Evoting in India, Maryland 182
Anonymous Coward writes "EVMs are back in the news again. The BBC is reporting on the use of over a million Electronic Voting Machines (EVM) in India for Parliamentary elections in April. With a billion people and an electorate of 668 million, it is by far the largest democratic election exercise in the world. A picture of an EVM is provided." And Kierthos writes "An article on Yahoo! News mentions that Maryland's voting terminals will be wrapped in tamper proof tape, which 'just protects that malicious code physically', according to computer scientist Avi Rubin. Also mentioned are California's ongoing system of e-voting, as well as a point on whether Diebold should be banned in California after using uncertified software in last October's election."
hmm (Score:5, Interesting)
As far as the overall debate on e-voting, I like how they do it here in Alaska. It's the old "fill in the bubble" tests like you used to take in school. You fill in the bubble on the ballot, which the ballot itself is very well laid out, then when you're done you feed the ballot into an electronic counter which keeps a tally there on the spot. When the polls close, an election worker connects the machine to a phone line, the machine then dials out and reports the results for that precinct. Results are all in w/in ~2-3 hours of the polls closing, and there is defiantly a paper trail that can be followed, if need be.
Re:hmm (Score:4, Funny)
Cool does it come with that Magic Server Pixie Dust and a Universal Business Adapter (That actually does require an adapter to connect to a unix machine) and some of those other cool Gizmo's on IBM's commericals?
Re:hmm (Score:5, Insightful)
Florida used punch cards. Punch out the perforated block, bingo you've voted.
The fiaso occurred because, what constiuted a "vote" was being subjectviely defined... by whatever party happened to be reading the ballot. Some puches were partially knocked out. Did that constitute a vote? If so, if there was one punch out for one candidate and a partial punch for another, did that invalidate the vote or did it count for the whole punch or the partial one?
On top of that, while they were handling the ballots during the recount, some of the punch outs were coming off!
And don't think you're safe with your pencil and paper! Oh no! It's politics. Any side will find anyway to hem and haw about interpretations of rules and ballots.
That's what partially kicked off this whole EVoting craze in the US. To try to prevent such a thing from occurring again.
Re:hmm (Score:4, Funny)
Re:hmm (Score:5, Insightful)
All voting is a statistical process. No system is perfect, there will always be errors. Thus the system has a margin of error.
The 2000 vote was the problem it was because the vote was inside the margin of error, thus no amount of fiddling, recounting, whatever, could possibly resolve the issue. Statistically speaking, the vote was a dead heat and the only reason it had to be decided by the dead heat in Florida was because it was a dead heat pretty much everywhere else as well.
In terms of the "problem" this is indicative of the choices of candidates being a coin toss to most of the populace, which is, essentially, how we resolved it. By using technology to reduce the margin of error we can avoid the political brouhaha of coin toss elections by allowing one candidate to "win" by 20 votes or some such, but it does nothing to cure the political problems that lead to such dead heat elections in the first place.
Do you want Frog ala Peche, or Peche ala Frog?
Not to mention the problem inherent in such elections where a goodly portion of the voting populace look at the opposing candidates, flip their coin, look at it, then just say "Fuck it, it doesn't even matter," and stay home on election day.
Give us statistically descernable candidates and we just might have election results statistically significant.
Of course, to the candidates themselves such an idea is anathema.
KFG
Re:hmm (Score:4, Informative)
Re:hmm (Score:3, Interesting)
I like states. I like states rights and equality under law of states. Hence I'm inclined to keep the electoral
Re:hmm (Score:3, Insightful)
As opposed to the current system, where all but a half-dozen "swing states" are largely ignorable? In 2000 I was registerd to vote in New Jersey; I could just as well have not voted, because Gore won in a walk like everybody knew he was going to (not that I'm complaining about that result, mind you; I would have taken, and would still take, anybody over the ape-in-a-suit we have no
Re:hmm (Score:2, Funny)
KFG
Re:hmm (Score:3, Interesting)
Having said that, it isn't happening in USA any time soon. It is in the interest of the two dominant parties to keep it as it is.
Sivaram Velauthapillai
Re:hmm (Score:2)
Doesn't solve the problem. It means that we wouldn't've had the problem in 2000, but that's just because it shifts the problem to other situations, where you're doing recounts to scrape together the deciding votes in several states...
> Or better yet, get rid of the whole Electoral College system entirely and
> use a nationwide popular vote.
That makes the problem less likely, but makes it much worse when it happens. Imagine a national dead-
Re:hmm (Score:2)
This isn't true. The notion of a recount is a misnomer. The machines have a fairly high ballot rejection rate. In particular, if the voter punches part of the ballot incorrectly, the whole thing is skipped by the machines. By (state) law the ballot is supposed to be counted if the intent of the voter is clear. So parts of the ballot that a
Re:hmm (Score:2)
Yep, Bush won it pretty easily, as independent recounts after the fact showed.
Chris Mattern
Re:hmm (Score:2, Interesting)
With pencil and paper it's easier to give explicit details of what constitutes a vote and make it clear to the voters what they need to do. Example: Each candidate has a box directly to the right of their name (for the really stupid the correct way up is indicated on the slip). A cross (other marks aren't acceptable) must be placed within the box for the candidate you wish to vote for. Marks made outside the box or in multiple boxes invalidate the voting slip.
This may seem a little strict, but provided the
Re:hmm (Score:2, Insightful)
1. How do we make sure that EV is secure?
2. How do we make sure that EV is reliable?
3. How do we make sure that EV is accurate?
EV needs to be seen to work as well as paper based alternatives. This is hard to do when the BBC has reported security violations by hackers, the florida fiasco, various interesting comments by Diebold employees etc.
Personally, in the UK I can't see EV catching on unless there is a paper trail, faultless physical security, and no chance o
Not Exactly. (Score:3, Informative)
Later on the "official" counts were reset and a (more belivable) set of (nonnegative) numbers ca
Re: (Score:3, Interesting)
Re:hmm (Score:2)
I'm guessing this has not been pursued, or he felt that not revealing what kind of shielding was being used was a security me
Re:hmm (Score:2)
Yep, just like when someone breaks the seal on the box in which we all throw the voting cards.
Re:hmm (Score:5, Insightful)
Re:hmm (Score:3, Funny)
Well the simple solutiong is tamper tape on top of tamper tape.
Re:hmm (Score:5, Interesting)
Re:hmm (Score:2, Redundant)
Re:hmm (Score:4, Informative)
http://www.guardian.co.uk/US_election_race/Stor
The official responsible for overseeing voting records and other similar issues is the Florida Secretary of State. At the time of most of the voter roll purges before the 2000 election, the Secretary was Katharine Harris, who also happened to end up as the head of the Bush campaign in Florida. Hint: Not a democrat.
Fortunately, she's no longer the Secretary of State for Florida.
Unfortunately, that came about as a side effect of her election to the US House of Representatives in the 13th Congressional District of Florida.
Re:hmm (Score:4, Informative)
The first site is purporting to be repeating a newspaper story (long after the election) complaining that Florida's attempts to minimize illegal voting by convicted felons was overbroad.
The second cite (to the Guardian, only slightly more reliable a source than the National Inquirer)is a bad URL.
Note that the original assertions in this thread were not relfected in news at the time, and not supported by any of the multiple media studies of the Florida election outcome.
Perhaps it's tinfoil hat time.....
Re:hmm (Score:3, Informative)
Re:hmm (Score:4, Informative)
Remove the space that slashdot places in long text-strings, you dolt. BTW, the Guardian is a well-regarded newspaper, with real essay-style journalism--you get more content and analysis from a single Guardian issue than a week's worth of USA Today.
The linked article is actually quite short, and summarizes a Washington Post article on the report of the US Civil Rights commission investigation of Florida voting disenfanchisement. Given that the event occurred 3 years ago, the poster had to use a news source that keeps their articles up for years.
They tried this in Quebec (Score:3, Interesting)
Quebec (Canada) tried this in their 1995 referendum on trying to secede from Canada. Ballots were marked by hand and counted by hand. Each ballot had large circles labeled YES and NO. Only certain symbols were allowed (IIRC, they were an X, a check mark, a straight horizontal line, or filling in the circle completely). Anything else
Re:hmm (Score:2, Insightful)
Re:hmm (Score:2)
Remember, most Election Districts are VERY predictable, and it's part of what makes "calling" an election from Exit polling more "fun"
For instance, almost ALL EDs in NYC will vote Democratic (North Eastern Queens sometimes goes the other way), Nassau County usually goes Republican. Want to throw out a few hundred votes of one type or the other - work that info - if Nassau goes Democratic - it doesn't matter ho
Re:hmm (Score:2)
Tamper-proof tape? (Score:5, Funny)
Re:Tamper-proof tape? (Score:5, Funny)
Re:Tamper-proof tape? (Score:4, Funny)
Sadly, they still use that in the future. It didn't keep anybody out of Mr. Spock's quarters.
Re:Tamper-proof tape? (Score:2, Funny)
Re:Tamper-proof tape? (Score:5, Insightful)
I've followed the developments in Maryland closely, and what's been noticeably absent from every report I've seen on the subject has been any discussion of what the consequences would be if the tamper-proof tape shows tampering.
More to the point: can anyone disenfranchise a whole bunch of voters by just damaging the tape, deliberately or accidentally, while voting?
Tamper-proof?? NO SUCH THING! (Score:3, Insightful)
Re:Tamper-proof tape? (Score:4, Funny)
Not even close to how it is in Brazil... (Score:5, Interesting)
This is how we vote in Brazil (google translate from portuguese):
http://www.tre-mg.gov.br/eleicoes/simulacao_de_vo
Re:Not even close to how it is in Brazil... (Score:3, Informative)
The same machines that are used and trusted in Brasil were used in Angola in 1992. However, in Angola (then political party and later rebel group) UNITA claimed that the machines spewed out fraudulent results, resulting in a bloody civil war that only recently ended.
Decertified in Wisconsin (Score:5, Interesting)
The Executive Director's report [state.wi.us]
Don't you realize... (Score:5, Funny)
Voting in India (Score:5, Interesting)
Why is the vote of the illerterate that important? (Score:4, Insightful)
If it is a vote for an elected official, at least one can judge on what that person has said to them - via personal, radio, and TV appearences. Not perfect, but something.
What about other issues? What does an illertarte really know? At least the literate can read the text of a ballot measure [not that many do].
In the end, what is the value of an uninformed vote?
If radio/TV ads are as deceptive in high-illeteracey democracies such as India, as they are here in the US - it the perfect argument against illiterate voters.
I don't have an answer, most alternatives are also wrong. Just a question...
Re:Why is the vote of the illerterate that importa (Score:5, Funny)
George W. Bush will be happy to tell you.
Re:Why is the vote of the illerterate that importa (Score:5, Interesting)
It's a parliamentary system. Voters don't vote for the George W. Bush equivalent. They vote for their local Member of Parliament, who could be a member of a political party (usually is), or an independent. They usually do that vote based on how that MP's been performing (he/she's supposed to take care of that constituency) and they know that very well. And at the end of the day, the party with a majority support in the lower house of parliament gets to govern. It works.
Re:Why is the vote of the illerterate that importa (Score:2, Insightful)
Cheers
Junk
Thanks... (Score:2)
Anyhow, yes, I agree, if you are voting for your representative anyone bothering to vote has as good a chance as anyone else of "getting it right".
Re:Why is the vote of the illerterate that importa (Score:2)
Whether people are illiterate or not doesn't make THAT much difference. MAny people in USA and Canada don't bother reading anything anyway. A politician's speech or television advertising probably has a greater impact than anything they read.
Sivaram Velauthapillai
Thanks... (Score:2)
I agree - democracy is the best of the lot, but how can we improve it, in practicality?
Diebold again? (Score:4, Insightful)
Maybe the states that are still using Diebold machines know something I don't, but I really don't see why you'd want to take such a risk with something as important as voting.
Re:Diebold again? (Score:5, Insightful)
Re:Diebold again? (Score:2, Insightful)
There are a lot of people in the United States that do not really believe in the ability of the "common person" to make valid decisions when it comes to selecting a government. There are others who believe that democracy actually has a negative effect on a society because it counteracts what they believe to be natural selection (ei:
Solution to the e-voting problem (Score:5, Funny)
This provides identical results at greatly reduced cost and time.
the Netherlands (Score:3, Informative)
Re:the Netherlands (Score:4, Insightful)
Re:the Netherlands (Score:3, Informative)
Tell your US Representatives about it (Score:4, Informative)
http://www.congress.com/ [congress.com]
Then find out how they voted... (Score:4, Informative)
(ironically enough, the list is as tallied by the electronic voting machine)
Its time to embrace this tech (Score:5, Insightful)
We need to think carefully about this tech but we also need to embrace it. We already let automation run our reactors, manager all of our money, keep us from running into each other at intersections, etc.
Re:Its time to embrace this tech (Score:5, Insightful)
I'd say the difference is that electronic voting has the potential to make vote tampering that much easier and/or harder to track. Especially where there's no paper trail, you really have no choice but to accept whatever number the machine gives you.
Even assuming no fraud (unlikely) the severity of the mistakes varies....a mistake counting paper ballots might result in a small change in the final tally, but a typo in the program could reverse the results of the election.
Don't get me wrong; I'm all in favor of using computers to make things easier. (Otherwise, would I be posting to Slashdot?) But if we're going to move to e-voting, the systems need to have the strongest possible security and reliability...and so far, they don't.
Re:Its time to embrace this tech (Score:4, Informative)
California has gradually come around to that way of thinking, over the protests of everyone responsible for buying an expensive, fraud-inviting, paperless e-voting machine. So now, barring anything unexpected, in 2006 they'll be great.
I guess that's the point of bureacracy-- slow down anything-- but it's still frustrating to see the long, slow process and the numerous small missteps.
Re:Its time to embrace this tech (Score:2)
This comes up on Slashdot every week. Any record of who you voted for allows fraud and buying of votes.
Imagine a guy standing down the street from the poll location giving people $5 for a record of them voting for candidate A, and you see the problem with the paper verification.
This is NOT a technical problem (Score:2, Interesting)
The problem is that everyone in the system has incentives to distort the vote some way. You should evaluate any proposed technology by how much easier or harder it makes miscounting the vote.
Electronic voting. Lemme see. No paper trail. Software that nobody audited. Internal data and communication that nobody admits to having access to. Does that sound easier or harder to get away with shenanigans with than paper voting?
The other things that you mention all have the huge
I'm guessing not long (Score:3, Informative)
I wonder how long it will take this to become politicized as "those Indians are stealing our jobs, now they are trying to teach us how to run a democracy".
Why don't we have tech-literate judges? (Score:3, Funny)
I'm impressed by the fact that they clearly have technically literate judges in India. As a mere engineer, I would be very hesitant to proclaim an electronic system tamper-proof. Clearly Indian judges are experts in electronics, cryptography and the law. Very impressive.
Don't bother testing it, we have to ship it now! (Score:4, Insightful)
And we all know that bringing the deadline forward to meet changing customer requirements is the best possible way of ensuring that software is bug free ...
Diebold banned? (Score:2)
Technical specifications for Indian EVM (Score:5, Interesting)
Looks like this machine will definitely go a long way in ensuring the fairness of Indian elections. Maybe I'll even vote next time.
Re:Technical specifications for Indian EVM (Score:3, Insightful)
Re:Technical specifications for Indian EVM (Score:3, Insightful)
Re:Technical specifications for Indian EVM (Score:2)
Assembly to machine code is a direct translation, i.e. assembly code is every bit as efficient as machine code, not like compiling. Nobody writes in ones and zeros.
Then, you have the problem that if the code is written in assembly language, it is going to be very, very hard for any auditors to check that there is no election rigging goi
Re:Technical specifications for Indian EVM (Score:5, Insightful)
Oh very nice attitude. Exactly what we need to ensure good governance. Educated people sitting at home on election day. After all, you can't be bothered to spend 20 minutes going to the polling booth once every 5 years, can you?
Don't bother complaining about the government again. You don't have that right.
Re:Technical specifications for Indian EVM (Score:2, Informative)
But considering the security these Deibold machines seem to have, maybe I can vote in DC in November!
Re:Technical specifications for Indian EVM (Score:2)
You gleaned that from the "100% tamper proof" specification I guess?
I'd have to guess, because there is no way to know for sure.
This doesn't solve the real problem: (Score:4, Interesting)
Re:This doesn't solve the real problem: (Score:2, Interesting)
Yes, in Maryland you get the best of everything. You get the Diebold 'AccuVote-TS' [state.md.us] system AND gerrymandering [state.md.us] (I think the 3rd district is my favorite).
old news (Score:2, Redundant)
Meanwhile, the Netherlands has had electronic voting for over 10 years now
Details here [cs.kun.nl]
I almost was a tech for those (Score:4, Interesting)
And whats so difficult about having a printed voter verifiable receipt anyway?
Ban Diebold (Score:2, Insightful)
Diebold should be banned: everywhere, period.
-kgj
India is a town in Maryland? (Score:2, Funny)
Or maybe the headline was supposed to have been
Evoting in India and Maryland
Voting machines in Maryland (Score:5, Interesting)
Each case was held closed by a wire lockout, available only to those elite groups who receive electrical supply catalogs.
I of course chose not to mess with them. Any come-from-behind victory I make on Tuesday will be purely coincidental.
Interested in setting up a panel in NYC (July) (Score:2, Informative)
Some topics that color my view of e-voting systems briefly follow
My concern is that any system be appropriately thought out, formally and precisely defined, using rigidly designed systems (not necessarily off-the-shelf), made to precisely and verifiably conduct voting tansactions, without being able to disclose, leak, or bleed any information that is not supposed to escape the system.
The Johns Ho
Arguments Against E-Voting Other Than Security (Score:3, Insightful)
physical insecurity of voting terminals (Score:3, Informative)
See my site on the issue in Canada, including international reports: Paper Vote Canada [papervotecanada.ca].
verifiedvoting.org (Score:3, Interesting)
Electronic voting needs to solve two problems: Guarantee that every vote is counted exactly and guarantee that everyone can trust that result.
As Schneier [schneier.com] points out, there can be no trust without a paper trail for verification. So it is quite important to support legislation mandating such a paper trail.
Make Room for Maryland, Red Green! (Score:3, Interesting)
Peruse the training film (wmd only), download a registration form, see a sample screen. Above all, don't miss the FAQ. My nomination for Best FAQ is:
Q: How do I know the system will work properly on Election Day?
A: Each piece of equipment is prepared for the election by election staff and a public test is held to verify this process. Before this process and after the public test is completed, all equipment is sealed and secured until being opened by a bi-partisan team of election judges in the polling location on Election Day.
In addition to the Website, we've been favored by bus posters, billboards, and even a few commercials on local cable.
I am oh, so pleased to see even more of my tax money being squandered on these systems--this time just to tell me how wonderful they will be. I'm going to vote when the polls open Tuesday (it is a Democratic and Republican primary here), then leave immediately for a trip. I feel sure other Maryland Slashdot readers will have volumes to say about the experience.
Anne
Re:Make Room for Maryland, Red Green! (Score:2)
What does the training of voters have to do with weapons of mass destruction?
Maryland verified voting website (Score:5, Informative)
The problem in Maryland is that the officials at the State Board of Elections are in Diebold's pocket. Realize that San Diego and other California counties are getting voter-verified paper trail equipment from Diebold for free, despite paying only 60% as much for the machines as Maryland. Maryland also bought a much larger order. However, since the SBE officials won't go to bat Diebold is trying to charge big bucks for the VVPT. Diebold is also spending heavily in lobbying and contributing to the Maryland Delegates and State Senators who could pass legislation that would force a VVPT.
Some other good sites if you're interested in this topic:
www.verifiedvoting.org [verifiedvoting.org]
www.blackboxvoting.org [blackboxvoting.org]
--Paul
unit judge say what? (Score:2, Informative)
EVM In India (Score:3, Informative)
also, since the elections are held in multiple phases across the country, the machines get re-used.
Landmark proposal (Score:5, Interesting)
Any idea how many democracies in the world give this option to the voters?
Going Postal in UK (Score:2)
It doesn't matter much if you have electronic or pencil voting if the electorate can't be bothered to actually go to the voting booth.
Maybe postal will get more voters to vote?
Isulating computers (Score:2)
Re:stupid stupid (Score:4, Insightful)
2) Part of the outcry (at least here) against e-voting is exactly that - that nobody can see the source, which means we have no way of knowing if it's correct, if it has backdoors, etc.
3) Nothing is 100%, expecially when people are involved.
Re:stupid stupid (Score:5, Insightful)
while(1)
{
voteRepublican();
}
from being sneaked in to the source undetected.
Re:stupid stupid (Score:2, Funny)
It cannot be. If the guy/gal is smart enough to write 2 lines of C code he/she cannot be republican.
Cheers
Junk
Re:So how SHOULD e-voting machines be built? (Score:5, Insightful)
Before diving in to what kind of design we should be using, I think some time needs to be spend deciding the design parameters. The solution should probably:
The Nevada Gaming Board has been cited as a good example of the kind of extremely paranoid testing and auditing that needs to go into a system this important. However, for a voting system we've added some new and challenging criteria- anonymity, ease of use, and fairness. None of these individually are difficult, but when combined with the testabilty and auditability become particularly challenging. How do you ensure that individual votes are getting properly registered while still maintaining the anonymity of the votes?
Personally, I don't see how all of these criteria can be met in a "remote" (e.g. web) voting system. However, I think these problems are all solvable with our current technology, if we are careful. In fact, I think that if a system were designed carefully, we could even come up with a system where we can, if necessary, confirm (validate) a region or even nation's voting results by storing individual voting results on voter-owned smart cards.
Assume we set up a system where every voter is issued a voting smart card that they retain possession over. When you go in to vote you stick your smart card in the voting machine. You then vote, and it records your choices on the card. Audits could then take place after an election by having randomly selected voters come in and stick their smart cards into a seperate vote validation system that retallies the results and allows voters to confirm their vote selection. Using statistics, you can set a threshold for when the error level is too suspiciously high, and require revotes in the regions with anomalous results. By using different vendors to provide the voting machines, smart cards, and vote auditing system, you can greatly increase your assurance that no entity has tampered with the voting results. Apart from the influences of the media... and politicians... and education system... and religions.....
On second thought, forget the whole thing. :)
Our Party requirements for a secure e-vote (Score:2)
Here is our Party Constitution's wording on what would constitute a valid vote. Currently we do not have such a process in place (we've only just begun operating), and from talking to various people on the issue, it appears that most experts regard this as impossible to implement. I'd like to think that eventually someone will create such a system, as it would open the world's democracies up to far more representation than they currently enjoy.
Online Voting Security
3.51 For online voting to b
Re:Jim Caviezel, plays Christ, is Jewish (Score:2)
Sivaram Velauthapillai