Mistally

Michigan Radio reported this morning that after the close election last November and problems with counting votes in Detroit the state of Michigan is introducing new voting machines. Several cities will start using the new machines next week for the primary election. It is good to try them out on a low-turnout event. The entire state is expected to be using them a year from now.

I won’t be using them (at least not this fall) because I’m old enough to be able to vote absentee. I can study the ballot and the candidates from my home.

In contrast…

The DEF CON cybersecurity conference is an annual event in Las Vegas. This year they added a “Voting Machine Village.” They acquired 30 voting machines for hackers to test. All 30 were hacked.

Melissa McEwan of Shakesville noted this event. Commenter Brad C. pulled up a detail that could scare us. Election Systems & Software, the company that makes paper ballot optical scanners (like my city uses (or just stopped using), has confirmed that their systems may overheat when they’re on for a long time (such as on election day). When that happens they may mistally or discard 30% to 70% of the scanned votes.

And do clerks know this and verify whether it happened? Um…

This is the stuff the vice nasty guy’s Commission on Election Integrity should be looking at. No need to ask whether they will.