I’ve heard the expression, “so easy, a child could do it,” but applying it to monkeys is a new one.
Nevertheless, as several alert readers noted via email, monkeys have been able to manipulate touchscreen voting machines and manipulate vote totals. By all indications, this is not a joke.
Critics of the Diebold touch-screen voting machines turned their attention Wednesday from the machines themselves to the computers that will tally the final vote, saying the outcome is so easy to manipulate that even a monkey could do it.
And they showed video of a monkey hacking the system to prove it.
In the minute-long video produced by Black Box Voting, Baxter the chimp is shown deleting the audit log that is supposed to keep track of changes in the Diebold central tabulator, the computer and program that keeps track of county vote totals.
Black Box Voting founder Bev Harris said the demonstration shows that the system — which will be used in more than 30 states, including Maryland — is dangerously inadequate when it comes to stopping election fraud.
BBV provides a preview of the monkey experiment video online, but it didn’t show much. Nevertheless, if a monkey really has been able to manipulate Diebold machines, I can’t wait to hear the company’s defense.
…Black Box Voting on Wednesday demonstrated two quick ways that “an unscrupulous person with no computer skills whatsoever” could sabotage vote totals, according to Associate Director Andy Stephenson.
The entire voting record can be deleted by choosing “reset the election” on a drop-down menu, he said, or a hacker can destroy a tabulator’s ability to recognize ballots by un-selecting three checkboxes on a program control panel.
Once those changes are made, a hacker could cover his tracks by deleting the audit log, as Baxter did.
Yes, just to be clear, Baxter is a monkey.