The #1 source for news about monkeys and apes

[Josh Greenman <joshg1973 AT yahoo.com>]

http://www.computerworld.com/printthis/2004/0,4814,96108,00.html

E-vote critics urge changes to system 

Touch-screen machines are 'the tip of the iceberg,' says one activist

News Story by Andy Sullivan

SEPTEMBER 23, 2004 (REUTERS) - Voting activists yesterday enlisted computer 
experts, a
trained monkey and a man on a hunger strike in a last-minute pitch to 
convince officials
to improve the security of electronic vote-counting systems. 

With six weeks to go before the Nov. 2 presidential election, activists said 
officials
still have time to set up a paper trail as a counterweight to an electronic 
voting system
they portrayed as wide open to manipulation. 

"It's not too late; there are some security measures we can put in place," 
said Bev
Harris, executive director of the activist group Black Box Voting. 

The debate over electronic voting has largely centered on touch-screen 
systems like
Diebold Election Systems' AccuVote-TS, which will be used by roughly one in 
three voters
this November. But a far greater threat is posed by the software used to 
tabulate votes
on the county level, which counts not only electronic votes, but also those 
cast using
traditional paper-based methods, Harris and others said. 

"The touch-screen machines that we've been focusing our attention on, they're 
just the
tip of the iceberg," said Joan Krawitz, co-founder of the National Ballot 
Integrity
Project. 

At a news conference, computer security experts demonstrated what they said 
were flaws in
tabulating software made by Diebold and Sequoia Voting Systems. Experts 
showed how they
could alter vote totals without a password, record a vote for one candidate 
as a vote for
another, or simply erase the vote totals completely. 

They also showed a video of a chimpanzee hitting two computer keys -- 
"delete" and
"enter" -- to erase records indicating that vote totals had been altered. 

Diebold and Sequoia spokesmen said people were unlikely to get access to make 
any
changes, and any attempts to alter the vote would be caught by security 
procedures
already in place. "It's not a real-world scenario," said Sequoia spokesman 
Alfie Charles.
"It's unfortunate that they use disingenuous tactics to try to frighten the 
electorate
this close to an election." 

But Harris remained unconvinced. "I have yet to find a computer professional 
anywhere who
says this is an adequate design, an acceptable design or a design that makes 
any sense,"
she said. 

A pale-looking man named John Kenny said he was on a hunger strike until the 
election to
publicize the issue and had lost 12 pounds so far. 

While it is too late to fix e-voting system flaws, officials should ensure 
that they have
a paper backup of vote counts on every level, Harris and other activists 
said. Officials
should print up paper ballots rather than relying on touch-screen systems, 
and they
should print out vote totals in each precinct and deliver them by hand to 
make sure
centralized vote-counting computers are working properly, they said. 

Congress has authority to force local officials to improve their procedures 
if they are
reluctant to do so, they said. But it has so far shown little interest in 
voting
security, and bills that would require touch-screen systems to print out 
votes have
failed to make it out of the committee level. 

For more, see here:

http://www.engadget.com/entry/3622842205228263/