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Trump’s Department of Homeland Security Secretly Ordered Cybersecurity Operatives to Acquire a Voting Machine and Hack It. (futurism.com)
submitted 6 days ago by to c/technology@lemmy.world
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[–] 70 points 6 days ago (8 children)

Voting machines are vulnerable just like any other machine, and have been proven time and time again that they're not particularly difficult to hack. DEF CON has been doing it for almost ten years at this point. First time in 2017, with lots of articles covering it. The year after even TIME reported about how an 11 year old did it. In 2024 they got some attention again due to Trump going for second term. But I don't think much came of it...

The US is a flawed democracy, and has been on a steady decline for years.

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  • [–] 28 points 6 days ago (5 children)

    I worry that comments like this can degrade the confidence in the system.

    States run their own elections and they're usually administered at the county level. I can't speak for any other county but the way we do elections here are legit. This system is audited and administered by bipartisan teams. During elections I work with people from different parties and facilitate a system to ensure our voting process maintains integrity.

    If you don't know how elections are administered where you live I encourage you to take an interest and get involved. We all have a duty here to oversee that we are administering elections with integrity.

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  • [–] 13 points 6 days ago (1 child)

    The system is made up of many components, and voting machines are but one part. Even though they might be hackable in various ways, there are much more efficient ways these days to sway an election. The Cambridge Analytics scandal proved one efficient way, while there's now a growing belief that whoever controls the social media algorithm effectively controls public opinion.
    And don't get me started on the two-party-system in the US...

    So no need to hack the machines, really. The system is flawed/corrupt elsewhere more severely.

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  • [–] 3 points 6 days ago* (2 children)

    I'm sorry to say this to you. It wasn't difficult to make a voting machine in 2011. What we have are fraud machines. It's just politically impossible to make a secure voting machine, even though it's technically trivial.

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  • [–] 17 points 6 days ago (1 child)

    Most democracies do not use voting machines because it’s impossible to trust anyone with creating and maintaining it.

    If there is a way to change the vote tallies, then clever people will use it to enrich themselves.

    The only way to circumvent most cheating is by paper ballots recounted manually in front of representatives of all candidates: recounted as many times as asked; and the ballots must be kept in public view until a winner is declared.

    Putting the ballots into any other device negates some or all of the above.

    And I would only have to say this in American political posts. But Americans are married to voting in ways that cannot be verified, except in some states. So most likely what’s seen as common sense in most of the world is either ignored or viewed with suspicion here.

    Ask any student in the uk though; and I’m just echoing what has been taught in school to young children

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