Virginia Voting Machines, Essay Example

The title of the chosen article is “Virginia Voting Machines ‘Protected’ by Ridiculously Simple Passwords, Report Claims,” and its main argument surrounds the vulnerability of voting machines in Virginia to hackers. The key question the author is addressing focuses on whether the voting machines were programmed with passwords that are too easy to guess, such as “admin” and “abcde”. The article suggests that passwords that are too simple such as “password” or “12345” can be figured out by a 6-year-old child and should not be used to “protect” the integrity of election machines. Additionally, the machines are wireless and the articles states that the simple passwords were used for elections between 2002 and 2014 (Howley, 2015).

The article’s emotional appeal seems to target the readers’ sense of whether or not they can trust in the voting system and if their votes will be counted properly. The article also may give people the impression that previous elections may have been hacked, which may appeal to the emotion of angry in many people.

Fallacies that appear in this article include 1) the comment about the passwords being so easy to guess that a 6-year-old could have figured them out, which is an example of an unwarranted assumption fallacy that is not supported by evidence (cite textbook here), and 2) the comment about because it was easy to crack the voting machine passwords during a trial run, then anyone with a little knowhow could have also easily hacked into the machines. This is actually an example of a slippery slope fallacy because of the assumption that the action of testers hacking into the machines easily is permitted, then every other action of the same type will occur (cite textbook here). These two fallacies are in line with the main assumption in the article, which is using passwords that are too simple does not effectively secure the voting machines and leaves them vulnerable to hackers.

Understandably, the article is biased in favor of making sure people are aware of the vulnerable voting machines, as opposed to creating an argument in favor of the simple passwords, such as stating that just because the passwords couldbe hacked, does not mean that they would be hacked. A weak point of the article is that it did not include whether or not past elections were audited due to reports about the vulnerable passwords. The article’s strength is that it is thorough with including the opinions of technology professionals and that the machines are no longer in use.

References

Howley, D. (2015, April 16). Virginia Voting Machines ‘Protected’ by Ridiculously Simple Passwords, Report Claims. Retrieved from Yahoo! News: https://www.yahoo.com/tech/virginia-voting-machines-protected-by-116556609864.html?soc_src=mail&soc_trk=ma