Earlier this yr, Germany banned the use of electronic voting machines in its elections. The nation’s Constitutional Courtroom (much like the U.S. Supreme Courtroom) based mostly its choice on Germany’s Primary Legislation, underscoring the concept that transparency is important in elections.
The ruling emphasised a key precept: all important election processes have to be open to public scrutiny. This concept of transparency applies to digital voting too. The court docket’s ruling highlighted that residents ought to have the ability to confirm the essential steps in an election while not having professional information.
Germany isn’t the one nation elevating questions on election integrity. After the 2020 U.S. elections, considerations emerged over the shortage of a dependable paper path. You may recall the time a hacker at a Las Vegas convention managed to breach voting machines used in 18 states in under two minutes—an alarming incident we reported on earlier than the 2020 election.
However this wasn’t a one-off occasion. Finnish cybersecurity professional Harri Hursti lately hacked a U.S. voting machine stay on a podcast. For those who’re unfamiliar with Hursti, he’s famend for his work in exposing vulnerabilities in voting methods. Again in 2018, he was a part of a serious hack check often known as the “Hursti Hack,” which revealed critical safety flaws in Diebold voting methods.
Hursti’s experience was additionally featured within the HBO documentary Hacking Democracy and Kill Chain: The Cyber War on America’s Elections, the place he uncovered simply how unprotected voting methods are. In 2022, NPR additionally reported that Hurti purchased 200 used voting machines on eBay—with none points. However the machine he bought on eBay extra lately? That sparked an investigation by Michigan officers who need to know the way it ended up in the marketplace.
Finnish cybersecurity professional Harri Hursti
In an article titled, “A hacker bought a voting machine on eBay. Michigan officials are now investigating,” NPR stated this about Hurti:
“Hursti is a cybersecurity professional who is commonly contracted by state-level election officers to check vulnerabilities in voting machines. That’s why he purchased the Dominion ImageCast X machine as quickly as he noticed it on-line, he advised NPR throughout a telephone interview.”
Quick ahead to at present, Hursti is now elevating the alarming ease with which he may manipulate a voting machine. In a stay podcast with PBD, Hursti demonstrated how somebody may take full management of the machine utilizing a pre-programmed USB stick—creating votes or altering ends in seconds.
“If this had been an actual election, I may have gone into the system and adjusted every thing,” Hursti defined. When requested simply how a lot could possibly be altered, he replied, “Something. I may add a brand new candidate who wasn’t even on the poll.”
Hursti’s demonstration shines a harsh mild on the vulnerabilities that also exist in election safety, elevating essential questions in regards to the integrity of future elections. For extra particulars about Hursti, take a look at his Wikipedia page.
Voting machine hacking poses a critical menace to the integrity of our election system, and Hursti isn’t the one professional elevating considerations. New Scientist additionally reported that “hacking a US electronic voting booth takes less than 90 minutes.”
Right here’s a video exhibiting how Hursti hacked a voting machine utilized in some U.S. states in simply seconds, stay on PBD’s podcast.
