Observer Pans Touchscreen Voting Test 278
riversidevoter continues: "WinEDS, the program that is used to count votes, was only tested in a pre-election mode. The software was not tested in the configuration that it would be in on election day.
In addition to that, people signed a form that said that they had verified the results of the test before the test had finished running. Mischelle Townsend, the Riverside County Registrar of Voters, told Salon that the form that people signed was just an attendance form. But the form clearly states 'We the undersigned declare that we observed the process of
logic and accuracy testing of voting equipment performed by the Riverside County
Registrar of Voters, as required by law and that all tests performed resulted in accurate
voting of all units tested, including both touchscreen and absentee systems.'
You can see a copy of the Salon article here. You can see a copy of the form that people signed here.
I also believe that the observation group that witnessed the test was given a misleading description of Sequoia's system. For example, the fact that the votes are transferred from the DRE to a SQL Server database to be counted was never fully disclosed to all the members of the group.
Also, the sheer number of times that the phrase 'proprietary operating system' was used, among other things, helped to create the impression that Sequoia's system is not as reliant on Microsoft Windows as it really is.
I have created a website about this issue; please take a look at it.
On the website you can find my report on what happened that day (which outlines several problems I haven't mentioned in this posting) as well as some supporting documents. There is a letter and a note from Mischelle Townsend in which she mentions mailing the results to people or having the test results be picked up 'afterwards'...."
Unfortunate. (Score:5, Insightful)
Re:Unfortunate. (Score:5, Insightful)
Re:Unfortunate. (Score:5, Insightful)
Re:Unfortunate. (Score:5, Interesting)
You might want to check the next story's article [why-war.com]:
Re:Unfortunate. (Score:2, Insightful)
--Stephen
Re:Unfortunate. (Score:4, Informative)
Maybe use the UN, Canada or Mexico to supervise the election hardware. (never happen)
I believe this system could be another jack boot on the neck of freedom.
Ironically... (Score:2)
Re:Unfortunate. (Score:3, Informative)
Wooo Whoo e-Voting. NOT! (Score:4, Interesting)
Yes, a secure voting machine that depends on the motor voter registration system so all the non-resident and undocumented aliens can vote along with all the dead people. You'd most likely jump up and down with glee if they web enabled the registration and voting systems because Secure e-Voting (TM) has to be better. Right?
From what you say you seem to think someone stands in line and votes the graveyard. The Chicago method is to get control of the voter registration rolls for a district and 'add' the graveyard. Then the 'impartial' volunteer election judge checks off the extra names and stuffs the ballot box after the polls close.
Any voting system without a 100% human readable audit trail that is accessible to the voter at the time they place the vote and without a 100% reliable method of matching a ballot to the registration list is vulnerable. What plagues the voting system in the US is we are too cheap to devote the required resources to the system. The UK and many European countries have next day election results using paper hand counted ballots. They however don't try to have only 17 polling places in a city of five hundred thousand, as is the case in so many US cities.
Oh Boy.... (Score:5, Funny)
Re:Oh Boy.... (Score:3, Insightful)
Re:Oh Boy.... (Score:4, Funny)
In other news... (Score:3, Funny)
According to this text Linux was voted into the White House. We suspect Apache will be selected as running mate, though rumors say Samba is also a consideration.
Re:In other news... (Score:2)
This is just speculation from exit polling, folks! Remember Dewey vs. Truman!
Don't waste your vote on Linux - remember, independents never win!
Civil Disobedience against DMCA and Diebold (Score:5, Informative)
The Good students at have decided this will not stand. [swarthmore.edu]
Re:Civil Disobedience against DMCA and Diebold (Score:5, Informative)
http://why-war.com/memos/s/lists/
Search the diebold memos:
http://why-war.com/memos/cgi-bin/search.pl
MEMO EXCERPTS
"Elections are not rocket science. Why is it so hard to get things right! I have never been at any other company that has been so miss [sic] managed."
source: http://why-war.com/memos/s/lists/announce.w3archiv e/200110/msg00002.html
"I have become increasingly concerned about the apparent lack of concern over the practice of writing contracts to provide products and services which do not exist and then attempting to build these items on an unreasonable timetable with no written plan, little to no time for testing, and minimal resources. It also seems to be an accepted practice to exaggerate our progress and functionality to our customers and ourselves then make excuses at delivery time when these products and services do not meet expectations."
source: http://why-war.com/memos/s/lists/announce.w3archiv e/200110/msg00001.html
"I feel that over the next year, if the current management team stays in place, the Global [Election Management System] working environment will continue to be a chaotic mess. Global management has and will be doing the best to keep their jobs at the expense of employees. Unrealistic goals will be placed on current employees, they will fail to achieve them. If Diebold wants to keep things the same for the time being, this will only compound an already dysfunctional company. Due to the lack of leadership, vision, and self-preserving nature of the current management, the future growth of this company will continue to stagnate until change comes."
source: http://why-war.com/memos/s/lists/announce.w3archiv e/200112/msg00007.html
"[T]he bugzilla historic data recovery process is complete. Some bugs were irrecoverably lost and they will have to be re-found and re-submitted, but overall the loss was relatively minor."
source: http://why-war.com/memos/s/lists/support.w3archive
"28 of 114 or about 1 in 4 precincts called in this AM with either memory card issues "please re-insert", units that wouldn't take ballots - even after recycling power, or units that needed to be recycled. We reburned 7 memory cards, 4 of which we didn't need to, but they were far enough away that we didn't know what we'd find when we got there (bad rover communication)."
source: http://why-war.com/memos/s/lists/support.w3archive
"If voting could really change things, it would be illegal."
source: http://why-war.com/memos/s/lists/support.w3archive
"I need some answers! Our department is being audited by the County. I have been waiting for someone to give me an explanation as to why Precinct 216 gave Al Gore a minus 16022 when it was uploaded. Will someone please explain this so that I have the information to give the auditor instead of standing here "looking dumb"."
source: http://why-war.com/memos/s/lists/support.w3archive
"[...] while reading some of Paranoid Bev's scribbling."
source: http://why-war.com/memos/s/lists/support.w3archive
"Johnson County, KS will be doing Central Count for their mail in ballots. They will also be processing these ballots in advance of the closing of polls on election day. They would like to log into the Audit Log an entry for Previewing any Election Total Reports. They need this, to prove to the media, as well as, any candidates & lawyers, that they did not view or print any Election Results before the Polls closed. ***However, if there is a way that we can disable the reporting functionality, that would be even better.***" (emphasis added)
source: http://why-war.com/memos/s/lis
How to help in 3 steps (Score:3, Informative)
1) The students engaging in this civil disobedience are meeting with the Dean of their college Wednesday, October 22nd at 4pm. We need you to email *nice* and *supportive* emails to rgross1 (at) swarthmore.edu and cc them to info (at) why-war.com *before* October 22nd at 4pm EST. Please help Dean Bob Gross understand the importance of this issue!
2) Download the entire memo archive:
http://why-war.com/memos/s/lists.tgz
3) Jo
My letter (Score:5, Insightful)
Recently, there has been a rise in the number of stories in the press surrounding the topic of electronic voting. I live in Oregon where we have chosen to vote by mail. At first, I wondered exactly why my State chose this route because electronic voting seemed to be attractive for a number of reasons.
After reading the various news stories and web postings present on various Internet web sites and forums, I have come to the realization electronic voting in its current incarnation is a highly suspect process.
The majority of voting machine manufacturers today wrap the inner workings of their machines inside contracts and licenses designed to cloak their products in secrecy. These cloaks when combined with the current state of intellectual property law make it difficult for the American people to understand and discuss the nature of the machines and their potential effect on the democratic process.
The American people need to engage this issue with all the facts at hand. The spirit of the law is not in line with the letter of the law in this case. The action of your students is commedable and worthy of your support.
"Those who cast the votes decide nothing. Those who count the votes decide everything." --Stalin
The right to vote is one of the founding principles behind our great nation. Changes to this process will have nationwide consequences on our society that we might not understand, but for the actions of a few people concerned about preserving the trust inherent to the core of the democratic process. These changes will affect each and every one of us and should not be made lightly or without due consideration of all the facts involved.
I urge you to consider the nature and purpose of the student actions along with the potential issues at hand before rendering your decision.
Respectfully,
( name )
Re:How to help in 3 steps (Score:2)
Or get the .torrent here [emptylogic.com] and save why-war.com and swarthmore.edu from an unnecessary load. I just tried downloading the memo archive from swarthmore's server, but soon found that I was getting literally 1000 times the transfer rate from bittorrent.
Re:Civil Disobedience against DMCA and Diebold (Score:3, Insightful)
Although they do 95% of their voting using a more reliable technology (optical scan machines and paper ballot cards), they use the Diebold touchscreen units for accessibility reasons - it supports audio-only voting for visually impaired voters using a numeric key pad for navigation, etc.
So, here's how a Diebold engagement works for the touchscreen unit
Oh man... (Score:4, Insightful)
Re:Oh man... (Score:5, Insightful)
Who moderated this statement as "Flamebait"? It's absolutely true and I hope you get metamodded to hell.
Newer does not always equal better. Touch screen voting is not even a solution looking for a problem. It's a problem posing as a solution looking for a problem. It's so absurd. Advances in technology are not automatically a good idea. They should solve more problems than they create.
Is there really a need for computerization here? People who would scoff at the idea of robotic prostitutes will blindly accept the idea of computerized voting simply because it gets computers involved in the election process. Why is this automatically considered a good thing? People see pretty colored lights and they think it means their vote is safe and secure. It doesn't. It merely implies that the votes can be tallied more quickly than before- at the cost of a greater risk of fraud. But elections are held in November. Elected officials take office in January. This gives us two months to count votes, which means we should be optimizing for accuracy, simplicity, reliability, and verifiability. Not convenience. Not speed. Computers should stay the hell away. People perceive this strange need to make elections "modern" to avoid disenfranchising voters, and it makes no sense.
Is it such a hardship to live in a country that counts its votes slowly? What was wrong with punched cards? They actually performed very well in Florida, which was an extreme test of any electoral system- to a resolution of a few hundred votes. Most elections don't fall that close to a tie. And you certainly didn't need to worry that someone stole your vote. Touch screens are devices for disenfranchising voters. The original poster was right. Electronic voting should be unconstitutional.
Some things do not need to be optimized for speed and efficiency above all other concerns. Sex is one of them. Elections are another.
Re:Oh man... (Score:4, Insightful)
Re:Oh man... (Score:3, Insightful)
if computers do the job - great. but they -need- to be only used to simplify the creation of the physical ballot. just like the mechanical machines before them.
why not just have a touchscreen computer laserprint out a scantron-style form with the selected votes (computers allowing r
Re:Oh man... (Score:3, Informative)
Is 'No' a good answer?
In Canada we conduct federal and provincial elections using old-fashioned paper ballots. The ballots are black, with each candidate's name block printed in white next to an open white circle (names in alphabetical order by surname). To vote, put a mark in one--and only one--circle. Easy to count, easy to use. In principle, I suppose ballots marked in such a way could be counted mechanically, too, but we don
Re:Oh man... (Score:2)
On what grounds?
One man one vote. That should be grounds enough.
Should we all pull of our wooden sabots and toss them into the machines?
YES. That is a much better system than the one we will be using.
Maybe you would prefer to blow a kiss into an Access table but some of us would like to know that our votes will be counted.
Accuracy could be easily assured... (Score:5, Interesting)
A copy of this bar code is printed at the same time inside the system.
If there was an audit, randomly call people to determine their key. Although you could decrypt it, it's better than just leaving the votes lying around. Then, verify the accuracy.
Since I have a printed record at the time of the voting, I can use it to verify my votes. The local voting office could decrypt it, and then I can verify my votes.
Thoughts on this approach are very much welcome.
Re:Accuracy could be easily assured... (Score:2)
Re:Accuracy could be easily assured... (Score:2)
Re:Accuracy could be easily assured... (Score:2)
An immediate lockdown of the machine and backup (with CRC checksums, or something to that effect) of the untallied vote and all tallied votes should occur if there is an error reading the code. Since the feed and scan are at a fixed ra
Re:Accuracy could be easily assured... (Score:2)
The only way to track voters to individual votes would be to record which order the voters used it. In a normal situation that will be random, so it doesn't matter. Each voter can verify that their vote was correct, and there is a t
Re:Accuracy could be easily assured... (Score:5, Insightful)
Use the computer to help the voter prepare the ballot, print it out, and then have the voter hand carry it to the ballot box.
The computer can keep a running tally, but at the end of the day if the tally does not match a hand count of the box contents, then the ballot box is the only correct representation of the will of the voters.
It is easy to teach the average monkey to keep an eye on the ballot box for tampering, and to hand count the contents. Teaching the average monkey correct computer security skills is impossible, so that source of problems must be factored out.
Re:Accuracy could be easily assured... (Score:2, Insightful)
Some of the Diebold people arguing against printing copies are mumbling about the expense of printing, but tha
Re:Accuracy could be easily assured... (Score:5, Interesting)
I am opposed to this. Audits shouldn't involve contacting the general populace. ATMs have internal printers for similar reasons; as a permanent physical audit trail in case of power failure or such.
Since I have a printed record at the time of the voting, I can use it to verify my votes. The local voting office could decrypt it, and then I can verify my votes.
I oppose this as well for privacy reasons. There is one basic privacy tenant in ballot voting that would need to be upheld by any electronic voting system: plausible deniability.
For example, if I'm being coerced or paid by someone to vote a particular way, I need to be able to tell that person that I voted the way he/she wanted even if I didn't. There CAN NOT be a way to track down who I voted for at a later time. That's not what the paper trail is for. Once a person has the ability to decisively prove to someone else which candidate they voted for, then votes can be forced or sold.
Here is what I would suggest:
A citizen enters the voting center, is authenticated as a registered voter by the volunteer staff, and given a vote card.
The citizen enters a voting booth (behind a privacy screen) and activates the selection kiosk using their vote card.
Once their candidates and referendums have been chosen, the machine prints out a 2D barcode on the vote card and returns it to them.
The citizen exits the voting booth with his completed vote card.
The citizen has the option to verify his barcode using a separate verification kiosk which deciphers and displays the barcode (behind a privacy screen, of course). Once satisfied, the citizen leaves the verification kiosk.
While a staff member watches, the voter deposits his vote card into the official ballot kiosk's card reader.
This kiosk reads the barcode, electronically sends the vote to the regional counting center, and keeps the vote card for future audits.
This method is very similar to conventional voting methods. As far as electronic voting goes, it has several advantages. The selection and verification kiosks are not online, so would be less vulnerable to hacking. The ballot box is the only networked machine, but is under close surveillance by the staff for physical access. In case it is compromised via the network, there is a stack of 2D barcodes underneath or inside it that can be used to audit the results. As the article mentions, audits SHOULD be performed periodically, even on results that aren't suspicious, just to verify that the count is accurate and no tampering has occurred.
The vote cards can be cheap paper mag-stripe cards with signed serial numbers that are overwritten when the barcode is printed. This gives the selection kiosk the ability to reject previously used, non-activated (unsigned), or duplicated cards. If there are no privacy issues (I'd have to think about this more), the card's serial number could become part of the 2D barcode as well. The card reader/writer and printer are all OTC products, which would help keep costs down. The selection and verification kiosks could use commodity PCs with no I/O except a touchscreen and the card unit. In fact, the verification kiosk doesn't need any input other than an eject button.
While such a system would fix usability issues and paper audit trails, it doesn't touch on the issue of voter registration fraud and such. That's a whole 'nother ball of wax.
Re:Accuracy could be easily assured... (Score:3, Insightful)
If you can't trust the main voting system, what makes you think you can trust the verifying system? Surely they could lie in concert?
Votes have to be human readable first, and computer readable second.
Re:Accuracy could be easily assured... (Score:2)
This was the first thing that came to my mind as well, but perhaps a much more secure method would be to have recipts, basically pre-printed with candidates names, much like the punch-card methods used now, and have the machine punch the hole of the person you've voted for.
After all, even CD copy protection can be defeated with a Sharpie, and a bar code leaves a possibility for similar tampering. Inagine if the codes are designed so that the addition of one small line It is much, much harder, however, to r
Easy solution to this issue. (Score:5, Funny)
I'll supply the hardware.
The next revolution = voting. (Score:4, Interesting)
This line: In addition to that, people signed a form that said that they had verified the results of the test before the test had finished running.
Scares the hell out of me.
Re:The next revolution = voting. (Score:2)
Wouldn't this imply that they had to vote in order to care about their votes being manipulated? I hope the electronic voting system gets to the point where you can do it remotely. I'm not su
Re:The next revolution = voting. (Score:3, Insightful)
Depending on the legal implications of falsifying that record, it might ought to be scaring some pretty big fish. It depends on how official that document is, and what sort of rules that state has to govern such things.
Let's hope it's some ridiculously harsh prison sentence for the highest authority who knew or should have known th
Way cool.. (Score:5, Funny)
http://verifiedvoting.org (Score:4, Informative)
This site, rather than coninually dispairing at the fact that there are problems with electronic voting, has concrete steps that average citizens can take to make change.
Re:http://verifiedvoting.org (Score:2)
no problem (Score:2)
this is the most serious threat to America (Score:5, Insightful)
Since the most basic steps to provide security are not provided here, it is clear that the intention is to make a system that has completely compromised the validity of US elections. For some reason the mainstream media has not taken note of how serious an issue this is. The people involved in the current electronic voting plans can not be trusted AT ALL. They either want to subvert the voting process themselves, or want to create a system that is easy to subvert at a vastly lower cost than current systems.
What can be done to raise awareness of this issue? How can people be convinved that we need elections that are not trivial to subvert? Is the American public so apathetic as to make this an impossible task? Are we completely doomed?
Re:this is the most serious threat to America (Score:2, Funny)
Re:this is the most serious threat to America (Score:3, Insightful)
Re:this is the most serious threat to America (Score:4, Insightful)
Okay, I don't mean that literally, but there is a world of difference between knowing that something is a machine and having any idea of how it works and how it interacts with other machines, and how that interaction may affect you, personally. How many individuals do you know that are perhaps computer literate to a degree, but depend entirely upon someone else to handle the inner workings of their systems? They have no choice but to accept the word of their local computer expert. Unfortunately, when that "expert" is on TV singing praises for the latest, greatest electronic voting system people will be inclined to accept what he says.
You and I and the majority of Slashdot readership may understand the fundamentals of computer and network security, but the vast majority of Americans do not. This doesn't make them stupid, it just means that they aren't computer experts. There is simply no reason that citizens should be required to be expert in such an arcane field of knowledge just to be confident that they are casting their votes the way they think they are. It is an affront to ask Americans to risk giving up one of their most cherished rights in exchange for speedier election returns. I mean
My feeling is that with something this vital to our future, we should simply stick to basics, to something that Joe Citizen does understand and accept. After all, this isn't a nation of technojocks, it is a nation of all kinds of people, people that have a right to cast their vote and have it be counted (properly!) A paper ballot may be low-tech, but it does the job perfectly well, and is a damn sight harder to subvert than any electronic voting system will ever be.
The voter should cast a human-readable paper ballot as he has done for over two hundred years. It works, its been time-tested, and I've not yet heard a government official give a definitive answer as to why we need to change. If it is proven desirable to have an "electronic voting system" involved in the proceedings, the system should scan the vote already officially cast (and recorded!) on the paper ballot. In other words, the computer should simply be a tabulator, not the official legal repository of our votes. They can keep their touch-screens.
Re:this is the most serious threat to America (Score:2)
"This electronic voting is the most serious threat to America that we have seen in our lifetimes."
I thought about this, and then I realized that there are just a few probable outcomes:
One of the parties that is in power already, rigs the election to slide to their party. We get a Republican or a Democrat. Or else we get the status quo on a tax issue or bond measure, or else we get the measure to pass.
That's one scenario, the one where someone in power is the one rigging the election.
Another scenario i
Re:this is the most serious threat to America (Score:2)
>even the most dense "average" American's mind.
Yep. Act of terrorism. Isolated incident. Perpetrator exiled to Cuba. Experts agree, everything is fine.
Re:this is the most serious threat to America (Score:2)
Thanks for keeping this (Score:2)
Looks like someone else has joined the fight
Why-War? [why-war.com]
Known OS to hackers (Score:4, Insightful)
The old question/answer "Why did you do it? Because it was there." tells the story of what will happen regardless of the OS chosen.
I'll admit that the script kidz may be able to hack-the-vote with a MS SQL server backend but I would hope that the network used (or whatever format of data transfer) would be a little more robust that a windows box in a DMZ.
But I'm sure that with a few days of coding it could be released from the bonds of M$... it is just SQL, right?
A piece of paper and a big X (Score:5, Insightful)
Sure, it may take a few hours to count all the votes, but they're verifiably countable and recountable, and seem good enough for most of the other countries in the world. Why does there have to be an electronic solution to this non-problem?
Agreed (Score:2, Interesting)
Now, you can debate about whether it's better to use a pull-lever stamping system to write out the ballots, or just marking an X with a plain old pen. The advantage of some kind of a pull-lever system (or press button system) is that you won't get ballots which are unclear (just a printout) and you can have an internal counter on the machine to give you a reasonable idea if your hand-count is corre
Never implement a high-tech solution... (Score:3, Insightful)
Or even: If it ain't broke, don't fix it.
Yeah, that's the one. Cards work good.
Re:A piece of paper and a big X (Score:2)
Two words: scan tron.
Scan Tron (Score:2)
Ah yes, that solves a lot of issues with the lack of immediate electronic results for primarily paper solutions. I presume there's some sort of unique barcode on the voting form to prevent accidental or deliberate rescanning.
In the UK, where I'm from, the only discussions about the election process is multiple voting (dead people, collecting cards from student halls, etc) - of course still an issue with these electronic methods - and the general "people too lazy/disenfranchised/disch
Re:A piece of paper and a big X (Score:2)
The only issue is with the machine that is tabulating the results.
more info on the new system [indygov.org]
great video on how it works!! =] [indygov.org]
Re:A piece of paper and a big X (Score:2)
I live in Michigan, and my town uses very simple paper ballots that get electronically scanned. All the choices are in a line down the page and
Why not paper ballots (Score:2, Troll)
Some distrustful people still keep all their money hidden in a jar in the kitchen or under their mattress. Sure, they don't get interest, and sure, they don't have ultra-convenient access wherever they are. But you know what? They never have to worry about a bank error.
Seriously (Score:4, Insightful)
Re:Seriously (Score:2)
The reason votes are by secret ballot, is that if it is known who votes for who, then people who voted for somebody unpopular with a gang or something would get beaten up, and might be told of this in advance, thusly skewing the volting results. This might apply to corporations firing employees who vote against company-supported candidates.
Petition on voting machines (Score:5, Informative)
http://www.workingforchange.com/activism/petition
Eventually (Score:5, Funny)
Re:Eventually (Score:2)
A method for electronic voting accountability (Score:5, Interesting)
Here's an idea to make the process accountable, without requiring a mound of paper at the voting site.
Later on, a text file is made publically accessible with a row for every vote. Each row would have only the hash and the person they voted for. The algorithm for computing the hash would also be published.
Anyone who is interested in confirming that their vote was properly recorded can look up their hash in the text file to make sure it lists the person they voted for.
Anyone who has a spreadsheet can do a recount.
Any third party with a bit of cryptography knowledge can write a web app for people to confirm that their hash was computed properly.
This method has the advantage of remaining completely anonymous and completely accountable.
Any thoughts?
I release this idea into the public domain.
Re:A method for electronic voting accountability (Score:2)
Re:A method for electronic voting accountability (Score:2)
Duh... (Score:2)
And that's the whole idea.
I can individually audit my personal vote, and my political party (if it so desires) can demand a recound and audit the physical votes (the receipts). Or change the rules so anyone who has the cash to pay for a recount (to pay for the physical counting process - wages and the like) can request one.
But any system where the public can independently associate me with my vote (as with the parent to which I replied) is open to abuse.
Anonymous? Hell no... (Score:5, Insightful)
1. CREEP announces that they'll give $200 to anyone who votes for person X
2. Joe Public says "OK, I'm in"
3. Joe Public votes for X and remembers his PIN number
4. Joe Public goes to the local CREEP office and tells them their PIN, their VRN, and who they voted for
5. CREEP, using the freely-available hash function, creates their hash using the supplied information
6. CREEP then checks the list and sees if the vote was recorded
7. If yes, $200
Now replace "CREEP" above with "The Mafia" and "$200" with "the life of your family." Now you see the problem.
My proposed solution has always been the following:
-Vote on a computer (with a well-designed interface), which records votes and prints out a receipt with the name of the candidate and a simplified 2D barcode on it.
-Have a poster on the wall inside the boot saying "if you voted for X, your barcode should look like this"
-Deposit the recipt in the ballot box on the way out, as usual.
This allows us three counts: the machine, the barcodes, and the names. Any political party can request a count based on the barcodes, and if it's close they can get one based on the names on the ballots. As far as I can tell, this system is - at worst - no more prone to fraud than the current paper-based one. And you can't buy votes, since no personally-identifiable information is stored on the receipts (which voters can't keep anyways).
There's probably a logic gap in my solution: any suggestions?
Pretty good solution but.... (Score:2)
1. Barcode
2. Candidate's name
3. Computer record
with the order of weight going:
1. Candidate's name
2. Barcode
3. Computer record
After all, if you can verify the barcode visually with the candidate's name on your printout, you can then deposit it into the tally box for later counting by a barcode reader which can be the first official tally. The computer record can be used to verify the barcode count, and any discrepancy can be solved by recounting the barcode/nam
Re:A method for electronic voting accountability (Score:2, Informative)
Paper and Risk Assessment... (Score:4, Insightful)
That physical record of a vote is a crucial piece of evidence -- if there are no physical records, that's one less thing for any "bad guys" to have to worry about. It's one less audit point for any corrupt party.
With the input and compilation of data all within the same system of computers now, corruption can happen at any step -- input, processing, reporting, or combination -- with no "independent" physical record to be audited that might expose the corrupt results. Imagine a zealot programmer hacks a kiosk and tells it to re-write the votes after confirming it with the voter. The number of voters on the register would match the number of votes cast, so this would be difficult to discover -- there would be no physical records, which can be re-tabulated independently of computers.
Elections are high security risks, historically. Paper is not inherently evil. Just because paperless systems are possible, doesn't mean they're preferable. The more physical evidence, the better, I say...
Re:Paper and Risk Assessment... (Score:4, Insightful)
It's a piece of evidence that has to be stored by a process and made retrievable to the public. If any step of the process is violated (say, by someone trying to tamper with or destroy the evidence of the votes themselves), it points to the responsible party. That's what a good process does.
Re:Paper and Risk Assessment... (Score:2)
Demand optical scan machines (Score:3)
Re:Demand optical scan machines (Score:2)
I have no idea why anyone would consider spending $millions to go from a cheap, reliable, transparent, auditable system to an expensive, unreliable, "black box" that isn't auditable.
The purpose of electronic voting (Score:2, Insightful)
It has to do with recounts. The purpose is to have a system that will always give the same result after every recount. Recounts make people unhappy because the result is never the same, so people assume the the mistakes continue to exist and are in favor of the other guy. We want the voters to be happy.
Could someone explain... (Score:2)
Re:Could someone explain... (Score:2)
The problem is that the Diebold has promised to deliver the next election to the Republicans. If they are required to print a verifiable ballot or open their systems up for auditing there is no way to make sure the electorate doesn't just vote for the wrong candidate. They made a promise and accepted the huge payments
Credibilty problems (Score:2)
Re:Credibilty problems (Score:2)
Re:You don't know your Monty Python very well... (Score:2)
Look at it from the other side... (Score:2)
Final election results:
G. Bush: 2 votes
X. Democrat: 3 votes
W.T. Beef: 58,321,742 votes
Actual congress transcript:
Joe X: We see that increasing the M1 money supply will help to invigorate job development in my riding...
President: Where's the Beef?!?
I voted on one of these machines (Score:2, Interesting)
Paper trails are stupid (Score:2)
Great, the machine produces a paper trail and so immediately in an election I have my printer produce its own paper trail that matches the results that I want. I just have enough of a record to demand a recount, cast the election in doubt...
The right way to do this sort of thing is to get rid of anonymous voting.
You lose riversidevoter (Score:2)
No, you'd think that a 28 year old computer programmer would know that it is a good thing for hackers to know and understand an operating system. That forces the manufacturer to deal with any
Obvious problem? (Score:2)
Isn't the obvious problem with touchscreen technology the marks left by previous voters? I mean, if Arnold Schwarzenegger had massive amounts of finger prints on his box, and other candidates had near-zero prints on theirs, couldn't that alter my choice?
Why does anybody want to get rid of the paper system? Sheesh.
Re:Obvious problem? (Score:2)
If we really wanted to make things better (Score:2)
Another self-destructive marketing move (Score:2)
Before this, Diebold was a good trademark. Now, it is becoming worse than useless. If things continue, no one will even buy a Diebold lunch bucket.
In my day-dream world... (Score:2)
On the other hand, I wonder if we could do better by paying minimum wage to two people per precinct to count each plain-old-paper-ballot twice, by hand. bc-of-envelope says $12/hr labor divided by 120ballots/hr processed = $.10 per ballot processing. About equal to the paper it's printed on. Soun
What is with these people? (Score:2)
1) There's a program somewhere running inside the
2) Each person gets a smart card or similar secure device. As it counts, it burns out gates inside the card. The count can only go up.
3) Back at the main counting station, a similar thing happens. People insert their cards, and counters go up by burning out gates (i.e. FPGA)
The cards are disposable. There is no database. There's no way to decrement any of the counters. It just works.
Media silence (Score:3, Insightful)
However, if these machines are already in use, the next step would surely be legal action? Someone with the right to vote in an election should demand the right to cast their vote by means where there is proof their vote will be counted.
K.I.S.S. (Score:2)
It was always obvious that receipts would be the best way to verify vote.
Apart from initial outlay, cost is minimal - the only reason somebody would not want verification is because vote would be easier to corrupt. Apart from reason of moronic stupidity that is.
This system should be kept for all time - to prevent any fiddles in future.
People would cast their e-vote, get the receipt, verify it is correct and put the receipt in a new type ballot box.
Vote is not cast or recorded until
Re:Not to rain on your parade, but... (Score:2, Insightful)
It isn't even necessarily the problem of crackers breaking into the system and tampering with the votes. you don't have to be connected to the Internet to b
Re:Not to rain on your parade, but... (Score:3, Insightful)
What are my qualifications for making these judgements? Well, twenty years of software engineering experience, for one thing. You can look at my resume here [exit.com] if you want more details.
I
Re:Open Source Alternative? (Score:2)
I guess, if you're just looking at slashdot, you may be correct.
However, I got interested when I saw that someone within the organization has leaked documents that spell out a horrible disdain by the developers for any sort of accountability in quality assurance or certification.
I don't know what kind of certification process Diebold operat
Re:Exit Polling (Score:2)
I ALWAYS lie about how I voted. Depends on who asks me. If someone bothers me to sign a petition to repeal the smoking ban, I lie and say I voted FOR the ban in the first place. (It usually freaks these people out, they simply CANNOT believe that enough people voted for a cigarette ban for an entire CITY, and they can