Lou Dobbs: Voting Machines & Key Components Available On Ebay

[kpete]

Lou Dobbs: Voting Machines Available On Ebay
New from Vendors - Diebold
By VTUSA
August 14, 2006
Transcript of August 14, 2006 segment.

There's new evidence tonight that electronic voting machines pose an extraordinary threat to our democracy. Computer experts say it's easy for hackers to tamper with the machines and to change voting results. It is also, as it turns out, possible for hackers to buy key parts of these machines over the Web. Kitty Pilgrim has the story.

KITTY PILGRIM, CNN CORRESPONDENT (voice-over): Voter watchdog groups report that in recent months, components for electronic voting machines and even an entire machine are regularly up for sale, even on E-Bay. A quick check on E-Bay found this Diebold motherboard for sale, listed as brand new.

Voting activists at VoteTrustUSA say they lost a bid last week for a Diebold motherboard, but they scour the Internet regularly now to find any voting machines to run their own independent tests.

WARREN STEWART, VOTETRUST USA: I've checked for all the other vendors because we know a lot about Diebold now. We'd like to know more about ES&S and Sequoia and Hart Innercivic and the other vendors as well.

more at:
http://www.votetrustusa.org/index.php?option=com_content&task=view&id=1673&Itemid=51

[napi21]

1. Yes, when eh reported this last night, I checked Ebay. There weren't

any active auctions for any Diebold voting machines or parts, but there were 2 closed ones where one sold and one didn't. I didn't look for any other brands.

[longship]

2. The problem is not that people can get machines.

In fact, the availablility of voting machines on eBay should not be a threat at all. There should be no way that access to the technology should be able to threaten the security of the voting process. The reason for this is because the voting machine itself should never be the vehicle for insuring security.

The premise that the design of the machine itself, especially the keeping of the design of the machine secret, is flawed. How secure are the pencil and paper used in old-style paper ballots?

Securing the machine itself is no insurance that the voting process is secure. The reason why paper ballots are secure is because the voting process itself is secure and self-checkable. What's happened with these voting machines is that we have put the trust in the technology to guarantee security and have forgone security in the process.

Security through obscurity is not secure. Keeping machines secret will never promote security as these sales on eBay now show. Even the use of standard PC's, available everywhere, should not jeopardize the security of our votes. The extent to which the process is not secure and verifiable is the extent to which the machines are insecure.

That's the mistake we're making. We're presuming that keeping secrets will guarantee valid elections. That ain't gonna work.

[kpete]

3. Ebay

GTS II Voting Plug-in Module PL19D903175G1 Item number: 120018914553

Starting bid: US $5.00

--------------------------------------------------------------------------------

End time: Aug-17-06 11:50:03 PDT (1 day 22 hours)
Shipping costs: US $19.80
Expedited Flat Rate Shipping Service (more services)
Ships to: Worldwide
Item location: Pacific NorthWest, Canada
History: 0 bids



http://cgi.ebay.com/GTS-II-Voting-Plug-in-Module-PL19D903175G1_W0QQitemZ120018914553QQihZ002QQcategoryZ26261QQrdZ1QQcmdZViewItem

[WillYourVoteBCounted]

4. Carteret was going to sell their Unilect on E-Bay

but were told by the vendor that they would have to erase all of the
software etc, and it would take more time and cost more money than
they wanted to deal with.


So they sold their 200+ Unilect Vote Eating machines back to Jack
Gerbel for $3,000. total.

:rofl: