The Voting News Weekly: The Voting News Weekly March 5-11 2012

Questions remain about the use of computers to count votes in the United States even as Minnesota Secretary of State proposed a technological solution to concerns about voter fraud. The US Postal Service announced that it would suspend planned closure of facilities in response to concerns about the processing of absentee ballots. Techdirt provided details of the hack of DC’s proposed internet voting system. A judge in Wisconsin granted a temporary injunction of Wisconsin’s voter ID requirement. The Canadian election authority has widened its probe of deceptive robo-calls in the 2011 election. El Salvador goes to the polls in a test of the former guerrilla organization FMLN’s legislative program and allegations of election fraud abound in Russia following the election of Vladimir Putin.

National: Questions linger in US on high-tech voting | AFP

A series of problems with electronic voting machines has raised fresh questions about election technology as newer computerized systems gain ground for the 2012 US election. As many as 25 percent of Americans are expected to use paperless electronic voting machines in the upcoming November elections, according to the Verified Voting Foundation, but confidence has been eroded by incidents showing vulnerabilities. The foundation, which seeks more reliable election systems, contends that voting machines in 11 states are all-electronic, with no paper systems for recounts, and that many other jurisdictions have some of these systems in place. Last year, Microsoft Research published a paper describing vulnerabilities to what had been described as “fully verifiable” direct recording electronic (DRE) systems in which a hacker can “undetectably alter large numbers of votes.” Separately, scientists at Argonne National Laboratory described a way to tamper with certain electronic voting machines by inserting a $10 component along with a $15 radio frequency device to alter vote results. Pamela Smith of the Verified Voting Foundation said these incidents highlight the fact “that you can have insider challenges as well as outsider hacks. It points out that you have to be able to check the system.”