Hackers at the Las Vegas DEF CON event have demonstrated how easy it is to break into electronic voting machines within a matter of minutes.
It took under 90 minutes for tech-savvy geeks to open the machines and override the system’s defenses, according to a shocking report by The Register U.K.
Nydailynews.com reports: One of the booths was wirelessly hacked by a participant, the publication reported.
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Jake Braun, who got DEF CON founder Jeff Moss to agree to the challenge idea earlier this year, told The Register that the exercise proves just how vulnerable the U.S. is to voter fraud.
“Without question, our voting systems are weak and susceptible. Thanks to the contributors of the hacker community today, we’ve uncovered even more about exactly how,” he said.
“The scary thing is we also know that our foreign adversaries — including Russia, North Korea, Iran — possess the capabilities to hack them too, in the process undermining the principles of democracy and threatening our national security.”
While the ease with which hackers were able to access the machines may seem like cause for alarm, The Register noted that the machines were not fully secured. The site claims that such activity would have been detected and logged.
Voter fraud became a major topic of discussion following the 2016 election.
After losing the popular vote to Hillary Clinton, President Trump claimed on more than one occasion that he would have won it had it not been for falsely cast ballots.
He has since put together a special commission, which he’s praised for having “very distinguished” members, to investigate.
The commission has yet to uncover any proof of voter fraud and has encountered several issues along the way.
Early this month, the NAACP Legal Defense and Educational Fund and Ordinary People Society alleged in a lawsuit that Trump’s commission was being used to disenfranchise and intimidate minorities.
The suit names Trump, Vice President Mike Pence and Kris Kobach, who serves as commission vice chair on the committee, as defendants.
