CIA expert testifies: Computerized electoral systems can be manipulated at FIVE stages

[FourScore]

Most electronic voting systems can be hacked, CIA expert says
John Byrne
Published: Wednesday March 25, 2009

CIA expert told panel he wouldn't divulge CIA's interest in voting systems in a unclassified setting

A top CIA cybersecurity expert told the US Election Assistance Commission last month that most electronic voting systems are insecure, according to transcripts obtained by McClatchy Newspapers.

The comments, by CIA expert Steve Stigall, are sure to fuel a new wave of anxiety over electronic voting. Stigall said any voting machine connected to the Internet could be easily hacked, and that while numerous US states have banned voting machines from having wireless capability, some machines can have the cards installed without officials being aware.

"You heard the old adage 'follow the money,' " Stigall said, according to the transcript. "I follow the vote. And wherever the vote becomes an electron and touches a computer, that's an opportunity for a malicious actor potentially to . . . make bad things happen."

"Computerized electoral systems can be manipulated at five stages, from altering voter registration lists to posting results," a summary of his remarks said.

Moreover, Stigall said that the CIA believes Venezuelan President Hugo Chavez may have fixed a recent recount in his favor using such tactics. Chavez, he said, controlled most of the voting machines used and may have provided the program that was used to "randomly" select machines for audit during a recount.

The voting machines Venezuela used were made by Smartmatic, a company that partnered with Chavez's government which was owned by US-based Sequoia systems until 2007. Sequoia also provides voting machines for the District of Columbia and 16 US states.

The CIA expert was speaking before the US Election Assistance Commission, a "tiny" agency created by Congress to modernize voting practices, during a field hearing last month in Orlando.

"While Stigall said that he wasn't speaking for the CIA and wouldn't address U.S. voting systems, his presentation appeared to undercut calls by some U.S. politicians to shift to Internet balloting, at least for military personnel and other American citizens living overseas," McClatchy's Greg Gordon wrote. "Stigall said that most Web-based ballot systems had proved to be insecure."

"The CIA got interested in electronic systems a few years ago, Stigall said, after concluding that foreigners might try to hack U.S. election systems," Gordon added. "He said he couldn't elaborate 'in an open, unclassified forum,' but that any concerns would be relayed to U.S. election officials."

Paper receipts aren't a guarantor of electronic voting security, the CIA expert added, because the votes can be changed when or after they are transmitted to a master computer tabulating the votes or when they're posted online.

http://rawstory.com/news/2008/Most_electronic_voting_systems_can_be_0325.html

[fascisthunter]

1. ha... what a bunch of left wing conspiratorial nonsense....

ooops... I guess the left was right again....

[EFerrari]

8. CIA is trying to use this on governments they don't like

I think they've miscalculated. :evilgrin:

[redqueen]

11. Spot on. (nt)

[EFerrari]

BushCo still has no clue how furious people still are about two stolen elections. n/t

[fascisthunter]

15. BushCo and his Lockstep Fascist Party are Traitors

for what they have done, and they know it. And they do realize that we all know it too... it scares them.

[county worker]

2. I never accepted the idea that printing a paper copy of your vote had any security purpose.

If we needed paper to insure our vote, why us the machine in the first place. Just vote on paper. count the paper votes.

What the machine prints and what it tells a tabulator can be two different things.

The only time the paper would be checked is in a close vote. Then who's to say which was correct, the paper or the tabulator? You'd have to have everyone save their receipts and test them against the paper record and the tabulator and you would have to take for granted that everyone looked at their receipt to make sure it was correct.

[DCKit]

3. There should *always* be spot-checks as well.

It's still buggin' me how many more votes Obama must've had to overcome "Kkkarl's math". Some spot checks and statistical analysis would tell U.S. (and the world) it wasn't just a few million.

Hell, I'm surprised we weren't required to have foreign observers at our polling places after what * and Dick did to the world in eight short years. It was in everyone's best interest to prevent another Republic regime from taking power.

[EFerrari]

13. Audits, significant audits. And that's one way to know this story is bs

and political because OHIO, SOUTH CAROLINA AND TEXAS don't do significant audits but VENEZUELA does 55% auditing which is huge.

And, did you know that the Carter Center said it wouldn't have been able to monitor 2004 because our systems were too insecure?

[Lugnut]

4. K&R n/t

[malaise]

5. Electronic voting is bullshit

Paper ballots.

[Stevepol]

6. Here, here!

[EFerrari]

7. This story is so amazing. The CIA is so desperate to oust you know who

that they even risk bringing up this topic. Amazing.

[wildbilln864]

9. k&r! nt

[Mike 03]

10. Jesus Christ. Fascinating, horrifying and unsurprising. Rec. NT

[Sebastian Doyle]

12. We need to get these machines out before the 2010 primaries

or they definitely WILL be used to steal the midterm election. The only reason Obama's in the White House and we have a (theoretical) majority in the Senate is because turnout beat the fraud in 2006 and 2008.

If things do not change drastically for the better within the next 2 years, we can't count on the turnout to beat the fraud again. We need to smash every goddamn last one of these machines.

[BeFree]

14. No! Don't let this get out!

How do you think Obama won?

If the freepers find out that we've hacked the hackers and they take away the machines that got Obama elected, we'll have a hard time winning again.

Geeez, all these years and we finally get control of the CIA and the machines and now people want to get rid of the vote stealing little computers? No!