It took DEF CON hackers minutes to pwn these US voting machines

LTC (Join to see) when I saw your discussion DEF CON hackers I instantly thought about the Defense Readiness Condition (DEFCON). Every time I go to a military installation I see the DEFCON level posted. It that was hackable I would be very concerned.
If we had an integrated voting system, I would be very concerned. Since we have a very decentralized system I am less concerned.
My bigger concern is about people casting ballots who should not be able to. I have worked the pols for 20 years and seen people try to game the system. Since we instituted a requirement for government issued picture ID to verify an individual is eligible to vote prior to vote, fraud has gone down in Virginia.

LTC (Join to see) I am a big fan of paper ballots and scan tron. That way the paper can be matched to the digital. I am a firm believer that cyber security is like physical security in that no matter how good it is, a person with enough time can find a weakness. In the case of Presidential elections it gives a perpetrator four years to find a weakness. The only real way to prevent it is to use a different machine every election cycle. That would be prohibitively expensive to implement.

This is why I believe that the machines have to be backed up by paper so a manual recount can be conducted. It is possible an all electronic system could be hacked and no one would ever know.