Stealing an Election

Sometimes the almost always high quality tech news coverage at ArsTechnica crosses over into more general interest subjects. They're currently running a feature article about how to hack an election. The entire article might not hold your interest, but the first page is worth reading.

Excerpt:

What if I told you that it would take only one person—one highly motivated, but only moderately skilled bad apple, with either authorized or unauthorized access to the right company's internal computer network—to steal a statewide election? You might think I was crazy, or alarmist, or just talking about something that's only a remote, highly theoretical possibility. You also probably would think I was being really over-the-top if I told you that, without sweeping and very costly changes to the American electoral process, this scenario is almost certain to play out at some point in the future in some county or state in America, and that after it happens not only will we not have a clue as to what has taken place, but if we do get suspicious there will be no way to prove anything. You certainly wouldn't want to believe me, and I don't blame you.

I'm not sure why problems with voting, a cornerstone of our current society, have flown under the radar of the mainstream press for so long. Serious problems with e-voting machines have been documented for years, and in that time I haven't seen a general awareness of it. Given that this article details how to go about stealing an election (information which is already available), maybe it will serve as a wake up call for a slightly larger number of people and we will see the companies, politicians, and shady practices responsible for putting the current e-voting systems in place put under some scrutiny. I can always dream...

Full article here.