No point vote in USA!

[MT]

Voting machines hacked in numerous ways, easy'ist dont even need any tools. Who on state level enabled the purchase of these poorly constructed machines or machines at all? Clearly it reflects not only the political situation in USA but also the glorified US engineers and US engineering. Most provocative statement yes but utterly valid. So CIA, NSA, FBI, etc all have super secure hardware but average hillbilly Joe US citizen get's vote machines made in China or what not?!

[Bud]

Im just curious if you looked in your own backyard before taking on worlds problems.

[rstofer]

Mostly that video is a pile of crap.  I didn't get very far in to the conspiracy nonsense but right off the bat they talked about 'that kid'.

The kid hacked a web site but that is NOT the official results.  The results are tabulated from the paper ballots.  Even when  votes are counted electronically, there is a paper trail.

Unless results are close, votes aren't recounted.  But they can be and often are.  Bush vs Florida comes to mind.  One can argue with the 'chad' thing but there was a paper trail.  Hint:  Our main-in ballots require a signature which is manually compared with an exemplar every time I vote.  Furthermore, I have the legal right to ask if my vote was counted (it might not be if I made extraneous marks on the ballot, for example).

The real problem isn't the machines or the technology, the problem is the candidates.  How does somebody come up with enough money to spend tens of millions of dollars running for state office that pays $100k/year?  Well, they sold out to somebody and it isn't the poor people - they can't contribute the kind of money it takes to win an election.

Most voting machines aren't networked.  The votes are stored inside the machine and downloaded back at the Registrar's office.  There are variations, of course, but mostly the votes are secure.

Every once in awhile, the votes from an entire district are 'lost' or 'suddenly found'.  This doesn't do much for creating a warm fuzzy feeling.  This crap doesn't happen in the large states where politics is serious.  There are too many special interests watching every step in the process.  But for the smaller states, their impact on national elections is so small that their votes are meaningless.  Unless they gang up to support a candidate.  Then they matter.  Hillary's strategy to skip over smaller states cost her 'bigly'.

Russia hacking the voting process itself?  I kind of doubt it.  But, Russia producing propaganda on social media?  Definitely.  Nobody has come up with even 1 vote electronically changed by Russia but there are many examples of propaganda on Twitter and Facebook.  This is life in the age of the Internet.  Get used to it!

Then there are the conspiracy nuts that have a "Show".  Like the video.  The Internet provides these nuts with an outsized presence and audience.  Any fool can start a YouTube channel.  "Conspiracies R' Us!"  Indeed, the Internet provides an 'echo chamber' so like minded folks can reinforce each other and never encounter a contradicting idea.

There is no such thing as 'Voter Suppression'.  There may be a requirement for ID, why wouldn't there be?  I need ID to get on an airplane, why not to vote?  Remember the signature requirement above?  That tracks back to my California Driver License and to the property records.  They know exactly who I am and where I live (assuming I kept DMV updated which I am legally required to do).  DMVs also issue non-driver ID cards.

Yes, there are examples of intimidation - like the Black Panthers suppressing white voters in the '08 election. 
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/New_Black_Panther_Party_voter_intimidation_case

Perhaps it is raining and hard to get to a polling place.  Maybe it is a bit out of the way.  Maybe there are long lines (mail-in ballots are the way to go!).  Maybe a lot of things...  But when only 58% of eligible voters even bother to vote, I don't think folks should be yelling about suppression.  In Singapore, voting is mandatory!

And, anyway, what's it to you?  You don't live here (according to your location flag).

[AF6LJ]

This is a prime example where electronics should not be used, too easy to hack.

He is quite right, those machines have been that way since Day One.
Paper ballots counted by hand in the view of everyone is the only safe way.

[xrunner]

Clearly it reflects not only the political situation in USA but also the glorified US engineers and US engineering. Most provocative statement yes but utterly valid. So CIA, NSA, FBI, etc all have super secure hardware but average hillbilly Joe US citizen get's vote machines made in China or what not?!l]

Oh nice, what a wonderful topic to help foster a better forum relationship for us all! 

[AF6LJ]

[/quote]

Mostly that video is a pile of crap.  I didn't get very far in to the conspiracy nonsense but right off the bat they talked about 'that kid'.

The kid hacked a web site but that is NOT the official results.  The results are tabulated from the paper ballots.  Even when  votes are counted electronically, there is a paper trail.

Unless results are close, votes aren't recounted.  But they can be and often are.  Bush vs Florida comes to mind.  One can argue with the 'chad' thing but there was a paper trail.  Hint:  Our main-in ballots require a signature which is manually compared with an exemplar every time I vote.  Furthermore, I have the legal right to ask if my vote was counted (it might not be if I made extraneous marks on the ballot, for example).

The real problem isn't the machines or the technology, the problem is the candidates.  How does somebody come up with enough money to spend tens of millions of dollars running for state office that pays $100k/year?  Well, they sold out to somebody and it isn't the poor people - they can't contribute the kind of money it takes to win an election.

Most voting machines aren't networked.  The votes are stored inside the machine and downloaded back at the Registrar's office.  There are variations, of course, but mostly the votes are secure.

Every once in awhile, the votes from an entire district are 'lost' or 'suddenly found'.  This doesn't do much for creating a warm fuzzy feeling.  This crap doesn't happen in the large states where politics is serious.  There are too many special interests watching every step in the process.  But for the smaller states, their impact on national elections is so small that their votes are meaningless.  Unless they gang up to support a candidate.  Then they matter.  Hillary's strategy to skip over smaller states cost her 'bigly'.

Russia hacking the voting process itself?  I kind of doubt it.  But, Russia producing propaganda on social media?  Definitely.  Nobody has come up with even 1 vote electronically changed by Russia but there are many examples of propaganda on Twitter and Facebook.  This is life in the age of the Internet.  Get used to it!

Then there are the conspiracy nuts that have a "Show".  Like the video.  The Internet provides these nuts with an outsized presence and audience.  Any fool can start a YouTube channel.  "Conspiracies R' Us!"  Indeed, the Internet provides an 'echo chamber' so like minded folks can reinforce each other and never encounter a contradicting idea.

There is no such thing as 'Voter Suppression'.  There may be a requirement for ID, why wouldn't there be?  I need ID to get on an airplane, why not to vote?  Remember the signature requirement above?  That tracks back to my California Driver License and to the proper ta records.  They know exactly who I am and where I live (assuming I kept DMV updated which I am legally required to do).  Yes, there are examples of intimidation - like the Black Panthers suppressing white voters in the '08 election.  DMVs also issue non-driver ID cards.

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/New_Black_Panther_Party_voter_intimidation_case

Perhaps it is raining and hard to get to a polling place.  Maybe it is a bit out of the way.  Maybe there are long lines (mail-in ballots are the way to go!).  Maybe a lot of things...  But when only 58% of eligible voters even bother to vote, I don't think folks should be yelling about suppression.  In Singapore, voting is mandatory!

And, anyway, what's it to you?  You don't live here (according to your location flag).

Russia doesn't do anything America already does to other countries.
Truthfully Russia had no influence on the election. Seth Rich contributed the largest single factor in the election The Truth by way of Emails.

[David Hess]

Hacked voting machines are the least of the problems with elections in the US.

[rstofer]

Russia doesn't do anything America already does to other countries.
Truthfully Russia had no influence on the election. Seth Rich contributed the largest single factor in the election The Truth by way of Emails.

Of course we try to massage elections.  It isn't pretty but I'm pretty sure we do it all the time.
Seth Rich?  Who knows?  Maybe he sent documents, maybe he's a fall guy.  Maybe his killing really was 'random'.  It happens in some cities dozens of times a week.

The conspiracy nuts just love counting the number of dead people in the Clinton sphere of influence.  It numbers 56 according to this list.  Vince Foster was just one of many.

https://scout.com/college/auburn/Board/104012/Contents/Clinton-Dead-Pool-List-112235358

The Internet is cool!  We can hear anything we want!

[station240]

There is a video somewhere on youtube about flaws with the DieBold voting machines. See they are touch screen controlled, and some of the screens are so badly calibrated what you touch isn't who you vote for.
If I recall they also run Windows XP, and have no security software installed at all. Not much chance of getting this fixed, as there is no funding to fix it, obviously.

[Beamin]

If it makes you feel any better during the Obama romney election there was a video someone posted where anywhere you clicked on the screen romney would be selected. All the other screens worked as normal. And if that wasn't enough the voting machines in many states were supplied by Bain capital Romneys company. This to me was the biggest news story and threat to our country I had ever seen (I had no idea what 2016 was going to be like) and it got almost no media attention let alone the huge investigation that was needed and jail time handed out. trump makes up some bull shit about Hillary rigging the election and its taken seriously, Romney and Bain get caught in the act and nothing. I have never looked at this country the same since I saw that story and how it was just ignored.


Paper ballots no matter the inconvenience or cost are key to making things fair and recounts possible. If there is a 0.00001% chance electronic ballots can be altered they should not be used. Losing fair elections is the biggest threat to this country even bigger then 911 and gets less then 0.001% of the time and money spent on it.

[David Hess]

The conspiracy nuts just love counting the number of dead people in the Clinton sphere of influence.  It numbers 56 according to this list.  Vince Foster was just one of many.

Dig up the FBI's report on the investigation including their interviews concerning Vince Foster's death.  No conspiracy is necessary for Hillary to be held responsible for his death even if it was not criminal.  Of course, maybe such a lack of empathy would make her extra qualified to be a politician and President.

The only odd thing about the death of Seth Rich is that if it was deliberate, they did not do a better job concealing it.  And that fits perfectly for a local (individual) no questions asked operation by an amateur.

[richnormand]

"There is a video somewhere on youtube about flaws with the DieBold voting machines."

Have a look at this HBO documentary on voting machines and their proponents.
It is old but I would guess the situation and politics have not changed much:

[AF6LJ]

Hacked voting machines are the least of the problems with elections in the US.

I would disagree; the future of the country depends on the vote.
Trash the machines, go back to counting the real ballots in the full view of the public.

[AF6LJ]

Russia doesn't do anything America already does to other countries.
Truthfully Russia had no influence on the election. Seth Rich contributed the largest single factor in the election The Truth by way of Emails.

Of course we try to massage elections.  It isn't pretty but I'm pretty sure we do it all the time.
Seth Rich?  Who knows?  Maybe he sent documents, maybe he's a fall guy.  Maybe his killing really was 'random'.  It happens in some cities dozens of times a week.

The conspiracy nuts just love counting the number of dead people in the Clinton sphere of influence.  It numbers 56 according to this list.  Vince Foster was just one of many.

https://scout.com/college/auburn/Board/104012/Contents/Clinton-Dead-Pool-List-112235358

The Internet is cool!  We can hear anything we want!

Just a few points...

1. The Internet will be cool when it becomes the free and open internet is was in 1994 when I got on the Internet the first time without having to go though a BBS gateway.

2. The data on the thumb drive Wikileaks received, the Pedista emails was downloaded directly from a server, not hacked piecemeal from over the net, forensics indicate.
I for one am glad Seth did it, he is a true patriot and hero.

[David Hess]

Hacked voting machines are the least of the problems with elections in the US.

I would disagree; the future of the country depends on the vote.
Trash the machines, go back to counting the real ballots in the full view of the public.

Why do you trust real ballots?

I helped provided election security for a couple of years where I discovered that they did not even bother counting third party ballots; they just threw them in the trash at the counting center yet somehow delivered poll results for those same parties.  And every year some poll workers took the ballot boxes home for the night instead of delivering them directly to the counting center.  Once I found that nobody cared, I kept my mouth shut until I moved away from the area.

Later I studied election systems.  The "choices" given in US elections are an illusion even without corruption.

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Hotelling%27s_law
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Duverger%27s_law

Electronic voting is not going to break anything which is not already broken.

[Beamin]

I almost didn't post in this thread because I know dave doesn't like the politics. Maybe we can stick to the technical details which are loads more interesting.

[AF6LJ]

I almost didn't post in this thread because I know dave doesn't like the politics. Maybe we can stick to the technical details which are loads more interesting.

I almost didn't post in this thread because I know dave doesn't like the politics. Maybe we can stick to the technical details which are loads more interesting.

They broke the law; why didn't you report them?

Here is the deal.
You cannot maintain a chain of custody with a memory module, you cannot audit a memory module.
You CAN maintain a chain of custody, and preform an audit or recount if necessary.
You also have ballot serial numbers and it is much easier to demand an image of your ballot, which they have to give you here in the People's Republic of Kalifornia. (California)

What do you think a cal cert would be worth if there was no chain of custody back to NBS, that peace of test gear would be just as worthless as those electronic ballots.

[Beamin]

Mostly that video is a pile of crap.  I didn't get very far in to the conspiracy nonsense but right off the bat they talked about 'that kid'.

The kid hacked a web site but that is NOT the official results.  The results are tabulated from the paper ballots.  Even when  votes are counted electronically, there is a paper trail.

Unless results are close, votes aren't recounted.  But they can be and often are.  Bush vs Florida comes to mind.  One can argue with the 'chad' thing but there was a paper trail.  Hint:  Our main-in ballots require a signature which is manually compared with an exemplar every time I vote.  Furthermore, I have the legal right to ask if my vote was counted (it might not be if I made extraneous marks on the ballot, for example).

The real problem isn't the machines or the technology, the problem is the candidates.  How does somebody come up with enough money to spend tens of millions of dollars running for state office that pays $100k/year?  Well, they sold out to somebody and it isn't the poor people - they can't contribute the kind of money it takes to win an election.

Most voting machines aren't networked.  The votes are stored inside the machine and downloaded back at the Registrar's office.  There are variations, of course, but mostly the votes are secure.

Every once in awhile, the votes from an entire district are 'lost' or 'suddenly found'.  This doesn't do much for creating a warm fuzzy feeling.  This crap doesn't happen in the large states where politics is serious.  There are too many special interests watching every step in the process.  But for the smaller states, their impact on national elections is so small that their votes are meaningless.  Unless they gang up to support a candidate.  Then they matter.  Hillary's strategy to skip over smaller states cost her 'bigly'.

Russia hacking the voting process itself?  I kind of doubt it.  But, Russia producing propaganda on social media?  Definitely.  Nobody has come up with even 1 vote electronically changed by Russia but there are many examples of propaganda on Twitter and Facebook.  This is life in the age of the Internet.  Get used to it!

Then there are the conspiracy nuts that have a "Show".  Like the video.  The Internet provides these nuts with an outsized presence and audience.  Any fool can start a YouTube channel.  "Conspiracies R' Us!"  Indeed, the Internet provides an 'echo chamber' so like minded folks can reinforce each other and never encounter a contradicting idea.

There is no such thing as 'Voter Suppression'.  There may be a requirement for ID, why wouldn't there be?  I need ID to get on an airplane, why not to vote?  Remember the signature requirement above?  That tracks back to my California Driver License and to the property records.  They know exactly who I am and where I live (assuming I kept DMV updated which I am legally required to do).  DMVs also issue non-driver ID cards.

Yes, there are examples of intimidation - like the Black Panthers suppressing white voters in the '08 election. 
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/New_Black_Panther_Party_voter_intimidation_case

Perhaps it is raining and hard to get to a polling place.  Maybe it is a bit out of the way.  Maybe there are long lines (mail-in ballots are the way to go!).  Maybe a lot of things...  But when only 58% of eligible voters even bother to vote, I don't think folks should be yelling about suppression.  In Singapore, voting is mandatory!

And, anyway, what's it to you?  You don't live here (according to your location flag).

Go watch the full video many of the points you brought up were countered asto why it was a problem. Things like data in plain text, the root password is "password", using certificates from 2013.Openeithenet ports. The girl just takes a ball point pen pics the lock pushes a button and she's in. Very easy todo considering you have privacy and no time limit even though you only need much less then the time I spend voting. You should be outraged. I am. Clearly they are putting profits first a time honored tradition in this country.


They also "we have vigilant poll monitors". Most are like 80 years old have no idea how computers work and could easily be bribed or be corrupt themselves/ Russian spies.. I had a friend who was blind and the poll monitor was trying to force her to vote for all the republican candidates. She literally had to get a second poll monitor who's party affiliation she asked for first, which is a problem in of itself, to watch the other poll monitor to not change her vote. I'm sure every other blind person she helped had their votes changed since there was a large community of blind people near by. Her's would have been had she not been paying attention. That lady should be in jail on felony charges.

[edy]

Whether there is a problem or not with the voting machines, the BIGGEST ISSUE is the fact that the companies who make them do so in PROPRIETARY ways that limit the security expert field from properly scrutinizing the machines. I understand they don't want any patents or trade secrets to fall into the wrong hands, but still, the best way to ensure the security is good is to PENETRATION TEST it with a bunch of hackers, offer a prize and make it available to be hacked.

Ideally, you would want an OPEN SOURCE approach if possible and not go after "hackers" who buy up the used machines to try to find the vulnerabilities in them. There were DEFCON competitions I believe a few years ago devoted to this kind of stuff, complete with lawsuits by the various manufacturers prohibiting people from buying them and trying to "Reverse engineer" the machines.

Ok, so you want to give someone a "black box", don't tell them about anything inside, keep everything proprietary and obfuscated as to how it works. OK.... But at least don't stop well-meaning hackers or threaten to sue them.

https://www.theregister.co.uk/2017/07/29/us_voting_machines_hacking/

[Beamin]

Whether there is a problem or not with the voting machines, the BIGGEST ISSUE is the fact that the companies who make them do so in PROPRIETARY ways that limit the security expert field from properly scrutinizing the machines. I understand they don't want any patents or trade secrets to fall into the wrong hands, but still, the best way to ensure the security is good is to PENETRATION TEST it with a bunch of hackers, offer a prize and make it available to be hacked.

Ideally, you would want an OPEN SOURCE approach if possible and not go after "hackers" who buy up the used machines to try to find the vulnerabilities in them. There were DEFCON competitions I believe a few years ago devoted to this kind of stuff, complete with lawsuits by the various manufacturers prohibiting people from buying them and trying to "Reverse engineer" the machines.

Ok, so you want to give someone a "black box", don't tell them about anything inside, keep everything proprietary and obfuscated as to how it works. OK.... But at least don't stop well-meaning hackers or threaten to sue them.

https://www.theregister.co.uk/2017/07/29/us_voting_machines_hacking/

This goes beyond them losing profits due to people seeing inside the machine. This literally is a national security issue and if you are afraid of losing profits go make a different product. Profits before democracy is a bad idea. Do we have to have someone making a profit off of literally every goddamn thing in tis country? We make profits off of prisons in this country. Who even thinks of that? Oh our democracy fell because some company had to maintain its bottom like. 320,000,000 have everything to lose so that a few hundred that directly benefit from the profits of these machines? The phrase "You got greedy and lost it all" is what we are watching. The reason why it's not an issue that it should be is that one party stands to benefit from it. Rig the voting machines so they will win and if they don't win for some reason then just say the voting machines were compromised and the election wasn't valid. It's like another matter of national security: the F35 fighter jet program that costs over a trillion dollars: We can't cancel it because it will cost 100,000 jobs. OK then lets cancel the program, take 500 billion of the 1.5 trillion and just write all the employees who lost their jobs 10 years salary (in reality they won't be paid nearly this much) . $1.5 trillion is bout 2.5% of ALL the money the entire population of the world makes in one year. The cost/profit of these machines is a very small fraction but a larger issue of national security. More examples of getting greedy. Flint Michigan's water supply was switched to save literally $100 dollars a day. Now to fix it costs thousands of times more and will probably never be fixed. I see this as a warning of things to come. Lets put partisan politics aside for once since we can all agree how important this is. END=RANT I'm going back to talking about electronics; that's a fun frustration.

[coppercone2]

its probably good that we got hacked and effected because no one would do shit about cyber security otherwise. These things are never ever handled proactively and they did a pretty bad job at destabilizing a country all things considered.

When did you ever see someone take a proactive security measure unless some politician is scared he will be shot ? The budget wont be allocated come hell or high water unless something happens. We would probably have nuclear reactors connected to public payphones if some kind of crime did not occur. When it gets really retarded someone can do real damage.

Someone just has a playbook of politispeak/corporatetalk they open up to try to tell you why the issue you are trying to protect against is a waste of public resources/money, unless something happened. Then at least they get to look like an idiot.

You need to remember that most politicians are a bunch of Bruce Fords.
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Rob_Ford



You know what happens you bring up this kind of issue? Someone writes on a time sheet some where that they determined the issue you brought up is pointless, and they try to get billable hours and a raise for it, because they managed to save money by determining the issue is non issue. 

Then you get an ulcer worrying about it and someone gets a promotion because they are an expert at not worrying and being negligent. Save your energy lol

Hell, the threat becomes greater because they determined (with an angle) that its not a threat, full steam ahead!

[Eka]

Two predominately rural Wisconsin counties that neighbor each other with no large cities near by. Demographics are basically identical. One used video voting machines that then produced the paper trail, and the other used paper ballots that were then fed into a machine that counted them. I'll let you guess which one overwhelmingly voted for Trump. The other clearly voted for Clinton.

Sorry, the video voting machines that produce the paper trails themselves can't be trusted. Only way to get a trustable vote is to use paper ballots the person who is voting gets to mark themselves. Those votes can then be run through multiple different machines and hand counted and the results can be cross correlated. The ballot counting machines that work best are the ones that have no knowledge of who is in what position on the ballot. They just look at the ballot number, and count up the votes in each position and apply accept or reject rules for blocks of positions. When done with a batch of ballots, they spit out a report that says for ballot #X these were the results. Each ballot number seen is tabulated separately because the machine has no clue which candidate is in which ballot position. The only configuration the ballot counting machine needs is to be told where the ballot groups are so voting for more than Y people in a group will cause ballot rejection.
 

Most voting machines aren't networked.  The votes are stored inside the machine and downloaded back at the Registrar's office.  There are variations, of course, but mostly the votes are secure.

Every once in awhile, the votes from an entire district are 'lost' or 'suddenly found'.  This doesn't do much for creating a warm fuzzy feeling.  This crap doesn't happen in the large states where politics is serious.  There are too many special interests watching every step in the process.  But for the smaller states, their impact on national elections is so small that their votes are meaningless.  Unless they gang up to support a candidate.  Then they matter.  Hillary's strategy to skip over smaller states cost her 'bigly'.

Russia hacking the voting process itself?  I kind of doubt it.  But, Russia producing propaganda on social media?  Definitely.  Nobody has come up with even 1 vote electronically changed by Russia but there are many examples of propaganda on Twitter and Facebook.  This is life in the age of the Internet.  Get used to it!

Then there are the conspiracy nuts that have a "Show".  Like the video.  The Internet provides these nuts with an outsized presence and audience.  Any fool can start a YouTube channel.  "Conspiracies R' Us!"  Indeed, the Internet provides an 'echo chamber' so like minded folks can reinforce each other and never encounter a contradicting idea.

There is no such thing as 'Voter Suppression'.  There may be a requirement for ID, why wouldn't there be?  I need ID to get on an airplane, why not to vote?  Remember the signature requirement above?  That tracks back to my California Driver License and to the property records.  They know exactly who I am and where I live (assuming I kept DMV updated which I am legally required to do).  DMVs also issue non-driver ID cards.

Yes, there are examples of intimidation - like the Black Panthers suppressing white voters in the '08 election. 
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/New_Black_Panther_Party_voter_intimidation_case

Perhaps it is raining and hard to get to a polling place.  Maybe it is a bit out of the way.  Maybe there are long lines (mail-in ballots are the way to go!).  Maybe a lot of things...  But when only 58% of eligible voters even bother to vote, I don't think folks should be yelling about suppression.  In Singapore, voting is mandatory!

And, anyway, what's it to you?  You don't live here (according to your location flag).

[cdev]

Andrew Apfel, a CS professor at Princeton has co-authored a number of papers on the insecure voting machines. New Jersey was even warned about a particular kind of machine but purchased them anyway.

Several generations of computer science graduates have written innumerable papers about the various touch screen voting machines enabled by the Stop America from Voting Act.

https://www.cs.princeton.edu/~appel/voting/

[AF6LJ]

Andrew Apfel, a CS professor at Princeton has co-authored a number of papers on the insecure voting machines. New Jersey was even warned about a particular kind of machine but purchased them anyway.

Several generations of computer science graduates have written innumerable papers about the various touch screen voting machines enabled by the Stop America from Voting Act.

https://www.cs.princeton.edu/~appel/voting/

Seems many states are using these security warnings as a buyers guide.
I think everyone should keep in mind the sociopathic nature of the average politician tends to see a rigged voting machine as a means of job security.

Electronic voting machines are the least secure way to hold election data.

[ebastler]

Clearly it reflects not only the political situation in USA but also the glorified US engineers and US engineering. Most provocative statement yes but utterly valid. So CIA, NSA, FBI, etc all have super secure hardware but average hillbilly Joe US citizen get's vote machines made in China or what not?!

You will need to decide whom you want to insult with your post -- US or Chinese engineers?