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E-Voting Companies Answer Critics With ... Spin 295

Posted by timothy from the swatting-those-pesky-expert-types dept.
Whammy666 writes "Wired has a follow-up article which tells of how Diebold and other E-Voting machine manufacturers have enlisted the Information Technology Association of America (a trade public relations and lobbying group) to 'generate positive public perception' of the companies and to 'reduce substantially the level and amount of criticism from computer scientists and other security experts about the fallibility of electronic voting systems.' It seems the concerns about the lack of an audit trail are finally being heard as the industry is reconsidering its opposition to giving the voter a paper receipt of his vote. Of course, a paper receipt given to the voter still doesn't allow for a manual recount should an election dispute arise unless the receipts are collected and secured by election officials." Reassuring PR is Stage Two; remember that Stage One is silence your critics.
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E-Voting Companies Answer Critics With ... Spin More

E-Voting Companies Answer Critics With ... Spin

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  • With michael taking heat lately for posting articles that may be seen as having a liberal bias, I'm glad to see someone else take a position too. Let's face it- people are biased. Isn't it better when that bias is clear and obvious, than when they try and hide it?
    • Let's say Warren Buffet buys the McCarthy Group which owns Diebold, ES&S, Sequoia, and Global and decides we need a Democratic government?

      You're saying as a free-enterprise Republican that this is a good thing and shows how the marketplace decides things?

      The power to rewrite the decision of the votors at the will or whim of an individual, company, or conspiracy is something that nobody ought to have.

  • Where there is smoke there is FIRE. The really sad part is that the majority of voters are actually unaware of the issue to begin with. It speaks volumes that Diebold et al are actually taking action to try and give the "warm fuzzies"

  • Sure... whatever... blah blah blah. (Score:5, Insightful)

    by Misch ( 158807 ) on Monday October 20, 2003 @08:08PM (#7266034) Homepage
    Dill said, however, that the design of a voter-verified paper system is not a trivial undertaking and that the usability and security aspects of such a feature need to be thought through carefully so companies design systems under standards that meet both these criteria.

    Yes, trivial. Done. Completed. In use nationwide in Brazil [national.com].
    • In all fairness, there are reasons not to give people paper printouts of their vote. It makes your vote really really easy to sell, inviting a whole other kind of corruption.

      Not to say this whole Diebold clusterfsck isn't a big problem, but giving people "recipts" of their votes isn't a perfect solution either.

      From a purely political standpoint, I think the best way to insure these machines aren't used nefariously is to do rigorous exit polling and make sure your candidate (whoever he/she may be) suceeds

      • Re:Sure... whatever... blah blah blah. (Score:4, Insightful)

        by randyest ( 589159 ) on Monday October 20, 2003 @09:02PM (#7266348) Homepage
        I think the best way to insure these machines aren't used nefariously is to do rigorous exit polling and make sure your candidate (whoever he/she may be) suceeds by a margin that can't be fudged by a few hundred votes one way or another.

        So, let me see if I got this right: to curb cheating in the existing poll, we add another poll? Oh, and make sure there are no close races.

        How does the first help at all, and how do we do the second, exactly?

      • While short on specifics in the link, the system works with the ballot behind locked glass. The voter can verify that their ballot is printed correctly, then they can see it go into the bag. After this happens, the votes are sealed, and manual recounts are done in 3% of all the precints, randomly selected after the election.

        I agree with you that people shouldn't be given receipts for their vote, but there needs to be a voter verified paper trail.
      • Jesus, why does everyone over-complicate this?

        The solution is not a paper printout for the voter. The solution is a paper printout stored in the machine after each vote, visible by the voter to confirm it recorded his or her vote correctly, and usable in recounts or audits.

        How hard is this?

    • Re:Sure... whatever... blah blah blah. (Score:4, Insightful)

      by ScrewMaster ( 602015 ) on Monday October 20, 2003 @08:54PM (#7266311)
      Amazing. That actually looks like a nice system, although the brochure didn't say a whole lot about it from a data integrity perspective. But still ... what do we have? Something infinitely preferable from a political point of view. That is, an electronic voting system with no independent audit trail, no intrinsic security, and that uses a Microsoft Access database for fast, efficient manip^H^H^H^H^Htabulation of election results. Me, I'm all for it. Hey, we could even make a game out of this to attract voters. Every 10,000th voter gets his or her vote actually recorded accurately and receives a hardcopy of same, along with a gift certificate good for a free Grand Slam breakfast at Denny's.

      {sigh}

      It's almost enough to make you want to throw up. I mean, this is the U.S. of A, the world's greatest Republic, the nation that built the first aircraft, the first atom bomb, the first nuclear reactor, invented television, the laser, the computer, the transistor, the integrated circuit, the spaceship, put Man on the Moon (repeatedly!), created the Internet itself ... heck we even invented air conditioning! And after all that, we find that we can't even deploy a reliable, accurate computer system that can count. That's just ... disturbing.
  • If the public had a clue maybe more than 1 out of 5 americans that can (not counting some felons, age restrictions, not moving to a new place soon enough, etc) vote would. this would greatly reduce the risk of fraud based on shear data. But most of my fellow americans are sheep and if they do vote vote on ONE subject not the overall person(views). But what i just said is a terrorist i mean who would think a gov. for the peps, means for the peps.

    Bitter i guess
    • Actually, assuming they are not voting for independents, voting by looking at only one issue is unfortunately just as good as examing all the issues. The reason for this is, in case you haven't looked already, the republicans and democrats largely run completely on party stances on issues. So by picking the stance on one issue, you are pretty much picking the party line. Its like choosing a candiate just by picking a party, though it doesn't work on the local level, on the state and federal level you can pr

  • No Receipts to Voters! (Score:5, Insightful)

    by Effugas ( 2378 ) on Monday October 20, 2003 @08:14PM (#7266059) Homepage
    No!

    It's not that _we_ want paper receipts!

    It's that we want the voting infrastructure to maintain an audit trail.

    Voters getting receipts directly allows for vote selling, which as another poster pointed out [slashdot.org], is not limited to monetary compensation but includes anything people are willing to sell a vote for (health, job security, etc.)

    The purpose of an election is not to determine a winner but to make everyone agree on who lost. If the losing side can say, "Sure, people voted for Bob, but it was under duress and thus didn't count", people fail to agree and fealty does not transfer.

    Since we have elections precisely to avoid the violence that normally accompanies a transfer of power, this is not a small matter.

    Yours Truly,

    Dan Kaminsky
    DoxPara Research
    http://www.doxpara.com
    • exactly.

      the votes are needed on paper as added security.. for the system. not for the individual doing the vote(receipts you would get to take home with you wouldn't even assure _anything_ of the system, and would be pretty impossible to do a total recount on).

      why is it so hard to have the voter write a number on a paper, put the paper in a box, once the box is full few volunteers(from all parties&political groups) go through them and enter them to a machine(basically this is how most western nations
      • why is it so hard to have the voter write a number on a paper, put the paper in a box, once the box is full few volunteers(from all parties&political groups) go through them and enter them to a machine(basically this is how most western nations do it already).

        The USA is very strongly NIA about plenty of things.

        (yeah yeah, usa may have more people than most western countries
        Hardly relevent since manual vote counting systems scale very well. AFAIK the USA has never held a national election anyway.

        b
    • Exactly! In fact, there is a damn good reason that voters don't currently get receipts:

      If they did, they could be intimidated or bribed into voting for a particular candidate.

    • Mocracy! (Score:3, Insightful)

      by arth1 ( 260657 )
      A voting receipt is the same as abolishing the right to a confidential vote. I can already see the first case of a redneck husband beating his wife because her receipt shows she voted for the wrong guy, or cases where corrupt politicians pay the voters if they show a receipt voting for them.

      If it only shows that you voted, and not who you voted for, then what's the added safeguard, again?
      And how does that work for voters who exercise their rights to show up and not vote or vote blank? Do they still get a
      • How about a recipt withouth your name, that you see through a plexiglass windown and then it is dropped in a sealed box. You don't take it away with you, it stays there as a "paper version" of your vote, so that random audits can be performed so verify that the counts given by the machines match what the paper says.

        Need a re-count? No problem, get the paper out. Simple, thrustworthy.

  • Sigh... (Score:2, Troll)

    by Black Parrot ( 19622 )

    > remember that Stage One is silence your critics.

    Look at the guy who made fools of the DoHS by waltzing through airport security and hiding box cutters on several airplanes... where they remained for five months, despite "daily" inspections, and were only finally found because someone finally read his e-mail a month after he sent it.

    Now he's being described as a dangerous criminal...

    Then there's the "free speech zones" where people carrying protest signs are marched away to when the presidential mo

    • Re:Sigh... (Score:3, Informative)

      by LostCluster ( 625375 )
      You're off-topic and off-base at the same time...

      The student who made a fool out of the airport security system was conducting an act of civil disobedience, but the part of civil disobedience everyone seems to keep forgetting is it involves a public crime done to get attention, of course he's gonna get arrested and charged for it. He should be, he didn't just say "Somebody could.." he went out and did it.

      Let's just hope the Feds are smart enough to sentance him to a community service project... telling th

      • Re:Sigh... (Score:4, Insightful)

        by Xerithane ( 13482 ) <xerithane@@@nerdfarm...org> on Monday October 20, 2003 @09:27PM (#7266505) Homepage Journal
        The student who made a fool out of the airport security system was conducting an act of civil disobedience, but the part of civil disobedience everyone seems to keep forgetting is it involves a public crime done to get attention, of course he's gonna get arrested and charged for it. He should be, he didn't just say "Somebody could.." he went out and did it.

        The thing is, before September 11th you could bring a box-cutter on an airplane. Hell, I accidently brought a 5" butterfly knife through airport security in 99 or so.

        The kid who did that was proving a point, and to prove that point he had to act. Merely telling them wouldn't do anything, and the facts are supportive of this.

        Now, to bring this on-topic and on-base, because I believe it was a valid point.

        Civil disobedience is the best way of proving a point when the masses won't listen to you. What will it take for people to realize these voting systems are flawed and dangerous? Bruce Campbell being elected President of the United States of America?

        That is civil disobedience I can appreciate, just like the student, because it shows that things aren't as good as they should be and that jeopardizes my safety.

        • > The thing is, before September 11th you could bring a box-cutter on an airplane.

          And the saddest part of all is that boxcutters are just about the least likely tool for the next terrorist act. Anyone who whipped out a boxcutter on an airplane today would probably be torn limb from limb before they got ten steps down the aisle.

          Barn door, horse; bullet, messenger... you know the drill.

          Similarly with ABC's repeat performance at smuggling radioactive material into the country a couple of months back. L

    • more on quelling protest (Score:5, Informative)

      by dboyles ( 65512 ) on Monday October 20, 2003 @08:47PM (#7266267) Homepage
      If you haven't heard much about this lately, Salon.com [salon.com] recently ran an article detailing some of the injustices done by police at the instruction of the Secret Service. Saturday they posted some letters [salon.com] sent in by readers.

      Note: you'll have to watch the brief commercial to get access to Salon, but once you do, you'll have full access to the premium content.

      Additionally, the ACLU [aclu.org] has filed motions (I believe that's the right term) on behalf of several protestors affected in this way, but I can't find a reference to the press release.
      • Could it be Salon wants those to be read? Hope so, because it was enlightening.

        BTW, wonder if these actions are there for the presidents benefit. Maybe if he could really see the protests, he might think better of some of his actions? Hmmm..

        I know that sounds shallow, but I never really thought about that angle. My perception has been basically: "Bush knows these things will anger people, but business needs to get done and freedom reduced for the good of the nation" or some other such thing.

        These le
    • Actually, George Orwell would not be proud. 1984 was as much a warning of things to come than anything else, of cultural and political trends that he foresaw all too clearly. But ... he certainly would not be surprised.
      • I believe he was asserting that George Orwell would be proud of the accuracy of his own predictions, not of the country's predicament.

    • Re:Sigh... (Score:3, Informative)

      by ScrewMaster ( 602015 )
      Now he's being described as a dangerous criminal...

      Amazing, isn't it? So far as I'm concerned (the illegality of his actions aside) he performed a public service. This whole idea that Amercans need to be made to feel safer regardless of whether they actually are safer I find to be patronizing and offensive.

      But more to the point, the government won't allow him to be punished in accordance with his crimes. They will put him away for as long as they can, which is a long time in post-9/11 America. Tha

      • > Amazing, isn't it? So far as I'm concerned (the illegality of his actions aside) he performed a public service. This whole idea that Amercans need to be made to feel safer regardless of whether they actually are safer I find to be patronizing and offensive.

        Shoot the messenger, or anyone else who fails to see the emperor's new clothes...

        This is, BTW, a major embarrassment for the DoHS, after all the draconian laws and major airport conveniences that are supposed to make this kind of thing impossible

      • So far as I'm concerned (the illegality of his actions aside) he performed a public service.

        Well, I for one am quite mad at the guy, here's why:
        The problem for me is not terrorists, the chances of getting killed by a terrorist are ridiculously low. The problem is the screening process.
        It is absolutely impossible to make passengers safe from each other on a commercial airplane. A piece of broken glass (from a picture frame) wrapped halfway in cloth is a very effective weapon. It is possible to make deadly

  • Nothing is wrong with the paper ballot! (Score:5, Insightful)

    by LostCluster ( 625375 ) on Monday October 20, 2003 @08:20PM (#7266104)
    We seem to have forgotten something here. The paper ballot system isn't broken. What failed wad the punchcard system, and more specific efforts to explain proper operation of it.

    The ideal ballot is one that results in a piece of paper that is both human-readable and machine readable. There hasn't been many problems with the "fill in the bubble" system of balloting, even though that system is open to a risk of users who don't understand that an X or checkmark in the bubble doesn't work.

    The place for touchscreens is to help the user create a perfect ballot that is machine readable for speed counting, with the votes also in human readable terms for manual spot checks and recounting, and the most important spot check: The one the voter does before walking over to the ballot box. If the printout doesn't say what they thought it did, they hand the spoiled ballot to the officials and go try again.

    The idea of having any form of electronic memory conduct counting within the in-booth devices is crazy. It opens the system into too much risk of data loss or data manipulation. There needs to be an audit trail, and that trail belongs in the ballot box.

    • Re:Nothing is wrong with the paper ballot! (Score:3, Insightful)

      by Anonymous Coward
      Too true! This US obsession with electronic/mechanical voting is bizarre, viewed from the rest of the world.

      Here in Australia, we have a pretty complex electoral system (preferential voting, as opposed to first-past-the-post) and we count all votes by hand. All political parties have scrutineers present to observe the count take place. I can't recall any significant reports of problems with this system in the 25 years I've been voting.

      And before people whine loudly about how the US is much bigger than Aus
    • With any paper counting counting system, the error is greater than an all electronic system. What you need is all electronic counting, with paper backup in which a statistically significant sample is taken to verify the electronic count hasn't been tampered with.
      • Yes but an electronic system can be more easily interfered with than a paper one. How about a paper ballot but where the computer just counts the Xs? This should work out as more accurate than letting people count.

        • We use that sort of system for municipal elections here in Vancouver. I was pretty impressed with it. I'll grant that it does waste paper, but that can be recycled. Also, the fact that the machines are independent makes it much more tamper resistant. The votes can still be totalled electronically in a central location if desired, but that's not neccesary.
      • The most statistically significant sample is 100%.

        Any discrepancy between the electronic and paper numbers should be resolved. (I.E. The computer has three more votes for Smith, and there were three unreadable paper ballots... we can safely assume the smudged ballots most likely read "Smith" before being ruined.)
    • In the recent Austrian^WCalifornia gubernatorial election, the counties with the punchcard ballots had more accurate results than counties using any other kind of system, save for the Eagle optical scanner used in San Francisco county. So I think the punchcard ballot has been unfairly maligned.

      That, or Californians are far more competent voters than Floridians.
    • I do not understand the prevailing viewpoint that we can't hand count all ballots and not have safe elections.

      Machines can be rigged. I don't trust a optical scanner, nor a lever voting booth, nor a punch card reader, nor an ATM machine to count my votes.

      Our biggest problem is that we don't count the votes at the voting place in most areas. Most areas lock up the ballot box and haul them to the court house. The first chance to rig the vote is at the poll, the second when the ballots are in transit, and
      • I do not understand the prevailing viewpoint that we can't hand count all ballots and not have safe elections.

        It's only a common viewpoint in the US.

        Our biggest problem is that we don't count the votes at the voting place in most areas. Most areas lock up the ballot box and haul them to the court house. The first chance to rig the vote is at the poll, the second when the ballots are in transit, and the third when they are counted out of public view in some upstairs court house room.

        The solution to thi
    • Right on! I would expand on this a bit.

      The entire transfer of data should be human readable, or at the very least, human understandable with some effort.

      Moving the bits electronically is where the problem is. Too many ways to corrupt the process and no audit no matter how hard we try. This is the nature of electronic information. --I agree with you here.

      What about a system where the ballots are encoded with the election? Ballots are mailed, or picked up at the voting stations. They are rrinted on t
    • The ideal ballot is one that results in a piece of paper that is both human-readable and machine readable. There hasn't been many problems with the "fill in the bubble" system of balloting, even though that system is open to a risk of users who don't understand that an X or checkmark in the bubble doesn't work.

      That's a problem with machine design. It's perfectly possible to have an OMR which can recognise the difference between an unmarked area and a marked area.

  • Peer Review (Score:3, Insightful)

    by Anonymous Coward on Monday October 20, 2003 @08:20PM (#7266105)
    While the merits of OSS for many purposes are debatable, when it comes to voting machines, I think it's pretty clear that no system should be adopted that hasn't had its design and implementation thoroughly peer-reviewed. That means hardware schematics as well as source code.

    Note that merely "providing the source" isn't particularly helpful. The elections standards arm of the government is going to have to contract out the review and assure that it is done by a diverse group of peers other than the implementor -- and most likely including their competitors -- and not just rely on interested citizens to happen to take a peek (welcome as that might be).

    In this case, you can make your money by selling the hardware. There need be no trade secrets involved in building an voting machine.

    • Re:Peer Review (Score:3, Insightful)

      by Soko ( 17987 )
      Note that merely "providing the source" isn't particularly helpful. The elections standards arm of the government is going to have to contract out the review and assure that it is done by a diverse group of peers other than the implementor -- and most likely including their competitors -- and not just rely on interested citizens to happen to take a peek (welcome as that might be).

      In this case, you can make your money by selling the hardware. There need be no trade secrets involved in building an(sic) votin
      • That being said, why not contract the nice folks at MIT, Carnagie Mellon and Berkeley to do this particular job for Uncle Sam?

        As has been made clear by their actions on numerous occasions, this administration favors conservative business concerns, period. Universities are typically bastions of liberal thought. So, uh, there's your answer.

  • Hey, I have to vote on these things! (Score:3, Insightful)

    by downix ( 84795 ) on Monday October 20, 2003 @08:21PM (#7266110) Homepage
    I do not want to get answers like this when the nature of my future government is on the line here. These guys have to be held accountable for any and ALL mistakes that will occur.

    I almost wish for the old greek system, drop a stone into a bucket. Count the white ones and black ones.
  • Remember that a reciept is JUST A PRINTOUT. And unless something is funny enought to force a recount of receipts that were collected, no one will ever know if the printer matched what was recorded by the machine's tally.
    • Receipts in the voter's hands are useless. If one wanted to accurately recount those recepts, there would be problems with lost receipts and those that are fraudlently brought forward...

      Those recepts don't belong in the voter's hands, they belong in a ballot box. That way, they're nice and easy to watch and secure so that nobody can tamper with them in case a recount needs to be done. If the numbers from that recount don't match the numbers the computers are giving you... throw out those computers!
  • This was (in parody - don't want to get sued!) taken from a Diebold computer system with weak network security.

    +_BEGIN_PRESS_RELEASE

    As with all things so important to the basis of democracy, we must make sure that the decisions we make are wise and in the interests of the people.

    Therefore, we call upon you, the people, to go to your local voting places* next tuesday. There, a voting location will be set up with Genuine Diebold Vote-tech (TM) booths, for you to vote if Diebold units should be used in na
  • For all of the support for open source software at various state and national governments nowadays, I'm surprised I haven't heard about that many OSS voting systems. I realize some of the requirements are a bit tricky (anonymity vs. auditability), but has no one been able to come up with a strong, secure reference system built from standard OSS components?

    I'd even say to go one step beyond and provide a continuously polling system that would enable a more direct "digital democracy". You wouldn't need to
  • Paper Receipts are a bad, bad idea for electronic voting, or voting in general for that matter, since it opens the door to commercializing votes ("show me that you voted as I told you, and I will pay you"), vote under pressure ("prove to me that you voted right, or else"), etc.

    I am actually even opposed to massive vote by mail. What I don't understand is why the issue of electronic voting even exists. Most countries' elections just with little papers with names in a box. And none of them has recently ha
    • Yep. That's the reason why we don't give voters reciepts for their ballots... it's too easy for an employer to require that everyone take the "optional" receipt and bring it with them to work, and if it doesn't show the desired candidate fire the employees.

      Such schemes become impossible when there's no way to prove to someone else who you voted for even if you tried...
    • These voting scientists that advocate a paper trail don't advocate paper receipts. They advocate paper copies that are also turned in at the precinct. Not the same thing.

  • Symptom of a larger problem (Score:3, Insightful)

    by ajuda ( 124386 ) on Monday October 20, 2003 @08:34PM (#7266189)
    We all know lying is easy. In fact, lying is much easier than dealing with a problem, and as companies like SCO have shown, it's often more profitable to tell a lie than to tell the truth.

    What needs to be done is to make lying less desirable from a corporate point of view. This should not be done by punishing the companies, but rather the individuals that make these ridiculous claims and often loot their own organizations.

    Bill Clinton was impeached for lying about a fat chick, why shouldn't these people get in trouble for lying about the foundations of democracy?

    I know, deep in my heart that John Ashcroft will do the right thing, and speak out against these companies, just as he will about the drug users [capitolhillblue.com] ruining this great country.

  • Live by the sword... (Score:2, Interesting)

    by Orne ( 144925 )
    After the Bush v Gore infamous recount during the 2000 presidential elections, the Democratic party has been rushing full force to discredit the "traditional" voting methods, through a constant political & media barage against punchcard & butterfly ballots. The general public now has a perception that paper is "bad" and the "better" alternative is via technology ... the electronic booth.

    In reality it is statistically no more or no less accurate than traditional means, still has no audit trail, and
    • It's not just the Democrats. It's anybody who loses a close election who wants a recount. In fact, most states have a standard in their laws that automatically trigger a recount without anybody needing to ask when the election results are too close.

      The problems come up when the numbers in the recount don't exactly confirm that the numbers that came from the first count. If there's a mismatch that can't easily be explained, we've got a real problem. What Florida 2000 exposed were many voters who thought the
  • "Reassuring PR is Stage Two; remember that Stage One is silence your critics."

    No, stage one is "collect underpants!" Everybody knows that! Sheesh!
  • New project! Has paper trail! OSS! Secure!

    Concept: Touch-screen/braile voting booth with card-stock printer, and scanner.

    Steps:

    1. Voter votes, prints, reviews vote card, scans to verify, and closes vote.
    2. Voter takes card to drop box which scans card again to verify.

    Features:

    • Voting booths (with touch/braile screen, scanner, and printer) connected to a polling network.
    • The vote card is printed with a non-voter IDable serial number that incorporates (encrypted, of corse) poll location, voting
    • I've only got a few problems...

      - Why bother to transmit the "secret" totals? If they're so secret, nobody needs to know them until the election's done.

      - Who needs servers? Your system would in fact be more secure if the in-booth units never spoke to the ballot box units in their election day configuration. There's no need for them to be networked, physical access controls (the cop standing next to the ballot box unit...) should be more than enough to insure anything inserted was an actual ballot. Oh, and
  • ...it's an optical scan machine. We use them in my town. You mark a paper ballot, just like in school (make your marks heavy and black...). Then slide it into the "Accu-Vote" machine [love that name...like something out of The Simpsons]

    Anyway. What's wrong with this? Paper ballots, machine & humanly readable, electronically counted. And very similar to those used throughout history, where the voter made a mark next to the name of the candidate of his or her choice. Disabled voters are allowed p
  • At least they aren't wielding the DMCA, the Patriot Act, claiming that pointing out that the emperor has no clothes is terrorism...

    yet...

  • Support HR 2239! (Score:5, Informative)

    by Eraserhd ( 21298 ) on Monday October 20, 2003 @09:05PM (#7266365) Homepage

    The only way to make sure that your vote counts is a voter-verified paper trail for use in recounts and mandatory recount in a small percentage of districts chosen at random (to verify that the equipment is working). This is the only way to have meaningful recounts.

    HR 2239 does just this (and was written by a physicist, no less)!

    Sign the petition supporting HR 2239, there's a link to it at the bottom of VerifiedVoting.org [verifiedvoting.org]!

    • And beware of the whole "rebuttal" about vote-trading. Critics deliberately misrepresent the "paper trail" thing and say that it can be used for vote-trading scams. The real truth is that that only happens if the "paper trail" is a receipt that the voter keeps. The voting scientists, on the other hand, advocate a paper trail that is turned in at the precinct so they can be manually recounted later. This is what HR 2239 advocates as well. This kind of paper trail is NOT susceptible to vote-trading. It
    • please mod parent up - I posted a story about this site but was rejected.

      Slashdoters need to do more than throw up your hands in dispair - time to take action. This site seems to be the focal point for electronic voting issues.

  • A transition period? (Score:4, Insightful)

    by thepacketmaster ( 574632 ) on Monday October 20, 2003 @09:21PM (#7266462) Homepage Journal
    I'm sure someone has already thought of this, but why don't they count both the e-votes and the receipts at the same time. I'm a little skeptical about these machines but they will eventually be used, no matter how much we might not want them.

    I think it would be useful to have a transition period of 10 years or so, that would be used for the software to become more stable, and to help instill the trust in the system. People would cast their e-vote, get the receipt, verify it is correct and put the receipt in an old fashion ballot box. After the polls close, the e-votes are shown and the receipts are tallied. Then the discrepancies are examined and if there are any problems, the receipts are used for the final count instead.

    • That's what we're arguing for, but that's not what Diebold and friends are selling...
    • This system should be kept for all time - to prevent any fiddles in future.

      It was always obvious that receipts would be the best way to verify vote.

      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 receipt is put into ballot box (incorporating reader).

      There are very reliable readers already on market for cheque validation.

      Recount is always possible when close.

      At all votes though, use spot checks to see

  • My favorite quote... (Score:2, Insightful)

    by lordvdr ( 682194 )
    "reduce substantially the level and amount of criticism from computer scientists and other security experts about the fallibility of electronic voting systems."

    They aren't saying, "We want to make our software more secure." They're just saying, "We don't want to hear about how it isn't secure."

    I don't think there is anything wrong with electronic voting. I just think there is something wrong with the current companies that do it.

    Funny though, I don't know anything about any company except Diebold. D

  • ew diebold (Score:3, Interesting)

    by Ravagin ( 100668 ) on Monday October 20, 2003 @09:41PM (#7266650)

    Diebold seems to have manufactured the craptastic swipe-card machines that allow us to pay electronically to use the washing machines in our dormitory. I can barely get 75 cents to turn into an activated dryer; there's no fucking way I'm voting with something those clowns made.

    Wait, fuck, I live in Maryland.

  • 1) generate a PGP hash of 2048 bits or some other unhackable / unique bytes

    2) print it out as a unique identifier on the vote receipt

    3) [ someone help me out here ] - obfuscate the difference between the two so that the receipt can't be used to determine how you voted

    4) "WE THE PEOPLE" PROFIT! From a clear, clean, auditable, [virtually] indisputable election process.

    Ok, so it may be a pipe dream right now; but something HAS to make sure that accountability is accounted for (hah!) in higher politics [i

  • Clippy, the voting assistant (Score:3, Funny)

    by HermanAB ( 661181 ) on Monday October 20, 2003 @10:40PM (#7267171)
    I see you are voting for George Bush, do you need help to change that?
  • Dude, ever see a cash register? Each transaction is recorded on one reel, with reciepts given to the customer AND also on another reel that just spools and stays in the register. The whole day is on one continuous reel. It would be TRIVIAL to print out machine-readable and human-readable results on that second reel for quick, verifiable recounts.

    Your local gas station cares more about getting the right results than your local election officials.
  • I have worked in the IT industry for 6 years, and I have never even known that there was an ITAA. I certainly don't pay them any dues.... What gives them the right to speak for us?
  • Voting activists have expressed concerns that the plan focused on fixing public perceptions rather than addressing security problems.

    I'd have to get that a big "BINGO, BOZO."

    Dill said, however, that the design of a voter-verified paper system is not a trivial undertaking and that the usability and security aspects of such a feature need to be thought through carefully so companies design systems under standards that meet both these criteria.

    Huh? What's hard about printing the selected choice, and a b

  • This scares the shit out of me. (Score:5, Informative)

    by Billly Gates ( 198444 ) on Tuesday October 21, 2003 @01:56AM (#7268078) Journal
    Who is Diebold?

    Lets see who they are [opensecrets.org]?

    I did a search on google and found some scary stuff. [209.157.64.200]

    All 3 vendors only contribute to the republican party! Did you know one of Dick Cheney's friends from Halliburton is actually in charge of the voting machine division!

    Link here [onlinejournal.com] and here [indymedia.org].

    What if lets say theoritically speaking of course the CEO of Diebold wanted a nice big pay check. He could go to Bush and give him 4 more years for a nice big paycheck from the RNC.

    We need audits. [whatreallyhappened.com].This is crazy and no company should be given that much power.

  • YIKES!!!

    It is ESSENTIAL to any fair voting system that the voter be given no means to prove how he/she voted...eg by a reciept.

    If you can take away proof of how you voted - then unscrupulous people with piles of cash can subvert elections by bribing voters to vote they way they want. They simply do a deal where the voter brings along their paper reciept in order to claim their bribe money. (eg A supermarket might offer: "20% off groceries if you show us your vote for candidate X!" - the local Mob Boss m

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