There is a legitimate concern of many about the security and integrity of an electronic voting system.  For example:

1.What validates that the equipment is operational?

2.What validates that the equipment has recorded the votes correctly?

3.Can the system be ‘hacked’ or manipulated?

4.Can the system be ‘jammed’ or interfered with?

Lets take each one of these questions:

What validates that the equipment is operational?

As part of the cost of ownership of this technology, Wayland would purchase a support agreement after the first two years of warranty.  The support agreement would be 8% per year after the first two years.  This support agreement would make sure that the equipment works, all batteries are refreshed, any defective units are replaced and the system works as a whole.  The support agreement also covers software upgrades.

When you check into town meeting you will be bar code scanned from your state ID number and your keypad bar code.  The two are then locked together into the system for that meeting and this also is just one element of the security (more later on this).  Pressing one button to see if a green light appears will test the keypad.  If so, the unit works.

What validates that the equipment has recorded the votes correctly?

First know that this equipment is widely used by many different sectors of business and education and is a proven technology.  In some cases, an independent auditor is paid to come in and validate it but this is a costly step and one that we may not want to take.

Still another method is the file that is saved on the vote-controlling computer, which could be matched up with the citizen ID’s, and the votes could be posted once.   Other test runs could also do this as a validation step.

It Is important to note however, that the methods we have now like shouting or standing or being counted by a human are vastly less accurate and have many more error sources involved.

The equipment works and a large industry have been built around it because it does.

Perhaps this is the best proof of them all.

Can the system be ‘hacked’ or manipulated?

The system has multiple levels of security and integrity.

Proprietary chip sets:

The chips used in both the keypads and receivers are based on application specific integrated circuits (ASIC’s), which are proprietary to the vendor.  To build a duplicate of the keypad you would have to have access to these secret schematics and mask layouts.  This is a multi-million dollar proposition and it’s a very illegal act to boot.

Frequency hopping:

The transmission of the (fractional) packets frequency hops around a central channel (1-32), which is randomly programmed by the manufacturer.  This technique was developed by the military for their secure needs too.

Fractional packets:

The packets that are launched by the keypads are fractional and do not contain the complete story of their order of send or receive.  The audience pressing those keypads will randomly create a sequence that is unique and well scrambled.

Embedded coding with check sum

Each fractional packet has the embedded code of the citizen and the keypad internal code.  This information is embedded within the packet and along with its random order of launch is check summed.  This defeats somebody using a sophisticated technique of recording packets and playing them back to affect the vote.

Annual channel scrambling

As part of the annual support package, the channel number used would be reset by the manufacturer and not known to Wayland.  This adds still another level of security.

Essentially, the system was designed to defeat hacking and to be successful in doing this; one would have to spend millions of dollars in a cost vs. benefit scenario just to hack into Wayland’s town meeting.   Very unlikely and from this I will say with confidence that this system cannot be hacked.

But again, compare this to shouting and standing and being counted.

Can the system be ‘jammed or interfered with?

To jam a system like this would require multiple coordinated transmitters within the field house and operating at a high level of RF power.

One would have to step on the entire 2.4GHz band to get each and every one of the 32 possible channels.  The affect would be to slow down the vote processing and this would become very evident over the 1,000+ transmitters that were operating.  Not only would this become obvious but also this is, in itself, a very expensive operation to pull off.

It is unlikely that a coordinated set of jammers would get into the hall and be able to operate in such a fashion.

It Is also an FCC felony with very severe prison terms and fine associated.

Based on this, just because we can think of it doesn’t mean this scenario will have any reasonable chance of happening.  The system will not be jammed.