BOMBSHELL - ATTN Naysayers who think elections can't be stolen via machines -

[RandomAccess]

Courtesy: Threadreader https://threadreaderapp.com/thread/1019221300798152704.html

In April, voting machine vendor ES&S (44% US election equipment) admitted in a letter to Sen. Wyden that it “installed REMOTE-ACCESS SOFTWARE on election-management systems it sold over a period of 6 years”! ES&S previously lied about this to the NYT!

Top Voting Machine Vendor Admits It Installed Remote-Access Software on Systems Sold to States
Remote-access software and modems on election equipment 'is the worst decision for security short of leaving ballot boxes on a Moscow street corner.'
https://motherboard.vice.com/en_us/article/mb4ezy/top-voting-machine-vendor-admits-it-installed-remote-access-software-on-systems-sold-to-states
1/

2/ “It’s not clear why ES&S would have only installed the software on the systems of “a small number of customers” and not all customers, unless other customers objected or had state laws preventing this”

3/ Election management systems “sit in county election offices and contain software that in some counties is used to program all the voting machines used in the county; the systems also tabulate final results aggregated from voting machines.”

4/ “ES&S customers who had pcAnywhere installed also had MODEMS on their election-management systems so ES&S technicians could dial into the systems and use the software to troubleshoot, thereby creating a potential port of entry for hackers as well.”

5/ “Motherboard asked a Michigan spokesman if any officials in his state ever installed the pcAnywhere software that ES&S recommended they install, but got no response.”

6/ “If an attacker can gain remote access to an election-management system through the modem and take control of it using the pcAnywhere software installed on it, he can introduce malicious code that gets passed to voting machines to disrupt an election or alter results.”

7/ “Wyden told Motherboard that installing remote-access software and modems on election equipment “is the worst decision for security short of leaving ballot boxes on a Moscow street corner.”

8/
“In 2006, the same period when ES&S says it was still installing pcAnywhere on election systems, hackers stole the source code for the pcAnyhere software, though the public didn’t learn of this until years later in 2012 when a hacker posted some of the source code online.”

9/ ES&S defended its installation of pcAnywhere, saying that “other voting system manufacturers” did it too!!!

10/ Motherboard asked two of the other top voting machine vendors—Hart InterCivic and Dominion—if they (like ES&S) had installed remote access software onto election management systems, but “neither responded”!!!

11/ IT Professor & election equipment expert Doug Jones says that “Certainly, [Diebold Election Systems] did the same, as “many of their contracts with customers included the requirement of a remote-login port allowing [the company] to have remote access...” #gapol @markniesse

12/ “Although Wyden's office asked ES&S to identify which of its customers were sold systems with [remote access software] installed, the company did not respond”!!

13/ “All of this raises questions about how many counties across the US had remote-access software installed ... and whether intruders had ever leveraged it to subvert elections.”

14/ Thank you to @r_mccormick for bringing this jaw dropping article to my attention and to @kimzetter for writing it!
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[NewJeffCT]

1. If Russian was accessing voter rolls at state and local levels

I find it hard to believe that they didn't do more than just look over the lists.

[RandomAccess]

2. True. But also remember -- there have been election "problems" with the machines

since well before Russia's interference. Since 2004, actually (and before that, with the scanners in FL in 2000).

[brush]

5. Exactly. And from the OP it's apparent that individual voting machines...

didn't have to be hacked, the vote counting software could be manipulated.

[triron]

3. Eye opening!

I still remember DU going down on Nov 8, 2016. Part of the vote tampering conspiracy.

[RandomAccess]

6. I definitely believe it.

[pandr32]

33. When that happened I felt doom in my gut

We were not to communicate and update each other to issues, turnout, enthusiasm, or anything related to voting in the country. Why?
After the hacking incidents during the campaign, I felt DU was deliberately hacked and disabled.

[FM123]

4. Wow.

"Remote-access software and modems on election equipment is the worst decision for security short of leaving ballot boxes on a Moscow street corner."

Yep, it sure is.

[sagesnow]

7. Twelve years

after the voting machines were enabled to be hacked we are still wondering if they can be hacked. Why would vendors like ES&S put remote access software on a vote tallying machine if they did not plan for it to be used?

[Perseus]

30. Having remote access software is not bad unless its left running 24/7

Remote Access Software should be enabled at the moment the tech needs to fix a problem, after that it must be turned off/disabled.

[questionseverything]

37. remote access is a mistake...unless youjust want the best hacker to decide election results

WE THE PEOPLE need to oversee our own elections...not trust invisible software

[Raastan]

8. K + R

[Scurrilous]

9. K&R

[lagomorph777]

10. We've had folks here pushing the MYTHOLOGY that this isn't possible.

I hope they slink back to St Petersburg now.

[triron]

32. And that exit polls are useless for determining election fraud.

[mythology]

41. The exit polls in the U.S. aren't designed to detect fraud

That's a fairly simple and obvious point to understand. Every exit poll conspiracy theory relies on unadjusted data which they don't have and without adjustment is utterly useless.

[kcr]

11. I guarantee you. We will STILL hear

that the hacking wasn't possible because The Machines Aren't Connected to the Internet. Every damn time the topic is brought up. This is A Truth and they will never hear otherwise.

[Progressive dog]

12. From the article in Daily Beast

"Election-management systems are not the voting terminals used to cast ballots: They stay in county election offices and contain software used to program the voting machines and count up final results from the voting machines. The remote-access software created an opportunity for hackers to breach the machines. Election-management systems and voting machines are supposed to be disconnected from the internet and from any other systems that are connected to the internet for security reasons. ES&S customers who had pcAnywhere installed also had modems on their election-management systems so ES&S technicians could dial into the systems and use the software to troubleshoot."
This was not about the voting terminals.

[kcr]

13. It's about the machines used to program the voting terminals

From the excerpt you posted: "They stay in county election offices and contain software used to program the voting machines and count up final results from the voting machines."

Also relevant: "Election-management systems and voting machines are supposed to be disconnected from the internet and from any other systems that are connected to the internet for security reasons."

[Progressive dog]

17. I read the article

People run every machine used in the election. It was not the machines that decided to allow modem access to them.

[questionseverything]

48. we have allowed the venders to control our elections

and look what it has brought us...trump

related op https://www.democraticunderground.com/100210875294

[Progressive dog]

56. The Russians and Hillary haters gave us Trump

It didn't require a voting machine vendor conspiracy.

[questionseverything]

61. since e s&s has admitted to wyden there is a backdoor

no one really knows

if the propaganda and targeting was enough or if a few numbers needed massaged at the end

btw xtra points for tossing the c word

[questionseverything]

62. election integrity activists count 6 wis wards

https://d3n8a8pro7vhmx.cloudfront.net/wiscgrassrootsnetwork/pages/1651/attachments/original/1511136469/RacineHandCountResults.pdf?1511136469

and find 66 hc votes and 32 trump votes that the machines did not record

[Progressive dog]

63. "Election integrity activists"

It's not surprising that conspiracy theorists would find proof of their theory.

[blogslut]

40. Is there a possibility that a hacker could change voter rolls via remote software?

Or voting tallies after the fact?

[Progressive dog]

54. The tabulation of votes is not the same as voter rolls.

Voter rolls have been hacked, but investigators claim that none have been altered. Important records of all kinds are stored and copied using machines. If used carefully, machines are a more secure way than paper to protect any document.
Sloppy use of machines to store and count votes is a human problem, not a machine problem. We need rules that define the correct way to use the machines.

[RandomAccess]

58. You may be right. The problem is --

voting, that absolutely quintessential component of a free democratic society -- the sine qua non of democracy -- is handled by too many people at too many parts of the process. Too many vendors -- and should there be vendors at all? Too many candidates. Too many election places. Too many counties and states. Too many legislators and laws. Too much data and way too much movement of data.

And most of all, perhaps, too many people running around with too much greed and corruption in their hearts because to the victors belong the spoils, and oh boy! are these spoils special. Money and power to the winners.

Currently, whether you or others want to believe it or not, many / most / all ?? the vendors are corrupt and are responsible for many of the losses Democrats have suffered over the years since we've had these machines. We should have known without any further indication or input when they insisted that no one could EVER look at the code -- not before an election, or during, or after -- that there was something wrong.

So I don't know that better rules is the answer. I don't even know if we could trust in-house vote tabulation coding at the state level, personally. In fact, in some if not all RepubliCON states, I'd say definitely not.

AND, most of the experts on the subject are adamant that Paper Ballots is the ONLY way to best secure our elections. Paper ballots, handcounted in full public view.

[Progressive dog]

59. We could cut down on the number of voters

or we could continue to actually work at making voting fair and transparent. Elected officials choose the voting machines. They seek bids on large purchases and specify the service and product that they are buying.
No, I don't believe that their is a secret conspiracy to flip votes run by voting machine vendors. Conspiracies involving too many conspirators always leak.

[RandomAccess]

60. Cut down on the number of voters?

I suppose you're being facetious, but even that wouldn't change things.


You're poorly informed on the subject. I've been studying it since 2003. Your "belief" comes from nothing other than wishful thinking.

Also, it's hardly ever true that conspiracies require a lot of people, one or more of whom will inevitably leak. In this case, where I'm telling you that the voting machine vendors can be corrupt, we're only talking about a handful of people -- 2, 3, 6 perhaps. If they're ex-felons ( as some of them were/are), just how eager to go all whistleblower on their employer do you think they'd be?

[Progressive dog]

64. "You've been studying it since 2003"

Where's the proof that you've found in your studies? It doesn't exist on a level we could take to a court. The main salespeople for this kind of story are usually those who want to undermine democracy.
There is no perfect system that prevents all crimes. Election tampering is a crime. The vendors of those machines have hundreds of employees who would be at risk if the companies acted as you have asserted.
The handful of people story you tell is ludicrous. You might want to study how vendors design, build, and test products and how the election commissions test the machines before and after use.

[RandomAccess]

65. First, I should thank you

For some reason, you're the one who pushed just the the right one of my buttons to make me decide to jump back into the whole subject with both feet -- or as many feet as I can manage given other responsibilities I have at the moment.

But I'm definitely not thanking you for this:

The main salespeople for this kind of story are usually those who want to undermine democracy.

Are you accusing me of treasonous behavior, or merely being incredibly gullible? I'd really like to know. And I also think an apology is in order.


Now -- to respond to the rest of your post:

I have studied how vendors do their part, as well as how election commissions test the machines before and after and in the latter case, unless things have changed dramatically in the last several years (tip: they haven't), where election commissions are concerned, it's at best a case of the blind leading the blind.

NO MATTER HOW RIGOROUS the testing, the internal code, for example, can be written so that they pass all tests with flying colors, and at the stroke of polls open, they revert to the purposely corrupted code. The remote access Sen. Wyden recently unveiled can allow all sorts of mayhem. And then, of course, there have been cases of last minute secret "patches" applied. The simple truth is that when NO ONE is allowed to review the code itself, you will never be able to tell, never be able to be reasonably assured of a properly secured election. And even then, most experts who've looked into this disagree with your claim that better rules (or whatever) can properly secure our elections.

Where's the proof that you've found in your studies? It doesn't exist on a level we could take to a court.

No, that would take some INVESTIGATION at a level that hasn't happened -- and ONE reason is the states which have been identified as having problems won't allow it.

But to assume there's "no proof" couldn't be more incorrect, depending on what you insist on as proof. There is an incredibly amount of EVIDENCE if one cares to look. Do YOU care to look? Most people who like to argue with me don't.

Old-school ballot-box fraud at its most egregious was localized and limited in scope. But new electronic voting systems allow insiders to rig elections on a statewide or even national scale. And whereas once you could catch the guilty parties in the act, and even dredge the ballot boxes out of the bayou, the virtual vote count can be manipulated in total secrecy. By means of proprietary, corporate-owned software, just one programmer could steal hundreds, thousands, potentially even millions of votes with the stroke of a key. It’s the electoral equivalent of a drone strike.
https://harpers.org/archive/2012/11/how-to-rig-an-election/2/

I researched employee numbers for the major voting machine companies: ES&S is the largest with spprox. 450 employees, 200 in Omaha. Now -- how many employees do you think are doing the programming? Very, very few. However, even if it took quite a few -- let's say a whopping 1/4 of the total force (113 coders), it wouldn't take all of them to know about any sabotage of the code to create "preferred" election results. It's possible ONE key programmer -- a project leader or supervisor or the department head -- could do it, but certainly a small handful would be sufficient.

And here's some information about those ex-felons I mentioned (in case you thought I was making that up):

One would think (or hope) that a private industry entrusted with America’s votes would require the highest degree of personal integrity from its employees. As it happens, many of the key staffers behind our major voting-machine companies have been accused or convicted of a dizzying array of white-collar crimes, including conspiracy, bribery, bid rigging, computer fraud, tax fraud, stock fraud, mail fraud, extortion, and drug trafficking.
In 2001, for example, a grand jury indicted Philip Foster, Sequoia’s southern regional sales manager, for malfeasance and conspiring to launder money. During the previous decade, he had facilitated a kickback scheme that funneled payments to a Louisiana elections official, who purchased Sequoia equipment while winking at millions of dollars in overcharges. The scheme, which also involved Foster’s brother-in-law and fellow Sequoia employee David Philpot, was hardly an advertisement for the company. Yet Foster, who gained immunity for his testimony against the elections official, not only avoided jail time but was promoted to vice president of sales administration and strategies at Sequoia.
One high achiever actually got his start in prison.* Jeffrey Dean’s vote-by-mail software—developed while Dean was serving a sentence for twenty-three counts of embezzlement—came to dominate the U.S. absentee-voting market. Once out of prison, Dean launched his own ballot-printing company with narcotics trafficker John Elder. They later sold it to Global Election Systems, where, readers will recall, Bob Urosevich served as president and COO, before the company was sold to Diebold.
This leads us to a crazy-making realization. Although many felons (and prior felons) can’t cast a ballot in America—an estimated 6 million citizens will be disenfranchised in 2012 due to felony convictions—these particular felons are apparently free to design and manage our entire elections industry.
https://harpers.org/archive/2012/11/how-to-rig-an-election/5/

* Two comments: the paragraph with bolded text is about a key player; there were other programmers in the very small shop who were ex-felons too.
Second, I don't think anyone can fully appreciate this story without understanding what went on with Chuck Hagle's election to the Senate: https://harpers.org/archive/2012/11/how-to-rig-an-election/3/

BTW, that Harper's article, while somewhat dated, is quite a good, if lengthy. I strongly encourage you to read it. I used it today for my responses because it is so good -- but it's just one article of hundreds I have bookmarked here and there and will be drawing upon as time allows in the future. None of this is "conspiracy theory. " But, of course, one has to actually look at the information that is out there and available in order to understand that.

One final nugget to chew on:

The statistically anomalous shifting of votes to the conservative right has become so pervasive in post-HAVA America that it now has a name of its own. Experts call it the “red shift.”
The Election Defense Alliance (EDA) is a nonprofit organization specializing in election forensics—a kind of dusting for the fingerprints of electronic theft. It is joined in this work by a coalition of independent statisticians, who have compared decades of computer-vote results to exit polls, tracking polls, and hand counts. Their findings show that when disparities occur, they benefit Republicans and right-wing issues far beyond the bounds of probability. “We approach electoral integrity with a nonpartisan goal of transparency,” says EDA executive director Jonathan Simon. “But there is nothing nonpartisan about the patterns we keep finding.” Simon’s verdict is confirmed by David Moore, a former vice president and managing editor of Gallup: “What the exit polls have consistently shown is stronger Democratic support than the election results.”https://harpers.org/archive/2012/11/how-to-rig-an-election/7/

That's true of ALL the various "anomalies" that have been noted with electronic voting machines: overwhelmingly they favor Republicans. Overwhelmingly, where such metrics can be utilized, they defy probability (statistics). Here's a piece that discusses that in re 2016 Exit polls:

Updated, Expanded and Corrected Affidavit Version: U.S. 2016 Unadjusted Exit Poll Discrepancies Fit Chronic Republican Vote – Count Rigging, not Random Statistical, Patterns https://www.researchgate.net/publication/319205877_Updated_Expanded_and_Corrected_Affidavit_Version_US_2016_Unadjusted_Exit_Poll_Discrepancies_Fit_Chronic_Republican_Vote_-_Count_Rigging_not_Random_Statistical_Patterns

[Progressive dog]

66. The claim I made is a well documented fact

"The main salespeople for this kind of story are usually those who want to undermine democracy."
One of the best ways to undermine democracies is to call into question the legitimacy of their elections. Trump continuously made claims that US elections were rigged. Putin has used that claim all over the world.
BTW: Using statistics to call elections into question assumes that the elections are rigged from the beginning. It must, because obviously the elections provide a real number that was a sample of all the voters. There is no evidence of widespread election fraud in the US elections and efforts to use secondary statistics based on sampling to overturn an actual vote count is not credible.

[RandomAccess]

67. And NOT calling obviously anomalous and suspicious results

into question enough to get the kinds of investigations needed is a SURE way to undermine democracy.

For shame.

Oh, and that's one of the few things Trump was RIGHT about.

[Progressive dog]

68. I am suspicious of those helping to undermine faith in democracy

based on suspicions without evidence. Our elections are run by people from all political parties. Vote counts are not a major problem, there are too many people watching.

[RandomAccess]

57. Yes -

[ElementaryPenguin]

14. This is the "you can't handle the truth" part that will perhaps be included in the

Final chapter of the Mueller probe. America has not been ready to hear/contemplate this...

The Russian attack DID change votes and reversed the Clinton victory.

THE PRESIDENT OF THE UNITED STATES WAS SELECTED BY THE PRESIDENT OF RUSSIA.

[RandomAccess]

15. It makes me crazy:

America has not been ready to hear/contemplate this.

[ElementaryPenguin]

16. Me too.

[JoeOtterbein]

21. Me three!

[BadgerMom]

25. I've contemplated it plenty.

I can’t understand the blinders some wear. A lot wear, I guess.

[airmid]

39. I knew this in my gut that fateful Tuesday evening. I have been sick about it ever

since. Especially when the denials were everywhere.

[MrsCoffee]

18. "As far as we know, some guy from Russia could be controlling the outcome of computerized elections"

From 2002:

https://archive.commondreams.org/views02/0916-04.htm

Published on Monday, September 16, 2002 by CommonDreams.org
Elections In America - Assume Crooks Are In Control
by Lynn Landes

In fact, Vikant Corp., a Chicago-area company owned by Alex Kantarovick, formerly of Minsk, Belorussia (also known as White Russia, formerly U.S.S.R.), supplies the all-important 'control cards' to Election Systems & Software (ES&S), the world's largest election management company, writes reporter Christopher Bollyn. According to ES&S, they have "handled more than 40,000 of the world's most important events and elections. ES&S systems have counted approximately 60% of the U.S. national vote for the past four presidential elections. In the U.S. 2000 general election, ES&S systems counted over 100 million ballots."

Getting back to Kantarovich, he would not disclose where the control cards are made, except they aren't made in America, writes Bollyn. Nor would he discuss his previous employment. Bollyn says he got some not-too-thinly-veiled threats from Kantarovich.

Kantarovich sounds more like the Russian mafia, than a legitimate businessman.

But the really big deal is this....all of ES&S's touch screen machines contain modems, "allowing them to communicate—and be communicated with—while they are in operation," reports Bollyn. That communication capability includes satellites. "Even computers not connected to modems or an electronic network can still be manipulated offsite, not during the election, but certainly before or after," says voting systems expert Dr. Rebecca Mercuri.

[RandomAccess]

43. Thanks

[bluestarone]

70. I've always had a bad feeling about our machines, ESPECIALLY seeing with the REPUGS of today!!!

Nothing is beyond what they would do!! Not ONE machine checked to date) that i know of (am i wrong?) So i fully agree with you on this!!!!! PAPER BALLOTS!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!

[RandomAccess]

71. Paper Ballots indeed

Handcounted in full public view.

[moondust]

19. Enabling conspiracy.

Does anyone think corrupt Republicans like Nunes or McTurtle wouldn't welcome insider help from somebody who works at the voting machine companies?

[ElementaryPenguin]

22. There's certainly no doubt THEY WOULD

And not ANYTHING they wouldn't do to seize and maintain power!

[Lonestarblue]

31. Diebold was fined $50 million for doing just that.

Diebold is now part of ES&S and they promised to “deliver the Electoral College votes” Bush needed for re-election, which they delivered theough many voting irregularities in Ohio.

[Meadowoak]

35. I remember that well.

[ck4829]

20. K&R

[gtar100]

23. I swear these voting machine companies did there absolute best

to make substandard software that could easily be hacked.

We have the capability of designing software / hardware systems capable of planetary robotic missions and these voting machines are the best we can do for our elections? Give me a break! What utter nonsense. These machines have been a republican scam from day one.

[RandomAccess]

44. Uhhh, not quite

One of them (forget offhand which one, but the major one that was sold to Diebold, IIRC), employed ex-felons who'd been guilty of computer-related fraud.

IOW, you're being too generous when you assign incompetence instead of outright malfeasance.

[gtar100]

49. No, I think it was quite intentional.

I just find it absurd that with the capabilities we (as in, we humans) have for designing sound, error-resistant systems, that we end up with these shit voting machines from these partisan groups to run our democracy. But leave it to a republican and this is what we get.

[RandomAccess]

50. Oh, then we're in agreement

[fierywoman]

24. Paper ballots. Counted by a representative of each party by hand. Rep of each party

drive together to an aggregate counting place to give results. So we won't "know" by bed time Pacific time on Tuesday who won: who cares? Let it take as long as it takes, but let's control it honestly.

[byronius]

26. It's a basic national security issue.

Right up there with not letting foreign governments invest invisible money in US candidates.

The absolute idiocy of this practice astounds me. There is no logic to support it -- there is only criminal intent. It's ridiculous on the surface.

[fierywoman]

29. Yup: Citizens United has to be destroyed.

[RandomAccess]

47. YES, YES, YES -- And here's what to do about it

For one thing, individual states can -- and have -- gone to paper ballots.

But there's this:

@jennycohn1
This is a matter of national security. Tell your MOCs to pass the #PaveAct, @RonWyden’s election security bill, which requires that all voters have the option 2 use #handmarked #paperballots in federal elections & that states conduct Risk Limiting Audits 4 every federal race.

Link to tweet

And here's how you can reach 'em, easily --

Call 24/7: 202-224-3121
Free Faxes (can incl up to 3 pages attached) to Senators: https://faxzero.com/fax_senate.php
Free Faxes (ditto) to Congress: https://faxzero.com/fax_congress.php
TEXT your faxes: Text RESIST to 50409
Write your MoC - DEMOCRACY.IO https://democracy.io/#/

[Perseus]

27. Ok, this is not going to be popular, but...

Where were the Democrats to stop this? How many years has this been a problem.

If I recall correctly, the president/owner of "Diebold" machines said before the 2000 election that he was going to do whatever was in his power to make sure that GW Bush won the presidency, and no one did anything.

Why are democrats sleep at the wheel every time? I understand the "PcAnywhere" thing, but to be on at all times? That is supposed to be used only when there is a problem, you activate it, make sure you are dealing with the correct person, that it is password protected, but you don't leave it on 24/7.

I mean, you know republicans are going to cheat, why not be proactive to avoid issues? Isn't that what France did to fool the Russian hackers? The French beat the Russians at their own game, why couldn't the democrats have done the same? It is not the first time the Russians have made cyber attacks in elections of other countries.

The DNC needs to be more proactive to avoid these things from happening, it is obvious the republicans cannot win unless they cheat, that is why the DNC needs to be a few steps ahead to prevent the cheating.

These kind of criticisms must be made, none of us is perfect and if we do not get feedback and criticism about the things we do we do not have any way to understand our flows to do the work to become better. A Tennis player studies his opponent before he/she gets on the court, a golfer studies the course, etc. so must the DNC study its main opponent to make sure they can preserve honesty in our elections.

[NoMoreRepugs]

34. Perhaps the DNC has always had too many

"good people" at the helm, and not enough ruthless fucks that seem to be everywhere throughout the Repuke Party?

Just wondering aloud here.......

[Meadowoak]

36. Yep.

[RandomAccess]

46. I have never understood why the Democrats haven't been more

pro-active on this either.

Through all the years I've studied this issue -- since about 2003 or so -- I've been unpleasantly surprised at how Dems just. aren't. that. interested.

ETA: It's hard to even get Dems to BELIEVE there are/were election problems. Instead they want to tell you: Shhh, that kind of talk suppresses votes. Bullshit, I say. THAT is likely a talking point from the manufacturers.

I know in my heart that those outrageous wins in Virginia last year were due largely to the huge turnout BUT ALSO BECAUSE they switched to paper ballots.

[workinclasszero]

28. AKA....The FIX is in!

[edhopper]

38. And I got some shit on my thread

for questioning if the Russians also played with the vote totals.

Guess it is worth considering.

To be fair, I also got a lot of Recs.

[Raymond Costello]

42. Don't Need Remote Access to Alter the Votes

I'm an I.T. professional. You don't need remote access to the voting machines and you don't want access to them. The most efficient way to alter the votes on hundreds of machines is to get in and hack the program at the developers desk BEFORE the program is loaded into the voting machines. For every six Hillary votes, give four of hers to Trump. That's how you do it. It works especially well when there is no paper audit to verify against the electronic numbers. The only way to prove the machine was hacked is to reverse engineer the program on one of the voting machines that still has the hacked code to see how it works.

[RandomAccess]

45. AND there'll never BE any "reverse engineering" because the

manufacturers all included heavy-duty protection for their "proprietary" (cough cough) software code, which totally eliminated the ability of ANYONE ever ever ever looking at the code. No Secty of State or her designee, no independent outside expert, no nobody anywhere. Further, they worked HARD to get the states to change the laws so that the window of opportunity for even asking for a recount was narrowed significantly, and even the reasons or metrics.

Thanks for your post.

[Time for change]

51. Thank you for posting

Some thoughts that I have on this:

1) Though Zetter’s article notes that the remote-access software makes our voting system more vulnerable to attacks from “hackers”, it seems to me that a more serious threat than outside “hackers” would be the voting machine companies themselves or the “customers” whom they choose to sell the software to, because they would have inside knowledge as to the opportunities that are available. Of note in this regard is that ES&S and other major voting machine companies in the United States are owned by militant supporters of the Republican Party.

2) I totally agree with Senator Wyden saying that, due to ES&S’s refusal to answer many of his questions and refusal to attend a Senate hearing on the subject, we have to ask what they are hiding. But I would also add, perhaps even more important, that we have to ask why they chose to make and sell remote-access systems in the first place – and then refuse to acknowledge this.

3) Although ES&S has admitted that it sold this remote access feature between 2000 and 2006, we have no assurances that it hasn't also sold or used it from 2006 to 2016. We only know what they've admitted to, not what they haven't yet admitted to.

In conclusion, Zetter notes in her article that “the recent US indictments against Russian state hackers who tried to interfere in the 2016 presidential elections show that they targeted companies in the US that make software for the administration of elections”. That alone should make Americans extremely concerned about the vulnerability of their election systems. I would add that we should have similar concern whether it’s the Russians who hack our elections, our Republican supporting voting machine corporations, Republican politicians who have access to these machines, outside hackers who have an interest in altering the results of our elections, or a combination of any of the above.

[RandomAccess]

52. Excellent comments - thanks

[nightwing1240]

53. I wholeheartedly agree!

To stop the hacking, paper ballots MUST be used in the coming November midterms. Sorry, but I do not and never have trusted electronic voting machines

[Blue Owl]

55. Motherboard? More like Motherfucker Board

[nolabels]

69. It's only simple logic, no physical evidence when they steal it, unless you have exit polls

Electronic with no physical evidence is the only sure way the bastards could steal the vote while thinking they could get away with it.