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> Hacking voting machines to a significant extent would require a team of people, not just one guy, which dramatically increases the risk of exposure As someon

> Hacking voting machines to a significant extent would require a team of people, not just one guy, which dramatically increases the risk of exposure As someone else points out, you don't need to hack the whole country, just some key locations. Also, you could hack the source; many firewalls from a major vendor had (have?) security holes because someone checked the necessary code into their revision control system. How secure is Diebold or whoever makes the machines? > The reported vote count is usually very close to the predicted vote count Suprise results, where the outcome doesn't match the polls, are not that rare. Recently Sanders' win in Michigan is an example. In the UK, in the last parliamentary election, I believe the conservatives did much better than polls predicted. > always very close to exit polling results If true, this is a useful check. > hacking could not be used to create a very close result that could trigger a recount, or it would need to be combined with actual ballot theft That assumes there are ballots to steal; many voting machines are electronic.

burkaman 11y ago
Diebold-like machines are not used very much anymore, I think because of all the controversy over how easily they can be hacked. Most of the country uses paper ballots that are counted by machine. Yes, polls can be wrong, but I think exit polls are rarely wrong. Another comment pointed out these can be wrong too though, so this might not be a useful point. Yes, as I mentioned in another comment, if you want to hack a real election you need to take a long-term view and make electronic voting widespread.
- hackuser 11y ago
  > Most of the country uses paper ballots that are counted by machine. I'm not aware of this. Are you sure? Do you have any point of reference?
  - burkaman 11y ago
    No, I'm not completely sure. Here's a potential reference: https://ballotpedia.org/Voting_equipment_by_state https://ballotpedia.org/Voting_equipment_by_state I will try to do more research tomorrow, because this is quite interesting to me. I voted with a paper ballot that I fed into a machine, and at the time I assumed this was the standard. Now I'm not sure.
  - ams6110 11y ago
    Local elections where I live (central USA) went from mechanical voting machines to electronic and recently back to paper ballots.
- SocksCanClose 11y ago
  > Most of the country uses paper ballots that are counted by machine. This machine then is the target, no?
  - burkaman 11y ago
    Of course, but then it's much harder to secretly hack a machine when there are paper records to back it up. You need to tamper with the paper records, or be careful to only hack the machine in such a way that the paper records would not obviously prove fraud.

burkaman 11y ago

Diebold-like machines are not used very much anymore, I think because of all the controversy over how easily they can be hacked. Most of the country uses paper ballots that are counted by machine. Yes, polls can be wrong, but I think exit polls are rarely wrong. Another comment pointed out these can be wrong too though, so this might not be a useful point. Yes, as I mentioned in another comment, if you want to hack a real election you need to take a long-term view and make electronic voting widespread.

hackuser 11y ago
> Most of the country uses paper ballots that are counted by machine. I'm not aware of this. Are you sure? Do you have any point of reference?
- burkaman 11y ago
  No, I'm not completely sure. Here's a potential reference: https://ballotpedia.org/Voting_equipment_by_state https://ballotpedia.org/Voting_equipment_by_state I will try to do more research tomorrow, because this is quite interesting to me. I voted with a paper ballot that I fed into a machine, and at the time I assumed this was the standard. Now I'm not sure.
- ams6110 11y ago
  Local elections where I live (central USA) went from mechanical voting machines to electronic and recently back to paper ballots.
SocksCanClose 11y ago
> Most of the country uses paper ballots that are counted by machine. This machine then is the target, no?
- burkaman 11y ago
  Of course, but then it's much harder to secretly hack a machine when there are paper records to back it up. You need to tamper with the paper records, or be careful to only hack the machine in such a way that the paper records would not obviously prove fraud.