Feds to Recommend Paper Trail for Electronic Votes 205
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... (Score:5, Insightful)
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.
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-nB
Paper records (Score:4, Insightful)
But if a paper copy is given to the voter, then lies are caught.
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Re:Paper records (Score:5, Informative)
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But if a paper copy is given to the voter, then lies are caught.
You can't give it to the voter. That defeats the purpose of the anonymous ballot and what good is it anyway? You couldn't use them in a recount unless you have a chain of custody.
New York State election law requires them to be shown to the voter behind glass. If they accept the paper ballot after verifying it then it goes into a lockbox. Our legislature is dysfunctional but sometimes they actually manage to get it right...
Democracy fails if voter can prove how they voted (Score:2)
Re:Paper records (Score:4, Insightful)
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.
Electronic voting benefits (Score:2, Insightful)
You obviously misunderstand one of the new and enticing features of electronic voting systems. Paper trails would only make wide-scale fraud more difficult!
too late (Score:3, Insightful)
Legitimate copy of Windows XP (Score:4, Insightful)
CBS
Re:Legitimate copy of Windows XP (Score:4, Insightful)
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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)
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Fraudless elections are easy (Score:2)
This just moves the burden of tamper-proofing from the machines in the booths to the one machine that scans the slips. If you can't tamper-proof the former, then you can't tamper-proof the latter either.
Of course you can, because the scanner/counting machine is observable; after the polls close workers scan in one vote and one number goes up by one on the display. People from that location monitor this so it's only possible to cheat this step by counting so fast that humans and camcorders can't keep up with the numbers changing. You can't do this on the vote-placing machines themselves becase then the person that goes after you can see how you voted (by sending somebody through before you to get the tot
Missing the point (Score:3, Insightful)
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 electroni
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Paper voting! (Score:5, Insightful)
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Re:Paper voting! (Score:5, Interesting)
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Many countries just dip the thumb in ink when credentialling is complete. The actual ballot is marked with a pen.
The ink can be washed off (Score:3, Informative)
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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...
Re:Paper voting! (Score:4, Insightful)
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.
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The people who can't set the clocks on their VCRs (who are, incidentally, the majority) think that "computers make things more accurate". And they want voting to be more accurate. Therefore, they think computerized voting machines are a good idea.
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And like New Zealand does. Sure our voting population is only about two million people, but we get voter turnout in excess of 80% and still have results for most electorates within six hours of the polling booths closing. The official result takes somewhat longer, once all the special votes (taken at hospitals and prisons, registered before the election by persons out of the country on the day, or made outside the cou
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Best solution I've seen (Score:5, Informative)
This article came out in forbes a while back and the author has the best solution I've seen for verifying votes on electronic voting machines. He proposes having a touchscreen computer to make all of your ballot selections and when you are done and hit vote it prints out a piece of paper with your sslections. You then can verify your votes were recorded correctly before putting your ballot in a box so that it can be run through an optical scanner at the end of the day to count the votes.
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Methinks that you meant "For all intents and purposes". Take this as a gentle reminder that you should make sure that you actually know what you are typing, otherwise you look like a retard. You're welcome.
slightly better (Score:2)
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Then the roll can be used as an independent check against the computer tallied results. Make the print out in a machine-readable type face and you cou
Re:Best solution I've seen (Score:5, Insightful)
Plus, a sharpie is a lot cheaper than a tablet computer with built in printer.
Re:Best solution I've seen (Score:5, Informative)
Because, with a computer-generated card, the result should be more or less binary -- either Bob voted for a candidate or he didn't.
With a card filled in by a voter, there can be some debate about how complete a mark must be before it counts. Witness the hanging chad hell in Florida.
(OTOH, with computer generated cards, since they are computer generated, it should be trivial to print out fake ballots and stuff the box. But the fake ballots will lack different and unique finger prints.) :/
Selling targeted ads on voting machine screens (Score:3, Funny)
The real reason they want to use touch screen voting machines is so they can pay for all the new equipment by selling targeted ads on the touch screens. As you vote, the ads will be tailored to the demographics of the candidates you support.
-Don
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With a paper verified trail, it can print a human readable form followed by checksums that will allow you to correct for smudges and printing errors. Also if the human doesn't like the printout, it can be invalidated, and re
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You need to make sure the final printed ballot shows candidate names (all) with a big, friggin' dime-sized black dot next to the can
GREEeeeaaat Idea (Score:3, Insightful)
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This exists and is sold by a major voting machine manufacturer. [essvote.com] They sell it more for the purpose of helping disabled voters vote in jurisdictions that use scantron-like ballots. But nothing stops you from having all voters use the machine. (I can't recall if any jurisdiction has adopted it that way however.)
Re:Best solution I've seen (Score:5, Informative)
There are problems with any voting system. Here's the basic rundown:
1) Mechanical lever, paperless: a machine in which the voter sees the whole ballot, sets switches to indicate their vote, and pulls a master lever to cast the vote, which mechanically adjusts a counter mechanism that is recorded by hand after voting has closed. Problem: the gears can jam. This has happened before, and officials can generally identify jammed machines by an anomolous number of 9s -- the machine fails to advance beyond 9 in a given column because that requires the turning of two counting wheels rather than one, Trust me it's happened, and this is why mechanical levers countinue to be used in only a very few jurisdictions.
2) Punch card, paper: the voter indicates their choice by putting the ballot into a machine which makes a physical hole in the ballot that can then be read and counted by machine. Problems: There is no chance to correct a mistaken vote except by spoiling the ballot. An incomplete puch can lead to incorrect tabulation (hanging chads). Perforations that were not voted can still fall out before tabulation, meaning an overvote and an invalid ballot. Florida 2000. This is why virtually no jurisdictions still use punch cards.
3) Optical scan, paper: the voter indicates their choice by marking a paper ballot -- generally by making a mark in a given area of the ballot. Problems: Voters fail to follow directions and make marks other than where they're supposed to (eg circling names rather than checking boxes). Optical scanners identify stray marks as votes (or overvotes), or fail to identify votes. Folded or damaged ballots (particularly in the case of absentee ballots) cannot be read by machine. Optical scan ballots are still very popular, and probably the best solution now being used.
4) DRE - direct recording electronic, paperless or optionally with a voter-verified paper audit trail (VVPAT): A voter makes their selection through a touchscreen, keypad, or audio interface and the vote is recorded digitally onto a removable storage unit -- generally a PCMCIA card. Some units feature a simultaneous paper record to present the voter with a hard copy representing their vote. Problems: No transparency between the casting and counting process. No software independence -- the tabulation of votes is dependent on the same software that records the votes. No independent auditability -- there is no way of verifying that the voting and/or tabulation software has not been compromised. No physical record of the vote when there is no VVPAT, and no dependable physical record when there is a VVPAT.
Paper trails are the most failure-prone parts of the machine and offer no effective protection of the process -- printers can fail, paper loaded incorrectly, ink runs out, paper jams, paper runs out, etc, etc, etc. If it can happen it will, especially in a machine whose hardware is little tested and whose software is engineered on short notice (due to election law that often changes dangerously close to elections), and a machine designed to be used only a couple times per year.
5) All-mail: this is a system that is being pioneered by Washington State -- all voters vote by absentee ballot delivered through the mail. Eliminates the need for polling places, poll workers, etc. Problem: Opens the door widely to massive vote fraud.
6) Colored Stones Cast into an Urn, paperless: A very effective system used in ancient republics wherein voters would indicate their choices by placing stones of different colors into given vessels to indicate their vote. No question of hanging chads, hacked machines, misunderstood ballots, etc. Problems: Not machine readable, somewhat impractical for large precincts and long ballots, expensive and difficult to transport and verify stone counts. Very, very few governments or municipalities have used this me
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You mean Oregon, right?
In my opinion, and yes IAAEP (I am an Election Professional)...
Then I'll assume that's just a brain fart and you really do know the difference between the Pacific Northwest states.
Paper trails vs. paper ballots (Score:5, Insightful)
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
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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
Speed is part of the problem (Score:2)
On the other hand, we have exit polls in the place of real results, so I guess we're no worse off.
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Yes, yes, yes.
You, sir, have realized what any sensible person would, and what virtually all coutry clerks, recorders, registrars, directors of boards of elections, and every other person who works with matters of election administration have long realized: It's much cheaper and more sensible to have human-readable ballots that can also be read by machine
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What we do in NH is so basic and straightfoward I can't imagine why it's not widespread:
1.
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The ballot IS the vote in LA County. The InkaVote reader machines are technically able to count as well as read, b
the Draft NIST recommendations are pretty good!! (Score:4, Informative)
It appears that at least one federal agency has not turned to the dark side. The draft NIST white paper recommends a voter verifiable paper audit trail that is also the ballot of record, AND robust auditing. I was very pleased to read it. I hope the final document isn't watered down, and I hope this or something similar is implemented in time for the 2008 election.
The premise of the whitepaper is that no software dependent system for counting votes (like a touchscreen with no paper ballot) can be fully vetted, and that they should never be used without a software independent record for use in mandatory statistically robust audits.
In other election reform news... There is an organization that has been a key mover in the election reform movement called electionarchive.org. They did a lot of very interesting statistical analysis of the 2004 elections and found some startling results. They have made a very solid list of 15 legislative recommendations. They can be found here:
http://electionarchive.org/ucvInfo/US/EI-FederalL
here is a list of the electionarchive.org recommendations
1.Manual Audits
2.Voter Service Reports
3.Auditable Voting Systems
4.Fund Manual Audits and Voter Service Reports
5.Teeth (enforcement)
6.Public Election Records
7.Election Monitoring Website
8.Submission of Reports
9.Public Disclosure of Voting System Software
10.Prohibit Certain Network Connections
11.Qualifications for Technical Guidelines Development Committee
12.Public Right to Observe
13.Vote Count Audit and Recount Committee
14.Repository for Voting System Disclosure
15.Prohibit Practices that Disenfranchise Voters
Audio trails (Score:2)
Ted Selker mentioned something similar at a seminar this past week. He described a study where subjects voted and the audit trail was sprinkled with a few errors. There were two conditions: (a) paper trails and (b) audio playback of the vote that is recorded to an external device. Subjects did terrible for detection of err
What was wrong with the scan-tron? (Score:2)
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In my area in Minnesota we've still got the scantron machines. You can bet I'll raise holy hell if they change it.
As a matter of accounting.... (Score:5, Interesting)
You'd think this was new technology in light of the voting machine problems.
But ATMs have been in use for at least a quarter century.
Re:As a matter of accounting.... (Score:5, Insightful)
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
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ATMs are not as mission critical as voting machines are.
No one ever needs to use an ATM. They can always use another, or they can just go into the bank, but the voting machine needs to work right, from 6am to whenever polls close, be maintained by less than tech-savvy individuals, resist tampering that is arguably much more complex than a bank machine faces (the worst a machine can do is release its financial contents...which is actually a rather limi
Oh. Took me a while, but I got it. (Score:2)
Nobody's decertifying anything (Score:3, Informative)
That will make me feel better (Score:5, Informative)
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Sure they do, but... (Score:2)
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It's worse than that, I think.
It looks to me (and others) like the Republicans attempted to steal the entire 2006 congressional election (more precisely, enough to maintain a Republican majority in both the House and Senate) and failed only because voter opinion became even more favorable to the Democrats at the last minute. See http://electiondefensealliance.org/landslide_denie d_exit_polls_vs_vote_count_2006 [electionde...liance.org] for details.
And lest you think the pre-cooked exit polls were "inaccurate" this time aro
Compounding Bad Ideas (Score:4, Insightful)
electronic voting idea (Score:2)
You go to a voting booth. You are assigned a random and unique number. Your vote is tied to that unique number and made available online. Anonymity is maintained, while anyone can verify that their vote was cast accurately, and anyone who wants to can tally the votes. No central tabulator is required, and no
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So WHAT?! (quote near the end) (Score:2)
In the name of the Flying Spaghetti Monster, either it works or it doesn't.
I was just talking to a friend who consults on DP for banks, having worked her way up from being a teller. They keep multiple records of everything and crosscheck everything. Double-checking begins at the earliest stages of data rollup. Humans look over the results from machines.
Paper "trails" do have the drawback that apparently voters
optical scan is the real deal (Score:3, Interesting)
This is pretty much what we do now in Kansas City, Kansas, after we replaced the old machines (in both senses of the word). There are so many advantages to this method:
Timing is Everything (Score:3, Funny)
So the law makes it harder for Democrats to steal elections like Republicans could get away with for years.
Though I bet Jeb Bush (R-FL) is pissed.
Next up, a law against lying the US into war. Or maybe against spending $TRILLIONS in debt. Against ignoring PDB warnings of terrorist attacks? Or maybe against NSA warrantless wiretapping. It all looks so much more sensible to live in a democracy when you're a civilian than when you're "the decider".
The right tool for the job (Score:2)
Yes, except that it was an old technology that worked. I wonder if Saltman thinks it's archaic to cut butter with a knife instead of trying to cut it with an iPod. Computers are not the right tool for every job.
Even if electronic voting wasn't an inherently bad idea, the current sorry state of most s
San Francisco machines are the best IMHO (Score:5, Interesting)
This system has all the benefits: the preliminary results are available immediately from the electronic machine, there is a complete paper trail, you know if the machine couldn't read the ballot, and absentee ballots look exactly the same as the ballots in the precinct. Why isn't this system used everywhere?
Obvious and essential (Score:2)
If one wants to "solve" the problem of ambiguous voting I suppose the idea of a printed paper result that the voter verifies and then places in a box isn't bad, but I think it's overly complex given the issues at hand. I will concede the advantage that a
Make this a priority for next year (Score:4, Informative)
Democracy for America, the follow-up to Howard Dean's Dean for America organization, is running a "Put paper ballets on the agenda" [democracyforamerica.com] drive right now. They want people to tell Nancy Pelosi, as the future Speaker of the House, to make this a priority for next year's Congress.
So if you care about this issue, make sure she hears about it!
For what it's worth, I filed testimony in the EFF lawsuit, OPG v. Diebold, where Diebold was suing kids who (like me!) posted to the Web copies of some Diebold memos [berkeley.edu] in which you can read about Florida precicints with negative 16,000 votes for Al Gore and Diebold "upgrading" the software to uncertified (read: "illegal") versions in California.
RA storage vs WORM type storage (Score:3, Interesting)
Warning RANT!
Then the people creating the current systems should all be fired. What kind of computer scientist doesn't understand that with any random access storage there is a risk of accidental or intentional destruction or alteration, at any time, in a random fasion. That's why it's called uhh random access. Hello? This is like a CS 101 second week quiz question. They even still call it RAM!
Any write once technology will be infinately better. Which one is academic. You can use a variety of write once technologies with a diverse amount of write confidence levels, number of rereads possible and techniqiue used, and cost. Just write the votes at they happen, in a sequential fasion, in a way that you cannot backtrack and rewrite.
Why the hell are do Sarb-Ox and Hipaa require worm tape and encryption in many cases, yet our voting systems have nothing but the seat of their pants.
As an aside Bruce Schneier [schneier.com] chimed in on this recently. I wonder if this had any effect on NIST's comments.
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That is NOT why they call it random access. They call it random access because memory can be accessed just as easily (with smallish time variation) no matter the order of memory locations requ
Why the rush to count votes? (Score:4, Insightful)
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).
Whats all the fuss about? (Score:2)
Sure there are other issues like booth capturing and voter intimidation and bribing, but the technological transition has been smooth. To top it all India is still a developing country with a large percentage(40%+) of the voters being completely illiterate. If India can do it, so can US, its more of a wil
Yeah, well... (Score:3, Interesting)
One thing I'd like would be for the electronic machine to generate a cryptographically-secure hash generated from all the votes cast on it. The paper ballots can then be electronically scanned and the same hash algorithm applied to the scanned data. If ALL votes are present and unmodified, then the hashes should be the same. Provided there is no collusion between the voting machine and the scanning machine makers, the probability of the hashes coming out the same in the event of vote-tampering of any kind should be extremely low.
However, knowing that tampering has occurred doesn't solve the issue of what to do about it. I'd simply insist on the election being re-held until all districts came back clean from tampering. Oh, and all sports, adult and cartoon channels would be legally required to stop transmitting until everyone bloody well voted and/or adjudicated honestly. Also, anyone caught attempting (or practicing) voting fraud should be compelled to buy everyone the DVDs of the shows they missed, before being locked up in a psych ward in Romania for the rest of their unnatural life.
Here's a system that would work (Score:2, Interesting)
Can anyone think of a way to cheat THAT system?
It seems to be able to hand
Paper+electronic (Score:2)
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What Problem are We Trying to Solve? (Score:3, Interesting)
If the problem is that people make mistakes in counting, mark and scan technology should produce better results. If the problem is votes from dead or imaginary voters, how can any technology help?
If there is, as I suspect, no real problem at all, why the hell are we stumbling around with all this half-baked technology?
Paper Ballots: Shorter Lines? (Score:3, Interesting)
All other issues aside, there is no possible way we could afford anywhere near that many touch-screen machines. Even barring technical problems this is bound to cause a bottleneck as people ponder their vote.
A paper trail will make a difference. Not. (Score:2)
Re:What about to make election transparent? (Score:4, Insightful)
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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.
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The point is that politicians cater to voters: mostly old people and nutcases on either end of the spectrum. People that don't vote are completely ignored. If there's a "both of you can go to hell" option, people who wouldn't vote can vote; they become people that would vote for you if you said something they liked, and someone, in theory, might start paying attention to them. This assumes significant numbers of people would do that. I'm not convinced
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Actually there's a number of jurisdictions that have a 'none of the above' option on theitr ballot. This is mainly to deal with constitutional problems leading from local laws that require write-in candidates to 'register' as write-ins so that their votes to be counted (in itself, a measure to prevent jurisdictions from having to tabulate votes for Mickey Mouse, James Bond, etc -- it happens, and there are always lawyers wi
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Because in most elections, you are voting on more than one thing, all on the same ballot. You might want to vote for particular candidates in most of the races but might want to not give any of the candidates your vote in a few of them. If there are a few races where you really don't want to vote, you should be allowed to
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Beat me to it-Mod Parent UP!!! (Score:2, Informative)
They are undervotes.The citizen cast a ballot-successfully- but did not vote in the Congressional election.
Happens all the time for lots of different reasons. Republican voters had a good reason here not to vote for Katherine Harris and the Democrat was out of the question.There may have been some confusion with the ballot layout but where were the complaints about not finding the candidates on the ballot before the vote was cast?
There is an unmentioned pa
Re:And this will accomplish what? (Score:5, Insightful)
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That's the point- to have proof of what votes were made, in a form that is not controlable by the government.
Now, you seem to be concerned with people 'selling' their votes. Don't be. The receipt can simply have the votes, the voting machine number, and a time stamp on it. That's enough information to specify one particular vote (ie: the electronic database shows a vote for Candidate 'A' from machine 2 at 12:01, and that's unique), BUT it a
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I do agree with dumping the over-engineered and untrustworthy machines, the only valid reason for having a computer in the first place is to speed the results. However many other countri