8 ms·

Leaked voting machine BIOS passwords may implicate Q-friendly county clerk

94 points by codezero 5y ago

encryptluks2 5y ago
I'm not a fan of Trump, and I think most of the election claims are frivolous, but I do think the closed-source nature of the voting systems and centralized nature used to collect vote counts is alarming. I think it is a case of one side that had the power to bring transparency to the voting process is crying foul, while the other side is using every opportunity to say look... this non-transparent voting process is totally secure. In either case, the people end up being fools for allowing democracy to be ran by crooks on both sides always pointing fingers in the opposite direction.
- buu700 5y ago
  I was with you until this somehow turned into "both sides are equally bad". We should absolutely push for greater transparency and verifiability into the internals of such critical infrastructure. The fact that one side has not prioritized this isn't similar to the other side's repeated attempts to overthrow our government.
  - TechBro8615 5y ago
    Wait, which side are you talking about? Is it the same side that’s been pushing election security bills with the most basic attempts to improve security of elections? We don’t even need security – we need confidence. And this recent idea that it takes weeks to count votes, that we might not know the results for weeks – is completely unacceptable and is already doing irreparable damage to people’s faith in elections.
    - amanaplanacanal 5y ago
      Is that really a recent thing though? Or has it always taken some places weeks to count votes, just not in close states?
      - HWR_14 5y ago
        It's recent because of the huge amount of write in ballots. Usually the winner is called the night of because they* just ignore the mail in numbers, even in battleground states. This year, there were too many (and they were too different a population from the in person ballots) to do that. * "They" meaning the news media. The official vote took longer and counted the mail in ballots
        amanaplanacanal 5y ago
        Ah yes, COVID. And then some states passed laws that the mail in ballots couldn't start being counted until after election day.
    - HWR_14 5y ago
      > this recent idea that it takes weeks to count votes, that we might not know the results for weeks – is completely unacceptable Why on earth would that be? The "counting period" was originally set at 5 weeks. Between laws saying that you cannot start counting mail in ballots before the close of polls on election day, laws that (rightly) limit how many hours that can be spent counting ballots, etc. I'm not sure how to square that with instant results. Maybe we just be patient counting the scores in a contest that takes 18 months to run?
      - TechBro8615 5y ago
        You have a super computer in your pocket. There is no reason counting votes should take any longer than it takes to receive them.
        HWR_14 5y ago
        You want to trust democracy to OCR? Heck, there are lawsuits where humans disagree. But, even if you ignore that two individuals (or three) representing all the candidates each count by hand a stack of ten, have to agree, sign off that they agree, etc. I think you underestimate other problems. You're focused on the counting. Just consider how long it takes to open the outer envelope, check the signature on the inner envelope (again, by multiple people who represent different campaigns), and physically remove and unfold that sheet of paper. Now multiply by several million. Add in some extra time for managing stack of ten ballots. Or, to put it another way, we don't vote with a phone app. We are willing to pay extra for security.
        dillondoyle 5y ago
        Addition is fast. Opening ballots, verifying signatures, checking voter is legit, and then marking it all down takes time. Especially when bound by law to not open envelopes until 7pm eday.
        TechBro8615 5y ago
        On another thread here, someone was explaining to me that mail-in ballots are separated from their provenance by design. So what exactly are these election workers spending hours doing to “verify signatures” and “check voter is legit?”
    - thinkcontext 5y ago
      Is this a joke? The side that was chasing after nonsense like Italian satellites, bamboo fibers, etc and firing AGs that wouldn't play ball is the side that is seeking to instill confidence?! Its a good thing that side has now been busy changing laws to allow themselves to overrule election results, I know that instills confidence in me.
      - TechBro8615 5y ago
        I can point to examples of clowns on the blue team too. This logical fallacy of “crazy by association” seems to be an increasingly popular trend in online political discussion. I wonder how many people simply choose not to engage.
        thinkcontext 5y ago
        Except that your Italian satellite clowns are the ones in control of your party and are purging anyone who doesn't toe the clown line from it.
        TechBro8615 5y ago
        By “purging,” do you mean that the red team is banning people they disagree with from speaking on the websites they own? And I honestly don’t even know who you’re talking about but I assume it’s the pillow/pcap guy. Have you heard about the president’s son, or the New York governor, or the speaker of the house who moonlights as a prolific stock trader? Good people are not leading us.
        thinkcontext 5y ago
        Trump is the leader of your party. He is the one that had Meadows send Italian satellites to DOJ and all the other nonsense. He is the one that axed Barr after Barr said there was no evidence to support the crazy that Trump was spewing. He's the one purging people from your party that speak out against this insanity. Your other whataboutisms are weak sauce compared with this. In particular the Cuomo one is not good for you, he's out, while your party continues to embrace the p**y grabber that has a higher harassment allegation count.
  - getlawgdon 5y ago
    Thank you SO much for this. The false equivalency fallacy is part of the problem. The misdeeds on the sides are absolutely asymmetrical.
  - TeeMassive 5y ago
    > the other side's repeated attempts to overthrow our government. Are you talking about Russia or the Federalist Society SCOTUS picks or the rioters who were let in by the few security guards remaining after the Capitol security was lowered or the Big Tech services that should be declared as political donations but aren't?
    - buu700 5y ago
      To be more specific, I was referring to: * USPS sabotage and state-level voter suppression measures in urban areas leading up to the 2020 election * Post-election soft coup attempt via the courts (including having broken precedent to rush a SCOTUS appointment during the election, which could have changed the outcome of the coup attempt in a different timeline) * 1/6 * Ongoing propagation of the "big lie" and scheming to overturn the election (https://news.yahoo.com/bizarre-seven-point-plan-reinstate-142526805.html https://news.yahoo.com/bizarre-seven-point-plan-reinstate-14...), alongside continuing implementation of state-level voter suppression measures and gerrymandering
      - TeeMassive 5y ago
        > * USPS sabotage and state-level voter suppression measures in urban areas leading up to the 2020 election This is implying that default mail-in voting was a way to get Democrats elected in the first place. (which it was given how mail-in voting was the source of the Democrats advance when they arrived) > Post-election soft coup attempt via the courts Challenging elections integrity in the courts are what insure the process is transparent and followed in the first place. This makes no sense by definition. Just because a SCOTUS nominee was nominated just before doesn't change anything and is still entirely within the Constitution. Because Democrats got unlucky on the retirement / death draw during this presidency doesn't mean a "coup". And by the way, it happened before. > 1/6 Not a coup by any stretch of the imagination (no weapons) and barely a riot given the lack of destruction and violence. Also why leave out how security was reduced, that the FBI had informants and that Trump even proposed to increase security? > Ongoing propagation of the "big lie" I get it that you are not familiar with Bush v. Gore and how it was the big rig for years? > and scheming to overturn the election (https://news.yahoo.com/bizarre-seven-point-plan-reinstate-14 https://news.yahoo.com/bizarre-seven-point-plan-reinstate-14...) It's easy to pick a random clown in a camp and then zoom 1000x to paint a bad picture: "The cards, featuring a seven-point plan, appear to have been made by a group called Patriots Soar, which is not connected to the organisers of CPAC" > alongside continuing implementation of state-level voter suppression measures and gerrymandering Gerrymandering happens in blue districts too by the way, can can only do so much (elections results still mostly 50/50 percentage wise). And the "voter suppression" are a joke when you read the details of them since the measures being implemented are the same that are found in Canada (showing ID with proof of your address, registering to vote, having a reason to vote by mail, which used to be a Democrat talking point during the Bush/Obama years by the way).
  - lettergram 5y ago
    You do realize, both sides are claiming the other is trying to overthrow the government, right? Both have, in my view, reasonable arguments on why they feel that way. Try to zoom out and look at your comment from the 3rd person view. The right believes the left stole an election (coup), they believe they have evidence to prove it. The left saw Jan 6 on the corporate news and believes they have the evidence to prove Trump attempted to seize government. Note, none of the people charged for Jan 6 was for sedition. So the evidence really isn't there either. If you take a step back and try to see both perspectives, perhaps it's possible to relate again.
    - buu700 5y ago
      Sure both sides are claiming it, but only one side is correct. On the right, we have: * USPS sabotage and state-level voter suppression measures in urban areas leading up to the 2020 election * Post-election soft coup attempt via the courts (including having broken precedent to rush a SCOTUS appointment during the election, which could have changed the outcome of the coup attempt in a different timeline) * 1/6 * Ongoing propagation of the "big lie" and scheming to overturn the election (https://news.yahoo.com/bizarre-seven-point-plan-reinstate-142526805.html https://news.yahoo.com/bizarre-seven-point-plan-reinstate-14...), alongside continuing implementation of state-level voter suppression measures and gerrymandering And the left has: * Failed to advocate for open source voting systems (which isn't a widely known or politically relevant issue on either side at present) * Pushed for stronger voting rights and increased voter participation — both uncontroversially positive properties of a democracy, but also happen to benefit the Democratic Party at the current moment * Proposed measures in the For the People Act that were arguably overly ambitious or aggressive in the current political environment, such as stricter campaign finance regulations, which were promptly renegotiated within their own party ranks To frame these as comparable is borderline gaslighting.
      - lettergram 5y ago
        It’s frankly exhausting to have discussions when both sides live in their own worlds. You sound arrogant, “only one side is correct and it’s my side” Every day I switch between msnbc, nbc, warroom.org, breaking points, Ben Shapiro and Tim pool. Probably ~6-8hrs a day I listen to content at double speed (while doing other stuff). Every single one has their own take, but just to get you up-to-date with what the right believes: * BLM and Antifa caused billions in damages. Harassing or attacking everyone who disagreed with ideology (they were coming to senators homes) * in some places this is leading to the reintroduction of segregation https://atlantablackstar.com/2021/08/10/it-was-just-disbelief-parent-files-complaint-against-atlanta-elementary-school-after-learning-the-principal-segregated-students-based-on-race/ https://atlantablackstar.com/2021/08/10/it-was-just-disbelie... * FBI spied on trump on Clinton and Obama’s behalf. Utilizing a known fabricated document (fabricated to keep business with the Clinton foundation - see uranium one): https://justthenews.com/accountability/russia-and-ukraine-scandals/first-declassified-russia-document-steeles-confessional https://justthenews.com/accountability/russia-and-ukraine-sc... * election laws were changed last minute, broken among other things to effect a coup and they brag about it: https://time.com/5936036/secret-2020-election-campaign/ https://time.com/5936036/secret-2020-election-campaign/ * more people voted in 2020 than were registered in 2016 or 2018. With a 93% then out rate. https://www.statista.com/statistics/273743/number-of-registered-voters-in-the-united-states/ https://www.statista.com/statistics/273743/number-of-registe... * here’s a couple video explaining some of their concerns about the election https://rumble.com/vkyxju-retired-u.s.-army-colonel-phil-waldron-your-wake-up-call.html https://rumble.com/vkyxju-retired-u.s.-army-colonel-phil-wal... https://rumble.com/vkyzgb-mike-lindell-cyber-symposium-dr.-douglas-g-frank.html https://rumble.com/vkyzgb-mike-lindell-cyber-symposium-dr.-d... The list goes on and on...
- Overton-Window 5y ago
  The party that insists voter IDs are racist, is the same party championing mandatory ID to shop, work, and participate in society.
  - shigawire 5y ago
    False equivalence.
    - gruez 5y ago
      How so? Is it just because "pandemic"?
      - zarzavat 5y ago
        The pandemic is an exercise in trading rights for lives. More rights leads to more deaths and vice versa. You can make a case that society should choose any particular point on that spectrum but the spectrum exists regardless.
    - thehappypm 5y ago
      How so? This is actually a really interesting take—either be the “papers please” people or don’t be.
      - jjoonathan 5y ago
        You have to register to vote and link your vote to your registration. The vaccine-card equivalent of Republican Voter ID requirements would be mandating that everyone present a vaccine card before being allowed to vote with the intent of discouraging eligible Republican voters. The equivalent of present-day pollbooth security in vaccine-card form would be requiring people to associate themselves with an official vaccine record before shopping / working / etc. You wouldn't have to present an ID on the spot, but the records would be checked to look for two people claiming the same vaccination record, someone trying to claim a record that didn't exist, etc. Discrepancies would be investigated and if you were found to have fraudulently represented your vaccination status you'd be in trouble.
- shigawire 5y ago
  Machines have paper audits no?
  - Miner49er 5y ago
    Not in some states.
    - adrr 5y ago
      None of the big lie states have paperless voting machines. Eg: Georgia prints out an actual ballot for the voter.
  - TechBro8615 5y ago
    What good is a paper audit when the ballots can be mixed with boxes of “mail-in votes” that ultimately get separated from their envelopes, breaking their chain of provenance? You can keep counting them, and the count will match each time, but can you verify that each ballot you’re counting originated from exactly one registered voter? If you think this is evidence of a secure election, I have an unpickable lock to sell you. Anyone repeating the talking point that this was “the most secure election ever” sounds like a partisan hypocrite, especially when you can find videos of Democratic Congress members warning about the security of elections as recently as in 2017. Or, maybe it’s a coincidence that polls asking questions about election security – an objectively non-partisan topic – find a distribution of opinions weirdly aligned with support for the red or blue team.
    - jcrawfordor 5y ago
      Mail-in ballots must be separated from their envelopes. This is the only accepted way to achieve a secret ballot, which is required by constitution or law in most US elections. That is, losing the provenance of the ballot is the point of the voting process.
      - TechBro8615 5y ago
        If only there were some sort of academic discipline... a science of sorts... that spent time solving problems like this. Alas, anonymous verifiable signatures must be impossible.
- SteveNuts 5y ago
  Aren't the ballots all counted by hand and then cross checked with the machines anyways? That's what I don't get about all this
  - HWR_14 5y ago
    > Aren't the ballots all counted by hand and then cross checked with the machines anyways? I believe some states completely hand recounted the entire millions of receipts from the machines this year (in response to the allegations of voter fraud). However, it shouldn't be necessary to exhaustively recount the entire race. We should be able to use random sampling to statistically verify that the race is not fixed.
    - patrickthebold 5y ago
      probably not fixed.
      - HWR_14 5y ago
        Sure. I mean, a clever enough fix is unavoidable. Like, suppose I swapped out all the machinery with duplicates that had different vote counts but matching ballots. If a back room was cranking them out in parallel, the total votes cast and even timestamps (if there are any) would match. But we can set the confidence we want and test enough ballots to get there. In this past election, some states decided it was "100% sure to this kind of detectable attack" and they hand counted every ballot.
DisjointedHunt 5y ago
Timely reminder that voting machines are largely manufactured by entities that aren't very well known for their security practices and that these machines have had exploits pointed out in them many times, including at Defcon: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=BsLgWinw3Fs https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=BsLgWinw3Fs
- ecommerceguy 5y ago
  It boggles my mind as to why there is no, at least that I am aware of, FOSS solution that tackles this problem. Closed source non audited voting software makes no sense to anyone not getting income from selling "election solutions".
  - tialaramex 5y ago
    Anybody who has thought about this problem and you might want to trust to build such a "FOSS solution" had the same conclusion: Use paper ballots It's boring but it works. Lots of places do this successfully. You don't need different software, you need to stop using software.
    - BreakfastB0b 5y ago
      I worked on blockchain based voting system way back in 2013 for a year before coming to the same conclusion. Blockchain considers secure private key management outside of its threat model which is crazy when you think about it. The best argument I think I could make in favour of using paper over any electronic voting system is the scalability of an attack. Generally speaking changing one vote in an electronic system is just as easy as changing a million. Scaling a physical attack against paper ballots is much harder and actually increases the likelihood of getting caught. Also for blockchain in particular. It solves no problem existing mixed trust voting systems already solve more efficiently.
    - jd3 5y ago
      The revised version of Ron Rivest's ThreeBallot[0][1][2] has always felt like a decent, albeit complex, solution to me. It's clear, relatively secure, auditable, verifiable, and somewhat anonymous. For those unfamiliar: > The idea is that you xor together 3 ballots when you vote, but one of the three ballots is published.[3] > The trick to the 3-ballot voting protocol is that not everyone can validate their vote. However, when a group of voters band together, they should be able to validate that a subset of their votes (1/3) were registered with high probability. > ... > With a sufficiently large group of voters checking results, the law of large numbers comes into play and they can statistically detect the presence of voting fraud.[4] You would still need to trust that the poll worker is tabulating correctly and working randomly, though that's an assumption that we're already making as it is. Scantegrity[5], Prêt à Voter[6], Helios[7], and Punchscan[8] also seem promising, though I'm not as familiar with them. [0]: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/ThreeBallot https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/ThreeBallot [1]: https://people.csail.mit.edu/rivest/pubs/Riv06c.pdf https://people.csail.mit.edu/rivest/pubs/Riv06c.pdf [2]: https://people.csail.mit.edu/rivest/pubs/RS07.pdf https://people.csail.mit.edu/rivest/pubs/RS07.pdf [3]: https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=20554744 https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=20554744 [4]: https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=16598777 https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=16598777 [5]: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Scantegrity https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Scantegrity [6]: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Prêt_à_Voter https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Prêt_à_Voter [7]: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Helios_Voting https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Helios_Voting [8]: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Punchscan https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Punchscan
alfiedotwtf 5y ago
As an Australian, it's mind blowing that there's no nation-wide agency to run elections. Yes, I know about Federalism, but with states like Texas and Florida around, it's probably best to leave elections the adults in the room.
- bpodgursky 5y ago
  As an Australian, you have more important problems to solve than lecturing other people about democracy.
  - jcrawfordor 5y ago
    Sort of an aside to your point, but Australia is actually a bit of a leader in the rigorous consideration of election practices. Today we mostly think of this in terms of Australia having pioneered large-scale use of STV, but it goes well before that... the predominant voting method used in the United States is often called the Australian Ballot, for example. Australia has a history of unusual voting policies which have proven successful, although certainly some that have proven unsuccessful as well.
  - liamwire 5y ago
    As an Australian, I think we can walk and chew gum at the same time. So beyond your pissant deflection, do you have an actual, contributory response to the discussion?
- ipspam 5y ago
  That's a funny comment considering how Texas and Florida didn't make last minute changes to elections laws and had their Rally's and counts done in a very timely fashion. I agree with the thrust of your argument, but for exactly the opposite of the state's you mentioned.
  - astura 5y ago
    Are you talking about modifying elections as a result of COVID-19? Most states in the union did, including Texas and Florida. https://ballotpedia.org/Changes_to_election_dates,_procedures,_and_administration_in_response_to_the_coronavirus_(COVID-19)_pandemic,_2020 https://ballotpedia.org/Changes_to_election_dates,_procedure...
lettergram 5y ago
This story is very complex... 1. According to the clerk, these passwords are only held by the Secretary of State (or Dominion techs) (not sure how legit that is). 2. The Secretary of State then raided the office of the clerk (with dominion techs, supposedly) while they traveled to the Cyber Symposium. 2. At the Cyber Symposium claim to have imaged the machines with someone on the ground in IT and the clerks help. These images were brought to the Cyber Symposium today. 3. Ron Watkins and others spent today reviewing the image by VPNing into a machine where the read-only image was hosted. Timestamps of analysis 1:57:00 - 3:51:00 https://rumble.com/vl05im-watch-mike-lindells-cyber-symposium-day-2.html https://rumble.com/vl05im-watch-mike-lindells-cyber-symposiu... Personally, I have no idea what to make of any of it, but it does appear like some weird stuff was on there. Particularly 3:29:00 - 3:35:00 they discuss a batch file which seems to do something ominous sounding, but without seeing the image no idea. Only thing I take away from this, we need to just count paper ballots. Potentially, keep images as backups.
- the_only_law 5y ago
  Wish I could see the batch source. Not nearly the same, but back in school, we were able to real havoc with some rouge batch files that were included in the image used in every machine. In our case though, one happened to contained credentials for an AD account with admin privileges.
  - lettergram 5y ago
    > Wish I could see the batch source. They do actually pull that up, though the resolution here is too poor. In the live stream on lindelltv.com it was clear. They actually discuss what it does as well
    - the_only_law 5y ago
      Ah ok, I noticed it was extremely blurry in the linked video, but didn’t catch them describing it.
dukeofdoom 5y ago
Arizona Maricopa county for whatever reason, refused to produce the network routers, when Subpoenaed for the 3rd party Audit by the Arizona senate. They responded with this letter. https://www.maricopa.gov/DocumentCenter/View/70435/Final-Signed-Letter-to-Senators https://www.maricopa.gov/DocumentCenter/View/70435/Final-Sig...
- dillondoyle 5y ago
  Disregarding your viewpoints/our bias, as this is HN, here is a technical question: what, if anything, would a router show at this point in time. Do these routers use store logs that would still be accessible? Are they trying to find some rhetorical bamboo in the switch (trying to be funny though those beliefs definitely are not in my book...)?
  - dukeofdoom 5y ago
    I know my cheap home router stores logs. I'm pretty sure a commercial grade router would store logs for sure. Though this is not my background. So maybe someone that's a network admin knows more on what kind of routers they might use and how long the logs are typically stored.
  - jcrawfordor 5y ago
    My assumption is that they want to have an outside expert examine the configuration of the routers, which could provide some indication whether or not there was access to the internet, for example. Of course it would be difficult to establish whether or not that configuration had been changed in the meantime, and in my experience a lot of election administrators set up their EMS only on a temporary basis, so I would be unsurprised if supporting equipment like network appliances had been repurposed or returned to a lease provider. That said, the EMS is usually a small half-rack setup and I'd be surprised for there to be a router at all. Often it's a single machine. The vendors usually tell you to either never connect it to outside networks, or to do so only for setup and disconnect it before you start election preparation. Most, usually all, in-election connectivity to the machines is via sneakernet. Any kind of detailed network logging becomes a big undertaking at organizational scale, so it's very unlikely that there are any kind of useful persistent traffic logs on the routers. Any such logs would have been kept on a dedicated system like a netflow collector or SIEM, the routers don't have the storage (or storage write endurance). The fact the senate didn't subpoena for such a system suggests it doesn't exist, which is unsurprising. Mass-retention of network traffic logs is a sufficiently expensive and complex thing that not a lot of organizations do it.
cardosof 5y ago
Paper, electronic, whatever: if you don't trust whoever is responsible for holding elections and counting votes, you won't trust the results regardless of how they were achieved - specially if your candidate has lost. However, I like two simple arguments for paper ballots: low skilled people theoretically could still verify, so it seems more democratic. And changing / replacing millions of papers doesn't seem to scale as well as a hacker changing codes.
- dillondoyle 5y ago
  This is the problem though: seeming significant % of our country do actually believe that millions of paper ballots were changed, replaced, flown in from China, and more. I don't know how we begin to restore confidence and protect our Democracy when each of us live in radically different <i>un</i>realities.
  - cyberge99 5y ago
    Restore The Fairness Doctrine.
    - codezero 5y ago
      I haven’t done any research on this so feel free not to respond, but how would that work with the Internet? Both practical and regulatory issues seem impossible to resolve.
    - mousepilot 5y ago
      I think the system works as designed. If a country has 30 to 40 percent of its population being crazed qanon loonies, just what do we think this country deserves?
    - dillondoyle 5y ago
      Would that work though? Some issues should not give 'balance' to both sides and that's a lot of the problem. Giving dangerous cooks extreme amounts of air time. the election was not stolen, climate change exists and is caused by humans, those are not worthy of multiple hours of 'news' each and every single day.
jcrawfordor 5y ago
It's a potentially important clarification that this discussion is about the Election Management System (EMS). The EMS is essentially the backend that generates the configuration for ballot markers and precinct tabulators, and then totalizes the results from the precinct tabulators post-election. Because the EMS is not directly involved in the handling of ballots (its totalization function can be repeated for audit or verified independently against voting machine audit tapes, voting machine audit memory cards if used, or the original ballots), it is not necessarily considered an election-critical system. Basically, it does nothing that cannot be audited after the fact. However, there is a definite potential of adverse impacts on election integrity either if the machine configuration is tampered with prior to the election or the totalized results are tampered with and the state lacks a sufficiently rigorous auditing program (which unfortunately many do). For that reason it's considered a best practice to keep the EMS under strict control. Disconnected from the internet in a locked area under Sheriff's guard is a common approach. Of course there are almost certainly counties out there that do not take any precautions. The EMS is basically just a Windows application that runs on servers in the county clerk's office, but the servers are provided on a lease basis by Dominion. So it's no surprise that Dominion sends out this basic documentation on post-installation configuration of the servers. These passwords and documents are not related to the actual "voting machines," markers and tabulators, which run on more bespoke hardware with a much more unusual security model.
tonfreed 5y ago
Why you wouldn't demand all voting software in use be openly auditable I don't know. While I'm sceptical of claims that there was widespread fraud, the fact that there's so much pushback against just counting and verifying the integrity of the ballots is pretty insane. There's zero stakes if everything was fair, and even if it wasn't there's no legal mechanism to remove Biden from office.
edly 5y ago
I shriveled up a little bit when I saw that electronic machines were becoming commonplace for voting. The more complicated you make a machine, the more it can be manipulated and the less resistance it has to public trust erosion. All of that being said, I would love to know what the end goal was here. This (along with other things connected to the symposium) could be linked to massive security breaches if they're legitimate. I hope this was worth it to them.

94 points by codezero 5y ago

I'm not a fan of Trump, and I think most of the election claims are frivolous, but I do think the closed-source nature of the voting systems and centralized nature used to collect vote counts is alarming. I think it is a case of one side that had the power to bring transparency to the voting process is crying foul, while the other side is using every opportunity to say look... this non-transparent voting process is totally secure. In either case, the people end up being fools for allowing democracy to be ran by crooks on both sides always pointing fingers in the opposite direction.

buu700 5y ago
I was with you until this somehow turned into "both sides are equally bad". We should absolutely push for greater transparency and verifiability into the internals of such critical infrastructure. The fact that one side has not prioritized this isn't similar to the other side's repeated attempts to overthrow our government.
- TechBro8615 5y ago
  Wait, which side are you talking about? Is it the same side that’s been pushing election security bills with the most basic attempts to improve security of elections? We don’t even need security – we need confidence. And this recent idea that it takes weeks to count votes, that we might not know the results for weeks – is completely unacceptable and is already doing irreparable damage to people’s faith in elections.
  - amanaplanacanal 5y ago
    Is that really a recent thing though? Or has it always taken some places weeks to count votes, just not in close states?
    - HWR_14 5y ago
      It's recent because of the huge amount of write in ballots. Usually the winner is called the night of because they* just ignore the mail in numbers, even in battleground states. This year, there were too many (and they were too different a population from the in person ballots) to do that. * "They" meaning the news media. The official vote took longer and counted the mail in ballots
      - amanaplanacanal 5y ago
        Ah yes, COVID. And then some states passed laws that the mail in ballots couldn't start being counted until after election day.
  - HWR_14 5y ago
    > this recent idea that it takes weeks to count votes, that we might not know the results for weeks – is completely unacceptable Why on earth would that be? The "counting period" was originally set at 5 weeks. Between laws saying that you cannot start counting mail in ballots before the close of polls on election day, laws that (rightly) limit how many hours that can be spent counting ballots, etc. I'm not sure how to square that with instant results. Maybe we just be patient counting the scores in a contest that takes 18 months to run?
    - TechBro8615 5y ago
      You have a super computer in your pocket. There is no reason counting votes should take any longer than it takes to receive them.
      - HWR_14 5y ago
        You want to trust democracy to OCR? Heck, there are lawsuits where humans disagree. But, even if you ignore that two individuals (or three) representing all the candidates each count by hand a stack of ten, have to agree, sign off that they agree, etc. I think you underestimate other problems. You're focused on the counting. Just consider how long it takes to open the outer envelope, check the signature on the inner envelope (again, by multiple people who represent different campaigns), and physically remove and unfold that sheet of paper. Now multiply by several million. Add in some extra time for managing stack of ten ballots. Or, to put it another way, we don't vote with a phone app. We are willing to pay extra for security.
      - dillondoyle 5y ago
        Addition is fast. Opening ballots, verifying signatures, checking voter is legit, and then marking it all down takes time. Especially when bound by law to not open envelopes until 7pm eday.
        TechBro8615 5y ago
        On another thread here, someone was explaining to me that mail-in ballots are separated from their provenance by design. So what exactly are these election workers spending hours doing to “verify signatures” and “check voter is legit?”
  - thinkcontext 5y ago
    Is this a joke? The side that was chasing after nonsense like Italian satellites, bamboo fibers, etc and firing AGs that wouldn't play ball is the side that is seeking to instill confidence?! Its a good thing that side has now been busy changing laws to allow themselves to overrule election results, I know that instills confidence in me.
    - TechBro8615 5y ago
      I can point to examples of clowns on the blue team too. This logical fallacy of “crazy by association” seems to be an increasingly popular trend in online political discussion. I wonder how many people simply choose not to engage.
      - thinkcontext 5y ago
        Except that your Italian satellite clowns are the ones in control of your party and are purging anyone who doesn't toe the clown line from it.
        TechBro8615 5y ago
        By “purging,” do you mean that the red team is banning people they disagree with from speaking on the websites they own? And I honestly don’t even know who you’re talking about but I assume it’s the pillow/pcap guy. Have you heard about the president’s son, or the New York governor, or the speaker of the house who moonlights as a prolific stock trader? Good people are not leading us.
        thinkcontext 5y ago
        Trump is the leader of your party. He is the one that had Meadows send Italian satellites to DOJ and all the other nonsense. He is the one that axed Barr after Barr said there was no evidence to support the crazy that Trump was spewing. He's the one purging people from your party that speak out against this insanity. Your other whataboutisms are weak sauce compared with this. In particular the Cuomo one is not good for you, he's out, while your party continues to embrace the p**y grabber that has a higher harassment allegation count.
- getlawgdon 5y ago
  Thank you SO much for this. The false equivalency fallacy is part of the problem. The misdeeds on the sides are absolutely asymmetrical.
- TeeMassive 5y ago
  > the other side's repeated attempts to overthrow our government. Are you talking about Russia or the Federalist Society SCOTUS picks or the rioters who were let in by the few security guards remaining after the Capitol security was lowered or the Big Tech services that should be declared as political donations but aren't?
  - buu700 5y ago
    To be more specific, I was referring to: * USPS sabotage and state-level voter suppression measures in urban areas leading up to the 2020 election * Post-election soft coup attempt via the courts (including having broken precedent to rush a SCOTUS appointment during the election, which could have changed the outcome of the coup attempt in a different timeline) * 1/6 * Ongoing propagation of the "big lie" and scheming to overturn the election (https://news.yahoo.com/bizarre-seven-point-plan-reinstate-142526805.html https://news.yahoo.com/bizarre-seven-point-plan-reinstate-14...), alongside continuing implementation of state-level voter suppression measures and gerrymandering
    - TeeMassive 5y ago
      > * USPS sabotage and state-level voter suppression measures in urban areas leading up to the 2020 election This is implying that default mail-in voting was a way to get Democrats elected in the first place. (which it was given how mail-in voting was the source of the Democrats advance when they arrived) > Post-election soft coup attempt via the courts Challenging elections integrity in the courts are what insure the process is transparent and followed in the first place. This makes no sense by definition. Just because a SCOTUS nominee was nominated just before doesn't change anything and is still entirely within the Constitution. Because Democrats got unlucky on the retirement / death draw during this presidency doesn't mean a "coup". And by the way, it happened before. > 1/6 Not a coup by any stretch of the imagination (no weapons) and barely a riot given the lack of destruction and violence. Also why leave out how security was reduced, that the FBI had informants and that Trump even proposed to increase security? > Ongoing propagation of the "big lie" I get it that you are not familiar with Bush v. Gore and how it was the big rig for years? > and scheming to overturn the election (https://news.yahoo.com/bizarre-seven-point-plan-reinstate-14 https://news.yahoo.com/bizarre-seven-point-plan-reinstate-14...) It's easy to pick a random clown in a camp and then zoom 1000x to paint a bad picture: "The cards, featuring a seven-point plan, appear to have been made by a group called Patriots Soar, which is not connected to the organisers of CPAC" > alongside continuing implementation of state-level voter suppression measures and gerrymandering Gerrymandering happens in blue districts too by the way, can can only do so much (elections results still mostly 50/50 percentage wise). And the "voter suppression" are a joke when you read the details of them since the measures being implemented are the same that are found in Canada (showing ID with proof of your address, registering to vote, having a reason to vote by mail, which used to be a Democrat talking point during the Bush/Obama years by the way).
- lettergram 5y ago
  You do realize, both sides are claiming the other is trying to overthrow the government, right? Both have, in my view, reasonable arguments on why they feel that way. Try to zoom out and look at your comment from the 3rd person view. The right believes the left stole an election (coup), they believe they have evidence to prove it. The left saw Jan 6 on the corporate news and believes they have the evidence to prove Trump attempted to seize government. Note, none of the people charged for Jan 6 was for sedition. So the evidence really isn't there either. If you take a step back and try to see both perspectives, perhaps it's possible to relate again.
  - buu700 5y ago
    Sure both sides are claiming it, but only one side is correct. On the right, we have: * USPS sabotage and state-level voter suppression measures in urban areas leading up to the 2020 election * Post-election soft coup attempt via the courts (including having broken precedent to rush a SCOTUS appointment during the election, which could have changed the outcome of the coup attempt in a different timeline) * 1/6 * Ongoing propagation of the "big lie" and scheming to overturn the election (https://news.yahoo.com/bizarre-seven-point-plan-reinstate-142526805.html https://news.yahoo.com/bizarre-seven-point-plan-reinstate-14...), alongside continuing implementation of state-level voter suppression measures and gerrymandering And the left has: * Failed to advocate for open source voting systems (which isn't a widely known or politically relevant issue on either side at present) * Pushed for stronger voting rights and increased voter participation — both uncontroversially positive properties of a democracy, but also happen to benefit the Democratic Party at the current moment * Proposed measures in the For the People Act that were arguably overly ambitious or aggressive in the current political environment, such as stricter campaign finance regulations, which were promptly renegotiated within their own party ranks To frame these as comparable is borderline gaslighting.
    - lettergram 5y ago
      It’s frankly exhausting to have discussions when both sides live in their own worlds. You sound arrogant, “only one side is correct and it’s my side” Every day I switch between msnbc, nbc, warroom.org, breaking points, Ben Shapiro and Tim pool. Probably ~6-8hrs a day I listen to content at double speed (while doing other stuff). Every single one has their own take, but just to get you up-to-date with what the right believes: * BLM and Antifa caused billions in damages. Harassing or attacking everyone who disagreed with ideology (they were coming to senators homes) * in some places this is leading to the reintroduction of segregation https://atlantablackstar.com/2021/08/10/it-was-just-disbelief-parent-files-complaint-against-atlanta-elementary-school-after-learning-the-principal-segregated-students-based-on-race/ https://atlantablackstar.com/2021/08/10/it-was-just-disbelie... * FBI spied on trump on Clinton and Obama’s behalf. Utilizing a known fabricated document (fabricated to keep business with the Clinton foundation - see uranium one): https://justthenews.com/accountability/russia-and-ukraine-scandals/first-declassified-russia-document-steeles-confessional https://justthenews.com/accountability/russia-and-ukraine-sc... * election laws were changed last minute, broken among other things to effect a coup and they brag about it: https://time.com/5936036/secret-2020-election-campaign/ https://time.com/5936036/secret-2020-election-campaign/ * more people voted in 2020 than were registered in 2016 or 2018. With a 93% then out rate. https://www.statista.com/statistics/273743/number-of-registered-voters-in-the-united-states/ https://www.statista.com/statistics/273743/number-of-registe... * here’s a couple video explaining some of their concerns about the election https://rumble.com/vkyxju-retired-u.s.-army-colonel-phil-waldron-your-wake-up-call.html https://rumble.com/vkyxju-retired-u.s.-army-colonel-phil-wal... https://rumble.com/vkyzgb-mike-lindell-cyber-symposium-dr.-douglas-g-frank.html https://rumble.com/vkyzgb-mike-lindell-cyber-symposium-dr.-d... The list goes on and on...
Overton-Window 5y ago
The party that insists voter IDs are racist, is the same party championing mandatory ID to shop, work, and participate in society.
- shigawire 5y ago
  False equivalence.
  - gruez 5y ago
    How so? Is it just because "pandemic"?
    - zarzavat 5y ago
      The pandemic is an exercise in trading rights for lives. More rights leads to more deaths and vice versa. You can make a case that society should choose any particular point on that spectrum but the spectrum exists regardless.
  - thehappypm 5y ago
    How so? This is actually a really interesting take—either be the “papers please” people or don’t be.
    - jjoonathan 5y ago
      You have to register to vote and link your vote to your registration. The vaccine-card equivalent of Republican Voter ID requirements would be mandating that everyone present a vaccine card before being allowed to vote with the intent of discouraging eligible Republican voters. The equivalent of present-day pollbooth security in vaccine-card form would be requiring people to associate themselves with an official vaccine record before shopping / working / etc. You wouldn't have to present an ID on the spot, but the records would be checked to look for two people claiming the same vaccination record, someone trying to claim a record that didn't exist, etc. Discrepancies would be investigated and if you were found to have fraudulently represented your vaccination status you'd be in trouble.
shigawire 5y ago
Machines have paper audits no?
- Miner49er 5y ago
  Not in some states.
  - adrr 5y ago
    None of the big lie states have paperless voting machines. Eg: Georgia prints out an actual ballot for the voter.
- TechBro8615 5y ago
  What good is a paper audit when the ballots can be mixed with boxes of “mail-in votes” that ultimately get separated from their envelopes, breaking their chain of provenance? You can keep counting them, and the count will match each time, but can you verify that each ballot you’re counting originated from exactly one registered voter? If you think this is evidence of a secure election, I have an unpickable lock to sell you. Anyone repeating the talking point that this was “the most secure election ever” sounds like a partisan hypocrite, especially when you can find videos of Democratic Congress members warning about the security of elections as recently as in 2017. Or, maybe it’s a coincidence that polls asking questions about election security – an objectively non-partisan topic – find a distribution of opinions weirdly aligned with support for the red or blue team.
  - jcrawfordor 5y ago
    Mail-in ballots must be separated from their envelopes. This is the only accepted way to achieve a secret ballot, which is required by constitution or law in most US elections. That is, losing the provenance of the ballot is the point of the voting process.
    - TechBro8615 5y ago
      If only there were some sort of academic discipline... a science of sorts... that spent time solving problems like this. Alas, anonymous verifiable signatures must be impossible.
SteveNuts 5y ago
Aren't the ballots all counted by hand and then cross checked with the machines anyways? That's what I don't get about all this
- HWR_14 5y ago
  > Aren't the ballots all counted by hand and then cross checked with the machines anyways? I believe some states completely hand recounted the entire millions of receipts from the machines this year (in response to the allegations of voter fraud). However, it shouldn't be necessary to exhaustively recount the entire race. We should be able to use random sampling to statistically verify that the race is not fixed.
  - patrickthebold 5y ago
    probably not fixed.
    - HWR_14 5y ago
      Sure. I mean, a clever enough fix is unavoidable. Like, suppose I swapped out all the machinery with duplicates that had different vote counts but matching ballots. If a back room was cranking them out in parallel, the total votes cast and even timestamps (if there are any) would match. But we can set the confidence we want and test enough ballots to get there. In this past election, some states decided it was "100% sure to this kind of detectable attack" and they hand counted every ballot.

DisjointedHunt 5y ago

Timely reminder that voting machines are largely manufactured by entities that aren't very well known for their security practices and that these machines have had exploits pointed out in them many times, including at Defcon: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=BsLgWinw3Fs https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=BsLgWinw3Fs

ecommerceguy 5y ago
It boggles my mind as to why there is no, at least that I am aware of, FOSS solution that tackles this problem. Closed source non audited voting software makes no sense to anyone not getting income from selling "election solutions".
- tialaramex 5y ago
  Anybody who has thought about this problem and you might want to trust to build such a "FOSS solution" had the same conclusion: Use paper ballots It's boring but it works. Lots of places do this successfully. You don't need different software, you need to stop using software.
  - BreakfastB0b 5y ago
    I worked on blockchain based voting system way back in 2013 for a year before coming to the same conclusion. Blockchain considers secure private key management outside of its threat model which is crazy when you think about it. The best argument I think I could make in favour of using paper over any electronic voting system is the scalability of an attack. Generally speaking changing one vote in an electronic system is just as easy as changing a million. Scaling a physical attack against paper ballots is much harder and actually increases the likelihood of getting caught. Also for blockchain in particular. It solves no problem existing mixed trust voting systems already solve more efficiently.
  - jd3 5y ago
    The revised version of Ron Rivest's ThreeBallot[0][1][2] has always felt like a decent, albeit complex, solution to me. It's clear, relatively secure, auditable, verifiable, and somewhat anonymous. For those unfamiliar: > The idea is that you xor together 3 ballots when you vote, but one of the three ballots is published.[3] > The trick to the 3-ballot voting protocol is that not everyone can validate their vote. However, when a group of voters band together, they should be able to validate that a subset of their votes (1/3) were registered with high probability. > ... > With a sufficiently large group of voters checking results, the law of large numbers comes into play and they can statistically detect the presence of voting fraud.[4] You would still need to trust that the poll worker is tabulating correctly and working randomly, though that's an assumption that we're already making as it is. Scantegrity[5], Prêt à Voter[6], Helios[7], and Punchscan[8] also seem promising, though I'm not as familiar with them. [0]: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/ThreeBallot https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/ThreeBallot [1]: https://people.csail.mit.edu/rivest/pubs/Riv06c.pdf https://people.csail.mit.edu/rivest/pubs/Riv06c.pdf [2]: https://people.csail.mit.edu/rivest/pubs/RS07.pdf https://people.csail.mit.edu/rivest/pubs/RS07.pdf [3]: https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=20554744 https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=20554744 [4]: https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=16598777 https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=16598777 [5]: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Scantegrity https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Scantegrity [6]: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Prêt_à_Voter https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Prêt_à_Voter [7]: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Helios_Voting https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Helios_Voting [8]: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Punchscan https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Punchscan

alfiedotwtf 5y ago

As an Australian, it's mind blowing that there's no nation-wide agency to run elections. Yes, I know about Federalism, but with states like Texas and Florida around, it's probably best to leave elections the adults in the room.

bpodgursky 5y ago
As an Australian, you have more important problems to solve than lecturing other people about democracy.
- jcrawfordor 5y ago
  Sort of an aside to your point, but Australia is actually a bit of a leader in the rigorous consideration of election practices. Today we mostly think of this in terms of Australia having pioneered large-scale use of STV, but it goes well before that... the predominant voting method used in the United States is often called the Australian Ballot, for example. Australia has a history of unusual voting policies which have proven successful, although certainly some that have proven unsuccessful as well.
- liamwire 5y ago
  As an Australian, I think we can walk and chew gum at the same time. So beyond your pissant deflection, do you have an actual, contributory response to the discussion?
ipspam 5y ago
That's a funny comment considering how Texas and Florida didn't make last minute changes to elections laws and had their Rally's and counts done in a very timely fashion. I agree with the thrust of your argument, but for exactly the opposite of the state's you mentioned.
- astura 5y ago
  Are you talking about modifying elections as a result of COVID-19? Most states in the union did, including Texas and Florida. https://ballotpedia.org/Changes_to_election_dates,_procedures,_and_administration_in_response_to_the_coronavirus_(COVID-19)_pandemic,_2020 https://ballotpedia.org/Changes_to_election_dates,_procedure...

lettergram 5y ago

This story is very complex... 1. According to the clerk, these passwords are only held by the Secretary of State (or Dominion techs) (not sure how legit that is). 2. The Secretary of State then raided the office of the clerk (with dominion techs, supposedly) while they traveled to the Cyber Symposium. 2. At the Cyber Symposium claim to have imaged the machines with someone on the ground in IT and the clerks help. These images were brought to the Cyber Symposium today. 3. Ron Watkins and others spent today reviewing the image by VPNing into a machine where the read-only image was hosted. Timestamps of analysis 1:57:00 - 3:51:00 https://rumble.com/vl05im-watch-mike-lindells-cyber-symposium-day-2.html https://rumble.com/vl05im-watch-mike-lindells-cyber-symposiu... Personally, I have no idea what to make of any of it, but it does appear like some weird stuff was on there. Particularly 3:29:00 - 3:35:00 they discuss a batch file which seems to do something ominous sounding, but without seeing the image no idea. Only thing I take away from this, we need to just count paper ballots. Potentially, keep images as backups.

the_only_law 5y ago
Wish I could see the batch source. Not nearly the same, but back in school, we were able to real havoc with some rouge batch files that were included in the image used in every machine. In our case though, one happened to contained credentials for an AD account with admin privileges.
- lettergram 5y ago
  > Wish I could see the batch source. They do actually pull that up, though the resolution here is too poor. In the live stream on lindelltv.com it was clear. They actually discuss what it does as well
  - the_only_law 5y ago
    Ah ok, I noticed it was extremely blurry in the linked video, but didn’t catch them describing it.

dukeofdoom 5y ago

Arizona Maricopa county for whatever reason, refused to produce the network routers, when Subpoenaed for the 3rd party Audit by the Arizona senate. They responded with this letter. https://www.maricopa.gov/DocumentCenter/View/70435/Final-Signed-Letter-to-Senators https://www.maricopa.gov/DocumentCenter/View/70435/Final-Sig...

dillondoyle 5y ago
Disregarding your viewpoints/our bias, as this is HN, here is a technical question: what, if anything, would a router show at this point in time. Do these routers use store logs that would still be accessible? Are they trying to find some rhetorical bamboo in the switch (trying to be funny though those beliefs definitely are not in my book...)?
- dukeofdoom 5y ago
  I know my cheap home router stores logs. I'm pretty sure a commercial grade router would store logs for sure. Though this is not my background. So maybe someone that's a network admin knows more on what kind of routers they might use and how long the logs are typically stored.
- jcrawfordor 5y ago
  My assumption is that they want to have an outside expert examine the configuration of the routers, which could provide some indication whether or not there was access to the internet, for example. Of course it would be difficult to establish whether or not that configuration had been changed in the meantime, and in my experience a lot of election administrators set up their EMS only on a temporary basis, so I would be unsurprised if supporting equipment like network appliances had been repurposed or returned to a lease provider. That said, the EMS is usually a small half-rack setup and I'd be surprised for there to be a router at all. Often it's a single machine. The vendors usually tell you to either never connect it to outside networks, or to do so only for setup and disconnect it before you start election preparation. Most, usually all, in-election connectivity to the machines is via sneakernet. Any kind of detailed network logging becomes a big undertaking at organizational scale, so it's very unlikely that there are any kind of useful persistent traffic logs on the routers. Any such logs would have been kept on a dedicated system like a netflow collector or SIEM, the routers don't have the storage (or storage write endurance). The fact the senate didn't subpoena for such a system suggests it doesn't exist, which is unsurprising. Mass-retention of network traffic logs is a sufficiently expensive and complex thing that not a lot of organizations do it.

cardosof 5y ago

Paper, electronic, whatever: if you don't trust whoever is responsible for holding elections and counting votes, you won't trust the results regardless of how they were achieved - specially if your candidate has lost. However, I like two simple arguments for paper ballots: low skilled people theoretically could still verify, so it seems more democratic. And changing / replacing millions of papers doesn't seem to scale as well as a hacker changing codes.

dillondoyle 5y ago
This is the problem though: seeming significant % of our country do actually believe that millions of paper ballots were changed, replaced, flown in from China, and more. I don't know how we begin to restore confidence and protect our Democracy when each of us live in radically different <i>un</i>realities.
- cyberge99 5y ago
  Restore The Fairness Doctrine.
  - codezero 5y ago
    I haven’t done any research on this so feel free not to respond, but how would that work with the Internet? Both practical and regulatory issues seem impossible to resolve.
  - mousepilot 5y ago
    I think the system works as designed. If a country has 30 to 40 percent of its population being crazed qanon loonies, just what do we think this country deserves?
  - dillondoyle 5y ago
    Would that work though? Some issues should not give 'balance' to both sides and that's a lot of the problem. Giving dangerous cooks extreme amounts of air time. the election was not stolen, climate change exists and is caused by humans, those are not worthy of multiple hours of 'news' each and every single day.

jcrawfordor 5y ago

It's a potentially important clarification that this discussion is about the Election Management System (EMS). The EMS is essentially the backend that generates the configuration for ballot markers and precinct tabulators, and then totalizes the results from the precinct tabulators post-election. Because the EMS is not directly involved in the handling of ballots (its totalization function can be repeated for audit or verified independently against voting machine audit tapes, voting machine audit memory cards if used, or the original ballots), it is not necessarily considered an election-critical system. Basically, it does nothing that cannot be audited after the fact. However, there is a definite potential of adverse impacts on election integrity either if the machine configuration is tampered with prior to the election or the totalized results are tampered with and the state lacks a sufficiently rigorous auditing program (which unfortunately many do). For that reason it's considered a best practice to keep the EMS under strict control. Disconnected from the internet in a locked area under Sheriff's guard is a common approach. Of course there are almost certainly counties out there that do not take any precautions. The EMS is basically just a Windows application that runs on servers in the county clerk's office, but the servers are provided on a lease basis by Dominion. So it's no surprise that Dominion sends out this basic documentation on post-installation configuration of the servers. These passwords and documents are not related to the actual "voting machines," markers and tabulators, which run on more bespoke hardware with a much more unusual security model.

tonfreed 5y ago

Why you wouldn't demand all voting software in use be openly auditable I don't know. While I'm sceptical of claims that there was widespread fraud, the fact that there's so much pushback against just counting and verifying the integrity of the ballots is pretty insane. There's zero stakes if everything was fair, and even if it wasn't there's no legal mechanism to remove Biden from office.

edly 5y ago

I shriveled up a little bit when I saw that electronic machines were becoming commonplace for voting. The more complicated you make a machine, the more it can be manipulated and the less resistance it has to public trust erosion. All of that being said, I would love to know what the end goal was here. This (along with other things connected to the symposium) could be linked to massive security breaches if they're legitimate. I hope this was worth it to them.