Eddie Tipton, the former information technology manager for the Multi-State Lottery Association, was convicted in 2017 of rigging lotteries. The organization he worked for provides number-picking computers for lotteries in 33 states, the District of Columbia, Puerto Rico, and the U.S. Virgin Islands.
He concocted a simple scheme: he added code to the computer programs that run the lotteries so that on certain specific days instead of producing a random draw of winning numbers, the program picked numbers known to him ahead of time. He had his brother and friends buy winning tickets and shared in the “winnings.”
The first known instance was the Colorado Lotto in 2005. The last payout was 2011. The one that triggered his arrest was a $14 million payout from the Iowa Hot Lotto in 2010. And that happened more by luck than anything else.
What does this crime mean for electronic voting machines?
We must realize that what Eddie Tipton did while working for the Multi State Lottery Association someone else could do working for a voting machine manufacturer
The lottery scam presents a parallel argument that all electronic voting machines should have a paper backup so voters can confirm the machine has correctly tabulated their vote and election officials can perform an accurate recount or audit.
Here is one example in which someone who wanted to affect a presidential election could make a difference:
Several states, including Pennsylvania, allow straight ticket voting in which by making a single choice, the computer records you as voting for the candidate of your chosen party. Although Pennsylvania law requires new machines to have paper backup, most old machines do not. Imagine if some programmer had the foresight a decade ago to stick in a little bit of extra code in the programming that changes one of every 100 straight party votes from Party A to Party B for the 2020 election only.
Pennsylvania is a swing state . . . that small bit of code might be enough to change who is elected president.
Don’t want to change votes, how about not counting all the votes? Not counting one of every fifty straight-line Party A votes accomplishes the same result.
This fantastic scenario requires a single programmer in the right spot at the right time, just as Eddie Tipton was in the right spot at the right time.
Hackers with access to voting machines can accomplish the same thing on a more targeted basis. They can commit after-the-fact voter suppression, say by rigging machines to ignore one of every 100 votes in certain districts that vote primarily for Party A and maybe flip an election to Party B. Oh sure, comparing the number of voters to the number of votes cast could uncover the irregularity, but then what? Would the courts order an entire new election? Would voters lose confidence that their votes mattered?
The opportunities are myriad. We must have secure elections. We should require electronic voting to have paper backup. If Congress were serious about preventing election fraud, it could purchase electronic voting machines with paper backup for every voting precinct in the nation. Would it cost money? Yes. But Congress has no problem increasing our budget deficit, and at least we’d get something for the money spent.
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James M. Jackson authors the Seamus McCree series. Full of mystery and suspense, these thrillers explore financial crimes, family relationships, and what happens when they mix. False Bottom, the sixth novel in the series—this one set in the Boston area—is now available. You can sign up for his newsletter and find more information about Jim and his books athttps://jamesmjackson.com.
