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Allegheny County Pittsburgh Voting Machines have many serious security flaws
Security flaws with the technology, unguarded machines and election judges with criminal backgrounds! And county government aka Dan ILongToBeGovernor Onorato won't do anything without federal and state handouts. What has really changed in Allegheny County?
http://www.thepittsburghchannel.com/news/15245889/detail.html
quotes from the article (check the link for the whole story)
"We'll do everything we have to do to make sure the vote is secure and accurate," said Allegheny County Chief Executive Dan Onorato.
But Team 4 found the doors to the warehouse where voting machines are stored wide open on several warm days. The county has installed security cameras over those doors, but a door in the back is not being monitored. It leads to a private company, whose employees often come and go, and that company sometimes leaves its loading dock door wide open.
...
People are watching over not just the Ivotronic voting machines but also the brains of those machines, which are cartridges known as "personalized electronic ballot" or "PEBs." If you get your hands on a PEB, experts said, you might be able to alter an election.
And here's something that hasn't been reported before. Last year, Allegheny County lost three of its PEBs.
"A judge of election in Mount Lebanon thought he returned them, but he never did," said Wolosik. "And we have never found them."
Here's another security problem. A week before each election, Allegheny County sends all of its electronic voting machines from the warehouse to hundreds of schools, churches and other polling places, where they sit, often open to the public. "It would be virtually impossible for us to have all 1,321 machines under 24-hour-a-day guard," said Wolosik.
So, what's the county's solution? It's a plastic, color-coded tie.
"They're sort of sealed in the sense that there's a little plastic zip tie thing with a number on it," said Dr. David Eckhardt of Carnegie Mellon University. "But that wouldn't defeat anyone motivated."
"Couple of screwdrivers and a little experience, and you can pop the seals and alter the machines," said Lynch.
... a December Penn State University study found a half dozen security flaws with the machine, including the ability to use a palm pilot to hijack the voting machine by fooling it into thinking that the palm pilot is actually the PEB cartridge. The study warns that "the ability to emulate a PEB enables a wide range of serious poll worker and voter attacks."
Team 4 found 13 judges of election, the bosses at polling places, who have criminal convictions.
"There are specific prohibitions where you cannot be an election officer, and being convicted of a crime is not one of them," said Wolosik.
Maybe not in the election code, but Pennsylvania's constitution says, "No person convicted of ... an infamous crime, shall be ... capable of holding any office of trust."
An Allegheny County Council advisory panel has issued a report, calling on the county to scrap the Ivotronic machines and replace them with electronic machines that also create a paper record, like ATMs.
Indiana County uses a machine that does both. But Onorato said he wouldn’t do that unless the federal or state government agrees to pay for it.
[what:pittsburgh,reform,us,city,state,machines,voting,problems,issues,security,concerns,council,politics,political,primary,open,primaries,pa,riders,waste,accountable,govt,government,local,news,national,congress]
[where:pittsburgh,pa]
[category:news,politics]
