Most electronic voting isn't secure, CIA expert says

[kpete]

Source: McClatchy

Most electronic voting isn't secure, CIA expert says
By Greg Gordon | McClatchy Newspapers

WASHINGTON — The CIA, which has been monitoring foreign countries' use of electronic voting systems, has reported apparent vote-rigging schemes in Venezuela, Macedonia and Ukraine and a raft of concerns about the machines' vulnerability to tampering.

Appearing last month before a U.S. Election Assistance Commission field hearing in Orlando, Fla., a CIA cybersecurity expert suggested that Venezuelan President Hugo Chavez and his allies fixed a 2004 election recount, an assertion that could further roil U.S. relations with the Latin leader.

In a presentation that could provide disturbing lessons for the United States, where electronic voting is becoming universal, Steve Stigall summarized what he described as attempts to use computers to undermine democratic elections in developing nations. His remarks have received no news media attention until now.

Stigall told the Election Assistance Commission, a tiny agency that Congress created in 2002 to modernize U.S. voting, that computerized electoral systems can be manipulated at five stages, from altering voter registration lists to posting results.

Read more: http://www.mcclatchydc.com/226/story/64711.html

[nadinbrzezinski]

1. Oh fer fucks sake, this is them following US

[Name removed]

28. Deleted message

Message removed by moderator. Click here to review the message board rules.

[napoleon_in_rags]

34. The real question is, has the FBI figured this out yet?

The CIA is monitoring foreign countries, and is notoriously secretive. So we can make fun of them for being late in this announcement, but what I want to know is if the people monitoring election fraud HERE are making this kind of announcement.

[bemildred]

2. No hard copy == no security. Duh. nt

[EFerrari]

9. This is bullshit. Venezuela does have hard copy.

They use open source software AND their elections are monitored.

How convenient that he fingered Venezuela 2004 but not OHIO.

These guys are hilarious. And they must think we're idiots.

[bemildred]

11. They do think we're idiots. nt

[EFerrari]

20. In order to believe this story, you have to know nothing about 2004 here,

nothing about Venezuela's election systems and nothing about the CIA backed coup there in 2002. Maybe, just nothing about CIA in Latin America at all. Maybe this was a good bet for them.

But I remember Ohio and not enough voting machines in black precincts, 8 hour lines, voters purged off the rolls for no reason and rioting at the statehouse that night.

F#ck CIA. There's yet another big push on to discredit Chavez. I guess that's better than just putting a slug in his head.

[bemildred]

21. Well, I don't believe this story.

But I do believe that electronic voting, the way it is done now, is intrinsically insecure.

[EFerrari]

22. Electronic voting needs to go NOW.

South Carolina's elections, for example, are all ILLEGAL because the state constitution specifically says that the vote counting must be public. You can't count what you can't see. Georgia. Texas. So many places. HAVA was a Trojan Horse but BushCo didn't count on so many of us watching what they were up to.

We came THIS close to losing California because of electronic voting. They smeared our Democratic SOS out of office because he was the first one to challenge Diebold. And Arnold appointed a Republican in his place who did his best to loosen all the requirements heading into 2006. I was sincerely afraid we couldn't really have a real election that year.

I only wish we had international monitors like Venezuela does. It would be very easy to make a list of 100 venues where they are absolutely necessary.

[tavalon]

26. Yes, in fact, they do

2004, 2004,2004 and btw, the CIA would be the last people I would trust to say diddly about the safety of anyone's electronic voting.

[Peace Patriot]

40. Venezuela also handcounts a whopping 55% of the ballots as a check on machine fraud.

I'll bet the CIA doesn't know how much WE handcount.

Answer: ZERO PERCENT in half the systems in the U.S., and an extremely inadequate 1% in the rest.

Or maybe they do. And we're just another one of their fucking destabilization/install dictator projects. Hm, CIA? Which is it, you fuckers? Don't know? Did know?

Venezuela not only uses OPEN SOURCE code--code that belongs to the public and that anyone may review; they not only have a paper ballot for every vote and count FIVE TIMES the minimum amount needed to verify results; they not only ban political advertising in the week before the election and other "best election practices"; they also have thousands of international election monitors from the Carter Center, the OAS, the EU, and other groups, including U.S. groups like the NAACP, crawling all over Venezuela during every election at the invitation of the Chavez government.

So I guess this news is getting around, eh? That Venezuela has honest, aboveboard, transparent elections and we don't. So, they call up the "Mission Impossible" team--and, now that the Bush Junta has hijacked the U.S. military for corporate resource wars, and looted us of trillions of dollars--have to figure out a way to keep more of our people from finding out the truth about Venezuelan vs U.S. elections. It doesn't matter now here--the damage is done. But it does matter in Venezuela, where the oil is being used to bootstrap the poor and not to stuff the pockets of Exxon Mobil executives and boost their power as a global corporate monster.

This is an INFURIATING lie!!! And it is also ominous and dangerous. WHY would they do this? WHY? --if they are NOT planning a war on Venezuela, one of the best democracies in the western hemisphere?

I have often expressed my concern about this here at DU, in view of the relentless psyops, disinformation and propaganda in all the corpo/fascist media here about Chavez and Venezuela--which appears to me to be pre-war preparation--just like the lies about WMDs in Iraq were--combined with other evidence from South America, for instance, strong evidence of a Bushwhack war plan to create fascist, secessionist states, in control of the oil, in Bolivia, Venezuela and Ecuador, with the Bolivian plot having unfolded this last September in fascist rioting and murder, funded/organized right out of the U.S. embassy, and the effort earlier in 2008 to draw Ecuador and Venezuela into a war with Colombia (U.S./Colombia bombing/raid on Ecuador's territory, in March 2008), orchestrated from the "war room" at the U.S. embassy in Bogota.

The lies are getting MORE, not less, intense, with Obama in office. Even Obama has been telling these lies--and took time off during his inauguration week to give an interview to a rightwing 'news' monopoly in South America (Univision) accusing Chavez of "exporting terrorism" and being "a hindrance to the progress of the region." So, maybe these lies were not a blunder, with a Bushwhack holdover handing Obama the script? That's what I initially thought. Maybe we are seeing the price Obama had to pay, to be permitted to win the election: Rumsfeld & brethren can't have Iran's oil, but can go after Venezuela's, and Obama will wink at this private Exxon Mobil war? Is that it?

This CIA bullshit about Venezuela's elections may be a clarifying. I wasn't sure about Obama's Latin American policy--it has been very wobbly. But now that he has his man at the CIA (or his man has him in the White House?), and the CIA is spouting bullshit like this, I can only presume that Obama is not being led astray, but is part of the civil war game being played in South America. I've given Obama every benefit of the doubt. His hands have been full, for sure, with the Bushwhack Financial 9/11, and two Bushwhack wars. But maybe South America has not been on the "back burner" as I thought. Maybe it has been front and center all along as the alternative to nuking Iran. And maybe Exxon Mobil is still running our government.

[EFerrari]

42. This story was timed to come out while Leopoldo Lopez

was here testifying at OAS. What is going on here? Are they trying to damage Chavez ahead of the summit?

[Demeter]

43. Ah, My Friend, Democracy IS Terrorism

to anyone unalterably opposed to it. And that includes those opposing labor unions, women's rights, any kind of leveling action.

[rocktivity]

3. Candidate for this year's "You Call This NEWS?" award

Maybe those other countries should privatize...

:eyes:
rocktivity

[VenusRising]

4. No shit, Sherlock.

The left has only been going on about this for how long now?

Thanks for being way too late to the dance. :eyes:

[EFerrari]

5. LOL

[Botany]

6. wow what is next? Dark @ night studies

http://www.sos.state.oh.us/SOS/Text.aspx?page=4512&AspxAutoDetectCookieSupport=1

[Kablooie]

7. I'm shocked! Shocked!

[Demeter]

8. One Could Ask If the CIA Had Anything to Do With Election-Tampering at Home

(if one didn't mind spending the rest of one's life in hiding from the CIA).

[EFerrari]

13. No! This boy scout came out of the shadows to tell you

HUGO CHAVEZ IS A DEVIL!

:rofl:

[santamargarita]

10. Karl Rove already knows that

:puke:

[Magleetis]

12. The CIA

is on it. What a bunch of crackpots.

:rofl:

[KoKo]

14. K&R!

[dixiegrrrrl]

15. Interesting thing about this Election Commission the guy testified to:

According to Wiki...

This was a Bush created Commission to oversee the Bush created Help America Vote Act.
one of their jobs is testing and certification of election equipment.
Created in 2003, but not active until 2004, guess who the Chair of the Commission was?

The Deputy Director of Public Liaison for the White House and Deputy Counsel of the Republican National Committee, name of Caroline Hunter.Since replaced.

Current Chair and members have been picked as of 2009.

[Xipe Totec]

16. Listen to the spooks; they speak from experience... n/t

[EFerrari]

19. I'm so happy CIA is trying to secure elections in VENEZUELA!

:rofl:

[Xipe Totec]

45. We should all feel relieved that the CIA worries about rigged elections

and how the can be achieved...

:eyes:

[lonestarnot]

17. Oh fucking A

:eyes:

[L0oniX]

18. Bunch of backward clueless fucks ...the warnings have been out for at least 8 years.

C.I.A = Clueless Idiot Asscarrots

[Amonester]

23. Yup. All the wise ones, like Valerie Plame, have been blown out

of it by the idiot republicon appointed spooks

[Captain Hilts]

24. Here you go...

ER: No, shit Sherlock.

[Norquist Nemesis]

25. What a genious!

Does this mean he'll be at the next voting machine conspiracy meeting too? After getting smacked down and called a conspiracy nut for the past few years over this, he's a little late in the game. Maybe he can look into some of those 2004 votes in Ohio and get back to us.

[Norrin Radd]

27. FFS

[chollybocker]

29. This would NEVER happen in the USA.

It happens in "foreign countries."

Why is the CIA 'counting' election results in foreign countries? )Sorry, dumb question.(

[LaPera]

30. Fuck we've known this & have been screaming about it for years now...Still no action from the Dems

Are we going to wait until 2010 (if ever) and stand by and watch more of this bullshit go down....the republicans have to steal elections in order to gain & keep seats in elections, always have to continue their elitist corporate power & fascist ideology...

Congress must get rid of the republican written "Help America Vote Act (HAVA) of 2002. Congressional & Senate seats have absolutely been stolen, as well as local seats, just because Obama won the presidency doesn't mean republicans didn't steal other seats, they have. They certainly would have even less seats than they have now!

WASHINGTON — Four million to five million voters did not cast a ballot in the 2008 presidential election because they encountered registration problems or failed to receive absentee ballots, which is roughly the same number of voters who encountered such problems in the 2000 election, according to an academic study to be presented to the Senate Rules Committee on Wednesday.
http://www.nytimes.com/2009/03/11/us/politics/11vote.html?_r=2

2009 - DIEBOLD ADMITS ALL THEIR VOTING SYSTEMS
FAIL TO REPORT BALLOT DELETIONS
Spokesman Concedes Audit Log Failures at Stunning CA Hearing
http://www.bradblog.com/

2009 - ELECTION OFFICIALS BUSTED IN KY: FLIPPED ES&S TOUCH-SCREEN VOTES
http://www.bradblog.com/

2009 - Our Top Election Reform Priorities
Federal election reforms...
http://www.bradblog.com/

More....
The former category would include, along with those sidelined by the voter ID laws in
Indiana and Georgia, all those who were registered, but showed up at the polls only to
find that they'd been stricken from the rolls. And such disenfranchisement was either
"legal," as BushCo's DoJ had been conducting quiet voter purges nationwide, or illegal,
as partisan free-lancers cleansed the voter rolls of those who would have cast a ballot for
the Evil Ones. (Those voter rolls now being electronic, such deletion is a snap for anyone
with access to them.)

Now, the number of those disenfranchised certainly was even higher than MIT's report
suggests, since it refers exclusively to registration hurdles and missing absentee ballots.
There were also many voters who could not wait on the endless lines that formed in
Democratic precincts only, there having been too few machines placed there, and/or
machines that didn't work. (The same thing happened in 2004 and 2006.)

And then there were those citizens whose votes were not suppressed, but electronically
erased or altered: a type of disenfranchisement not noted by the researchers at MIT, who
looked exclusively at vote suppression, not election fraud. But, just as in 2004 and 2006,
so in 2008 there were numerous firsthand reports of voters seeing their votes "flipped"
right before their eyes--a problem that afflicted many Democrats and just a handful
of Republicans. And those reports point only to a fraction of the ballots altered
electronically, since it's quite easy to flip votes without its being perceptible.

It's therefore very likely that the number of those disenfranchised in this last election,
by whatever means, was actually far higher than the 4/5 million here reported.We may
conservatively estimate that it was more like 7 to 8 million US citizens who couldn't vote;
and we may add with confidence that most of those blocked voters would have voted
for Obama, and also would have voted Democratic in their local House and Senate races.

What this means is that (a) this president won by a landslide, not merely a "decisive"
margin, and that (b) the GOP is, more than ever, a fringe party--and (c) a party that
relies on every dirty trick and tactic in the book to "win" in our elections, so as to push
their program on the rest of us despite the will of the electorate. And what this means is
that (e) our degraded voting system now needs radical reform, or else that undead party
will keep "coming back" until they've ruined everything.
MCM

Now, even the CIA admits election discrepancies, we know by the slimy republicans. What will it take for the Democratss in congress to do something,, do they believe it or even care?

[bottomtheweaver]

31. This is like where Bush and Cheney accuse Kerry of faking his military record.

Breathtaking.

[EFerrari]

32. Isn't it? These people are seriously out of touch

if they think that bringing up electronic voting isn't instantly going to piss off American voters, for one thing, who've never had the safeguards built in to the Venezuelan system.

[GreenTea]

33. Traceable paper ballots!

[Stevepol]

35. I sometimes think that to get rid of this plague, every single human being will have to separately

have a vision in which they suddenly realize, "Hey, these machines really are vulnerable, and it really is highly probable they've been used to steal elections and right now are the biggest threat to our democracy that could possibly exist."

There's fanfare and articles, and things rock on for a few more days and one more individual comes to the realization. Same fanfare, articles, etc. Then one more. etc.

And yet the machines remain, no company is ever really punished with jail time for their obvious breaches of democratic principles, and the potential remains for more election theft in the future.

[antimatter98]

36. Yeah, after CIA probably helped BushCo steal two elections, it's time to come clean I guess. n/t

[Optical.Catalyst]

38. Some people just can't resist bragging about how good of a job they do

The Presidential Elections in the United States in 2000 and 2004 had serious questions about the results. Now, the CIA tells us they have knowledge of election tampering using electronic voting machines. The so obvious omission here is the CIA only mentions elections in foreign countries.

[EFerrari]

41. In foreign countries where they want to overthrow the government.

They already tried it once in 2002.

[DFW]

37. This is news?

My brother, who does stuff for DARPA, told me this 7 years ago, and Howard Dean tried to
launch a movement to oversee or eliminate these machines years ago. Suddenly, the USA
discovers that these machines are subject to manipulation? The Republican administration
that just ended never managed to find this out, despite the mountain of evidence laid at
its door. There must have been a wind shift or something.

[Kip Humphrey]

39. Let's see: during the Bush/Cheney years, neo-fascist globalists have "won" elections in

Germany, France, Canada, Mexico, Italy, Switzerland, England, (and surely others I'm unaware of) while the CIA has been "monitoring" highly vulnerable electronic voting systems around the world which are subject to untraceable tampering and vote switching. Hmmm...

[bluesmail]

44. Brad Blogs exclusive LBN

http://www.bradblog.com/?7016