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U.S. To Certify Labs For Testing E-Voting Machines
Posted by
Zonk
on Fri Jan 19, 2007 10:37 AM
from the who-certifies-the-certifiers dept.
from the who-certifies-the-certifiers dept.
InternetVoting writes "In a clear counter to the recent criticisms of secrecy involving Ciber labs the National Institute of Standards and Technology (NIST) has issued recommendations (pdf) to the Election Assistance Commission (EAC). NIST recommends the accreditation of two labs, iBeta Quality Assurance and SysTest Labs. The recommendation, emphasizing the need for transparency, includes on-site assessment reports, lab responses, and on-site reviews for each lab. These reports shed much needed light into the process of voting machine certification. Learn more from the Q&As About NIST Evaluation of Laboratories that Test Voting Systems."
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IT: NIST Condemns Paperless Electronic Voting 201 comments
quizzicus writes "Paperless electronic voting machines 'cannot be made secure' [pdf] according to the National Institute of Standards and Technology (NIST). In the most sweeping condemnation of voting machines issued by any federal agency, NIST echoes what critics have been saying all along, that due to the lack of verifiability, 'a single programmer could rig a major election.' Rather than adding printers, though, NIST endorses the hand-marked optical-scan system as the most reliable."
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Federal Panel [not NIST] Rejects Paper Trail For E-Voting 191 comments
emil10001 writes "The National Institute of Standards and Technology (NIST) has rejected a proposal suggesting that electronic voting have a paper trail. The draft recommendation was developed by NIST scientists, who called out electronic voting machines as being 'impossible' to secure." From the article: "Committee member Brit Williams, who opposed the measure, said, 'You are talking about basically a reinstallation of the entire voting system hardware.' The proposal failed to obtain the 8 of 15 votes needed to pass. Five states — Delaware, Georgia, Louisiana, Maryland and South Carolina — use machines without a paper record exclusively. Eleven states and the District either use them in some jurisdictions or allow voters to chose whether to use them or some other voting system." So ... accountability in voting will be a joke for the foreseeable future because it costs too much?
Update: 12/11 03:20 GMT by KD : Correction: It was not NIST that rejected NIST's recommendations, it was a federal panel chartered by Congress, the Technical Guidelines Development Committee.
Update: 12/11 03:20 GMT by KD : Correction: It was not NIST that rejected NIST's recommendations, it was a federal panel chartered by Congress, the Technical Guidelines Development Committee.
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Opaque Audits (Score:5, Insightful)
It sounded, prima facie, like progress was being made; but quoth TFA:
Call me cynical, but auditing opaque processes with equally opaque tests doesn't change much; I foresee a holographic sticker labelled “certified.”
I'd wager, furthermore, they expect us to buy it at face value.
Re:Opaque Audits (Score:5, Insightful)
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Re:Opaque Audits (Score:5, Insightful)
I think you're being too soft on your own government. Government isn't a child in need of coddling: it's a cynical and self-aware machine that studies to persist at your expense.
Re: (Score:2)
I think you're confusing the government with those who abuse it (whatever party is in power).
The government at times resembles a
Re:Opaque Audits (Score:5, Insightful)
When you think about it, the lack of standards is probably what has caused the current crop of voting machines to be such dismal failures. While I'm not sure I trust Diebold anyway, given their political connections, they probably would have done at least a halfway decent job on their machines if there were a set of standards to measure them against. It's not enough for the US Government to send out a Request For Proposals outlining what they are looking for, unless the functionality and security can be defined against some kind of standard. If the standards had existed first, maybe the machines would not have all the loopholes and omissions which make them such trash currently.
Re:Opaque Audits (Score:5, Insightful)
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Re:Opaque Audits (Score:5, Funny)
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going back in time (Score:2, Insightful)
Once that's done.... (Score:4, Funny)
Re:Once that's done.... (Score:5, Interesting)
I know you're trying to be funny but every state has requirements for people who want to run for office. So long as they meet those requirements, anyone can get on the ballot.
However, some states, such as Pennsylvania, have stacked the odds against third party candidates by requiring those candidates to meet higher standards. In Pennsylvania, if you are third party candidate and want to be on the ballot in November (you can't be on the ballot in May), you would need to gather signatures equal to or greater than 2% of the ballots cast for the largest vote-getter in the last statewide election race.
In the most recent election, third party candidates would have needed 67,070 valid signatures to be on the ballot as the highest vote count in the last statewide election was 3.4 million.
Contrast that with the 2,000 signatures that either a Democratic or Republican candidate must gather.
Obviously the answer is to have the legislature change the reqirement but the vast majority of the unwashed masses don't know about the requirement, don't care about the requirement, and are happy enough simply voting straight ticket.
Besides, can you imagine what would happen if it were easier for third party candidates to get on the ballot? Why, there would be competition and choice during an election! We can't have that, now can we?
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To stand for election, a candidate must submit a nomination paper signed by ten electors* for the constituency and lodge a deposit of £500, which is refundable only if the candidate receives more than 5% of the total votes cast for each ca
Advances in technology for voting (Score:2)
i like the way i vote now (Score:1)
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Doesn't matter if the standards are the same... (Score:4, Interesting)
If it's the latter, then as long as the standards anywhere close to where they have been, we'll continue working with virtually whatever the voting machine companies assert is good.
Ryan Fenton
Why is it (Score:5, Insightful)
That politicians can't grasp the immediately obvious? Why do they even bother with electronic voting machines when:
How could any politician come to a conclusion that electronic voting machines make sense? There is no compelling reason to use electronic voting machines at all. The only possible explanation I see is that counties which bought electronic voting machines had county officials on the payroll of the voting machine makers.
The fact that they've been purchased seems to suggest that politics is already not quite as transparent as it should be.
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The "scandal" around the 2000 election opened the door - "hanging chads", people whinging
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There are two compelling reasons for EVMs. The most important is that the blind can vote without assistance (preserving the secret ballot). The second is to simplify ballot format: no more will we have the creative "butterfly" ballot (an attempt to squeeze
Blind Votes (Score:2)
Re: (Score:2, Insightful)
I think you are confusing the /. crowd with the 'normal' mom & pop crowd. For the non-technical people it is much easier to press a box with the person's name (which then changes color) that poke a hole in a card.
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I have an amazing piece of technology I'd like to suggest that makes hole punching absolutely obsolete: the Sharpie Brand Permanent Marker.
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It's even simpler to place a cross in
Why do they even bother? (Score:3, Informative)
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Recommendations? (Score:1)
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All joking aside, there needs to be a law that does protect the integrity of the voting process. But I believe we have these. It gets to be a problem though when y
Watchmen (Score:4, Insightful)
I'm waiting for the day when... (Score:4, Funny)
some hacker group gets Mickey Mouse elected via electronic voting machines. I'm wondering if even then people will pay attention.
Re:I'm waiting for the day when... (Score:5, Funny)
I thought so.
Bah! (Score:2)
whats wrong with this picture? (Score:4, Insightful)
"If god had wanted us to vote, he would have given us candidates"
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if you ask me.... (Score:1)
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And any vote that's not secret can be coerced. Heard any news lately about the U.S. Chamber of Commerce pushing for legislation to make votes to form a union non-secret?
Admittedly, in this country, it's hard to believe there could be wide-spread voter tam
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How hard is it to design ballot boxes with a tamper resistent tracking device and to have cameras watching when the ballot papers go in and when the boxes are opened to count the votes?
Just another money grab (Score:1)
What is the likelihood that this group would be able to satisfy everyone and have enough power to keep elections from being rigged?
Voting Computers (Score:2, Insightful)
More crap like NIAP? (Score:5, Interesting)
Nothing wrong with NIAP itself (Score:2)
Protection Profiles are written by the organizations using NIST standards. If Microsoft (for example) chose create a really, really lame Protection Profile for their ToE (Target
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Rainbow Books WTF!