E-Voting Doesn’t Get Computer Scientist’s Vote
Rice University Professor Dan Wallach, Director of Rice’s Computer Security Lab, is sounding the alarm bell on our electronic voting systems. Thanks to the alternative Houston weekly, the Houston Press and Aman Batheja at the Star-Telegram.
“If you have enough access to [one computer] to be able to get out a screwdriver and monkey around without anybody looking then what you could do is you could replace the software inside the one voting machine,” he says. (So, if you hear any clanking in the booth next you, please notify an official.) Wallach says it’s more likely it would be a poll worker after or before the election who would get the type of access needed, but once one computer is corrupt, it doesn’t take long for all of them to be.
“There is also no evidence to suggest the absence of an attack like this having been attempted, because if somebody was successful, you’d never know,” he says. “That’s not the sort of thing that gives you warm fuzzies.”
My husband was a ‘Computer Scientist’ too, he’s been telling me for years about this sort of attack and how easy it would be for him to pull off, especially on a county election. He does think a properly architected system could be secure enough and would be feasible to design, if anyone ‘with a clue’ got after the problem.
So, that’s why they don’t let spouses be election judges…
Apparently bad design is not just limited to security of the election. The eSlate design is very confusing when it comes to straight party voting, and during early voting, that is the only option given voters. ‘entering’ your vote for a specific candidate will deselect them. Maybe a 2nd button for ‘don’t vote for this candidate’ other than the ‘enter’ used to cast your vote would have been a better design? Hmm?