Easily Hacked Voting Systems to be Used in MA Special Election for the U.S. Senate

[ensho]

http://www.gouverneurtimes.com/st-lawrence-news/54-worldnational-news/10625-easily-hacked-voting-systems-to-be-used-in-ma-special-election-for-the-us-senate.html


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But as the election looms, tempers flare, money is poured into the contest from all sides, and Democrats sweat out what should have been a safe seat for them - a Democrat named Kennedy has held that particular seat for more than the last 50 years - questions about whether the election results can be trusted have already emerged in a race where the stakes couldn't be higher.

As the 60th "filibuster-proof" Democratic U.S. Senate seat hangs in the balance - and the party's healthcare reform bill and other key legislative hopes along with it - fears are mounting that the final vote tallies could be as questionable as they were in the recent NY-23 Special Election for the U.S. House. Perhaps even more so.

The electronic voting systems used in Massachusetts are notoriously plagued with problems and vulnerabilities, and are in violation of federal voting system standards. Moreover, they are sold, programmed, and maintained by a company with a disturbing criminal background.

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Making matters worse, the company who sells, services and programs the Diebold optical-scan paper ballot systems to be used next week, LHS Associates, has a disturbing criminal background, and has admitted to tampering illegally with voting systems during past elections.

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The only way to guarantee accurate election results in Massachusetts is for a candidate to request a hand-count of all paper ballots in each town in the state - within 6 days of the election. Otherwise, the results of what could be an exceedingly close election, for an extraordinarily important U.S. Senate seat, could end up going to the candidate who didn't actually receive the most votes.
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so, who do you think will win?

how stupid of a nation are we to be still using known 'fixable' voting machines.

[peace13]

1. Several years ago Ohio's new SOS deemed the machines easily hackable.

A profound statement to say the least. To date she has done nothing to remove them from operation. In fact she is running for another office now. Yes we have pretend voting in the USA.

[Wapsie B]

2. Didn't you get the memo? It's only hacked if a Democrat wins.

You're right about the stupidity of a nation using machines like this. No way should there be "proprietary code" in the software. All they're doing is tallying votes for christ's sakes. A high school programming class could put together a better system than Diebold.

edit: The fact that this is still going on speaks volumes to me. There is no interest on either side to make any real effort to set up a voting system that is the model for the rest of the world.

[ensho]

3. really! why is it that D.C. ignores riggable voting machines??

why aren't americans complaining?

since the 2000 coup d'etat I've been mystified as to why the machines continue to be used.

and each one costs a lot of money for the counties/state to buy.....