A group of cyber security experts say they fear that voting machines in the U.S. could be a target for hackers. “Coming out of the [Democratic National Committee] hack … I think there’s a lot of us trying to call more attention to the election machines,” Jason Healey, a Columbia University senior research scholar and non-resident senior fellow at the Atlantic Council’s Cyber Statecraft Initiative said on Wednesday. Healey, who was in Washington, D.C., as part of the council’s “Cyber Risk Wednesday” series, pointed out the difference between how gambling machines in Las Vegas are secured compared to voting machines. “Someone tweeted out: ‘Here’s how Las Vegas handles gambling machines.’ It covered all these controls that Las Vegas includes for [them]… “Someone can inspect it. If you as a player think that the [gambling] machine is fraudulent, you can go talk to the inspector. There are rules. There [is] independent testing to see if it’s right,” Healey said.
The Nevada Gaming Control Board’s Regulation 14 allows the inspection and testing of slot machines and other gambling devices before they are used or if there are malfunctions. “On voting machines, none of that’s true,” Healey added. “It’s illegal to try and go in and figure it out, how it works. It’s not independent testing.”
The Verified Voting Foundation points out that “the U.S. election system faces unprecedented tests this November, and beyond,” including the fact that “far too many states use unreliable and insecure electronic voting machines….These problems threaten to silently disenfranchise voters, potentially in sufficient numbers to alter outcomes,” VVF warned.
Full Article: Experts Fear Possible Voting Machine Tampering in November.