By Ron Lowe Santa Monica
Electronic balloting is as vulnerable and easily hacked today as it was in the 2000, 2002 and 2004 elections. It was no accident that (President) Bush and religious right-wingers and anti-abortionists swept into power and took control of Congress and the White House after the above three elections. There is a reason Americans have had a foul taste in their mouth since Bush took office.
In a test, state-sanctioned teams (California) of computer hackers were able to break through the security of virtually every model of voting machine and change results or take control of some of the systems’ electronic functions. The researchers “were able to bypass physical and software security in every machine they tested; alter vote totals and delete audit trails.” Machines were from the firms of Diebold, Sequoia and Hart — fundamentalist-linked Election Systems and Software was a no-show.
Are you still one of the millions of Americans in denial that think no one would dare to compromise America’s new electronic voting system? What is Congress doing to ensure that electronic balloting isn’t compromised in 2008?
Originally published in the Santa Monica Daily Press print edition on August 2, 2007. Read the original PDF.