Yes isn't that more of an indictment of the machines than anything? Shouldn't these machines simply be able to get a new image written to them and be good to go?
Again if part of the security model of the voting machines is "nobody except trusted people can touch them", then they shouldn't be in use.
Now instead assume I am only given 10 minutes with your computer, and not even the computer it self, just a touch screen with no access to any of the physical ports, and I'm only allowed to use a very limited guest account that can only run one program that is auto run and the account logs out if that program closes. Would you feel safe using that computer afterwards?
> Shouldn't these machines simply be able to get a new image written to them and be good to go?
If you lose trust in the hardware there is next to nothing you can do in software to rectify the problem. The quote "no methods exist to adequately secure them" might be going to far, but it's entirely reasonable to say it would be cheaper to buy 5 new machines than it would be to fully verify and recertify 1 of the spoiled machines.
I honestly never understood why anyone (except these who manufacture them) would support their use.
If they can be trivially reimaged, that’s already a security problem.
They can go through the entire recertification process with any necessary rebuilding, but the cost of that when you have no certainty what might have been done is unlikely to be less than, and may be much more than (ad hoc diagnosis being much more expensive than production-line manufacturing) just buying a new certified machine.
That seems catastrophically stupid.