Wired has two articles worth reading on e-voting machines and the security issues (specifically, the frightening lack of any) involved with them.
Swarthmore College students embroiled in a legal battle against voting machine-maker Diebold Election Systems have received a ground swell of support from universities and colleges nationwide.
The memos suggest the company knew about security problems with its voting machines long before it sold the machines to various states, including California, Georgia and, most recently, Maryland. The memos have popped up on numerous websites since August, despite attempts by Diebold to force ISPs and webmasters to remove them from the Internet.
Software used by an electronic voting system manufactured by Sequoia Voting Systems has been left unprotected on a publicly available server, raising concerns about the possibility of vote tampering in future elections.
The security breach means that anyone with a minimal amount of technical knowledge could see how the code works and potentially exploit it. According to a computer programmer who discovered the unprotected server, the files also contain Visual Basic script and code for voting system databases that could allow someone to learn how to rig voting results. The programmer spoke on condition of anonymity.
Electronic voting can be more secure and accurate than the systems that we’ve had such trouble with over the past few years, but only if the companies can be trusted, the systems are verified secure by a third-party review, and if there’s an additional printed “receipt” that can be tallied in case of recounts. The security breaches and known vulnerabilities of the current E-voting systems make it clear that in their present state, they cannot be trusted — and I, for one, would greatly prefer it if I could be sure that my vote in 2004 goes to the candidate I intend it to.
You want fair and free elections? Go to France! </sarcasm>