GAO reports flaws in electronic voting systems

The Government Auditing Agency has verified that electronic voting machines can be "hacked." Here is an excerpt from what Rep. John conyers said in his dKos diary:

what GAO found: Serious problems were identified regarding the security control system, access controls, hardware controls, and the voter-verified paper audit trail system. Among the security shortcomings identified by GAO:

Some electronic voting systems did not encrypt cast ballots or system audit logs, thus making it possible to alter them without detection.

It is easy to alter a file defining how a ballot appears, making it possible for someone to vote for one candidate and actually be recorded as voting for an entirely different candidate.

Falsifying election results without leaving any evidence of such an action by using altered memory cards.

Access to the voting network was easily compromised because not all digital recording electronic voting systems (DREs) had supervisory functions password-protected, so access to one machine provided access to the whole network.

Supervisory across to the voting network was also compromised by repeated use of the same user IDs combined with easily guessed passwords.

The locks protecting access to the system were easily picked and keys were simple to copy.

One DRE model was shown to have been networked in such a rudimentary fashion that a power failure on one machine would cause the entire network to fail.

GAO identified further problems with the security protocols and background screening practices for vendor personnel.

Republicans are not honest, and Diebold has been a very suspicious company. Odds are the election in Ohio was hacked. Electronic voting systems should not be used. Too vulnerable to hacking without leaving tracks.