It is bubbling up. Dominion won't defend their software.
Democrats know the machines are subject to manipulation and fraud, and they have known that for years. Since we have them on record admitting such they prove themselves, liars, for claiming the machines could not possibly have been corrupted.
Here's what to watch for on Election Day in case hackers decide to sway the vote.
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Here’s how hackers might mess with electronic voting on Election Day
Science Nov 8, 2016 8:13 AM EDT
Huge. Deplorable. Hombre. When America looks back on the long journey to Election Day 2016, a number of words will come to mind. But one may ultimately rise above the rest: hacking.
Hackers set the tone for the final 100 days of the election, starting with the pilfered emails of the Democratic National Committee that were released by Wikileaks in late July. Aside from spurring the resignation of DNC Chairwoman Debbie Wasserman Schultz on the eve of the convention, the leak established a precedent for reporting on stolen digital information in the election, as U.S. officials fingered Russia as the likely backer behind the hacks.
Cybersecurity analysts say this tenor, combined with vulnerabilities in electronic ballots, make hacking a major possibility on Election Day. So if election hacking does happen, here’s what it may look like.
Digital doubt
Up to 20 percent of Americans will cast votes on digital systems without a paper trail during this election, according to analysis by the Brennan Center for Justice. This minority within the electorate, plus the fact that digital voting is managed on a state-by-state basis, means a nationwide takedown of Election Day is unlikely.
“America doesn’t have one monolithic national voting system the way there is in other countries,” Pamela Smith, president of Verified Voting, wrote in a recent op-ed for The Hill. “We have thousands of them, operating under state and local supervision.”
But there are enough weak spots peppered around the country to distill doubt if multiple incidents occur, said James Scott, senior fellow at the Institute for Critical Infrastructure Technology.
Five states — New Jersey, Delaware, Georgia, Louisiana and South Carolina — will cast votes on digital systems without leaving a paper trail.
Five states — New Jersey, Delaware, Georgia, Louisiana and South Carolina — will cast votes on digital systems without leaving a paper trail. The same applies to several jurisdictions in battleground states like Pennsylvania and Ohio.
Cyber vulnerabilities exist in all of these locations. Most revolve around the age of the machines and their software. The Brennan Center report estimated 43 states will use voting machines in 2016 that are more than 10 years old. Many of these devices contain outdated software — think Microsoft Windows XP or older — without security updates. Meanwhile, the mainframes of other machines are guarded by easy-to-pick padlocks or by no barrier at all.
“With the kind of stealth and sophistication that’s already out there, why wouldn’t a nation-state, cyber-criminal gang or activist group go into election systems that are completely vulnerable?” Scott said. He offered the example of the energetic bear hack, wherein attackers deposited malware on websites intended for software updates for energy companies. The perpetrators infiltrated energy grids and petroleum pipeline operators across U.S. and Europe and went unnoticed for three years.
Given many states and counties use electronic ballot systems provided by a small number of vendors, a similar ploy used on voter machine manufacturers could manipulate several polls at once. Plus, much of this voting technology is proprietary, so forensic auditors couldn’t independently scrub for and detect malicious software, especially given such code might delete itself after Election Day, Scott said.
Yellow buttons and bad math
Election hacking raises visions of a hooded figure on a laptop remotely tapping into a voter machine to artificially boost tallies. But in truth, most remote attacks on individual machines are tricky because many devices aren’t directly linked to an internet connection.
However, in-person manipulation is possible. Some machines are vulnerable, due to accessible ports where a hacker could plug a laptop or smartphone to add fake votes. The Sequoia AVC Edge machines feature a yellow “Activate” button on the back that can allow user to enter multiple ballots at a time. Nevada has employed these systems statewide, while Louisiana did the same with early voting without backup paper records.
Sequoia electronic voting machine. Photo by Joe Raedle/Getty ImagesSequoia electronic voting machine. Photo by Joe Raedle/Getty Images
“It’s the technical equivalent to stuffing a voter box,” Scott said. “You can tap that as many times, for as many votes as you want to give the person.”
To exploit the tactics, a perpetrator would need access to a voter machine for an extended period of time, which is possible given background checks for election officials and poll workers aren’t a national requirement.
Another target is the facility or database where votes are counted. “You have to look at attacks at the intermediate stages, where there are computers tabulating results from around a state or a county,” Max Kilger, a social scientist and cybercriminal profiler at the University of Texas at San Antonio, told the PBS NewsHour.
Some counties use devices that collect and calculate results at once, such as the AccuVote TS and TSX voting machines. But the software for these popular machines lack basic cybersecurity, like encryption or strong passwords.
An electronic scanning machine is used for counting the votes during the New Hampshire primary election at a high school in Nashua, New Hampshire. Photo by Ramin Talaie/Corbis via Getty ImagesAn AccuVote electronic scanning machine used for counting the votes during the New Hampshire primary election at a high school in Nashua, New Hampshire in 2008. Photo by Ramin Talaie/Corbis via Getty Images
Harri Hursti, a Finnish computer programmer, famously exposed this vulnerability among voting machines in Leon County, Florida, as part of a series of studies on digital election infrastructure. He showed the “Hursti Hack” — tampering with the machine’s memory cards in person or over a remote internet connection — could add or subtract hundreds of votes for a candidate. Some experts believe this tactic may have been partially responsible for the voting irregularities witnessed in Florida during the 2000 election.
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