

89. Not unlike 'The Big Three' of the automotive industry

[secondwind]

7. Voting machines in OH in 2004 were manipulated from

Tennessee.

We need to go to paper ballots

[Botany]

11. No

Ohio's vote was sent electronically from the Sec. of State's computer
to a server in Chattanooga, TN after voting had stopped on election day.

The man behind that scam Michael Connell was killed in a small plane
crash in Dec. of 2008.

[brush]

13. No? Aren't you saying the same thing as the post you responded to?

[Botany]

21. The voting machines in OH were not manipulated from TN

OH's voting data was shipped to a server in TN AFTER the voting
had stopped statewide.

[brush]

24. Oh, a slight difference. The OH vote count was manipulated in Tenn.

[Botany]

27. The OH vote count was manipulated inside the state too.

The final exit polls were something like

49.5% for Kerry and 47% for w (male voters)
51% for Kerry and 48% for w (female voters)

[brush]

29. Agreed. The repugs use every dirty trick in the book to steal elections.

And the no paper trail voting machine companies are repug-owned.

We need immediately to go back to paper ballots.

[JohnnyRingo]

26. Ohio got all new machines in 2008

Newly elected democratic governor Ted Strickland ordered new ones with paper printout. Obama won Ohio handily in '08.

[Fred Sanders]

31. Pen and paper. Hire a few students to do the counting. Fuck off Russians, hack that!

[Moostache]

38. You would find a lot of Sergeis and Natashas volunteering to "count"... (n/t)

[The_REAL_Ecumenist]

69. And MOOSTACHE, dear fellow Liberal, leave us not forget

Svetlana, Vassily, Sergey & Olga....

[JohnnyRingo]

71. I don't think it'd be hard to cheat with paper & pen.

People who physically count the ballots can be biased, voters are sloppy in marking them, and entire boxes of votes can, and have, disappeared in the past. Would you be comfortable knowing Sean Hannity volunteered to count ballots? Training people to work tediously accurately counting 4,000,000 Ohio ballots one at a time would be a logistic nightmare, let alone finding enough qualified people to sit, potentially for days, to do it. You can't assume there's unlimited manpower available for counting boxes of ballots, nor has there been for tens of decades.

Here we can't find enough citizens willing to work the precincts now, even for $120. Last year Ohio had to use unregistered high school students who had no official party affiliation. For the election they would fill in for whatever party needed the worker at a particular precinct. We're very shorthanded. Now imagine recruiting people to work what has to be the most boring mind taxing job in the world.

That paper ballot might work in parts of Montana or Idaho where votes count in the hundreds or a couple thousand, but for states like NY, CA, and even Ohio, we've passed the point where it'll ever be practical again. Voting can no longer be a matter of casting a white or black stone into a top hat. Plus, waiting several days for the results and likely recounts creates a lack of public confidence, and rightfully so.

[unc70]

80. A lot easier to hand count than you seem to think

I remember doing it in the 1970s in NC. We did it quite quickly using teams of volunteers at the precinct level. Did the counts at least twice. Each team had at least one D and one R, always at least one other observer. Volunteers were trained and sworn in on the spot, much like a jury. The general public could observe.

The key to making hand counting work is with the design of ballots. Rather than a massive sheet with many contests that is then scanned, multiple ballot types are used so counting proceeds in parallel.

My NC county now uses optical scanned ballots. There is at least something to be hand counted if necessary. Probably the best of a bad lot.

[JohnnyRingo]

81. In Ohio we watch our vote get printed in real time.

That paper reel gets stored until well after the election in case of a dispute that requires a hand count.

Once again, I don't know how even North Carolina can find thousands of volunteers to count individual ballots as civic duty, but here we can't pay enough people to sign voters in just to use the machines.

All procedures with the machines are performed and signed off on by a member of each party. Every time.

[unc70]

82. Nearly all of NC is now machine counted

The technology varies by county in NC -- 100 of them. Lots of counties with touch screens with paper trails, a few with hand counted paper ballots, the majority with hand marked paper ballots that are optically scanned by machines.

The source code for all the election systems used in NC must be placed in escrow with the state and can be examined by the state and by experts from each party.

The widespread use of HCPB was 35-50 years ago.

[Fred Sanders]

84. Little profit in pen and paper and not much campaign contributions from the corporations.

But machines...are expensive...break down, require maintenance, replacement, upgrading, etc.

Lots of money flowing in all directions.

[JohnnyRingo]

87. And I see that as a failsafe.

Assuming a voting machine company would cheat an election defies capitalism itself. One may think ES&S or Diebold would rig the machines so they could enjoy a future tax cut or something, but at risk of getting caught is a sweet multi million dollar contract and a smeared reputation elsewhere. In my state we employ machines from three companies, so if one company's hardware records a huge bias it raises a red flag.

Money always trumps partisan ideology.

[Fred Sanders]

83. Good lord, counting by paper is done with great faith all over the world. Independent monitors and

Party monitors are present. The ballots are double and triple counted and verified. It is not hard, and the reward is faith in the system.

As stated in paragraph 11 of the FBI arrest warrant application for spy Butina the purpose of Russian hack probes of electoral systems was not to change the counts...it was to have folk lose FAITH...no matter who won in 2016... and forever more.

I think it worked.

[JohnnyRingo]

85. Would you trust a vote counter in a MAGA hat?

I don't mean literally wearing the hat, but that person counting the votes. Sure, they could hand his counted votes off to a dem for a verification count, but then you'd need twice as many volunteers that would be scarce to begin with. Then there's the problem with mismarked ballots. Remember the hanging chads?

I can't overstate how hard it is to get people to participate in an election, or even vote.

[Fred Sanders]

86. OK. Then pay the counters for the day, the cost of that compared to the cost of lack of faith in the

whole electoral process from now to eternity, the goal of Russia, is an excellent return on the investment.

Take that, Boris...what ya gonna do?

[JohnnyRingo]

88. In Ohio we pay $120

That's still not enough to get people to work the polls. Albeit it's a long day for that money, but sticking around for another 10 hours to count the ballots is out of the question. Finding another whole new group to just sit and count the ballots is unlikely.

[FarPoint]

40. Yes we indeed need..

Paper Ballots

[colsohlibgal]

8. Paper

Why do we keep this tamper ready electronic voting system?

It’s like purposely wearing a kick me poster on your backside.

There are ways to make voting secure, reliable, trustworthy. Nobody seems to want to push for it, why?

[Farmer-Rick]

18. Because all the people in power right now, including little putin, were "voted" in

on those cheat machines.

[lagomorph777]

34. Paper, Not Vapor!

This needs to be a very high priority if we ever depose the traitors.

[rurallib]

42. Ireland trashed theirs when they realized how vulnerable they were

https://www.independent.ie/irish-news/54m-voting-machines-scrapped-for-9-each-26870212.html

[Algernon Moncrieff]

72. You can have both

Youve likely seen receipts like this - text, but with a bar code. Allow an electronic interface that prints a readable (and thus auditable) paper ballot. Electronic counting for the fast results the media outlets want, but readable paper so samples can be checked to ensure the electronic count is on the up and up.

[FakeNoose]

9. All these voting machines should be trashed immediately

Demand paper ballots in every state and county!

[KPN]

10. WTF?!

[Mc Mike]

14. Whoops! ES&S is sorry about that.

Here's an interesting anomaly from our county's 12/6/16 machine recanvass, (We use ES&S Ivotronics):

Ward 11, District 12 (Pittsburgh) had a reported error, where one of it's machine totals was not included originally. Here's the first numbers, and the amended numbers:

Total votes: 428. C-367, dR-42, St-10, McG-362, T-56
Total votes: 445. C-383, dR-43, St-10, McG-377, T-58

One machine that was not included in the first count in 11-12 added 17 votes. 16 were for Clinton, one was for dRumpf. 15 were for McGinty, 2 for the weasel. Not a lot to go on here, but the machine had only 17 voters for the whole day. And the ratio on that machine is more reasonable to me than the overall vote totals. 16-1 and 15-2 in favor of the Dems and against the supremely suck y repug candidates. Interesting what isolating one voting machine did, in terms of reported results.

What happened is, machine 3 was only used when things were especially busy in that precinct. So it only was voted on 17 times. Its vote totals didn't get grabbed by the master PEB cart. The results went to the county tabulators, then later they saw they were missing results from one of their voting machines, and got those results and added them.

So, only during the busiest times of the day, it just so happened that a much more Democratic group of voters came in and were shunted to machine 3. If those voters had been typical representatives of the political feelings of the overall precinct, dRump would have had 26, not 43 votes. He got 9.7% of the votes on the corrected total, he got 5.9% on the isolated sample (machine 3.)

[bitterross]

15. I do Tech Support. This is not unusal nor an anomaly.

It is not just common for vendors to put remote-access software on the systems they sell these days it would be unusual if the DIDN'T.

This is just the way companies use to support their customers when the customers have trouble. That said, honest and reputable vendors will set up the remote access software in a way that requires the customer to authorize access to security-critical systems like these every time access is required. There should always be an open support case that the customer initiated.

That is the way the software I use is set up with our customers who have high security needs like HIPPA and PCI. We can't just go connect to their systems whenever we wish. They have to allow us access each and every time. We also, do not use a common off-the-shelf package like PCAnywhere or the others that you can readily and easily download. We use a piece of software designed for this purpose with security of the machines in mind. For some of our health care customers we add an additional layer of security in that the connection must be established over a VPN with two-factor authentication. That means you can't just hack a password and user ID. You have to also have a randomly generated access code that regenerates every 30 seconds.

So, while I'm not surprised at all there is remote-access software, I hold the elections officials and their IT people just as responsible for any breach. I've worked in the power utility industry, credit card and health care industries. Remote-access software is not the problem. The implementation of it and the security around it is.

[Bayard]

19. There should always be an open support case that the customer initiated.

Does that mean you physically can't access the machine, or ethically?

[bitterross]

60. Physically cannot access it.

The machines can be configured, quite easily, so that we cannot access them unless a customer initiates the access.

[questionseverything]

61. not to mention the venders have been lying about it for years

WE THE PEOPLE should not have to trust venders or even election officials...we should be counting our own votes and overseeing every aspect of the election process without the need for an IT degree

[Calista241]

93. In 2004, when this went down

PCAnywhere was the latest hot shit support product. These computers had real honest to god dial up modems that had to be connected to a physical phone line to be used.

In order to be hacked, an employee would have had to physically connect the machine to a phone line, dial a number, accept an incoming Remote Desktop request, and walk away while the support technician / hacker did his business.

[TxVietVet]

17. Remember when purchasing the electronic voting machines were the big rage?

I remember most Dems supporters and others were against it. Diebold was a big marketer. 'Oh, they're safe,' they said. Well, the conservanazis loved them because the producers bribed the Republikans heavily.

The end result is why the rethugs loved them so much. THEY CAN MANIPULATE THE END RESULTS TO THEIR FAVOR.

I'm watching this country turn into a fascist state with the conservanazi republikkkans taking control.

[Raastan]

20. K + R

[yuiyoshida]

22. And here we gooooooooooooooooo!

assholes.

[Chemisse]

23. They are used to "count up final results from the voting machines"

And this is how Trump 'won.'

[Meadowoak]

32. If they have the ability to change the vote totals, why didn't trump also win the popular vote, to

Make it look more convincing? Just asking.

[Chemisse]

37. Overuse would have been a dead giveaway, if indeed this was used to 'adjust' totals in key states.

Trump's win was a shocker even to him, given the polls and the predictions. A larger victory would have put up red flags.

[think4yourself]

25. Who is surprised?

So many passionate voices have been shouting this since 2004 only to have absolutely nothing done or worse, told we were Conspiracy Theorists.


Nothing shuts down a conversation faster and that’s why that term was created.

“Well, GOTV everyone.” “We just need to work harder. “ “ It’s our fault for not running better campaigns.”

[karin_sj]

28. Voting is a fundamental and basic right we are being deprived of

I've always suspected that election fraud (not voter fraud like the Republicans and Trump are always spouting about) has been taking place for a very very long time. The Republicans don't care at all because it is helping them, but I've never figured out why Democrats aren't raising holy hell about it. And why didn't they do to protect our votes when Obama was first elected?

WTF is it going to take for our voting machines to be protected against tampering? And why in the frigging hell can't we have paper verified ballots that can be physically counted, if necessary?

2016 (and most likely, earlier elections) have been tampered with and outcomes altered, to the benefit of those who will do anything to retain power. I am beyond frustrated and outraged that nothing is being done about this except lip service.

[ProudProgressiveNow]

30. KR NT

[muntrv]

35. Paper ballots. That's all.

[scarytomcat]

36. What more do we need?

time for paper ballots hand counted and recounted
who cares how long it takes
let's get it right

[WhiteTara]

39. Perfect timing for this post.

Thanks. I called our county clerk who asked for the articles and is on her way to a best election/voting practices statewide meeting of county clerks and will discuss this with them. Maybe we can have a more honest election in Arkansas and we can get rid of Womack another hulking slinking beast on its way to Bethlehem

[DFW]

43. My brother has been telling me this for 16 years

In 2002, he said, "get me a laptop and a cell phone, and I'll make any of those vote counting machines give you any result you want."

Skeptics have been pooh-poohing his comments ever since, and I don't understand enough hi-tech to argue. However, he is the one who designs top secret hi-tech stuff for DARPA, not me (and probably no one else I know). He maintained all along he could access those machines. It turns out he was right the whole time.

[Hekate]

48. I remember the trigger for me in the old DU discussions: "secret source code"...

I am not a techie, but my husband is. When he was a systems analyst consultant, he hated secret source code with a passion. At that point on DU I asked him to read a very long thread and tell me if the participants needed to be fitted for tin-foil hats or if this were true.

He confirmed the plausibility, hands down.

Andy died much too soon, and Bev (I think that was her name) left a stain on the enterprise, to the point I never knew who it was safe to donate to in order to carry the work forward. Electronic Frontier Foundation does good work, afaik, but I was hoping to find a group that was single-focus.

Getting local officials to understand the issue is hard, until they experience real anomalies (like the technician who came along to Riverside, CA and installed a new motherboard in the middle of election day) and understand them to be anomalies. Even then, "well, it's just glitches." Getting politicians to understand is hard -- getting them to talk about it is even harder.

The country was peddled these machines in the wake of the Florida recount -- all shiny and new and up to date, not like those clunky old mechanical devices that broke down before our eyes.

[workinclasszero]

46. Gee could this be why the GOP is unconcerned about a blue wave midterm?

[Hekate]

50. Well, yes. It's what I've been saying all year. It can be made to appear that we lost key races...

...by a razor thin margin, but not thin enough to require a recount. It can be made to appear that a 3rd party candidate shaved off enough disgruntled voters to kill off Democratic votes. It can be made to appear that certain states or districts were bafflingly more "red" that polls showed.

It can be made to appear that for the first time in the history of elections, exit polls were wildly wrong, so lets not do those any more rather than figuring out what actually went wrong. As happened when Bush "won" over Gore.

Or it can be made to appear that someone was having a little fun, as when Max Cleland's results came in 181818 all over the place.

Talk of a blue wave makes my teeth itch. Lawrence O'Donnell gloating awhile back made me want to throw things at the tv.

[workinclasszero]

53. Will we ever know how badly Hillary beat Dotard Traitor?

But he "won" only because of changed machine votes chicanery.

What are we going to do about the midterms?

If we don't at a minimum get back the House this country is ***ked and we will witness the end of freedom and democracy right in front of our eyes.

[Hekate]

57. As we know, Hillary's "loss" was a perfect storm of events, never just one thing

Electronic voting machines, Gerrymandering, Cambridge Analytica/Face Book, ethnic cleansing of voter rolls (more fun with computers), New Jim Crow laws, and Putin...

[workinclasszero]

59. All true no doubt

We were so ready to step into the future with Obama's good economic engine firing up and the first female President.

It all seems like a dream now and we woke up to a traitor con man president and the entire GOP selling out the USA to Russian fascists.

[DetlefK]

47. Here's how much hassle it is to use pen&paper ballots:

Elections in Germany go like this:

- You are issued a national ID when becoming an adult.

- Voter-rolls are updated then and there when you move to a new city, not in one big edit once a year.

- If there is an election, you get a notification with a serial-number by mail, one month in advance.

- Elections are Sundays, 9 AM to 6 PM.

- You show your ID and the notification, they check your name in the voter-roll and you get the ballot.

- Ballots are pen&paper.

- As long as you don't get in the way of the officials, you may stay around and witness them counting the ballots. If you stick to some rules, you may even document the vote-count with a camera.

- Polls close at 6 PM. Results are in by 8 PM. Pen&paper. Counted by hand. With eye-witnesses and video.

[Hekate]

58. +1000000

[turbinetree]

49. we should be demanding paper ballots..........................now

and the Media should be demanding it now...................

[bearsfootball516]

52. Agreed, although it won't happen.

We might still have some paper ballots here and there, but on a nationwide scale, it’ll never go fully back to paper ballots.

[turbinetree]

55. We have a little over 3 months to demand that paper ballots be used...............

https://www.timeanddate.com/countdown/election?p0=263&iso=20181106T12&msg=2018%20Midterm%20Elections


this republic is not based on machines....................every election has to be certified by December 18 or 19th.................so that the congressional and presidential January 20th mandate can be met............if memory serves me correctly..........we have time and we need to be using it ........................

[onlyadream]

51. I used to work for a company in the gaming industry

We specifically did bill validators, not the games. BUT, even tho they weren't games, everything had to be approved by the gaming commission. They had to make sure that it was all legit. Isn't there anything like this for voting machines?

[LongTomH]

54. Teresa Heinz Kerry warned about this back in 2005

Teresa Heinz Kerry - Hacking the Mother Machine

"Two brothers own 80 percent of the [voting] machines used in the United States," Teresa Heinz Kerry told a group of Seattle guests at a March 7, 2005 lunch for Representative Adam Smith, according to reporter Joel Connelly in an article in the Seattle Post-Intelligencer. Connelly noted Heinz Kerry added that it is "very easy to hack into the mother machines."

[CrispyQ]

62. How come not one person is advocating paper ballots counted by humans?

[sandensea]

63. Who would have thought? Cheeto's a Stalinist.

"It's not the votes that count; but who counts the votes."

[C Moon]

65. IMO - get this fixed, and the Democratic Party will have the largest win in the history of the U.S.

Because the GOP would lose that part of their cheat sheet.

[pecosbob]

66. The next step is to let our elected Democratic officials know paper is a priority

and to get them to speak up about it.

I've been ranting about these machines for twenty years. GOP control of local elections and their documented history of ratf*cking virtually guarantee that vote tallys have been manipulated over the last two decades.

Right alongside their usual encouragement to register and vote should be a reminder to push for a voting paper trail in all fifty states. Dems need to be much more aggressive about calling out the Republicans as dishonest cheats and a paper trail as the proper sloution to stop them from stealing the next election. Dem leadership is so worried about their 'messaging' that they don't say hardly anything at all.

[ZERTErYNOthe]

67. Not a new issue

Remember the Karl Rove meltdown about numbers, when he said he had "the numbers"? And the death of Michael Connell. Or the central tabulators going through a server owned by Ken Blackwell.

[Blue_Tires]

68. dumb...

[Amaryllis]

70. Duh. LOts of us have been screaming about this potential since they stole 2004.

[BobTheSubgenius]

73. There must be an innocent explanation, right?

RIGHT???

[ancianita]

74. Ban electronic voting. Use serial numbered, thumb printed tear-off paper ballots in 3,142 counties

& county-equivalents across the country.

By county only -- not districts, wards or precincts.

ANY voter ID, with signature, is acceptable to qualify to vote, voter registration Crosschecked rolls or other rolls are not to be used.

Count votes by live, continuous camera footage in each county until the votes are audibly totaled, paper counts certified by each county's commissioner.

On camera, every county is loaded onto security truck(s), driven to the National Archives, 700 Pennsylvania Ave, Washington, DC. There are others, but this is a particularly important national security event.

National counts and results are announced with all certified counts arrive by FBI couriers to the head of the FBI.

No deadline is required. We're done when the head of the FBI announces the national results.

The cost is in printing, personnel, secure boxes, delivery. All the rest of structures and personnel are already paid. Overall, it won't likely be any more costly to our national security than the billions that electronic voting costs right now.

Getting counties organized for paper voting is doable.

Ban all electronic voting.

[GregD]

91. I like your idea

Sounds good

[ancianita]

75. +1

[PatrickforO]

78. WTF????? You know what? If we go back to paper ballots and locked boxes, or better yet, mail in

ballots that can be dropped off at locked ballot boxes anytime before the close of polls on election day.

We don't need these voting machines.

Geez, this just makes you sick, doesn't it?

[DallasNE]

79. Before This

I never understood where the entry point was that would permit hacking to take place so I have been skeptical of votes themselves being altered. Now I know and agree that the machines can have actual vote totals compromised.

[GregD]

90. Wired and wireless

I built verifiedvoting.org back in 2003

We learned back as early as those days that some systems had wired ports for service/maintenance activities. Some, IIRC, had wireless ports.

But worse, with the touchscreen systems, a junior programmer could write logic that would survive all possible testing prior to the election, turn the election could because to shave votes or do whatever was needed. and since no member of the public ever get to look at the code to to copyright protection, nobody would ever find out.

[ancianita]

92. And servers. And counts disguised as official data streamed to various state and federal end points.

And hacked end points.

The hacking need not even happen at local levels.