Feds to Recommend Paper Trail for Electronic Votes

flanksteak writes "The National Institute of Standards and Technology is going to recommend the decertification of all electronic voting machines that don't create paper records. Although it sounds like this recommendation may have been in the works for a while, the recent issues in Sarasota, FL (18,000 missing votes) have brought the issue a higher profile. The most interesting comment in the story comes near the end, in which the author cites a study that said paper trails from electronic voting machines aren't all they're cracked up to be."

Well it's about time...

[3seas]

actually it should never have been without a paper trail.
It's not like we don't have enough prior experience with data losss not to know how useful a paper trail is.
And the government with its sexdulpicates should have already know it.

Re:Well it's about time...

[networkBoy]

Thing is, depending on whether or not the machine prints a human readable output only then it could be made to lie on the paper record as well.
-nB

Paper records

[Harmonious Botch]

"Thing is, depending on whether or not the machine prints a human readable output only then it could be made to lie on the paper record as well.

But if a paper copy is given to the voter, then lies are caught.

Paper voting!

[Quietude]

Why do we have to overly complicate voting in this country anyway? Other Western democracies make do just fine with pencils and paper, so what's the reasoning behind using electronic voting machines in a country where most people can't set the clocks on their VCRs?

Paper trails vs. paper ballots

[MarkusQ]

Part of the problem with the "paper trail" issue is that the idea keeps getting transformed, by gradual steps, into something that is totally useless. The paper gets put behind glass, printed on a roll, no recourse if it's too fant to read, etc. until there's no reason to suspect that it represents the voter's intentions and not some hacker's.

The ballot needs to be tangible, a physical object that the voter can inspect (handle, read and verify) and it should be the official record of the vote. If you want to have the touch screen machine give you an insta-count, fine (though I wouldn't) but the actual ballots should also be counted, every time, by hardware too dumb to hack, and if the counts differ the physical ballot count should be the one that is used.

--MarkusQ

Re:What about to make election transparent?

[daeg]

You don't want a transparent election. While times are not tough now, they may be in the future, and you never know what kind of trouble those around you could create if they knew or could find out who you voted for. Voting is a anonymous and deniable for a reason.

Re:There weren't any damn missing votes

[cheezedawg]

The only real solution to this whole mess is to add a 'None of the above' to the list. I'd punch that as many times as registering a vote.

I fail to see how that is a solution to anything. Why go through all of that trouble just to not vote? If you are just trying to make a statement, that sure is a stupid way to do it.

Re:As a matter of accounting....

[jipis]

There is a fundamental difference between an ATM and a voting machine, though. In an ATM, you MUST keep track of the user who was standing at the machine doing the transaction. With a voting machine, you MUST NOT keep track of who is standing at the machine at any given time. Doing so could leak information about how that person voted.

And, as has been proven, a company that can do one well can real screw up the other (hint: begins with a 'D' and rhymes with "re-told").

-J

Compounding Bad Ideas

[carpeweb]

Let's face it, e-voting is a dumb idea. It's bad solution to a host of problems that never existed outside media and lobbyist FUD and creates more problems than it will ever be worth. "Fixes" to it will make it worse. Want a paper trail? Use paper ballots.

Electronic voting benefits

[traindirector]

actually it should never have been without a paper trail.

You obviously misunderstand one of the new and enticing features of electronic voting systems. Paper trails would only make wide-scale fraud more difficult!

Re:And this will accomplish what?

[Bob 4knee]

Not a receipt. A receipt is a bad idea. A verifiable paper trail. If you need to involve computers (the only semi-legitimate reason that I've seen involves handicapped voters), then have the computer print the marked ballot. The person inspects it and then puts it into the ballot box. That is the official ballot. The person does not take a receipt with them. That makes it too easy to coerce people to vote a certain way, or punish them if they vote the wrong way.

Re:Paper records

[ewl1217]

That's not necessarily true. The machine could be made to print the votes that the voter made on paper, but to actually submit fixed votes electronically.

Re:Best solution I've seen

[zippthorne]

How is that better than voting by marking up a heavy card stock ballot with a marker and running it through an optical scanner? If the goal is to minimize steps, why have the touch screen mumbo jumbo at all?

Plus, a sharpie is a lot cheaper than a tablet computer with built in printer.

Re:Paper voting!

[jpetts]

Because if you did it that way, with the number of questions on a given ballot form it gets very unwieldy. What REALLY needs to happen is the decoupling of trivial local (citywide, countywide) ballots from presidential and congressional ballots. KISS.

But of corse that won't happen as it simplifies the electoral process, and transfers understanding and clarity back to the electorate: something the Dems and Reps both hate...

Why the rush to count votes?

[cwills]

Electronic voting benefits mainly the media. There really is not any real reason to have to produce the results of an election within hours after the polls close, except to support the media hype surrounding the election.

The ease of a voting system should not be directed towards the "counters", but towards the person voting and the people who need to be able to verify the counts during a dispute.

Use a simple paper ballot that the voter fills out (with maybe a mechanical/electronic assistance if needed), and places into a ballot box. The voter should not be able to walk out the door with any thing that can prove how they voted, as this can lead to selling votes or force someone to vote in a certain fashion (think of your boss saying that if you want to keep your job, you had to vote for X and bring in the proof).

Electronically/mechanically process the paper ballot to produce the counts. If there is a dispute the paper ballots are verified by hand counting.

The counting system should make a first pass through the ballots and perform a simple pass/fail on each ballot. Any ballot that fails goes to a hand count bin. The machine should be able to perform this "sorting" without human intervention (I believe that my local district's machines either require intervention with each failed scan, or simply indicates that there were failed scans within a batch).

Re:Paper trails vs. paper ballots

[tm2b]

Speed. There are all sorts of reasons that speed is valuable, from the voters' desire for instant gratification, to extending the amount of time that a newly elected candidate will have to prepare for his or her new office, to the financial markets handicapping industrial issues based upon the mix of newly elected officials.

It makes sense to have the electronic results available immediately, and then the paper count can be available days or weeks later. In a close election, it'll matter, and it's just generally good to have a verification step afterwards.

Re:Paper voting!

[HUADPE]

Because if you did it that way [paper and pencil], with the number of questions on a given ballot form it gets very unwieldy.

I don't buy that a paper ballot can't work. I voted absentee in the midterms (I'm studying abroad), and I had a total of 15 elections, with as many as 9 lines each, and a total of 12 different political parties. This even included such oddities as the "Rent Is Too High" party. Fit perfectly fine on a 11x17 sheet of paper. vote once in each column, each row is for a political party. The page was about 3/5 full, so probably 8 more elections and 7 more parties could have fit.

The ballot made sense, was easy to fill out, and included space to write in. I know cause I used that space in a couple of elections where I reviled both candidates. So to your complaint of unwieldy I say no good sir.

too late

[loid_void]

if you haven't seen "Hacking Democracy [hbo.com]" you better.

Legitimate copy of Windows XP

[Anonymous Coward]

I assume you realize that anyone who can hack the voting machine can also hack it so that the paper print-out will indicate your correct vote but the record on the card will be another set of votes, not what you made. The security of the system depends upon the integrity of the clerical staff in charge of the balloting system, it always has and always will. If you can't trust them, and make certain that some independent experts, who have to post bonds certifying the system is clean, certify and assure that no one has unauthorized access to the machines and all connections until the vote is tabulated. That will cost a little more but will put someone's money on guaranteeing that no one tampers with your vote.

CBS

Re:Paper voting!

[JimBobJoe]

And people were told to "Twist" their thumbprint to make sure that the print wasn't readable..

Many countries just dip the thumb in ink when credentialling is complete. The actual ballot is marked with a pen.

GREEeeeaaat Idea

[Ahnteis]

Make it so that the VOLUNTEERS who run the voting locations can be thrown in jail if they make a mistake. That'll really encourage more people to help out.

Re:The voting machine should make a paper ballot

[Anonymous Coward]

If you're a programmer, you can probably also make the barcode say one thing and the name another.

Re:Paper records

[maop]

First of all the paper document in the HBO documentary that was fixed to show incorrect results was produced by a central tabulator computer that reads aggregate results from memory cards. If the individual voting machines print out a paper trail of each voter then the the individual voters can catch the erroneous paper trails. This is not true if only the central tabulator machines have paper trails. So this recommended solution is totally different than the situation in the HBO documentry.

Secondly each electronic voting machine can be equipped to output paper records that can be scanned optically. The paper record outputted is checked by the voter and then it is summited to optical scanner where then and only then it is counted. Therefore you can have the benefits of electronic selection of votes and paper records that are transparent to the voter and can be recounted.

Re:Legitimate copy of Windows XP

[maop]

Thats why the voting machines should not keep track of any results. The voting machines should just print out a ballot with your choices you selected from the touchscreen. The tally should be done at the optical scanner that scans in the printed ballots. The optical scanner/tabulator software of course should be bulletproof and not easily modifiable. The physical security issue would be easier in this case and the real records are always the paper ballots with the tabulator output as the intermediate records.

Missing the point

[j. andrew rogers]

You sort of missed the point of paper trails.

In US States with competent electronic voting standards such as Nevada, a third party audits a random sample of all machines (usually 1-3% in practice, which is adequate), comparing the paper results with the electronic results. Any discrepancy found in the samples between the electronic results and the paper results triggers a full recount from paper, which is presumed to be correct since the voter verified it. This buys you the speed and accuracy of electronic ballots in theory, with the fault tolerance and robustness of third-party audits and independently derivable paper results. The best part is that it is extremely resistant to software/hardware attacks since the voter verified paper is statistically sampled to detect such attacks. Trust but verify, no?

Re:Legitimate copy of Windows XP

[MadJo]

No matter how long you make the chain. It's still as strong as the weakest link.

What is essentially the difference between the voting machine itself counting the tally, or that optical scanner?
Do you trust the software inside that optical scanner? (even though that software can be hacked as well)

This paper trail should be used as means of checking the results of the voting machines, no matter what physically counted the votes (the voting machine or the optical scanner)

Re:Well it's about time...

[uncoveror]

We need to ditch the high-tech whizbangs entirely. Pencil on a paper ballot works. Not every new technology is good, or old one bad.

18000 DEMOCRATS

[Anonymous Coward]

Except you'd expect the under-votes to be random distributed between candidates, but this one was Democrat focussed.

You're missing the main point, this race is very suspicious, a massive undervote, the votes show the remainder of the ticket voted democrat, indicating bias in the under-vote.

The point is IT CANNOT BE VERIFIED. If 18000 Republican votes had vanished and a Democrat scraped through by a whisker, the same problem would be true, THEY HAVE NO WAY OF VERIFYING THE VOTE, and literally have to take Diebolds word for it.