A few years back, while at the Defcon computer security conference in Las Vegas, I attended a meeting where the subject of “e-voting” was discussed. “E-voting (electronic voting)” means voting with computerized voting machines, as well as the idea of voting from an Internet website.
Several thousand of the world’s top computer security experts were in attendance. I thought it quite revealing that, as soon as the words “electronic voting security” came out of the speaker’s mouth, the crowd burst into raucous, jeering laughter. “E-voting security,” indeed.
You couldn’t fool this crowd; they knew better. That voters across the nation are being conned into thinking their electronically-cast votes are secure is a scam of colossal proportions. Worse still is the idea that public officials should be elected by people voting on the Internet. The potential for vote fraud is mind-boggling, as entire elections can be hijacked with the click of a mouse.
Many of the latest electronic voting systems have no way of being independently audited, and the system manufacturers, such as Diebold/Premier, are not willing to reveal to election board officials how their computerized voting machines actually work. If the integrity of an e-voting machine is ever brought into question, well, too bad, you’ll just have to take Premier’s word for it.
Security experts have demonstrated time and again the countless ways that e-voting systems can be easily hacked and compromised; the potential for fraud is stunning, to say the least. Election board officials don’t know how e-voting machines are programmed, but guess who does know: the computer hacking underground, and their skills are for sale.
With the reality being that e-voting is a fundamentally flawed idea, it seems there could be no debate that it should be fixed or scrapped. Yet, for some inexplicable reason, government officials, business big-shots and political hacks keep supporting this bad idea, and seem determined to push it through to the ugly end, no matter what the cost. It makes me wonder, “Who are these people? Where did they come from? How did they get to be in charge? Why is it so hot around here and why are we all sitting in this handbasket?”
We in Oklahoma have been blessed for many years with relatively efficient, accurate and trouble-free voting machines. You indicate your voting choice by using a felt-tip marker to connect two fragments of an arrow on a paper ballot and feed the ballot into a machine that does an optical scan for complete arrows. It’s not perfect, but it does allow for an honest recount of the vote, as we have actual paper ballots that can be counted by actual humans, should the need arise. As such, Oklahoma’s voting machine systems have proven to be statistically superior to those in most other states.
Well, good for us. Too bad our old-but-faithful voting machines are scheduled to be “modernized” and replaced, probably by machines that will run Microsoft Windows. That gives me the creeps, almost as much as the idea of voting on the Internet.
Voter fraud is real. The potential for e-voting fraud is staggering. Those who want to make excuses and deny the potential for voter fraud should be ashamed. One fraudulent vote is too many. For more information, visit www.blackboxvoting.org.