It might be funny, but for the fact that beating back the Internet Voting virus — even here in California, where it is Democrats who are being dumb enough to push for it, despite warnings from virtually every world-class computer scientist and security expert in the world that it’s an insane, non-solvable idea — but it appears that voting for NBC’s show The Voice may have been hacked this week.
According to a statement from NBC tonight:
Here is how Bev Harris of BlackBoxVoting.org just described what happened at the top of tonight’s show in an email to a group of Election Integrity folks…
In other words: Hacked.
Can we really afford to discard millions of votes in a presidential election if there are “irregularities”?
Whenever there is an e-voting failure, corporate mainstream media tends to downplay it as little more than a “glitch”, “hiccup”, “snag”, or “snafu”. So far tonight, they haven’t disappointed in their gentle descriptions of the failure that seems to have struck The Voice’s voting procedures…
USA Today reports the show was only “marred by voting inconsistencies”.
Entertainment Weekly went for the old favorite “snafu”, in explaining the failure in the election carried out by “the show’s well-established vote-tallying company, Telescope”…
Fans trying to vote online and via text message had difficulty casting their votes via the show’s well-established vote-tallying company, Telescope. The network says the issues would not have resulted in a different outcome in terms of which contestants are eliminated. Voice host Carson Daly opened tonight’s live show by bringing up the voting issue and introducing Telescope CEO Jason George. “Tonight we’d like to be completely upfront with you,†Daly said. “We noticed some inconsistencies with this week’s texting and online voting.â€
Telescope also manages the voting for shows like Fox’s American Idol and The X Factor. “Our system caught an inconsistency in a portion of this week’s voting data,†George said in a statement. “For fairness, those votes have been removed from Monday and Tuesday’s results, but we want to assure fans and artists alike that this in no way affected the outcome for any team.â€
So, even after all of these years, and millions of dollars spent for a secure voting system (which doesn’t tend to happen with voting systems in the public sector), the company which ran it couldn’t keep whatever happened from happening. They had to throw out thousands — millions? — of votes. But, they assure us, it didn’t affect the outcome of the voting. Feel better?
We hope to have more soon on the aforementioned, idiotic recent push for Internet Voting in California. For now, however, for a good primer, please see the section titled “NO INTERNET VOTING FOR L.A.” in the recent article we published about the decision of Los Angeles County’s Registrar of Voting Dean Logan to not use Internet Voting in the new election system he is developing for the nation’s largest voting jurisdiction.
Here is just a portion of that section from our article…
One need only look back to Washington D.C.’s disastrous experiment in Internet Voting, which almost went live in 2010 for overseas and military voters. The plans to use the system were scrapped at the last minute after it was hacked and completely taken over by “white hat hackers” (University of Michigan computer students and their professor), who had gained such total command of the system in mere hours that they were not only able to change every vote already cast on it during a mock election, but inserted a script into the system to change all future votes invisibly as well. They even modified all of the system’s main passwords to thwart similar attempts to hack the system that they discovered to be ongoing by computers from both Iran and China.
There have been many other disasters in Internet Voting — from a 2012 online Canadian election attacked by some 10,000 computers, to a 2012 CA State University student body election that was hacked by one of the candidates in order to gain control of an annual salary and the student government’s $300,000 budget, to this year’s embarrassment by the Academy of Motion Picture Arts and Sciences which attempted to use Internet Voting for the first time this year, to disturbing and questionable effect.
The non-partisan election integrity group, VerifiedVoting.org posted a “Statement on the Dangers of Internet Voting in Public Elections,” signed by nearly a dozen top computer science and security experts with backgrounds in electronic voting systems. The letter explains that “Cyber security experts at the National Institute of Standards and Technology and the Department of Homeland Security have warned that current Internet voting technologies should not be deployed in public elections,” as they “cannot be properly protected and may be subject to undetectable alteration.”
“We conclude that the evidence does not exist to support casting ballots online in public elections,” the scientists note. “There are too many unsolved security challenges that have yet to be overcome. In fact securing networks from cyber attack is a major national security concern that is as yet unresolved. Financial institutions, the FBI, the White House, the Department of Defense have all been breached. Major corporations like Lockheed Martin, Sony, Google, Adobe, Microsoft, and Northrop Grumman have also been breached. It is unreasonable to assume that any Internet voting system vendor today can repel a well funded partisan operative or nation state determined to manipulate, disrupt, or violate voter privacy in an online public election.”
After the infamous Washington D.C. hack, the scientists who testified about it to a D.C. Elections Committee unanimously agreed that the technology simply doesn’t exist at this time — and likely will not for a decade or more — to even consider voting over the Internet.
J. Alex Halderman, the University of Michigan computer scientist who led the team that took over the D.C. Internet Voting systems (not long after her also hacked a touch-screen voting system, replacing its voting software with Pac-Man), testified that “the scientific consensus is that Internet Voting is just too dangerous today based on the limits of today’s security technology,” adding: “Indeed, it will probably be decades, if ever, before the technology is at a level where we can perform voting safely, purely over the Internet.”
There is much more in the original story, if you’d like to read more specifics on what actual scientists have to say about the idea of casting unverifiable votes over the Internet.
Other than that, however, Internet Voting remains a great idea! Just as the caller to my KPFK radio show today — he was a guy who works for Microsoft (since they never have any problems with Internet security!) — tried, in vein, to explain to me on air this afternoon.
And the endless fight for citizen-overseeable elections in America continues…
Brad,
Thanks for catching this and reporting on it so quickly. I’ve wondered for YEARS how anyone KNEW that ANY of these audience-vote shows were showing accurate vote totals. There is no verification as far as I know, kinda like the voting machines in S.C.!
Please note that in California, AB 19, the Internet Voting pilot project bill was sent to “Suspense” which means it will go no further until the cost is determined more precisely and compared to other bills in “suspense” and a decision is made as to whether the legislature wants to spend money on this or any other bills costing $250,000/year or more. This is good news for Election Integrity activists who turned out in force on April 23rd to testify against the bill.
KOCH BROTHERS
They may bid to obtain the Bankrupt Chicago Tribune for,, to them, a measly $625 Million.
They would then spread their Libertarian Views via Chicago Tribune, Los Angeles Times, Baltimore Sun and Orlando Sentinel.
They have already done long term damage for the Middle Class by financing the election of 50 Tea Party members to the House to Cut Government for the middle class -Cut taxes for the rich.
CHANGE COURSE
1945-1980 democrats worked hard in creating a successful middle class
that had jobs that paid enough to afford a nice home,
Health Care and Education for children.
Since 1980, it has been decades of loading them with debt in order to afford a middle class life style. Since 1980, the top 1% had an 281% after Tax income increase and middle 20% got 25% which was less than. Inflation. The wealthy had the money to loan and took advantage of it.
The Outsourcing of our Manufacturing Industries was biggest sham and hit on the middle class and decent paying jobs.
The Tax Code was loaded with goodies for the rich and corporations
There is a series of Solutions to reverse course before we go over that cliff.
Progressive Flat Tax by Group. Tax Total Income not AGI with the loads of exemptions
Assure a progressive Flat Tax that will balance our budget and start paying down that horrid Republican created Debt of $15,800 Billion
Fed fund campaigns and election—6 months—3 primary 3 general—free equal tv time—No personal or outside money. Debate a week=12-=adequate to evaluate candidates
Since no need to raise campaign funds keep em on job not on road.
Ban ALL federal employees from accepting anything with a financial value.
This closes K Street Bribery.
It give middle class a chance to win an election since they cannot be bought.
Burn the tax book—It gets enough revenue $1300B that immediately balances our budget.
Start anew—Exemptions must serve a common good not fat wallets
clarence swinney burlington nc
Every time I see a ‘security’ colored URL when I check the bank or want to order something online I have to laugh. Do they really really think this is ‘secure’?
If the Internet can be hacked, if web sites can be hacked, then how can voting machines be far behind? Not connected to the net? Well, don’t be so sure. There’s plenty of evidence they are connected. Immutable software? Not if the voting machine company needs to do updates. But, hacker’s updates can be done too.
It’s just not safe to go out in the cold cold internet world to vote.
As a longtime regular Brad Blog enthusiast, I salute Brad for his tenacity at keeping us informed all these years. Congrats on still being there, Brad. I must say that it all is so sad that I have to back away from the fight sometimes. How sad for our nation that most folks don’t hear what Brad shows ’em. Keep on keeping on, Brad Blog.
I voted all D except for Sheriff.
I Asked for a review. 100% were R.
I contacted D hdg to investigate. Found no wrong?
Blarney—–Programed that after X number of votes all will be R on a vote.
1 of 10—1 0f 25 or????????
A major Ohio praper exit polls had always been accurate
Kerry by 16 in it.
Bush won by 16.
Doebold President had told him “I guarantee you Ohio”
Where are our law enforcement agents?
10 Banks have a Monopoly over about 7000 Banks.
Carry 80% of all deposits.
10 Big Oil control our Oil
10 control our Health Care Insurance
10 control TV
10 will control our major newsprint when Koch buys Chicago Tribune.
3 Control Beer Distribution.
1 Controls BJ in White House
20,000 Lobbyists Buy my vote.
Top 10% own 73% Net Wealth–83% Financial Wealth–43% Individual Income-
Pay 18% Tax Rate.
1 family has more wealth than 90% of families
We Rank in OECD nations
#1–largest percent of workers earn lowest wages–44M get minimum wage
#2–Least Tax on Corporations as % GDP
#3 Least Taxed nation As % GDP
#4 on Inequality
In bottom 5 in 1980
PLutocracy Folks. No question.
They bought our Congress
From the AP:
Lifting the ban does not mean transfers to Yemen will immediately take place. Current law requires the Defense Department to certify for each transferred prisoner that the destination country is not a state sponsor of terrorism and would take action to make sure the individual would not threaten the United States.
Unless those provisions are removed or expire, they would have to be followed. No prisoners have been certified yet so it is not known how long the process takes.