Monday, October 30, 2006

Test the Voting Machines

I hear that electronic voting machines are relatively easy to hack or to manipulate so as to steal elections. This is from my IT nerd friend, whom I trust, but who usually starts to sound to me like the adults on a Charlie Brown special after five minutes of techno-speak.

Maybe the machines could be tested right before an election by casting 1000 votes on them in a set way and comparing the results provided by the machine with the known votes that were cast. If the numbers don't match, can the machine and run off some paper ballots. Also, investigate and prosecute the machine maker or programmer and the party that was advantaged by the hack.

I still think Ohio 2004 was rigged. The exit polls could not have been that wrong, and the voting machine maker's CEO said he was going to deliver Ohio for Bush.

1 comment:

Anonymous said...

There is a great study and video showing how easy it is to hack a voting machine on this page at Princeton University. The paper gets a little technical, but the video is geared to non-techies. There is a lot more info on the site as well.