HACKING DEMOCRACY.
Written by Paul R. Lehto to
The North County Times,
Californian, March 1, 2007.

Dear Editor:
Rather than considering the voters the bad guys by restricting the e-voting hack test to polling place conditions, Supervisor Stone should allow a fully realistic test. In fact, under actual real-world conditions, successful election cheaters get elected to office and then become, for example, elections officials with full access to the machines. Moreover, even legitimately elected officials can sell elections for money and we'll hardly be the wiser if it's a reasonably close race.

Therefore, a very realistic security test would be to allow any citizen to hire the computer expert of their choice, and give that expert days or perhaps weeks to hack the system, BEFORE any seals and so forth are placed on them. This is just like the access that top elections officials have.

To be even more realistic, the citizen and his computer expert will also be allowed to “certify” and “audit” their own hacking work, and further we must all with a straight face refer to this citizen and his computer hacking expert as the election “authorities.” Finally, if there is even a hint that anyone is on to this ruse, we should immediately condemn such citizens for damaging the confidence of the public in this fraud, er, test.

Just think: the government gets all of its money and power from the voters and yet Supervisor Stone and other government officials have the audacity to turn the bright lights of suspicion upon THE VOTERS. Shame on them.

Those who approve of this no-public-oversight electronic elections system where the government purports to audit itself and watchdog itself are pulling the wool over the public’s eyes. If they are serious, then they must also think that not only did Arthur Anderson do a great job auditing Enron, but that Enron could do a great job auditing Enron, because that's what you have when the government vouches for its own election results.

So, there’s a fair test. Supervisor Stone, are we on for this real test? With your permission, this test will be limited to your personal re-election race, and to no other race, and you will express your “confidence” in the results of that race, whatever they may be. Please publicly state if you will accept this challenge, or if you refuse this challenge. Should you refuse to accept this challenge, your political credibility may self-destruct in ten seconds.

—Paul R. Lehto,
—Attorney, Democracy Activist &
—Election Protection Activist

EDITOR’S NOTE:
Mr. Lehto’s letter was written in response to Chris Bagley, “Elections chief wary of ‘hack’ test,” The North County Times, March 1, 2007. The article described Riverside County Supervisor Jeff Stone’s plan for testing whether a “rogue citizen” could hack into touch screen voting machines while in the voting booth. The test would allow a hacker fifteen minutes to try and hack into a machine “using only tools concealed in normal-sized pockets.” As Lehto points out, “rogue” voters are probably the least of our problems when it comes to the question of tampering with computerized voting results.