From a report by CBS News “Will the 2012 elections reflect the will of the American people?
That question seems increasingly relevant today in the wake of a new report suggesting many Americans will have a harder time casting ballots next year – and a finding last week that voting machines can be hacked with “just $10.50 in parts and an 8th grade science education.”
There is no federal agency with regulatory authority or oversight of the U.S. voting machine industry. Lynn Landes, in the Landes report states “that there is no government oversight of our elections, or the elections equipment industry:
“There are no government standards or restrictions on who can sell and service voting machines and systems. Foreigners, convicted criminals, office holders, political candidates, and news media organizations can and do own these companies. . . Many voting machine companies appear to share managers, investors, and equipment which raises questions of conflict-of-interest and monopolistic practices. “
Aviel Rubin, PhD, Technical Director at the Johns Hopkins University Information Security Institute in their technical report “Analysis of an Electronic Voting System” in the Johns Hopkins University Information Security Institute Technical Paper, stated: “We also saw no evidence of any change-control process [the management process for requesting, reviewing, approving, carrying out and controlling changes to a software product] that might restrict a developer’s ability to insert arbitrary patches to the code. Absent such processes, a malevolent developer could easily make changes to the code that would create vulnerabilities to be later exploited on Election Day.”
When America last voted in a presidential election, 80% of those votes were counted by 2 companies; Diebold and ES&S. The vice-president of Diebold and the president of ES&S are brothers. Diebold Inc. sold its US election-systems business to Election Systems & Software Inc. on Sep. 3, 2009. Following the sale, Election Systems & Software Inc. controlled over three-quarters of the voting machine market. They have new easy to use touch screen voting machines that have no paper trail of any votes. Without a paper trail, how do you ascertain that the voting information coming out of the machine is the same as what was actually entered by voters.
Another voting machine manufacturer, Sequoia is partly owned by Saudi and Venezuelan investors. Saudi Arabia is the country that the 9/11 hijackers came from. Venezuela gifted us with Hugo Chavez, who just loves us. Why have we allowed these countries to have a potential say in our elections?
Source: Commondreams.Com
CBS News
Opednews.com
Counttheballots.org
Landesreport
