Wikipedia Page and backgroud on Dr. Gene Spafford
Top Ten Pros and Cons of Voting Machines
This website puts the pros and the cons into an easier perspective for the everyday viewer wondering how electronic voting machines really do work and if they are really safe.
“Analysis of the [Diebold AccuVote-TS] machine, in light of real election procedures, shows that it is vulnerable to extremely serious attacks. For example, an attacker who gets physical access to a machine or its removable memory card for as little as one minute could install malicious code; malicious code on a machine could steal votes undetectably, modifying all records, logs, and counters to be consistent with the fraudulent vote count it creates. An attacker could also create malicious code that spreads automatically and silently from machine to machine during normal election activities - a voting-machine virus.”
This is a very arising subject that should be put into perspective of the people wanting or buying the voting machines. Going along with Dr. Spafford's lecture, many voting machines can be hacked into their security system and deface the election and the authenticity of the election as well.
“The hacking stories we read in the papers concern attacks over the Internet against systems that are deliberately held open for access by the general public. Voting machines, by contrast, are highly controlled and cannot be accessed over the Internet. Hackers are not omniscient and even vendors have trouble programming tabulation software correctly. The prospect that a hacker could not only manipulate an election but do it without exhibiting a detectable bug is so far-fetched an idea that no one has come close to showing how it might be done.”
These allegations made by Dr. Shamos in my personal opinion are not true because there are people out there can could possibly hack into the voting machines and plant a virus affecting elections.