Catching Up

I meant to post about this a while ago, but it slipped my mind.

My niece pointed me at this article about e-voting work being done by a professor at a place near and dear to both of our hearts, UC Berkeley.

My favorite quote is this one:

Soon, researchers and hackers discovered that, among other vulnerabilities, voting machines could be opened with ordinary keys from hotel mini-bars, and their vote counts could then be changed undetectably by simply swapping out their memory cards. In other words, any poll worker, driver, night watchman or other individual with unsupervised access to the machines could throw the results of a close election.

But Wagner maintains that there could be a positive outcome, eventually:

“I’m optimistic now,” says Wagner. “Four years ago, secure voting looked hopeless, but more and more states are getting it. Meanwhile, I’m also impressed with all the election officials I’ve worked with; they’re very dedicated and conscientious. There’s no money or fame in being a county elections officer. You do it because you care.”

It matters.