Registrar of Voters says electronic voting is secure, report inaccurate

On Friday, we brought you the story about the possibility of rigged elections here in California. We showed you how computer hackers could rig electronic voting machines to change election results. But there's another side to that story. It may be possible to rig elections, but it's far from probable.

As stories go, this one was a real talker.

“What was on that website?”

“It was a virtual tutorial for how to rig an election.”

Good Morning America woke people up to the possibility that flaws in electronic voting systems could lead to rigged elections. Here's what the report says happened in a voting simulation in Maryland.

“We broke into a computer at the State Board of Elections and completely changed the election.”

Now, the same type of voting machines they broke into were used last week in California. So we asked our Registrar of Voters, Mischelle Townsend, what did she think about this? Townsend hadn't seen the report so we brought it to her.

“Totally inaccurate, misleading in terms of electronic voting in general.”

She had a problem with just about every part of the story, starting with those changed election results. Townsend says in the odds in that “simulation” were stacked heavily in favor of the hackers.

“The state of Maryland gave them source codes, pass codes.”

Basically, she says they were given the keys to the kingdom, something actual hackers intent on robbing the kingdom would never get.

Of all the problems Townsend says she had with the report, perhaps her biggest complaint: she says it doesn't even make mention of the safeguards in place to prevent fraud from happening.

“It's more than the equipment, it's the people, the policies, and the procedures that provide a whole network of safeguards.”

In defense of electronic voting, Townsend points to what she says is it's unblemished record of success.

“In the 15 years it's been used internationally and domestically, there's not been a single incident of fraud or tampering with this voting equipment.”

Of course, there are those who will say that will eventually happen. But until it does, odds are electronic voting will become more and more popular. By some estimates, 50 million Americans will vote like this in November.