Artifact Eight

Songini, Marc L. "Concerns about fraud potential continue to plague users of electronic voting machines: report says flaws must be fixed for upcoming votes.(NEWS)." Computerworld 40.27 (July 3, 2006): 7(1). Student Resource Center - Gold. Thomson Gale. Centennial High School (MD). 23 Jan. 2007
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This article brought up some research that was not conducted by the Johns Hopkins University students. The research that this article was on was set up by the Brennan Center to examine the possible flaws.

Larry Norden, chairman of the task force and an attorney at the Brennan Center, said that over the past several years, half of all manual voting systems in the U.S. have been replaced with electronic devices. Elections officials cite the need to meet the requirements of various federal laws and the need for improved accuracy in installing the systems. He also said "we've not necessarily adapted our [security] procedures to that new technology."

This research has found some 120 threats to the voting system and that they have no systems in place to detect software attacks. "This nonpartisan report ... confirms what many of us have believed for years: Electronic machines are all vulnerable to error or manipulation that could change the outcome of elections," said Rep. Rush Holt.

Artifact Seven

"Security Researchers Discover Flaws in E-Voting System.(Brief Article)." Communications Today 9.136 (July 28, 2003): 0. Student Resource Center - Gold. Thomson Gale. Centennial High School (MD). 23 Jan. 2007
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This brief article talks about how Electronic Frontier Foundation (EFF) is calling for the "immediate passage of e-voting legislation to prevent election fraud." The are also "strongly pushing a bill authored by Rep. Rush Holt...the Voter Confidence and Increased Accessibility Act of 2003 (HR 2239), that would require open-source software and voter-verifiable paper audit trails for all new e-voting machines.

This article also sights the research of Johns Hopkins University and Rice University students. They also made it clear that (EFF) is a company that is for the growth of electronic voting but they are not willing to push their cause to take away one of the basic rights of the United States citizens and that the system "isn't ready for the prime time."

Artifact Six

Mitchell, Robert L. "The e-voting blame game.(flaws in electronic voting machines)(Column)." Computerworld 40.43 (Oct 23, 2006): 38(1). Student Resource Center - Gold. Thomson Gale. Centennial High School (MD). 23 Jan. 2007
&contentSet=IAC-Documents&type=retrieve&tabID=T003&prodId=IPS&docId=A154335487&source=gale&srcprod=SRCG&userGroupName=elli29753&version=1.0>.

This document was strange because it took a different view point on the subject they said that they didn't feel as if this was normal individuals that were out trying to sabotage an election as much as is it was the people in charge of running the elections trying to sway the election. I wouldn't say that this is completely out of the question because on November 2nd I was helping campaign at a local school and the election official came out and smoked a cigarette and talked to us about our candidates view points.

This article much more recent then the other articles written in 2006 says "While some of the problems associated with e-voting are technology-based, many simply amount to a lack of best practices. For example, e-voting machines initially didn't generate paper records, so Diebold now includes a thermal printer. The printed summary, viewable through a window, reassures the voter and provides a paper-based alternative that officials can use to verify the electronic tabulations. But the Election Science Institute, in reviewing a Maryland election, worried that paper jams or printer malfunctions could cause "profound" problems. The advocacy group suggested extensive training of poll workers."

This of course would cost the states more money which would possibly could amount to many cutbacks for explain maybe the would have to lower the amount of polling places available to the voters to use or perhaps they wouldn't be able to afford to upgrade the systems. This article also states "Training is clearly necessary. Some officials don't even have the most basic procedures down. During a recent Maryland election, officials in one county failed to deliver to the polls the access cards voters needed to operate e-voting machines. In another county, officials couldn't operate e-voting machines because they didn't have their passwords..."

A ground breaking thing that I read in this article was the sometimes days before elections voting systems are distributed to election officials homes several days before the elections for what the author called a "sleepover". This opportunity to be around the systems for a long period of time could allow almost anyone to tamper with the system.

Artifact Five

Boyle, Alan " E-voting flaws risk ballot fraud." 2003. 24 July 2003 http://www.msnbc.msn.com/id/3077251/

This article also mentions the revolutionary work on Johns Hopkins researchers that I mentioned earlier. This article says that these researchers were able to exploit these flaws using a code that was stolen from the Diebold headquarters which Diebold claimed that the software was "outdated and never was used in an actual election."

“Common voters, without any insider privileges, can cast unlimited votes without being detected by any mechanisms within the voting terminal,” this is what was determined by the research that the 4 men were involved in. Apparently the code that the researchers used came from a New Zealand based website that they claimed they downloaded from the internet from an unprotected Diebold site.

Diebold also says the consistently update the software to stay in compliance with requirements set forth. Sadly for Diebold the researchers said that software would have to be completely rebuilt to fill the gaping holes in this system. “The stuff that we looked at is not something from which you could evolve a secure system,” “We found vulnerabilities everywhere we looked,” “A 15-year-old computer enthusiast could make these counterfeit cards in a garage and sell them,” “Then even an ordinary voter, without knowing anything about computer code, could cast more than one vote for a candidate at a polling place that uses this electronic voting system.”said Avi Rubin one of the researchers.

Artifact Four

Epstein, Edward. "Boxer wants new voting machines to give receipts; Bill is among a flurry of proposals prompted by fears over security of electronic systems.(NEWS)." San Francisco Chronicle. (Dec 12, 2003): A10. Opposing Viewpoints Resource Center. Thomson Gale. Centennial High School (MD). 11 Jan. 2007 http://find.galegroup.com/ovrc/infomark.do?&contentSet=IAC-Documents&type=retrieve&tabID=T004&prodId=OVRC&docId=CJ111181917&source=gale&srcprod=OVRC&userGroupName=elli29753&version=1.0.

Senator Barbara Boxer was quoted as saying she would propose a law requiring all states with counties that use such computerized touch-screen systems to provide voters with a paper receipt -- and do it by next November's presidential election. Unfortunately something must have come up between then and now because since then two elections (one presidential) Nothing like this had come about. I personally think that this is a perfect idea. When you walk out of the poling area they could provide with paper shredders so you could destroy your receipt and no one could know how you voted. This would just be another way of making sure that you are n0t leaving the poling place worrying if your vote was cast for the person you wanted it to go for.

California Secretary of State Kevin Shelley became the first elected official to order poling places to provide receipts. Unfortunately his order will only cover the state of California but hopefully other states will follow his ideas if the 2006 elections work out well in California.

Senator Boxers proposal was sparked by the many proposals in Congress to deal with the rise of electronic voting. After a multibillion dollar law was past to prevent problems like those in Florida in the 2000 which marked end of the punch card voting era.This has been a hot button topic in politics and has been an issue often discussed by the Democrats, but is now a topic being discussed by the Republicans also.