Researchers And Registrars Debate E-Voting 153
Paper Trail writes "There's a fascinating discussion going on right now over at SiliconValley.com.
A group of computer scientists, journalists, voting activists, and county registrars are discussing the e-voting mess in an online forum that runs all this week. The panel is a who's who of e-voting: Avi Rubin, David Dill, David Jefferson, and registrars from San Bernadino and Riverside, CA. They've even got Scott Ritchie from the Open Vote Foundation. The question they're hoping to answer: "What's your assessment of the risks related to the use of electronic voting machines -- in the areas of verifiable voting, errors, recounts and manipulation -- not in the computer lab, but in a real-world setting? And how do those risks compare with current voting systems and other low-tech options?""
said it before -- I'll say it again (Score:5, Insightful)
Would somebody please tell me what exactly is wrong with the lever operated mechanical machines still largely used in my state (New York)? The machines are sealed and verified by comparing counter numbers that are tamper-obvious. At the end of the voting day the machine is sealed by the poll workers who write the numbers down and send them to the Board of Elections, who later collects the machine itself.
They are next to impossible to tamper with (it would be glaringly obvious), they work if the electric fails (try that with your touch screen), they keep voters from overvoting just as effectively as a touchscreen does and at the end of the day they can be tallied in a few minutes. What is so wrong with the concept behind these machines that we need to all rush out and buy touchscreen systems? What advantage does a touchscreen offer? It is a closed-source solution that's infinitely easier to rig then a mechanical counting system.
Isn't this one case where we don't need to reinvent the wheel people?
Re:said it before -- I'll say it again (Score:2, Insightful)
Re:said it before -- I'll say it again (Score:3, Insightful)
People want pretty colors and instantaneous stats. People don't want to worry about counting and recounting. People want to have the voting booth be available in 1000 different languages. People want to have their tax money spent on something that is ever-changing.
I would prefer (and basically demand) that we keep our current voting mechanisms the same. Will they? No. But that's not really something that my single voice can stand against.
Re:said it before -- I'll say it again (Score:4, Insightful)
People want pretty colors and instantaneous stats. People don't want to worry about counting and recounting. People want to have the voting booth be available in 1000 different languages. People want to have their tax money spent on something that is ever-changing.
You can get near instantaneous stats out of these machines. And what multiple languages do you need? They see the names of the people running -- if they don't know "George W. Bush" is running the President and not the local Assembly seat that's their problem. Besides (in NY anyway) any voter can be helped by anybody else except for a boss or union official. The poll workers themselves can even enter the booth with him provided you have one poll worker from each major political party enter the booth at the same time.
Recounts? (Score:5, Insightful)
Re:said it before -- I'll say it again (Score:5, Insightful)
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What would it take? [slashdot.org]
Re:said it before -- I'll say it again (Score:1, Insightful)
Re:said it before -- I'll say it again (Score:3, Insightful)
Maintainence on these machines must be certified, etc.
Pen and paper (drawing an X in the appropriate square) have worked for years, but again trust is given to the people tallying the votes.
Your system to me sounds like a better solution then the touch screens. More easily verified as working. Less likely to fail through wear & tear. The advantage I can see for your machines is the speed of tallying the votes. (Which are done as the vote is cast).
Re:Don't see what the fuss is about (Score:1, Insightful)
That's always a recipe for success.
Re:Electronic voting machines aren't the problem (Score:1, Insightful)
Vote From Home (Score:5, Insightful)
I guess this is obvious, but had to be said.
Re:said it before -- I'll say it again (Score:4, Insightful)
My current state doesn't use them. I used to live in NY, so I'm familiar with those machines. They were excellent. A trivial update of the design could allow electronic reading of mechanical vote tallies, if anyone cared to, while still keeping the old "seal" method for recounts. They are substantially better than the punchcard methods (used locally prior to last years touch screen purchase) or the electronic scams^H^H^H^H^Hschemes being suggested (and currenlty in use locally).
And I would say they are MORE effective than the touch screens for preventing overvoting. They give tactile feedback; you try it, and you realize the lever can't move.
Re:said it before -- I'll say it again (Score:3, Insightful)
When they watch TV, not necessarily when they vote. People don't care if they vote by pulling a 20 year old lever. They only care that it's quick, easy, and counts.
The masses aren't screaming for computer graphics on the windshield to aid in driving or a drive-by-wire joystick. People experiment with it, but the flashy stuff isn't what people call for in practical situations.
And making it colorful won't get more people to vote. People aren't running to the polls to check out the computers.
Re:said it before -- I'll say it again (Score:5, Insightful)
Hell...look at Diebold. They made their voting machines without a confirmable printout. Why? Just about everything else they make (from ATMs to cash registers) has a confirmable printout. But hey...look at that...now they can get paid AGAIN to go "upgrade" all the faulty machines they've already deployed. And then they can get paid again to fix the "bugs" in the machines.
Even if that is a little too cynical for you, the fact remains that the companies bringing out the voting machines are making a lot of money.
It is up to those companies to convince the public that they need and want new voting machines. It doesn't matter whether the existing technology works - they'll focus on its flaws and potential abuses and tote their shiny new products as if they are sleek and bugfree.
Create a sense of fear and then offer a remedy that appears to address it. Works in business. Works in politics. Works in just about anything really.
Re:Don't see what the fuss is about (Score:5, Insightful)
Wrong. In most states there are multiple eyes on every ballot from the moment they're taken out of the box until they're counted and sealed. An all-electronic vote is not usually reviewed by multiple people. That's why in test runs thousands of fake extra votes are able to be counted. If every electronic vote was scrutinized the same as paper then they'd be roughly equally vulnerable, but they're not and probably never will be.
Scrutineering (Score:5, Insightful)
Any layman can look over the shoulder of anybody doing anything with the current system, and know at a glance whether the work is being performed correctly.
I have a degree in computer science, and I can't look at an electronic voting system and see that it is working in the correct manner.
This is why I don't think electronic voting systems can ever replace a manual system.
If it aint broke.... (Score:4, Insightful)
I am totally at a loss to understand this rush to some sort of electronic voting. I regard voting as the one, true sacrament of citizenship. I have no problem with it taking a little bit of time. After lying to pollsters for months, the ritual of going into the booth and casting my secret ballot is very satisfying.
Remember, voters are citizens; all others are residents.
Re:Don't see what the fuss is about (Score:5, Insightful)
That is simply not true. With paper ballot voting the only people who can tamper with the ballots are the election officials, and members of all interested parties, observe the voting and tallying process. With some of these poorly implemented systems, anyone with internet access or access to the voting machine (any voter) could potentially hack and tamper with the voting results. This is not a theoretical concern either - there are proven vulnerabilities with these systems.
The lesser reason why your statement is incorrect is that with paper ballots, if fraud is suspected, you can at least go back and do some post mortem analysis of the election - recount the existing ballots, make sure that the number of people who signed in at a voting location is consistent with the number of existing ballots. With most of these electronic voting systems this is currently not an option (although it could be).
These complaints are not FUD, by any stretch of the imagination.
Re:Electronic voting machines aren't the problem (Score:3, Insightful)
Re:said it before -- I'll say it again (Score:3, Insightful)
I disagree with your dismissal of his credibility. There are four years between national elections, and people have ample time to become informed. We need to develop a voting process that strikes a balance between reasonable accessibility and over-accommodation. Removing personal responsibility is definitely not the answer.
The most important thing in my eyes is to develop an election system that is reliable, effective, and virtually unchallengable (ie: the results are reliable enough that a challenge of fraud becomes virtually unnecessary.) Our current system is so screwed up, so in flux, so susceptible to lawsuits, so prone to varied interpretation that it invites challenge and fraud. One huge problem is that people in general are unwilling to accept a registration and validation process that would provide accurate votor validation. We can come up with all the latest and greatest systems, but unless we can accurately and reliably validate votors, the system WILL break down.
Re:said it before -- I'll say it again (Score:1, Insightful)
Just as long as I'm writing the voting software (Score:3, Insightful)
Playing devils advocate: I could write an easter egg into the software, so that when I come along to the voting booth, I tap my finger on the screen in a few special unmarked places, and that machine then favours my chosen candidate.
Tell a few of my friends and we could easily do that with all the machines in a swing state.
The pre-checks wouldn't pick it up, the random machines taken out for testing wouldn't show the problem (because I wouldn't be activating my easter egg on those machines).
Whoever writes the voting software controls the election without the paper trail.
Its fine to make unauditable voting machines, just as long as I'm writing the software.
Re:said it before -- I'll say it again (Score:2, Insightful)
- Verification of ballot - no invalid ballots
- Context sensitive help, less confusion
- Possibility of more advance voting methods (condorcet, IRV, etc)
Re:Electronic voting machines aren't the problem (Score:3, Insightful)
Re:Electronic voting machines aren't the problem (Score:4, Insightful)
Re:Scrutineering (Score:3, Insightful)
That being said, if the system were open source and included some kind of hashing mechanism to verify the binary is a product of the certified code, and the certification rules for the hardware were more strictly obeyed, evoting could be plausible.
None of this is possible with Diebold, or ES&S, or whatever.
Re:Recounts? (Score:3, Insightful)
There are specific federal laws governing elections, and more specifically the couting of military ballots. The law is, if they aren't in by a certain date, they aren't counted.
Bush and his people (namely his brother and Kathleen Harris) broke federal election laws and counted all military ballots, regardless of when they came in, to the tune of a +800 gain for Bush, pushing him over by 576 votes total.
Obey the existing laws (both state and federal) and Gore wone by nearly 300 votes.
Re:said it before -- I'll say it again (Score:3, Insightful)
And as far as fraud goes -- which system do you trust more? The system that relies on two public servants sworn to uphold a scared trust or the system that relies on private vendor companies with lovely quotes like "I'm committed to delivering Ohio's electoral votes to the President". This is a no brainer people.
This question presents a false dichotomy.
The correct answer to the question is "Neither". We should trust no one to be in a position to manipulate our votes. That ideal may be unachievable, but with a completely transparent process, we can get very, very close.
Lots of people have said this before, but I'll say it again anyway. You want a good election system? Here's how:
It's not hard. We *know* how to securely manage paper ballots, and everyone, no matter how technically clueless, or even technologically phobic, can understand paper ballots and see how the process assures their security.
Ink on paper is better than punched cards, it's better than mechanical counting machines and it's worlds better than purely electronic vote-counting systems.
Re:Don't see what the fuss is about (Score:3, Insightful)
Please explain to me in detail how one person, exerting no more effort than is necessary to write a line or two of code, could alter several thousand (or million!) paper ballots at once.
Validation (Score:2, Insightful)
When you're done voting, the record is added to the database. And the computer spits out two copies of the voting record:
One copy goes to the voter, with an outline of how he/she voted.
Another stays with the computer and is used to verify the e-voting tallies if neccessary.
Both printouts are bar coded and have a user/id pin combo that the voter can, after the election verify that his/her vote has been tallied as intended.
This way you get both a paper and electronic audit, and the voter is assured his/vote is counted as intended.