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Hacker uses this vulnerability to install additional software on the ImageCast, that fills in additional ovals on the op-scan ballot, after the voter has inserted it for scanning.For example, the ImageCast has several USB ports, and USB is notoriously insecure.

Hacker exploits a security vulnerability of the ImageCast voting machine or on the election-administration laptop computer that prepares ballot files.Security design isn’t easy! A good security designer has to be able to think adversarially, to understand the threat model, to understand how the software could subvert the hardware. This appears to be an elementary security-design mistake. If the cheating software can mark my ballot, after the last time I can inspect it, then the ballot seen by the recount team is not the same as I marked it. When I feed my marked ballot into an optical scanner, I do not want the optical scanner to have the ability to fill in more bubbles on my ballot! The whole purpose of the paper ballots, and the human-inspection random audits, and the human-inspection recounts, is to guard against the possibility that a hacker installed cheating software into the voting machine. That means it can cast more votes onto your ballot. Of course, the legitimate software installed by Dominion won’t do that, but the machine is physically capable of it, and fraudulent software can exploit this ability. From the diagram of the paper path, above, it’s pretty clear that the same bidirectional paper path contains both the scanner and the printer. But the ImageCast Evolution can print right onto your ballot, after you insert it into the slot.

We can detect this fraud by recounting a random sample of the paper ballots. If the optical-scanners have been hacked, they lie about what’s on the paper ballots. But those using the BMD feature will insert a blank ballot into the scanning slot after they indicate their choices using the touchscreen or audio/button interface, the ImageCast Evolution will fill in the bubbles on their ballot for them.Ĭombining the BMD+scanner is a really bad idea! Remember, the purpose of the paper ballot is to guard against cheating by hacked voting computers. Most voters fill out their ballots by hand, and insert into the scanning slot. In contrast, the ImageCast Evolution is an “all-in-one” device: combination BMD and optical scanner. In a typical polling place, there are cardboard privacy screens for those voters who use a pen to fill in the the bubbles on their op-scan ballots one BMD for voters who want machine assistance marking their ballots and one optical scanner into which all voters deposit their ballots. Ballot-marking devices (BMDs) are provided for those voters (and for any other voters that wish to use them) the BMDs are equipped with touchscreens, and also with audio and tactile interfaces (headphones and distinctively shaped buttons) for blind voters, and even sip-and-puff input devices for motor-impaired voters. These BMDs print out a paper ballot that can be scanned by the optical scanners and can be recounted by hand. Some voters are unable to mark their ballots by hand–they may have a visual impairment (they can’t see the ballot) or a motor disability (they can’t physically handle the paper).

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We count the votes with optical scanners (which are very accurate when they haven’t been hacked), and to detect and correct possible fraud-by-hacking, we recount the paper ballots by hand. (This can be a full recount, or a risk-limiting audit , an inspection of a randomly selected sample of the ballots.) Therefore (in almost all the states) we vote on paper ballots. When we use computers to count votes, it’s impossible to absolutely prevent a hacker from replacing the computer’s software with a vote-stealing program that deliberately miscounts the vote. Unfortunately, that means ES&S can still sell machines (such as their ExpressVote all-in-one) incorporating this design mistake. The Dominion ImageCast Evolution looks like a pretty good voting machine, but it has a serious design flaw: after you mark your ballot, after you review your ballot, the voting machine can print more votes on it!. Fortunately, this design flaw has been patented by a rival company, ES&S, which sued to prevent Dominion from selling this bad design. This article was originally posted at Freedom to Tinker on October 16, 2018.

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