Dan Rather report highlights voting machine weaknesses
As for the ability to alter the code on the machines, as charged by election integrity activists, Shamos told Pennsylvania legislators that this was highly unlikely.
“The only way for malicious code to be distributed effectively is for it to emanate from the machine’s manufacturer,” he said.
Shamos testified six months after the Cleveland Plain Dealer reported a letter from the chief executive of Diebold, Inc. a major voting machine manufacturer, stating that he was “committed to helping Ohio deliver its electoral votes to the president next year.”
Vadura explained the reason why voter-verified paper ballots are crucial to the integrity of the electoral process.
“You vote and you get a piece of paper, and the point is the voter is supposed to look at that piece of paper and be sure the vote was recorded correctly, and if they actually look at it and deem that to be correct and they stuff that in the ballot box,” he said. “If there ever is any problem you can at least go back to that paper record in the ballot box. It takes a few milliseconds to alter an electronic vote; it takes days to alter a paper vote. … It’s nearly impossible to tamper with both records.”
He said he gets up in front of groups regularly and asks this question:
“How many of you would deposit your paycheck in an ATM if it told you ahead of time it wasn’t going to give you a receipt?” No one raises a hand. “Then why would you do that with your vote?” he asks.
Hockenberry said the county has “more paper and paper trails than ever” with the iVotronics and can print out vote logs, see “snapshots” of voting during the course of the day and more.
But Vadura responds: “If I’m going to compromise your election results I’m going to compromise your log too.”
The Dan Rather report is available online at hd.net. A high-speed Internet connection is recommended and viewers will have to download free Veoh software to view the entire show.