Federal Panel [not NIST] Rejects Paper Trail For E-Voting

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.

This is why I don't vote...

[Anonymous Coward]

...besides the fact that all the candidates suck, but I did vote AGAINST Bush last time.

Great quote

[Daniel Dvorkin]

"You are talking about basically a reinstallation of the entire voting system hardware."

Um ... yeah, like the switch from paper ballots and/or mechanical voting machines to electronic voting machines in the first place?

Stupidest. Excuse. For. Shilling. For. The. Forces. Of. Evil. EVER.

Too Costly?

[gt_mattex]

So, disregarding the fact that their own scientists cited the machine's insecurities, the executives feel that the 'cost' of replacing or updating the machines is prohibitive for our countries (arguably) most important decision?

This whole things reeks of pork and the 'old boys' club'

Re:Great quote

[Anonymous Coward]

Even if it's not schilling for the forces of evil, it is unwise to admit to an error in judgement and simultaneously claim that it would be too costly to repair your error after the fact.

Re:This is why I don't vote...

[Anonymous Coward]

Really you think so? That's only what the machine told you [dilbert.com].

Not cost

[amigabill]

So ... accountability in voting will be a joke for the foreseeable future because it costs too much?

No. Accountability in voting will be a joke because that would be an inconvenience to the Inner Party achieving their goals, whatever those may be. Cost is simply an excuse for the public.

No price is too high for securing Democracy!

[Anonymous Coward]

... except when it's our Democracy.

Think about it, we spend more in Iraq each month than this proposal would cost, all in the name of "securing democracy". Not only that, it's perfectly clear at this point that the only "freedom" we are providing the Iraqis is the freedom to kill each other and our soldiers.

How the hell can anyone not support this measure? Or, more appropriately, how are the clowns who don't support it keeping their jobs?

Oh,

yeah,

the easily stealable elections...

Wasted money going electronic

[kherr]

When I voted in the last election my polling place had about a dozen plastic voting booth tables on metal legs and one optical scan reader that instantly verified/tabulated/secured the paper ballot (mis-marked ballots are rejected by the reader). Imagine the costs for that single poll station if there were a dozen complex electronic voting machines instead of the plastic booths. It's also easier to train poll workers how to replace pens and issue new blank ballots than it is to get them to understand complex computing machinery.

Whether or not you think electronic voting can ever work, from a simple cost-effectiveness standpoint it is an asinine goal to pursue. The purpose was to simplify the voting process, but this has clearly been a failure. Costs have skyrocketed and results are worse than from poorly-maintained punch ballot installations. Now we hear the reason not to abandon this crappy technology is because it would cost too much to return to verified voting. And thus, yet another self-spiraling government system of waste and fraud becomes entrenched.

Really Tired of this Crap!

[Bryansix]

I'm getting really tired of this crap! Putting the whole country on an optical scanning system would not be expensive at all. No more excuses. I want a paper with the name of the candidate I voted for right next to my mark. I want this to be audited randomly and I want random checks of the random checks. I want to know that my vote was counted. Otherwise this is just a fake democracy.

Conspiracy

[mulhollandj]

I haven't yet determined if this is a conspiracy of power mongers or just one of mass stupidity. I think both.

Re:In short... Yes .. and ... no

[jfengel]

The administration in power just suffered an enormous loss of power, with these machines already in place. Many of those elections were close enough to tip with only a tiny, hard-to-detect cheat, and the Republicans needed only a single change in the Senate to keep power there.

Are you saying that they're waiting for something REALLY important to come along before they unleash the their cheats?

I do think we need better accountability in elections, because it's terrible that we can't be certain in the country that's supposed to be the leader in democracy. I want to know why NIST is overriding the opinions of its own experts. But to claim that they want the status quo only to win elections is belied by the fact that they're NOT winning elections.

So ... accountability in voting

[nullchar]

So ... accountability in voting will be a joke for the foreseeable future because it costs too much?

And accountability in voting will be a joke because the first implementation was a total fuck up?

In software, the solution to this problem would be: eVoting 2.0
Changelog:

• Added verifiable paper trail for each ballot cast (not a total summary printout at the end)
• Replaced Diebold with open source hardware and software
• Restored confidence in democracy

Re:In short... Yes .. and ... no

[ShieldW0lf]

Committee member Brit Williams, who opposed the measure, said, 'You are talking about basically a reinstallation of the entire voting system hardware.'

You know, if each American who reads slashdot went out and smashed just ONE voting machine each with a sledgehammer, this entire argument would be a moot point.

I do think we need better accountability in elections, because it's terrible that we can't be certain in the country that's supposed to be the leader in democracy.

Is this a joke? America has replaced more democratic leaders with puppet dictators than Nazi Germany and Soviet Russia put together, and their own democracy looks more and more like a trick of the light with each passing day.

Why don't you understand vote fraud?

[CrayDrygu]

"I'd rather have the problems associated with receipts with ids on them that I can log online to see who I voted for instead of the current system."

Fine. In the next election, make sure you vote for the party I tell you to. I expect to see your reciept as proof you voted appropriately. If you don't, I'll break your kneecaps with a sledgehammer. And if I can't find you, I'll just have your family killed.

Or we could just, you know, *not* promote vote fraud. That would be OK too. Whichever you and your family would prefer.

Re:In short... Yes .. and ... no

[killjoe]

What makes you think they didn't cheat? It could very well be that they rigged to throw one out of ten thousand votes to go republican but it wasn't enough.

I am not saying that they did that, I am saying that just because they won it doesn't mean they didn't cheat. It could mean they didn't cheat enough and maybe next time they will.