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[Peter G. Neumann]

[...]

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FROM SIGSOFT Software Engineering Notes, January 1989, Peter G. Neumann:

The latest item on the integrity of computers in elections relates
to the November 1988 Senate race in Florida.  *The New York Times*
(Saturday, 12 Nov 88, page 9) had an article by Andrew Rosenthal
on suspicions of fraud arising from the results.  At the end of the
Election Day ballot counting, the Democrat Buddy Mackay was ahead.
After the absentee ballots were counted, the Republican Connie Mack
was declared the winner by 30,000 votes out of 4 million.  However,
in four counties (for which B.R.C. provided the computing services),
the number of votes counted for Senator was 200,000 votes less than
the votes for President while in other counties and in previous
elections the two vote totals have generally been close to each
other.  Remembering that punched card are intrinsically a flaky medium
and easy to alter surreptitiously, and that the computer systems
in question reportedly permit their operators to turn off the audit
trails and to change arbitrary memory locations on the fly, it seems
natural to wonder whether anything strange went on.  Subsequent to
the Times article, a recount was requested, but a selective recount
of a few precincts apparently turned up nothing unusual.  However,
doubts linger about the essential subvertibility of the process --
particularly in the case of punched cards.

In Texas, a law suit has been filed on behalf of the voters of the
state challenging the entire election and requesting not a recount
but an entirely new election.  The grounds are that the State did
not follow its own procedures for certifying the election equipment.

--- end forwarded text


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