HOW RELIABLE OR FRAUDULENT ARE E-VOTING MACHINES?

A true democratic nation depends on the reliability of its electoral processes for declaring accurate poll results. Electoral fraud is froth with so many dangers, including mass rebellion, ethnic and sectoral violence, violent protests, and the spawning of separatist movements, just to name just a few.

Manual counting of votes is still the most reliable method for arriving at an election result. Even in these wonderful era of Web 2.0 magic, e-voting machines are still largely unreliable.

E-voting machines have lost their credibility - redeemed only by the manual counting option included in such packages to foster the trust of voters,

Since secure e-voting machines have not been delivered so far, the makers of the various types - from optical scanning to digital recording equipment types, with or without printers attached - are the ones being accused of fraud for failing to deliver as promised!

[....A flaw in the optical scan software, for example, enables a hacker to introduce an unofficial memory card into an active terminal before the polls open, according to the report. "This memory card can be preprogrammed to redistribute votes cast for selected candidates on that terminal, including swapping the votes for two candidates," it states.

"The attack can be carried out with low probability of detection, assuming that audit with paper ballots are infrequent and that programmed cards are not detected before use," the report continues.

Another vulnerability could allow a hacker to convert official, activated voter cards into smart cards that would enable ballot-stuffing attacks. "While polling place procedures may mitigate this attack, the attack might evade even rigorous policy enforcement," the report reads....

It may seem as though it is now open season on e-voting machines -- at least to the vendors involved. Earlier this week, researchers at the University of California reported results of a study conducted at the behest of Secretary of State Debra Bowen, detailing numerous vulnerabilities in machines developed by Diebold Elections Systems, Hart InterCivic and Sequoia Voting Systems.

The difference between Florida's study and California's, though, is that Florida was looking at e-machines that produce a paper trail -- now considered mandatory for e-voting security.

Coincidentally, legal experts at the Brennan Center for Justice at NYU School of Law and the Samuelson Law, Technology & Public Policy Clinic at UC Berkeley's Boalt Hall School of Law have just released another report recommending that a count of paper ballots should accompany every election in which e-voting machines -- optical scan or otherwise -- are used....

Ohio has also commissioned a study on the subject, he said.

"What we need to see happen next is election officials holding these companies accountable," Friedman said. "Frankly, I think they -- we- have been defrauded. These companies promised safe machines, and study after study show that they are not."]