‘voting machines can be hacked by remote control’

Brad Friedman (Salon): ….. Voting machines used by as many as a quarter of American voters heading to the polls in 2012 can be hacked with just $10.50 in parts and an 8th grade science education …. experts say the newly developed hack could change voting results while leaving absolutely no trace of the manipulation behind.

The new findings echo long-ignored concerns about e-voting vulnerabilities  ….. “This is a national security issue,” says Roger Johnston, leader of the Vulnerability Assessment Team at Argonne National Laboratory in Illinois. “It should really be handled by the Department of Homeland Security.”

…. Almost all voters in states like Georgia, Maryland, Utah and Nevada, and the majority of voters in New Jersey, Pennsylvania, Indiana and Texas, will vote on DREs on Election Day in 2012 … Voters in major municipalities such as Houston, Atlanta, Chicago and Pittsburgh will also use DREs of the type hacked by the Argonne National Lab.

…. In what John Warner (VAT) describes as “probably the most relevant attack for vote tampering,” the intruder would allow the voter to make his or her selections but when the voter actually attempts to push the Vote Now button, which records the voter’s final selections to the system’s memory card, he says, “we will simply intercept that attempt …. change a few of the votes,” and the changed votes would then be registered in the machine…..

Full article here

Thanks Tally – this is scary as hell.