AP: US elections still vulnerable to rigging, disruption

["Dave Farber" <farber () gmail com>]

Begin forwarded message:

> From: Barbara Simons <simons () acm org>
> Date: December 26, 2016 at 3:21:33 PM EST
> To: Dave Farber <dave () farber net>
> Subject: AP: US elections still vulnerable to rigging, disruption
> Reply-To: simons () acm org
>
> Hi, Dave.  This is an excellent article describing how broken our voting systems are.
> Regards,
> Barbara
>
> https://apnews.com/bbd71f3421594fb98f3c68cbc026bdf5
>
> AP Top News
> By MICHAEL RUBINKAM and FRANK BAJAK
> December 26, 2016
> US elections still vulnerable to rigging, disruption
>
> ALLENTOWN, Pa. (AP) — Jill Stein's bid to recount votes in Pennsylvania was in trouble even before a federal judge 
> shot it down Dec. 12. That's because the Green Party candidate's effort stood almost no chance of detecting potential 
> fraud or error in the vote — there was basically nothing to recount.
>
> Pennsylvania is one of 11 states where the majority of voters use antiquated machines that store votes 
> electronically, without printed ballots or other paper-based backups that could be used to double-check the 
> balloting. There's almost no way to know if they've accurately recorded individual votes — or if anyone tampered with 
> the count.
>
> More than 80 percent of Pennsylvanians who voted Nov. 8 cast their ballots on such machines, according to VotePA, a 
> nonprofit seeking their replacement. A recount would, in the words of VotePA's Marybeth Kuznik, a veteran election 
> judge, essentially amount to this: "You go to the computer and you say, 'OK, computer, you counted this a 
> week-and-a-half ago. Were you right the first time?'"
>
> These paperless digital voting machines, used by roughly 1 in 5 U.S. voters last month, present one of the most 
> glaring dangers to the security of the rickety, underfunded U.S. election system. Like many electronic voting 
> machines, they are vulnerable to hacking. But other machines typically leave a paper trail that could be manually 
> checked. The paperless digital machines open the door to potential election rigging that might not ever be detected.
>
> What's more, their prevalence magnifies other risks in the election system, such as the possibility that hackers 
> might compromise the computers that tally votes, by making failures or attacks harder to catch. And like other voting 
> machines adopted since the 2000 election, the paperless systems are nearing the end of their useful life — yet there 
> is no comprehensive plan to replace them.
>
> "If I were going to hack this election, I would go for the paperless machines because they are so hard to check," 
> said Barbara Simons, a former IBM executive and co-author of "Broken Ballots," a history of the unlearned lessons of 
> flawed U.S. voting technology.
>
> FRAUD AND THE U.S. VOTING SYSTEM
>
> Although Stein premised her recount effort on the need to ensure that the 2016 election wasn't tainted by hacking or 
> fraud, there's no evidence of either so far — a fact federal judge Paul Diamond cited prominently in his decision 
> halting the Pennsylvania recount . "Suspicion of a 'hacked' Pennsylvania election borders on the irrational," the 
> judge wrote in his opinion.
>
> Stein also pursued recounts in Wisconsin and Michigan, to little avail. Those states use more reliable paper-based 
> voting technologies. (The Electoral College certified Republican Donald Trump's presidential victory last week.)
>
> But a cadre of computer scientists from major universities backed Stein's recounts to underscore the vulnerability of 
> U.S. elections. These researchers have been successfully hacking e-voting machines for more than a decade in tests 
> commissioned by New York, California, Ohio and other states.
>
> Stein and her witnesses said their fraud concerns were justified given U.S. charges that Russia meddled in the 2016 
> presidential campaign. Emails of top Democrats were hacked and leaked in what U.S. intelligence officials called 
> Russian subterfuge against Democrat Hillary Clinton. Over the summer, hackers also tried to breach the voter 
> registration databases of Arizona and Illinois using Russian-based servers, U.S. officials said. Election networks in 
> at least 20 states were probed for vulnerabilities.
>
> "It's a target-rich environment," said Rice University computer scientist Dan Wallach. Researchers would like to see 
> the U.S. move entirely to computer-scannable paper ballots, since paper can't be hacked. Many advanced democracies 
> require paper ballots, including Germany, Britain, Japan and Singapore.
>
> Green Party lawyers seeking the Pennsylvania recount called the state's election system "a national disgrace" in a 
> federal lawsuit, noting that many states outlaw paperless voting. They asked a judge to order a forensic examination 
> of a sampling of the electronic machines, saying that's the only way to know for sure that votes weren't altered.
>
> That would involve examination of all of the systems involved in the election — voting-machine computer chips and 
> memory cards that store operating software and ballots, the computers that program the ballots, and even the machine 
> vendors' source code — to detect any "bugs, holes or back doors" a hacker could have exploited, said Daniel Lopresti, 
> chairman of the Lehigh University computer-science department.
>
> But forensic analyses aren't foolproof, especially if hackers were good at covering their tracks. "What you're hoping 
> for is some evidence that was left, some degree of clumsiness or carelessness, a belief by the individual that we 
> won't dig quite that deep," Lopresti said.
>
> PENNSYLVANIA: A PERFECT TARGET
>
> The U.S. voting system — a loosely regulated, locally managed patchwork of more than 3,000 jurisdictions overseen by 
> the states — employs more than two dozen types of machinery from 15 manufacturers. Elections officials across the 
> nation say they take great care to secure their machines from tampering. They are locked away when not in use and 
> sealed to prevent tampering.
>
> All that makes national elections very difficult to steal without getting caught. "It would take a 'large conspiracy' 
> to hack the results of a presidential election," said Kay Stimson, speaking for the National Association of 
> Secretaries of State.
>
> But difficult is not impossible. Wallach and his colleagues believe a crafty team of pros could strike surgically, 
> focusing on select counties in a few battleground states where "a small nudge might be decisive," he said.
>
> As a battleground state with paperless voting machines, Pennsylvania is a perfect candidate. In affidavits for the 
> recount, computer scientist J. Alex Halderman of the University of Michigan laid out how attackers could conduct a 
> successful hack:
>
> —Probe election offices well in advance to determine how to break into computers.
>
> —After identifying battleground states, infect voting machines in targeted counties with malware that would shift a 
> small percentage of the vote to a desired candidate.
>
> —After silently altering electronic tallies, erase digital tracks to leave no trace.
>
> Just because the machines aren't on the internet doesn't mean they can't be hacked. Election workers could be duped 
> or bribed into installing malware that sat dormant until Election Day. Locks could be picked to gain access to the 
> machines, seals compromised with razor blades and acetone.
>
> Studies by Halderman, Wallach and others proved years ago that it's possible to infect voting machines in an entire 
> precinct via the compact flash cards used to load electronic ballots.
>
> An infected machine "could do anything you can imagine," said Wallach. "It could flip votes from one candidate to 
> another. It could delete votes. It could cast write-in votes for Mickey Mouse for president."
>
>
> [snip]
> ____
>
> Bajak reported from Houston. Associated Press writers Tami Abdollah in Washington and Adrian Sainz in Memphis, 
> Tennessee, contributed to this report.



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