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Voting Machines Banned by Dutch Minister

Posted by Zonk on Tue Oct 31, 2006 09:20 AM
from the no-business-here-go-screw-up-belgium dept.
Privacy Government Politics
5heep writes "Dutch Government Renewal Minister Atzo Nicolai has banned the use of one type of computer voting machine in national elections next month. The turnabout came after a group called We Don't Trust Voting Computers protested the vulnerability of electronic voting to fraud or manipulation. The reason for this ban is the radio signals emitted by the machines which can be used to peek at a voters' choice from several dozen meters away."
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Related Stories

[+] IT: Dutch Blackbox Voting Pwned 353 comments
An anonymous reader writes, "In a just-published report (PDF, in English, cached here), the Dutch we-don't-trust-voting-computers foundation (Dutch and English) details how it converted a Nedap voting machine, of a type used in Holland and France, to steal a pre-determined percentage of votes and reassign them to another party. The paper describes in great detail how 'anyone, when given brief access to the devices at any time before the election, can gain complete and virtually undetectable control over the election results.' As a funny bonus, responding to an earlier challenge by the manufacturer, the researchers reflashed a voting machine to play chess. The news was on national television (Dutch) last night and is growing into a major scandal. 90% of the votes in the Netherlands are cast on these machines and national elections will be held in a month." Please create mirrors for the 8.1-MB PDF and post their URLs. You might also try John Graham-Cumming's l8r.org service to tell you when the slashdot effect subsides from any of the mirrors.
[+] Politics: Dutch Securing E-voting After Being Pwned 269 comments
An anonymous reader writes, "After the Dutch we-don't-trust-voting-computers foundation demonstrated glaring security holes in Dutch voting computers last week, the Dutch government has ordered (Dutch) all software to be replaced, all hardware to be checked, unflashable firmware to be installed, and an iron seal to be placed on voting machines. A certification institute will double-check all measures, and on election day will cull random machines to check them for accuracy. The Dutch intelligence service AIVD has been approached to consult on the radio emissions issue. Furthermore, foreign observers will monitor the upcoming elections on November 22nd. But the action group is still not confident (Dutch) that all problems are solved." US elections are controlled at the local level, so unfortunately such a nationwide fix would not be workable here.
[+] Politics: Deathblow To a Voting Machine 140 comments
SiggyRadiation writes "According to their newsletter (my English translation here), the Dutch group that 'doesn't trust the voting computers' has won a round against the industry and the civil servants that seem hell-bent on reintroducing voting machines — NewVote, made by SDU — that the Dutch minister of the interior has suspended. Apparently SDU provided 5 slightly different samples of its machine to the Dutch version of the NSA (well... the very humble Dutch version anyway) for testing purposes. Of those five, four machines emitted radiation in such a way that the votes cast could be monitored. SDU's NewVote received its final deathblow when it became clear that the one machine that stayed within the radiation limits used a green-on-red color-scheme for its screen. And that would be a small problem for the 4% of all men that cannot distinguish between red and green."
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  • Hey Slashdot (Score:3, Insightful)

    by isaacklinger (966649) on Tuesday October 31 2006, @09:24AM (#16657037)
    How about writing to the people responsible [ministernicolai.nl] to show some support?
    • Only the Sdu computers (a small minority) are banned. The rather thoroughly hacked Nedap computers are still okay, according to minister Nicolai. Instead of showing him some support, ask him to ban those too, because they're really not any better.

      A few minor improvements have been made, but the basic problem remains: voting computers are a black box, and it's impossible for normal voters to check if they work properly, if their vote is being counted, if somebody has messed with it (and it is easy to mess wi

  • Better late than never, I guess... (Score:5, Informative)

    by truedfx (802492) on Tuesday October 31 2006, @09:25AM (#16657053)
    According to my local newspaper, these voting machines have been used in the last two elections.

    • Re: (Score:2, Interesting)

      by FST777 (913657)
      More information:

      There have been roughly two types of voting machines in use in the Netherlands: one produced by Nedap and one produced by Sdu. The latter is the one that is banned a few days ago, because they could be spyed on from a distance. Curiously enough, the platform "we don't trust voting machines" proved that voting machines can be spyed on a few weeks ago, but they proved that with the Nedap machine.

      The platform never had a chance to test this problem with the Sdu, since they only had acces

  • Give me something I can Count! (Score:5, Informative)

    by Zarniwoop_Editor (791568) on Tuesday October 31 2006, @09:25AM (#16657057) Homepage
    Paper ballots... you can count them... You can check them, you can verify them.
    Computer Ballots don't leave the average Joe with any sense that they can be verified.
    Too much potential for problems with Electronic voting from a voter perception perspective.
    I like putting my little X on the ballot.

    • Re: (Score:2, Interesting)

      by MeltUp (633868)
      Why can't they make these things simple and thrushtworthy for everyone?
      It ain't so hard:

      - Enter voting office
      - Receive a "voting paper"
      - Enter voting booth
      - Insert voting paper into machine
      - Push the button for the candidate you want. (Machine's critical components are covered in faraday cage, to stop any readable transmissions)
      - Vote is printed on paper
      - Check the print and fold the paper along the prefolded line, so text is no longer visible
      - Publicaly put it in the urn (where they just fall in a disorder

      • Re:Give me something I can Count! (Score:5, Insightful)

        by quigonn (80360) on Tuesday October 31 2006, @10:04AM (#16657659) Homepage
        The only justification (at least in the Netherlands and Germany) for voting computers is cost reduction - adding a voter-verifiable paper trail would completely totally destroy this "advantage" (which is very questionable, anyway).

        But, in fact, there is no reason to reduce cost in this process. Cost shouldn't matter here, since secret, equal, free elections are a crucial process within democratic systems. Besides that, the pen and paper method is the most simple method you have, everybody understands it. In fact it's so simple, everyone can audit the whole process. Contrary to that, audits of computer-based systems can only be done by a few experts (and a complete audit goes from a security audit of the software down to as far as checking the hardware for possible modifications).

          • Re: (Score:3, Insightful)

            by quigonn (80360)
            How can this save costs? Do you know how expensive those machines are? Compared to simple pen and paper, they amortize after about 20 years of operation. And that's the _maximum_ operation period (for XP-based machines like the SDU voting computers probably even shorter). Faster counting? How relevant is that whether the election officials can go home one or two hours earlier? You shouldn't sacrifice something as crucial as _voting_ to getting home earlier. And regarding your "changing your vote" argument:
    • >Computer Ballots don't leave the average Joe with any sense that they can be verified.
      Not only the average Joe, they don't leave any Joe with a sense they can be verified becouse they can't!
      >Too much potential for problems with Electronic voting from a voter perception perspective.
      It's not just preception.
      • Open Voting Consortium which needs your donations of time or money to develop the open source implementation of this, and Populex, a commercial product both work exactly as you describe. But plugging all the loopholes in it is trickier than you might think. Go to OVC's site and read up.
  • Europe understands something we (Americans) are still struggling with.
    • Europe understands something we (Americans) are still struggling with.

      Nah. It's just that the Dutch actually value their democracy.
    • Yes, the Dutch politicians understand something US politicians don't: cheapass symbolism gets you just as many votes as actual problem solving. Instead of fixing the problem, they *ban* electronic voting.
      • No they haven't. They banned one specific voting machine, which has been demonstrated to compromise voter anonymity.
      • RTFA Troll.

        Security concerns regarding one particular type of voting machine were raised. They were proved to be valid. It is possible to determine, at a distance of tens of metres, what is on the display of machine. Through this, one can tell who is being voted for at any particular time. The ballot is no longer secret.

        Because of this, that particular type of voting machine can no longer be used in elections. Other electronic voting machines will be tested for the same problem before they are allowed

      • Re: (Score:3, Insightful)

        by quigonn (80360)
        Actually, banning _is_ the solution. Voting computers make voting less verifiable, less auditable, more expensive (although the Voting machine producers claim otherwise), so why use them? What reason justifies switching from a proven, working, easy-to-use, easy-to-audit system (pen and paper) to a new technology of questionable quality?
  • I know more than a bit about electronics and electrical engineering, having spent part of my early career designing various gadgets. I have to wonder why all this fiasco with these electronic voting machines when it would be so very easy to simply build a small printer which uses a roll of paper (think cash register) inside to create a paper polling record.

    It would not add substantially to the cost, and the small rolls of paper that resulted would be perfect in cases where a recount was demanded or required

    • Re:What's the big deal adding a paper trail? (Score:4, Insightful)

      by ben there... (946946) on Tuesday October 31 2006, @09:36AM (#16657199) Journal
      If the paper were inside, it would be just as useless. All you'd need to do is hack the system to display a different vote than it prints.

      Any electronic voting machine should print a ballot that you stuff in a box. Electronic tabulation of votes could be used for preliminary results, but the printed ballot that the voter can read and verify should be the final word.
      • No, the paper is printed and is first displayed to the user, behind plexiglass (or such), so it is confirmed after printing but before it drops into the ballot box.

        By the way, can somebody please gag Karl Rove? Thx.
        • I'd prefer not to even complicate the system with that. While the printed ballots would be viewable, if they drop into a box in the booth, you don't have the chance to observe what happens to the ballots, due to the privacy concerns of its location. It is much easier to secure a ballot box that is right out in the open, and to secure the ballot's complete transit from booth to counting, first by the voter herself, then by election observers.
        • You'd have to be able to observe the entire path of the printout, from the printer to the ballot box.
          And even then: what's to stop the machine from printing extra ballots when it detects that no one is watching?
    • Or even better, just ditch electronic voting machines until they can be proved as safe as paper voting in all ways (which might never happen in my opinion). Yes, I'm a geek. Yes I like computers. No, I don't like using computers for voting.
  • Can't one do a similar thing with regular voting? X-rays or whatever...
    • With tons of money and if the ballot were printed with thick pure lead, maybe it could be theorically possible, and maybe people won't notice the big trucks just outside. But with normal ink, I don't think you could do that without killing the targeted voter with the radiation.

      OTOH, a small camera+radio transmitter correctly placed in the booth is just fine for that job and any TLA can have them by dozen.
  • exactly what is it that the dutch and the americans find so hard about putting an x on a piece of paper is beyond me next they will be telling us that only 99.9% of them are illiterate!

    • Re: (Score:3, Informative)

      by aadvancedGIR (959466)
      Years ago, I heard about a big election in an african country in which a large proportion of the population was illiterate. The solution was easy, they simply ask every party to choose a distinctive sign. On the ballot, they put those signs in front of the names of the candidates (plus their photos) and it worked rather fine.
      Conclusion: illiteracy is absolutely not an excuse for not having correct voting procedures.
  • In the PDF document they tell that they were challenged by the builder of the original voting-machine to turn it into a chess-computer.

    Which they did. :)
    • Settle down.

      It's not ALL voting computers, just one type, which makes up about 10% of their machines (according to TFA). And that's just for the next election, which comes in 3 weeks. You can't redesign a machine & get it certified & redeployed in that kind of time frame, so banning it makes sense.

    • Why is voting different? If your ATM and stockbroker were not able to give you a paper receipt you wouldn't trust them either. That's why.
      • Ah well, but those systems are vulnerable to similar things as those voting computers...
        • They may be just as vulnerable, but you can check your balance and know if there is something suspicious going on.
        • You can object to transactions because you usually do get a receipt, but it's much more difficult to object to election results because an inherent property of secret elections is that you get no receipt, meaning that it's _very_ difficult to find any proof if an election fraud was done by modifying the voting computers.

    • The FCC has banned computerized trading

      And the FDIC has banned computerized banking

      And the FAA has banned computerized flight control

      What next? Seriously, why is voting any different from these other very important uses of computers? Doesn't it make more sense to fix the problem rather than ban the machines?

      Think about it. Your examples revolve around money or human life. The manufacturers of those machines __must__ get them right, or there is immediate finantial fallout.

      Those examples do not produce hidde

      • The average voter has no way of knowing if a voting machine is doing it's job.

        The average voter?

        Would anyone know if votes were tampered with in software?

        Paper and pencil, please! I will count the votes myself if no one else wants to.

    • What next? Seriously, why is voting any different from these other very important uses of computers? Doesn't it make more sense to fix the problem rather than ban the machines?

      First, they are banning one type of machine, not electronic voting.

      And it's different because voting fraud can potentially have worse consequences than those, and one of the fraudsters could be the guy that organizes the event, the governing party, with all the power available.

      Plus, voting machines are everyday proved insecure. Of cou

      • Plus, voting machines are everyday proved insecure.

        Even more so in this special case. I was told by well-informed sources that these machines are actually Windows-XP-based and have GPRS connection. Rumors say that the Dutch secret service had security-audited this type of machine, and seems to have found some potential security holes, which seems to be the unofficial reason for the ban.
        • Secret service involvement is not a rumor. The press release [minbzk.nl] (Dutch only) by the responsible Minister states that the AIVD (Dutch secret service) has examined these voting machines, and has concentrated on whether voting is remotely observable (Van Eck-type attacks). The press release doesn't mention GPRS-related attacks. What the AIVD found officially was serious enough on its own, and very plausible. No need for it to be a cover for another type of attack.
    • Voting machines can be constructed in any way possible, but never completely exclude the fact that you can commit fraud with them.

      One solution often presented is the XBOX-type of security - encrypted links between hardware, redundancy etc etc - but as *we* know this type of security is breakable. You only have to do this once to break the security of all voting machines.

      Apart from this, some people mention the use of a paper trail. This trail itself has to be counted fully then, irrespectful of the
      • But in general, it will be sufficient to re-count the results of some small random sample of the voting machines (which of course may not be determined before the voting ended) to exclude with high probablity that fraud is going on. Note that 100% certainty cannot be achieved with paper voting either. The goal is to get that probability low enough that it can be practically neglected.
        If you make the paper trail ballots machine-countable as well, even recounting shouldn't be too hard. Manual recounting would

    • Re:In a related story ... (Score:5, Insightful)

      by esme (17526) on Tuesday October 31 2006, @09:43AM (#16657313) Homepage
      Seriously, why is voting any different from these other very important uses of computers?
      Voting is different for a number of reasons:
      • Voting is done in secret, with the only way of knowing the results being the voting machines. And the makers of electronic voting machines are against the only decent way of double-checking them (voter-verifiable paper trail).
      • Voting is only done a few times a year, rather than continuously, year-round.
      • Voting is administered by the people who have the largest incentive and opportunity to cheat.
      • And most importantly, unlike the other examples you list (banking, trading, flight control), electronic voting machines have not been shown to be more reliable and accurate than humans.

      This last point is a little fuzzy, because I'm sure electronic voting machines are better than poorly-designed punch-card ballots, and maybe some other flawed mechanisms. But the best system available right now is optical-scan paper ballots that can easily be hand-audited and hand-recounted. They are easy to use, require only a very circumscribed use of technology, and can easily be verified by people if there are any problems or a very close result.

      Doesn't it make more sense to fix the problem rather than ban the machines?

      Sure -- I don't think anyone is saying we should never use computers for voting. Fix the problems, and then use them for voting. Advocates of electronic voting seem to be saying we should do it the other way around, which is insane.

      The current round of voting machines are insultingly under-engineered, considering the problems I listed above. There are many types of threats to the integrity of voting machines, and Diebold et. al. aren't interested in addressing them. They're more interested in shutting down debate and research about them, in fact, which is very worrying to me.

      -Esme

      • Sure -- I don't think anyone is saying we should never use computers for voting. Fix the problems, and then use them for voting.

        Okay, I'm saying it: We should never use computers for voting.

        Computers don't really bring much to the table that's positive, but they do bring a lot of potential problems. I would consider it if and only if it were the case that the computer did nothing beyond print out a piece of paper with your choices clearly designated that you could then drop in a box. At least that wou

    • "What next? Seriously, why is voting any different from these other very important uses of computers? Doesn't it make more sense to fix the problem rather than ban the machines?"

      There's a very good reason why it's different: because in a secret ballot recorded by computer there is no way to verify the integrity of the data. In all of the examples you list above (electronic trading, ATMs), it is possible to compare the data in the computer with the data you expect to be in the computer.

      For example, i

    • Seriously, why is voting any different from these other very important uses of computers? Doesn't it make more sense to fix the problem rather than ban the machines?

      The automated financial transactions (like your "automated ATM machine teller machine") are auditable.

      The life & safety equipment is subject to extensive testing.

      Unfortunately, the voting machines are not subject to the same scrutiny.

      Have you considered that threatening to ban voting machines might just be one way to "fix the problem"?

    • And the FAA has banned computerized flight control. The turnabout came after a group called We Don't Trust Flight Control Computers protested the vulnerability of electronic flight control to terrorists' hacking or manipulation.

      If a group published a method whereby terrorists could take over the flight computer remotely there would be an outcry and you would expect the FAA to act. I'm glad the Dutch government is taking seriously the exposure of a risk to their democratic process.

    • What next? Seriously, why is voting any different from these other very important uses of computers?

      If voting machines were tested as rigorously as avionics I don't think there would be as much of a problem.

    • Read this [wikipedia.org].
    • It doesn't really transmit radio signals. The little LED screen gives some EM noise which can be detected using a radio. When the screen shows a non-standard character (like à or ë) it has to acces another part of it's memory, and that changes the frequency of the noise. You can hear this difference.

      Unfortunately, there is only one party which has a non-standard character in it's full name (an 'è'), so when the noise frequency changes, you know the voter chose that particular party.
      • Actually, what you describe is how the Nedap machine (which hasn't been banned) works.

        The machine that's been banned is the SDU NewVote, which uses a Windows computer and a touchscreen. According to the report, the AIVD could view the entire contents of the screen.

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