Expert says flawed e-voting systems need constant audits

[IDemo]

April 10, 2008 2:02 PM PDT
Posted by Elinor Mills - Wired News

Elections departments around the country have spent millions on electronic voting systems that are flawed and officials aren't about to throw them out and start all over. The only solution is to conduct audits to verify the count after every election, a researcher and expert on electronic voting said at RSA 2008 on Thursday.

David Wagner, computer science professor at University of California, Berkeley, led a state of California-commissioned study last year of the three major electronic voting systems. The study found serious vulnerabilities in each system that would allow someone with access to just one of the machines to spread a virus that would infect all the other machines in the system and essentially control the outcome, he said in a panel discussion electronic voting.

The systems have architectural weaknesses, implementation flaws, and defects, similar to problems in commercial software that isn't designed with security in mind, according to Wagner.

"This puts our election officials in a terrible position," he said, adding that officials are stuck using the machines. As a result, audits are the only solution.

http://www.news.com/8301-10784_3-9916426-7.html?tag=nefd.top

[tbyg52]

1. The heck with audits - toss 'em in the nearest harbor! nt

[notesdev]

2. Can we get

what the Iraqis got? Because I really would feel a lot more confident in purple fingers and a paper trail than I do in a machine that can be taught to say whatever the people who own it want it to say.