Rigging an election

[Judy G. Russell]

Just how hard would it be to rig an election?

To determine what it would take to hack a U.S. election, a team of cybersecurity experts turned to a fictional battleground state called Pennasota and a fictional gubernatorial race between Tom Jefferson and Johnny Adams. It's the year 2007, and the state uses electronic voting machines.

Jefferson was forecast to win the race by about 80,000 votes, or 2.3 percent of the vote. Adams's conspirators thought, "How easily can we manipulate the election results?"

The experts thought about all the ways to do it. And they concluded in a report issued yesterday that it would take only one person, with a sophisticated technical knowledge and timely access to the software that runs the voting machines, to change the outcome.
The whole story (http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/content/article/2006/06/27/AR2006062701451.html?nav=hcmoduletmv) in the Washington Post.

[ndebord]

Just how hard would it be to rig an election?


The whole story (http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/content/article/2006/06/27/AR2006062701451.html?nav=hcmoduletmv) in the Washington Post.

Judy,

I can see it now. "Surprise write-in candidate wins 2008 Presidential contest."

Pundits were confounded when neither Hillary Clinton (the Democratic candidate) nor John McCain (the Republican Candidate) won the 2008 Presidency. Each official candidate received exactly 33% of the vote, tied for second place behind the write-in candidate, Jeb Bush, who garnered 34% of the vote. Polling experts from Fox News said that it was clear that the voters were in a nostalgic mood and wanted yet another Bush to run the country.

Only former sports reporter Keith Olbermann at MSNBC wondered how such a large percentage of the voting public could come together undetected and vote for one man. And longtime political watchers wearily said they were "shocked, shocked to discover that electronic voting machines might have flaws."

[Judy G. Russell]

And longtime political watchers wearily said they were "shocked, shocked to discover that electronic voting machines might have flaws."And mainstream media were horrified...