The 2014 midterm election results may have been a complete farce. All it takes is one insider who knows how to flip a switch and the outcome changes. When it comes to voting, should we trust our votes to a computer that doesn’t even spit out a receipt for confirmation? Do you trust your voting machine manufacturer?
Private companies like ES&S, Dominion (previously of Diebold or Sequoia), Smartmatic, and Hart Intercivic make most of the electronic voting machines. Three of five board members at Hart Intercivic are board members at HIG Capital, a global private equity firm that made a significant investment in the voting machine company. The Washington Post reported “HIG employees as a whole have donated $338,000 to the Romney campaign this year, according to Open Secrets.” Hart supplied the electronic voting machines that were used in the 2012 elections in precincts in Ohio, Texas, Oklahoma, Washington, Colorado and many other states.
These connections between candidates and voting machines are too close for my comfort. But it isn’t just the cozy relationship that matters. It’s important to know who has their hands on the ballots and the votes. In study after study, electronic machines have proven incredibly easy to rig.1,2,3,4,5,6 At Princeton University, researchers found that in less than one minute, a criminal could bypass the lock using a simple tool and replace the memory card with one containing malicious code. It’s so easy to open the box that the researchers show how it is done in a video. “Any desired algorithm can be used to determine which votes to steal and to which candidate or candidates to transfer the stolen votes.”
The abstract of the Princeton study goes on: “Malicious software running on a single voting machine can steal votes with very little risk of detection. The malicious software can modify all of the records, audit logs, and counter kept by the voting machine so that even careful forensic examination...will find nothing amiss.” One machine can be rigged within less than a minute and then it goes viral. “An attacker could infect a large population of machines while only having temporary access to a single machine or memory card.” And bear in mind, if you work for the elections office, you don’t even need a key.
It really comes down to this: do you trust the people counting your ballot?
cont'd
http://www.huffingtonpost.com/judy-frankel/the-black-box-voting-mach_b_8082384.html
= new reply since forum marked as read
HEY, maybe that's why Trump was cozying up to Putin. 
Now, watch Hil go after the Chinese. 
