The likely motive:
“My thought was they could keep it in their back pocket to invalidate any [election] results they don’t like,” one of the former officials told ProPublica. “This goes against everything CISA represents.”
Well, this and to exploit them. Like:
Step 1: exploit vulnerabilities.
Step 2: accuse opponent of exploiting them, lock them up.
Step 3: profit
The CISA employees repeatedly told the political appointees that their request was impossible, in part because the agents capable of pulling off such an operation had just been laid off by Elon Musk’s Department of Government Efficiency initiative. The appointees eventually stopped pressing CISA.
So once again, democracy saved only due to the incompetence of this administration and Musk.
I don’t really understand why voting machines are complicated enough that there are feasible vulnerabilities. They have one job, and it’s to count. It really shouldn’t be too tough for a crack team of competent devs to write the software required to make them work securely. No network access, a memory safe language, and strict business rules should be relatively trivial to setup. Double that will external audits and you’ve got yourself a stew.
Just don’t use electronic voting. Electronic voting is such a dumb idea.
Or, just use a pencil and paper. This a solution in search of a problem with the additional issue (or feature, depending on who you’re talking to) of being able to undermine elections in a number of ways.
(Time taken to count is a shit rationale)
Problem is we buy these things from the lowest bidder
China
