Hacking a Democracy

Salon is reporting that those touch-screen, computerized voting machines, which are taking over these days, are susceptible to hacking and other mischief, and might have already been hacked. There might also be a conflict–of–interest going on:

Harris had stumbled on what seemed to be a striking conflict of interest — a US senator owned a share in a company that built all the vote–counting machines in his state. She put up the relevant documents on her site, and immediately I knew I’d hit a sore spot, she says, because right away I got a threat letter from ES&S.

The Hamilton County Board of Elections is currently trialing a system of its own electronic voting machines. Hopefully, we can trust that there won’t be a confict–of–interest here.