What more proof do we need we have sold our democratic right to the electoral process down to the commercial hucksters, corporate frauds and plutocratic oligarchs that may be directly involved in wanting this to be this way. The brazenly obvious problems inherent in these systems is way too pronounced to be ignored out of simple lack of information or bureaucratic inertia. Interests involved are determined that these be used regardless.

The researchers obtained the machine, a Diebold AccuVote-TS, from a private party in May. They spent the summer analyzing the machine and developing the vote-stealing demonstration.

“We found that the machine is vulnerable to a number of extremely serious attacks that undermine the accuracy and credibility of the vote counts it produces,” wrote Felten and his co-authors, graduate students Ariel Feldman and Alex Halderman.

In a 10-minute video on their Web site, the researchers demonstrate how the vote-stealing software works. The video shows the software sabotaging a mock presidential election between George Washington and Benedict Arnold. Arnold is reported as the winner even though Washington gets more votes. (The video is edited from a longer continuously shot video; the long single-shot version will be available for downloading from the center’s site as well.)

The researchers also demonstrate how the machines “are susceptible to computer viruses that can spread themselves automatically and invisibly from machine to machine during normal pre- and post-election activity.”

Read the full report Here, which also contains links for articles on a Princeton prof hacking an electronic voting machine, along with online video demonstrations of this crime against democracy.