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Pre-Election Testing May Not Detect Software That Alters Votes

From the "The Machinery of Democracy: Voting System Security" (the Brennan Center June 2006 report), p. 44:

"There are a number of techniques that could be used to ensure that testing does
not detect the attack program.

■ The attack program could note the time and date on the voting machine's
clock, and only trigger when the time and date are consistent with an election.
This method could, by itself, prevent detection during vendor testing,
Logic and Accuracy Testing and Acceptance Testing, but not during Parallel
Testing.

■ The attack program could observe behavior that is consistent with a test (as
opposed to actual voter behavior). For example, if Logic and Accuracy
Testing is known never to take more than four hours, the attack program
could wait until the seventh hour to trigger. (Note that the attack becomes
more difficult if the protocol for testing varies from election to election).

■ The attack program could activate only when it receives some communication
from the attacker or her confederates. For example, some specific pattern
of interaction between the voter or election official and the voting machine
may be used to trigger the attack behavior. This is often called a "Cryptic
Knock."

The only way to be confident of catching faulty or malicious code is to have paper ballots, and a hand audit of a random sample of precincts.