Dominion ICX Simple Hacks Daunting Recoveries

The Dominion ImageCast X Ballot Marking Device

Ballot Marking Devices (BMDs) like the Dominion ImageCast X present digital touchscreens for voters to make selections and generate printed paper ballots for optical tabulation.

Manipulating Ballot Layouts via Election Definitions

Using a physical Dominion ICX terminal, researchers demonstrate how simple modifications to election definition files (without requiring binary malware injection) can alter candidate ordering, silently remove choices, or present misleading voting instructions.

Daunting Post-Election Detection and Recovery

Because ballot display manipulations directly deceive the voter during selection, detecting and recovering from election definition tampering after polls close is extraordinarily difficult or impossible without full hand recounts of paper records.

Root Cause Analysis and System Design

Analyzing the underlying architectural decisions in BMD firmware reveals how relying on unauthenticated configuration definitions and barcode-encoded ballots creates severe systemic vulnerabilities.