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September 06, 2006
Hacking to victory
The hanging chad controversy from the 2000 presidential election led to calls for electronic voting machines, on the theory that voters too stupid to cast a paper ballot could successfully use the latest hi-tech hardware and software to do the same thing.
With one very important difference.
No paper trail.
Although the nation suffered through the spectacle of manual, hand-tallied recounts in Florida, at least there was a means of validating the vote.
Thanks to the wonders of modern technology, the computer-based voting machines are paper-free, but, according to their proponents, tamper proof.
Critics -- myself included -- have maintained that a paper ballot is the only reliable means of ensuring that elections are not stolen, and that anyone too stupid to cast a valid ballot has disenfranchised himself, and therefore doesn't deserve to participate in the electoral process.
Furthermore, while not a Luddite, I'm suspicious of the integrity of the so-called tamper-proof electronic voting machines.
Apparently with good reason.
It's an old adage in politics that you need truckloads of money to get elected. Apparently you can now buy an election for what you'd spend in a few days on cups of coffee. Black Box Voting found that given $12 in tools, four minutes, and a little determination, you can access a Diebold voting machine's memory card, remove and replace it without a trace. This new development really isn't all that surprising given that it's been shown that these machines can be hacked in more than one way, even by monkeys. Concerned citizens, just switch to absentee paper ballots from now on -- it may be low-tech, but it's a hell of a lot more secure going the "old-fashioned" way.
Paper ballots have worked well since 1776; imagine an election dispute like we had in 2000 with no means of confirming the result.
Posted by Mike Lief at September 6, 2006 10:43 PM
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