WASHINGTON VOTING BY COMPUTER COULD BE COMPRIMISED BY THEFT OF COMPUTERTouch screen voting faulted - The Washington Times: MetropolitanComputer savvy voters could sabotage elections by casting "as many ballots as they want" during a single trip to the voting booth, critics of new touch-screen voting technology warned yesterday.
"We found that a normal voter could walk into a polling place and cast as many votes as they want," said Dan Wallach, a Rice University computer scientist.
"Anybody could make changes to the election tabulation system and there would be no evidence of the tampering," Mr. Wallach said.
The comments by Mr. Wallach came during a press conference by the activist group True Majority yesterday in the District. True Majority announced that it had raised more than $100,000 to support a nationwide campaign to convince state officials that computer voting systems must include a backup paper trail, similar to receipts.
Mr. Wallach said he tested voting systems manufactured by Diebold Election System Inc., an Ohio-based firm, which supplies the machines currently in use in Maryland.
He co-authored a study released in July 2003 that found "common voters without any insider privileges can cast unlimited votes without being detected."
The study authors said if a single computer could be stolen, then it also could be disassembled to determine its code. "An attacker who was able to compromise a single voting device would have access to the keys for all other voting devices running the same software," according to the study authors.
Critics of Diebold and other touch-screen voting manufacturers say for security the machines should be able to print out ballots in the event of tampering or a computer malfunction.