Precautions and Hand Audits Advised for Electronic Voting Machines
How secure is Connecticut's voting system? On Wednesday, October 15, 7 PM at the Westport Public Library, a program will feature video clips from the documentary "Hacking Democracy," and Luther Weeks of Connecticut Voters Count will speak about vulnerabilities in Connecticut's vote scanning machines and the provisions for a hand-counted audit of the election. Westport Registrars of Voters will be present to demonstrate the new voting technology and sample ballots.
This year, for the first time in a presidential election, Connecticut voters statewide will use electronic machines to record their votes. Connecticut purchased AccuVote Optical Scan (AccuVote-OS) voting machines last year to replace the old lever machines. These new machines, manufactured by Premier Election Solutions (a subsidiary of Diebold), use voter-verified paper ballots and offer better accountability and fewer opportunities for fraud than the controversial touch-screen machines. However, there is still potential for accidental or malicious interference with the vote count. Wednesday's program will address this potential and discuss ways to improve the security of our elections.
A video excerpt about AccuVote-OS machines will be shown from the HBO documentary "Hacking Democracy." First broadcast in November 2006, the documentary exposes the dangers of voting machines used during America's mid term and presidential elections. Filmed over three years, the film follows the investigations of a team of citizen activists and hackers as they take on the electronic voting industry, targeting the Diebold corporation. Ultimately proving our votes can be stolen without a trace, "Hacking Democracy" culminates in the famous "Hursti Hack": a duel between the Diebold voting machines and a computer hacker from Finland - with America's democracy at stake.
A second video will present a panel discussion held July 18, 2008 at the Last Hope Conference in New York City. A group of computer scientists from the University of Pennsylvania reports on a study sponsored by the Ohio Secretary of State. This study focused on optical scan and touch-screen voting machines, examining the election procedures, equipment, and source code used with machines from a variety of vendors. The team found a number of exploitable vulnerabilities in hardware and software components of electronic voting systems.
Luther Weeks, executive director of CT Voters Count, will speak about the situation in Connecticut. He will discuss the potential for fraud and error in the election equipment and the procedures, and will emphasize the importance of hand counts to provide a statistically valid audit of the machine count. As he has stated, “We inspect our food, bridges, and airplanes to protect our lives; we audit our elections to protect our democracy.” Mr. Weeks is a retired software engineer and also heads the CT Citizen Election Audit Coalition.
Two Westport Registrars of Voters, Nita Cohen (Democrat) and Judith Raines (Republican), will demonstrate the AccuVote-OS machine and show how to fill out sample ballots. Stamford candidate for Registrar, David Bedell (Green), will also comment on the need for multi-party oversight of elections.
