Risk of Voting Machine Hack at Center of CA SecState Ad

Posted on November 2, 2006 by Michael Froomkin

But for its length, surely one of the top ads of the year, deployed in the CA Secretary of State race:

There’s also a different, shorter, but also good, ad on the same theme in the MN Secretary of State race.

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2 Responses to Risk of Voting Machine Hack at Center of CA SecState Ad

  1. pink bunny of battle says:
    November 2, 2006 at 7:42 pm

    It’s a great ad – looks like CSI or something. It goes a bit overboard in suggesting that a virus introduced at the precinct level could affect all the machines statewide; they’re not networked, thank heavens. However, a virus successfully introduced at the precinct level could affect all the machines in a given precinct, given that they’re networked with wireless connections (which are themselves vulnerable, of course). And that could be sufficient to alter an election’s outcome — in a county, a state, or a nation.

    What I really like about this ad is the focus on what’s going on OUTSIDE the polling place. That’s what scares me the most. Who’s watching these machines? Who has the keys to get in?

    Electronic voting is a terrible idea, but the rest of our forthcoming election system is even worse. There has been very little attention paid to the fact that HAVA (Fed, 2002) requires all the states to create state-wide voter registration databases. As Ms. Harris demonstrated in 2000, these can be manipulated in a way that produces spectacular effects. The Florida database was programmed to eliminate felons, but in a way that disproportionately impacted African-American voters, some 20,000 of whom — despite the fact that they were innnocent of any felony — were turned away at the polls.

    And THAT is why our president has been George W. Bush, instead of Al Gore. It’s only a matter of conjecture what would have happened if Gore had won, but there is one overrriding fact that is absolutely incontestable: Bush’s victory can be traced to the manipulation of an electronic system used in an election.

    Historically, when the parties learn how elections can be manipulated, they all devote considerable attention and resources in an attempt to exploit the exposed vulnerabilities.

    (I thought I would close on a cheerful note.)

    –The Pink Bunny of Battle (who is not dead, as was rumored)

  2. SFBrianCL says:
    November 4, 2006 at 12:07 pm

    Yeah, Debra Bowen will be a great SoS. Also funny, some stupid website thought that this was serious or something. here’s the link:

    http://latimesblogs.latimes.com/politicalmuscle/2006/11/bowen_promotes_.html

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