Broward Officials Want Students to Try Hacking Mock Election

[InfoSec News <isn () c4i org>]

http://ap.tbo.com/ap/florida/MGAJ6W8YGQC.html

Published: Aug 16, 2001

FORT LAUDERDALE, Fla. (AP) - Broward County officials considering the
$20 million purchase of a touchscreen voting system want students to
try to tamper with the computers during a mock election.

"One of the biggest concerns raised is whether there is the potential
for computer abuse, and we really need to see how foolproof or
tamperproof this equipment is," county commission Chairman John
Rodstrom said. "If there is a problem, it will happen now or later.
And some of these kids are pretty smart."

Broward Supervisor of Elections Miriam Oliphant is pushing for the
touch-screen system, which records votes on computer discs after
voters use a video monitor to choose candidates.

Broward is forced to get rid of the punchcard ballots used in the last
election. State lawmakers outlawed punchcards as part of an election
reform package quickly pulled together after the embarrassing
presidential election.

Florida was the butt of jokes around the world as the country waited
for a resolution to the presidential election while election workers
squinted at ballots looking for dimples, pinpricks or hanging chads.

Commissioners have two concerns about touch-screen voting: the cost
and security.

They want to hold mock elections at high schools and senior citizen
communities to test computerized voting systems. The commission also
wants the students to try to hack in during the mock vote.

Some school board members don't want to send the wrong message to
students by asking them to break into computers.

"Hackers in training? I don't think so," said school board chairman
Paul Eichner. "It's not the image I want for the Broward County School
District."

Not that there isn't precedent. A student once used a school district
computer to hack into Canada's version of the CIA.

Commissioners could also choose a far less expensive optical scan
voting system, which Oliphant has said would cost the county $7
million. But Oliphant has said optical scan ballots, on which voters
fill in a bubble or connect the ends of an arrow, can lead to missed
votes and mistakes.

The touch screen test would help show if the computers are as easy to
use and mistake-free as touted and how easy it is to create a paper
record of the vote from the computer discs.



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