[ale] Its over. Maybe

[Michael Still]

On Thu, 4 Nov 2004 03:14:25 +0000, aaron <aaron at pd.org> wrote:
> On Thursday 04 November 2004 05:14, Michael Still wrote:
> > Ok... I need to clear some things up..
> > 
> ... and a clarification / correction  of your clarifications, from research
> and confirmation as a Poll Watcher at the Gwinnett county tabulation center
> Tuesday night:
> 
> > After the election is over a worker then pulls a pcmcia style flash
> > drive out of all the machines and drives them to the county election
> > office where each card is read into a server that counts up the votes.
> 
> Each precinct does drive the DRE PCMCIA cards to the tabulation center, but
> FIRST they read all the cards for the precinct into one DRE machine that's
> been designated as the "accumulator" system and is equipped with a MODEM. The
> votes cast counts are noted with the other precinct materials, and the
> election totals are sent via the Modem in to the polling station central
> system for "instant" reporting. Once the cards are delivered to the county
> center, the precinct materials are checked in, the paperwork reviewed, and
> the serialized PCMCIA cards accounted for.
> 

Ok the modem system is used only for tabulating votes in a quick manor
so as to make the major networks happy.. the official certified vote
is via the driven in cards.

> > If his car crashes and burns up then the votes can still be read from
> > the diebold machines from one of at least two other long term storage
> > devices.
> 
> This is not correct.  Besides the PCMCIA card, there is no other complete,
> independent, long term DRE vote data processed and retained by the voting
> machines. The DRE machines have a single ballot memory space, but that is
> cleared at the beginning of each voter session, so it is obviously not "long
> term".  The systems do store an internal flash memory record of all the voter
> actions on the touch screen,  but this is basically a compact list of the X/Y
> coordinates touched by the voters. While the data can be used to re-create
> the ballots and votes, it is not a complete or independent record. The
> Secretary of State claims this record is the part that meets the "paper
> record for manual audit" requirements of HAVA law, but none of the standard
> precinct and accumulation procedures access this data or attempt to recreate
> printable ballots.

I beleive that you are incorrect here.  From talking with one of the
big cheese's at the KSU Electronic Voting Center (or whatever its
called), he said that they have redundancies specifically for the case
of losing the cards in route to the tabulating center by having
storage in the Diebold machine itself.  I do not think he had reason
to lie to me.

Also, he indicated that the storage of the votes in the system was not
as simple as a coordinate system of X's and Y's.  I would not trust
anyone to tell me what the specific data storage system was unless he
had seen the source code to the system (which this guy has).

> 
> The person operating the central system has access to enter vote counts
> manually, and actually does this for the Optical Scanner (paper tape) totals
> of Absentee Ballots and totals of Authenticated Provisional ballots (which
> are treated as 2 additional precincts). All voting records are stored in a
> common M$ Access database file and totals can be edited by anyone
> reasonably familiar with the M$ Access software.
> 

If this is the case, then this is where the vulnerability is. 
Hopefully a checksum/fingerprinting feature is employed by the voting
software that would provide for checking if the db had been manually
altered.

> While there are many cross checks to confirm that the numbers of ballots cast
> ... 
> > Cracking the Ga voting system using technology (or subverting) is not
> > as easy as you would think.  The system may still be vulnerable, but
> > it would take a major effort.
> 
> ...but the fraud could be effectively carried out by as few as 1 or 2 people,
> is especially easy for Diebold insiders, could easily be done in a way that
> was undetectable, and could effect the election outcomes of an entire State
> or Nation.
> 
> peace
> aaron
> 
>