The Florida programmer who alleged that a legislator commissioned him to write a vote-rigging prototype said Tuesday that his software could easily be used to change the totals of votes from optical scan readers as well.
Optical scan readers, which electronically scan paper ballots to expedite determining results, are subject to the same vulnerability of any system that uses proprietary and uninspected code for tabulating results.
Programmer Clinton Curtis also addressed questions on the technical aspects of his program which programmers have posed to RAW STORY over the past several days.
Curtis says the prototype he developed took just ten minutes to write, with a detailed explanation on detecting such a program several hours. It's a very simple program, he says.
"A three year old programmer could write that code," he says.
The program was not written for any specific touchscreen hardware, but instead designed to work with a Windows database, he states. It could be implemented at a precinct, county or state level.
"You could do it server side," he remarks. "Then you can flip entire areas by connecting to one machine. If you have one server running the entire state, you can flip the entire state. All you’re doing is accessing the code that no one can see."
He noted, however, that were the prototype made into an actual program used to rig the vote in Florida, a voting company would have to have participated.
He noted that such a program could have been implemented without the color codes signaling who won each county changing.
"You wouldn’t have to win the vote [in a specific county], you’d only have to narrow the margin," Curtis says. "You can still let the Democrats win the area but with the margins reduced where its no longer going to have impact across the state."
For example, he stated that that the vote for a Democratic candidate could be reduced in heavily Democratic Miami-Dade County. The candidate would still win the county, but the reduced margin might allow a Republican candidate to win the state overall.
But Republicans, he says, should be equally concerned. If the vote were to be rigged, Republican candidates wouldn't need the support or concerns of Republican voters either.
"Republicans should be just as concerned if they machines are assigning the vote, because once they have those in place, they don’t need anybody," he states. "We have ourselves a king instead of someone who gets voted in or voted out."
Some programmers have written RAW STORY taking issue with Curtis' claim that such a program would be impossible to detect. Curtis admits it might be detectable, but not without extreme difficulty.
"It could be possible," he concedes. "Microsoft might be able to deconstruct that code. It’s very tough to decompile. Microsoft has made it very tough to take apart an executable."
But "I have a feeling that the manufacturer of those machines would scream really loud that their proprietary rights were being stamped on," he adds.
Others asked why Curtis didn't keep a copy of the program. As a NASA contractor, Yang Enterprises' facilities are a secure site -- nothing leaves the building.
Curtis says the proprietary machine code should be dumped and replaced by open source code that is reviewed by both parties before it is put on the machines. He states that it would be inexpensive to write.
“I suggest that we right code and replace the machines," he says. "It would be terribly cheap, and make the whole thing much more foolproof, and then if your exit polls don’t match, you run your receipts."
Meanwhile, the Associated Press reports that a vast majority of Floridians are confident their vote was counted and few had "voting problems."
RAW STORY has not received inquiries from the Associated Press.
Originally published on Wednesday December 8, 2004.
