Electronic Voting: Hacked?

Originally Posted by Adamgian

I suppose if security holes were dealt with however, it would be a substantially better system. I think paper is probably more expensive than the machines, and probably more open to fraud. With the nation paying attention to such security holes, maybe there will be enough of an attempt made at fixing the holes.

The problem is no amount of security can keep a determined person from breaking in. You can create software that makes it difficult enough to make most people think it's not worth it. But you can't make it secure enough to keep out someone who's willing to try the challenge.

There's always a hole. There's always a vulnerability. There's always a way around something. There's always a way to break it. That's the problem with computers and software.

You should also have some kind of back up or copy (like a paper trail) so those who control the software or configure it cant go and change it later to change the votes. Or change it before to act in a certain way. Even if you had the perfect security in place it would be useless if the Admin(s) decided to be dirty and cheat. Atleast with paper it takes a larger amount of effort to change the votes. With computers all the Admin(s) would have to do is change a value in a database to change the whole election in their favor within minutes, for example.

Jam it back in, in the dark.