Now that election time is getting near, some scientists have been racking their brains to try and figure out how to make voting by computer more accurate and fraud proof. Before I get into this, I just have to say that while computers exist and are a great help to man and are becoming more and more efficient, I think that there will always be some way of tampering with them. It may not always be by altering software either. It could be something as simple as using a magnet to wipe out certain memory, pulling a plug, or even disassembly of some component that is relatively easy to get at. One thing is for sure, any system that is connected to a phone line is a sitting duck, so any system that is used will have to be isolated from outside connections. That means that it can not even have infrared, Blue Tooth, WiFi or any wireless capability of any kind.

Scientists have established something called ACCURATE. That stands for A Center for Correct, Usable, Reliable, Auditable and Transparent Elections. Why do these acronyms have to be so long, they just could have called it something like SAFE, Safe, Accurate and Fair Elections. Hey I like that. This scientific study center was created in 2005, with a grant from the National Science Foundation (NSF) of 7.5 million dollars. The NSF has a project that they have been working on. The emphasis of the project is to make the nation's computer networks as safe as possible, even if they are under cyber attack and the ACCURATE program is part of that. The man that is the head of this project stated that he saw a perceived need for improvements in the computerized voting machines. I think that we all saw that, after reading how they were not accurate sometimes and were easy to tamper with. The difference between him and us is that he was in a position to influence improvements and we are not.

One of the largest companies that was involved in electronic voting with computers was Diebold. Their machines were the subject of a lot of criticism. The company changed their name to Premier Election Solutions. Did this have anything to do with all the bad press? Some places actually discarded their Diebold equipment, such as Cuyahoga County. The county said that it had problems with the November election in which the machines were used. Law suits may fly on both sides. When a law professor and associate director of election law at Ohio State University was asked why the company would sue, he stated, "Rather than waiting, they go into court pre-emptively." Diebold now known as Premier Election Solutions, has denied that there are any significant flaws in their voting system. Several countries around the world are now using systems that gather votes and run them through one computer to get a tally.

The NSF project found that a more inclusive study was needed to determine how all the parts of the voting system integrate into the whole. What they have done is bring experts together from all over the country. These experts were chosen for their various disciplines. These disciplines fit all the various parts of the project. An example of this is that some experts are proficient in systems level problems. In other words, the computer and software. Another group are experts in cryptology, which is used for voting security. Part of this would be being able to identify the voter as the correct person. Others concentrate on making the voting process as simple as they can make it. Often times there is confusion, especially among older voters who have no computer experience. Not only have the voting systems been put under extreme scrutiny, but software tools have been developed to help localities find vulnerabilities in their systems. One of the tools is known as AttackDog, it is a threat modeling system. The way that this software works, is that it creates over 9,000 ways the system can be attacked. It even takes into consideration counter measures. The program can be modified to include newly discovered potential attacks. It is said that the program uses computers to understand problems that are too complicated for humans to readily understand.

ACCURATE is proud of it's partnerships with state and local governments. It even has several state officials from all over the country on it's board. The current project that ACCURATE is working on, is a system that has an easily verifiable security system. I didn't think that something like this could exist, because I had assumed that you could always fool a computer into thinking that there was no risk by including certain directives in the hacking software. Just look at the best of the anti-virus programs. Even they can get fooled once in a while. This reminds me of the time, when the military stated that their codes that guarded our nuclear weapons were impossible to break and a famous code breaker challenged them. They took him on and he retired to a hotel room with nothing more than an Apple laptop. He broke the nuclear codes in a few days. This is one of the reasons that I can not believe that any computer system is 100% verifiable

I think that the system the NSF is working on will be a great help to us during voting, I just don't think that any computer system, no matter how sophisticated, can ever guarantee a fool proof election. I think it all depends on how many people are thrown against the system and how good their tools and brains are. If there is a phone hook up anywhere in the system, then the system is vulnerable. If this is the case and some country wanted to influence our elections, isn't it reasonable to think that they might launch a cyber attack against the system? With all these resources, the chances of success are greatly increased. If there is no phone connections and no wireless connections, there is still electronic storage inside the machine that may be vulnerable to various magnetic forces. Even the case that holds the computer may be able to be breached. Will we have to set up magnetometers and strip search voters before they enter the booth to ensure that they aren't carrying anything that can alter an election by tampering with a computer?

Look at it this way. Someone goes into an area that is known for supporting a certain candidate. They are carrying a powerful magnet. They gain access to the voting booth, or maybe even later to the computer and use the magnet to wipe out all the votes on the hard drive. How are we going to prevent that? Even if they get caught, the votes are gone forever. The only way that I know of to back up the votes somewhere else and not on the same machine, involves the use of a telephone line, which again could be an entry point for hackers. Probably the best way to vote is by putting an X in a box on a paper ballot, but even that has problems. We have had our problems with the mechanical pull tab type machines, but they have mostly served us well. Maybe computers are not the answer to our voting problems, maybe the answer is that every locality get the pull tab machines? At least with them there are no hanging chads and every vote is counted, without using a computer. Hey computers are not the answer to every problem.