New York Times

The Myth of the Hacker-Proof Voting Machine https://www.nytimes.com/2018/02/21/magazine/the-myth-of-the-hacker-proof-voting-machine.html https://archive.vn/rgQP1

In the 15 years since electronic voting machines were first adopted by many states, numerous reports by computer scientists have shown nearly every make and model to be vulnerable to hacking. The systems were not initially designed with robust security in mind, and even where security features were included, experts have found them to be poorly implemented with glaring holes.

An ES&S contract with Michigan from 2006 describes how the company’s tech support workers used remote-access software called pcAnywhere to access customer election systems. And a report from Allegheny County, Pennsylvania, that same year describes pcAnywhere on that county’s election-management system on June 2 when ES&S representatives spent hours trying to reconcile vote discrepancies in a local district race that took place during a May 16th primary. An Allegheny County election official told me that remote-access software came pre-installed on their ES&S election-management system.

A Pennsylvania County’s Election Day Nightmare Underscores Voting Machine Concerns https://www.nytimes.com/2019/11/30/us/politics/pennsylvania-voting-machines.html https://archive.vn/0kNP0

Vote totals in a Northampton County judge’s race showed one candidate, Abe Kassis, a Democrat, had just 164 votes out of 55,000 ballots across more than 100 precincts. Some machines reported zero votes for him. In a county with the ability to vote for a straight-party ticket, one candidate’s zero votes was a near statistical impossibility. Something had gone quite wrong.

Lee Snover, the chairwoman of the county Republicans, said her anxiety began to pick up at 9:30 p.m. on Nov. 5. She had trouble getting someone from the election office on the phone. When she eventually got through, she said: “I’m coming down there and you better let me in.”

With clearly faulty results in at least the judge’s election, officials began counting the paper backup ballots generated by the same machines. The paper ballots showed Mr. Kassis winning narrowly, 26,142 to 25,137, over his opponent, the Republican Victor Scomillio.

“People were questioning, and even I questioned, that if some of the numbers are wrong, how do we know that there aren’t mistakes with anything else?” said Matthew Munsey, the chairman of the Northampton County Democrats

The snafu in Northampton County did not just expose flaws in both the election machine testing and procurement process. It also highlighted the fears, frustrations and mistrust over election security that many voters are feeling ahead of the 2020 presidential contest, given how faith in American elections has never been more fragile. The problematic machines were also used in Philadelphia and its surrounding suburbs — areas of Pennsylvania that could prove decisive next year in one of the most critical presidential swing states in the country.

“There are concerns for 2020,” Ms. Snover said, questioning whether the paper ballots generated by the same machine that had a digital error could be trusted. “Nothing went right on Election Day. Everything went wrong. That’s a problem.”

Election Day here had been marred by complaints of long lines, glitch-prone touch screens and frustrated poll workers. Voters across the county said the experience further eroded their already shaken confidence in the election process.

the prevailing theory is that the touch screens were plagued by a bug in the software.

The automatic tests in Northampton proved problematic, and did not even cast a test vote for every candidate, according to test receipts shown to The New York Times. But the machines were still rolled out on Election Day.

And instantly, there were problems.

“I walked into my booth, and I knew that I was going to vote straight Democratic and I’m voting that way until we get some balance back into the government, but when I hit straight Democratic, straight Republican is what registered,” said Angela Anderson, 55, of Forks Township, who said that many of her neighbors shared similar stories. “I kind of panicked for a second. But thankfully it easily reset, and I reset my system, and that time it registered Democratic.”

“What would have happened if there was a glitch there that got at a 10 percent or 20 percent undercount?” she said. “That worries me. That worries me going forward.”

The lobbying firm for E.S.&S. had donated $1,000 in 2013 to the campaign of Al Schmidt, one of the city commissioners, and again to a group supporting his re-election effort in 2018. They also spent more than $27,000 in direct lobbying of Mr. Schmidt.

Mr. Schmidt made a visit to only one company’s headquarters: E.S.&S.

In total, E.S.&S. spent more than $425,000 in lobbying expenses related to the City of Philadelphia.

Emails obtained by the city comptroller also found that E.S.&S. had influenced the writing of the city commissioners’ $22 million budget request for new election machines, tilting the process in favor of its machine, the ExpressVoteXL. The city eventually purchased the machines for $29 million in February.

“It showed a very, very flawed process,” said Rebecca Rhynhart, the city controller in Philadelphia. “I want to make sure, and the country should want to make sure, that our voting machines are the best they can be.”

US Investigates Voting Machines’ Venezuela Ties October 2006 https://www.nytimes.com/2006/10/29/washington/29ballot.html https://archive.vn/z0HUx

But the role of the young Venezuelan engineers who founded Smartmatic has become less visible in public documents as the company has been restructured into an elaborate web of offshore companies and foreign trusts

The government should know who owns our voting machines; that is a national security concern,” said Representative Carolyn B. Maloney, Democrat of New York, who asked the Bush administration in May to review the Sequoia takeover.

The Guardian They think they are above the law': the firms that own America's voting system https://www.theguardian.com/us-news/2019/apr/22/us-voting-machine-private-companies-voter-registration

Oregon senator Ron Wyden, in a speech at an election security conference in Washington DC, said that the voting machine lobby “literally thinks they are just above the law, they are accountable to nobody, [and] they have been able to hotwire the political system in certain parts of the country like we’ve seen in Georgia”. Wyden was referring to the fact that Brian Kemp, who is now Georgia’s governor after overseeing his own election while secretary of state, appointed an ES&S lobbyist as his deputy chief of staff. Meanwhile, the state is in the process of purchasing more than $150m in new voting machines.

Why machines are bad at counting votes https://www.theguardian.com/technology/2009/apr/30/e-voting-electronic-polling-systems

Hack the vote: terrifying film shows how vulnerable US elections are https://www.theguardian.com/tv-and-radio/2020/mar/26/kill-chain-hbo-election-hacking-documentary

America's new voting machines bring new fears of election tampering https://www.theguardian.com/us-news/2019/apr/22/us-voting-machines-paper-ballots-2020-hacking

At least two companies that sell the machines, Dominion and Election Systems & Software, combined a BMD, which prints a filled-out ballot, with a scanner, which counts the votes. Large election jurisdictions such as Delaware, New York and Philadelphia are purchasing these “hybrid” systems, which some observers say creates two problems. First, the printer and the scanner share the same paper path. If a voter leaves any races blank – a common practice called undervoting – the machine could in theory autofill those races. Neither the voter nor election administrators would be able to detect the change. Second, the hybrid machines have a feature critics are calling “permission to cheat”. Voters can opt not to review their ballots, meaning that the BMD prints the ballot straight to the scanner and into the lockbox. In such cases, there would be no way to confirm that what the voter intended to vote was actually what was printed and counted.

John Oliver on exploitable voting machines: 'We must fix this' https://www.theguardian.com/culture/2019/nov/04/john-oliver-exploitable-voting-machines

New Yorker “How Voting-Machine Lobbyists Undermine the Democratic Process” https://www.newyorker.com/tech/annals-of-technology/how-voting-machine-lobbyists-undermine-the-democratic-process

Politico Election commission orders top voting machine vendor to correct misleading claims https://www.politico.com/news/2020/08/13/election-voting-machine-misleading-claims-394891

The scramble to secure America’s voting machines https://www.politico.com/interactives/2019/election-security-americas-voting-machines/

Reuters June 2020, Reuters, “Exclusive: Philadelphia’s new voting machines under scrutiny in Tuesday’s elections” https://www.reuters.com/article/us-usa-election-pennsylvania-machines-ex/exclusive-philadelphias-new-voting-machines-under-scrutiny-in-tuesdays-elections-idUSKBN23828J

NBC News Online and vulnerable’: Experts find nearly three dozen U.S. voting systems connected to internet” https://www.nbcnews.com/politics/elections/online-vulnerable-experts-find-nearly-three-dozen-u-s-voting-n1112436

Washington Post The Cybersecurity 202: Lawsuit seeks to force Pennsylvania to scrap these electronic voting machines over hacking fears https://www.washingtonpost.com/news/powerpost/paloma/the-cybersecurity-202/2019/12/13/the-cybersecurity-202-lawsuit-seeks-to-force-pennsylvania-to-scrap-these-electronic-voting-machines-over-hacking-fears/5df27a70602ff125ce5b2fec/

The Hill Voting machines pose a greater threat to our elections than foreign agents https://thehill.com/opinion/technology/464065-voting-machines-pose-a-greater-threat-to-our-elections-than-foreign-agents

Vice Exclusive: Critical U.S. Election Systems Have Been Left Exposed Online Despite Official Denials https://www.vice.com/en_us/article/3kxzk9/exclusive-critical-us-election-systems-have-been-left-exposed-online-despite-official-denials