Lou Dobbs Reported On Dangers Of E-Voting Tonight [View All]

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http://www.cnn.com/TRANSCRIPTS/0312/03/ldt.00.html
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DOBBS: Some bad news from Microsoft. Microsoft says hackers are winning the war against computer viruses. The computer giant says hackers have cost the global economy some $13 billion this year. With bugs like the Blaster worm and the so-called big -- the So Big e-mail virus.

The problems caused by hackers have sparked some concern about a shift to electronic voting methods as well across the country. That shift, of course, began after the voting debacle in Florida in year 2000. But several independent studies have now shown that the new voting devices are not only not foolproof, but perhaps more vulnerable. Lisa Sylvester reports.

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LISA SYLVESTER, CNN CORRESPONDENT (voice-over): Rewind the clock. Remember those dangling and hanging chads in Florida in the 2000 presidential race? Since then, many counties and townships have switched to an electronic system eager to prevent future problems. Now, 30 states have one local government using electronic voting. But Johns Hopkins University professor says a hacker could cause more harm than someone tampering with paper ballots.

AVIEL RUBIN, JOHNS HOPKINS UNIVERSITY: If you wanted to stuff a ballot box, you would have to go around individually stuffing ballot boxes at every precinct, whereas when you introduce computers into the picture, an attack that's successful may be harder to launch but if it is successful, could scale to all of the voting machines.

SYLVESTER: A study released by the state of Ohio this week raises concerns ranging from a computer tallying votes more than once, a programmer gaining access to the system and altering the outcome, or even a hacker closing polls early. Hart InterCivic, one company that makes the machine says, there are areas of risk that need to be mitigated but there's no reason why those issues can't be addressed.

And supporters of the electronic machines say, there's no such thing as a perfect system.

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