A Diebold voting demonstration

[big_bad_al]

I realize that this would have been more timely before the election, but I've come across a very good demonstration of how Diebold voting machines can be compromised without leaving any evidence behind. Seeing this stuff makes it seem much more real than reading about it

Comments

[hmcmodelt]

That's kind of scary. Except couldn't all the computers just be told to run a fake election and then told the election is over. Then the virus would delete itself according to the video. Seems like a pretty major flaw in the voting system to me.

Is the Diebold voting system standard now? I didn't vote this year because I'm in Mass. In 2004 I voted with a paper card thing. I think I used a Diebold during the CA recall election though.

[big_bad_al]

If the practices for e-voting are codified (so that all election officials use them the same way), it appears that there isn't a way to stop these viruses. If nothing else, you could probably make a virus that does nothing for any election lasting less than 10 minutes, and then springs into action and retroactively changes votes. If the machines have clocks in them (I would be surprised if they don't), you could have the virus only run on election day between the hours of, say, 10 till closing.

Electronic voting may or may not be standard depending on where you vote. Here in Los Angeles, I voted using a very smooth and efficient system that seemed like a cross between a scantron and a hanging chad system (here's a picture). You slide a sheet of paper with the scantron bubbles in the back and lock it into place, and when you flip the pages of cadidates you expose different columns of bubbles. You get a tool about the size of a pen, except that the tip is a round blade with a recessed marker in it. To get the marker to ink the ballot