February 10, 2004

2000 Revisited

MICHIGAN DEMOCRATIC CAUCUSES: Problems anger blacks; Sharpton sends message


The Rev. Al Sharpton's strong showing in Detroit in the Michigan Democratic caucuses sent a warning to U.S. Sen. John Kerry's front-running campaign: Don't take vote-rich Democratic Detroit for granted if he becomes the party's nominee.

On Sunday, in the aftermath of Kerry's commanding Michigan win, some black leaders denounced the state Democratic Party for caucus site screwups Saturday that confused and kept away voters, and called on party cochairman Mark Brewer to resign.

But Detroit Mayor Kwame Kilpatrick said reports of problems were "overblown and crap."

The Rev. Horace Sheffield III, president of the National Action Network Michigan chapter and a Sharpton supporter, led a coalition Sunday demanding Brewer's resignation. Sheffield said the group may go to court to overturn Saturday's results if Brewer doesn't quit.

Will this sort of disarray result in a disputed general election? Maryland's test "hack" of their new e-voter system was not encouraging either.


Md. Voting Machines Vulnerable, Firm Says

The "Red Team" members attacked Maryland's new electronic voting system ruthlessly. They picked locks, yanked on wires, ripped out monitors and hacked into central computers. One agent even slipped a rubber keyboard into his polling booth to do his dirty work.

With cool efficiency, the computer security professionals did what they were hired to do: They gained control of the system, corrupting vote counts and deleting election results.

But the assault on Maryland's new computerized, touch-screen balloting machines, manufactured by Diebold Election Systems Inc., was not real: It had been ordered up by the state Department of Legislative Services, which hired a consulting firm to expose vulnerabilities in voting machines that have become increasingly controversial as the November presidential election approaches.

Maryland has agreed to spend $55.6 million on the machines, which face their first statewide trial in the primary election barely a month away.

Maryland lawmakers learned the results of the attacks in a report issued yesterday by the department and the consulting firm, RABA Technologies LLC. In two hearings, a consultant assured lawmakers the machines would be "worthy of voter trust" in the March 2 primary, but outlined physical weaknesses and electronic vulnerabilities that would allow a determined hacker to corrupt or destroy election results.

Removable memory cards inside the machine can be tampered with if a lock is picked or if one of thousands of keys is stolen. If hackers find the phone number of the central computers used to compile vote totals, they could easily break into the system and tamper with results or introduce worms and viruses, said consultant Michael A. Wertheimer, a former National Security Agency analyst.

"You are more secure buying a book from Amazon than you are uploading your results to a Diebold server," said Wertheimer, recommending several changes to increase security. (emphasis added)

Linda H. Lamone, the administrator of the Maryland State Board of Elections, assured lawmakers that the board would comply with many of the recommendations but said that some of them would be impossible to put in place before the primary.

Should the election be a close as pundits predict, and this level of incompetence is the norm, we are in for a train wreck come November.

Posted by feste at February 10, 2004 11:00 AM | TrackBack
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