Buggy Voting Machines 471
dkleinsc writes "The NYTimes is running an article arguing in layman's terms that voting machines are inherently buggier (Sperm sample required. Sorry ladies) than most software systems because they are not tested properly. A fun quote: "Extensive discussions are under way at sites like VerifiedVoting.org, CalVoter.org, and the "news for nerds" forum Slashdot.org about inexpensive, practical ways to make automated voting as reliable as, say, buying books online. Their recommendations make sense."" We makese sense? Wah?
Yeah... (Score:4, Funny)
Just how screwed up is Diebold? Video download... (Score:3, Interesting)
It's a 158meg Bittorrent file (GEMSDEMO.avi.torrent) - if you have a client installed such as Azureus:
http://azureus.sourceforge.net/download.php [sourceforge.net]
Playing time is only 15 minutes. File size is that big because it's in 800x600
I "filmed" it with a screen record utility with audio commentary voice-over. Sound is a bit low, but crank the volume and it'll work. It uses the Intel Indeo codex which I understand is proble
Re:China: Deliberately Rigged Voting Machines (Score:4, Funny)
Re:China: Deliberately Rigged Voting Machines (Score:5, Funny)
Re:China: Deliberately Rigged Voting Machines (Score:3, Informative)
Re:China: Deliberately Rigged Voting Machines (Score:5, Insightful)
You don't have to be a republican or a democrat or a supporter of a third party to want everyone's vote to count. That should be what everyone wants. And the only way that will happen is with constant vigilance.
Re:China: Deliberately Rigged Voting Machines (Score:4, Insightful)
Re:China: Deliberately Rigged Voting Machines (Score:5, Insightful)
Re:China: Deliberately Rigged Voting Machines (Score:3, Informative)
Re:U.S. fraud vs Ukraine fraud (Score:4, Insightful)
NYT says /. makes sense! (Score:5, Funny)
==
no sig
Re:NYT says /. makes sense! (Score:4, Interesting)
After all that, then we make sense.
What impact? (Score:5, Funny)
Re:Does /. want endorsements from the NY Times? (Score:5, Informative)
Bush has signed this form, however some (NOT all) of his records are missing or incomplete.
I suspect BOTH are avoid unpleasant items in thier record.
Oh yeah, those 'lies' you are talking about I assume to be the wmd screwup? If so please note Kerry also supported invasion on those grounds, even to the point of advising people who did not believe him to NOT vote for him. He changed his tune later for political convience.
Kerry and Bush are both Yale graduates and members of the Skull and Bones secret society. If you honestly think thier not in this as co-conspiritors (so to speak) your exactly thier kinda sheep, keep up the good work. At best this(the presidential race) was just a friendly competition. At worst it was sham to deprive the people of a real choice in the election.
Mycroft
Re:Does /. want endorsements from the NY Times? (Score:4, Insightful)
The political environment is obsessed with one-upping each other with stupid minor political victories. For a politician, a single slip of the tongue or off handed comment that any human would make could be the end of their career. This dumb shit about who tried to dodge what or who said what after they got back is fucking childish and completely irrelevant to real issues.
Kerry came back from his four month tour in Vietnam a left wing nut who wanted to freeze the nuclear arms build up leaving the Soviet Union with the advantage. Bush did just about everything to get out of being shot at, and in the ended succeeded.
Who the fuck cares? They were both CHILDREN. You are talking about two boys who were not old enough to fucking drink. Who gives a shit if Kerry jumped off the left end of the pool and Bush ran away? Hell, I know people who grew up in the 70's that were self declared communist who stuffed every drug into their body they could find, and who are now soccer moms and hold management positions in corporations. No one would dig up their childhood to find all the dumb shit they did before they were men.
Who Bush and Kerry were as CHILDREN is utterly irrelevant. There are a lot of good reasons to dislike Bush and Kerry. I could make a big list for both of them. No where on that list would I bother to mention what they did 40 years ago when they were.
Re:Does /. want endorsements from the NY Times? (Score:4, Insightful)
To force others to fight for your country when you were not willing to is hypocrisy, and it's relevant to know that about one's president.
Re:Does /. want endorsements from the NY Times? (Score:5, Insightful)
The draft is a disgusting practice. I can't think of anything more revolting then a nation demanding that its citizens surrender their lives against their will. I don't care what the cause is. If the cause is so good and so great, they will do it willingly. If Bush or Kerry dodged the draft or came back to speak against it, good for them. Decrying this disgusting practice or dodging it all together - especially when they are still CHILDREN - doesn't cause me to lose any sleep. If Bush wanted to reinstate the draft, you would certainly have flimsy, but at least credible argument, if you utterly ignoring that you are judging the actions of someone who was just barely a man, some 30 years after the fact.
Dredging up what those two did as children when the government was using violence against its own populace to compel them to go to war is stupid and childish political banter. There are a lot of reasons to dislike Bush and Kerry, but none of those reasons have anything to do with what either one of those children did in Vietnam
Automatic Vote (Score:5, Funny)
Is the winner preselected and 'voting' automated to make it happen?! Oh wait...
Re:Automatic Vote (Score:4, Funny)
That's EXIT POLLING ... (Score:4, Insightful)
The rock solid trend diverged in Florida 2000. Now it has strangely diverged in most of the Battleground states.
There is no way to prove that the electronic vote was hacked. Conversely, there is no way to prove that the electronic vote is correct. We have lost the concept of auditability.
As Stalin once said, it doesn't matter who does the voting, it's who does the COUNTING!!!! Well, Diebold, ES&S, Seqouia and other companies led by Republican devotees seem poised to take over the counting in US elections. One can only speculate as to the results and why they differ so much from exit polls.
Re:That's EXIT POLLING ... (Score:5, Insightful)
1. Which presidential electors will be nominated for each candidate in each party two or more years in advance;
2. Which of these candidates will be favored by each state legislature candidate in each district two or more years in advancec;
3. Which of these electors will be favored by the state legislature as a whole when november 2008 comes around;
4. How each elector, once finally slected, is going to vote.
The Electoral College - its solid, secure, hard to influence, not subject to ad campaigns, and what the founders intended. Why don't we use it?
Re:That's EXIT POLLING ... (Score:4, Informative)
By contrast American elections are starting to look equally corrupt but no one in the U.S. seems to really care.
You don't even really need electronic voting to steal elections, there are old fashioned ways that work just as well, here [counterpunch.org] is a report from Tampa on simple voter intimidation. Here [counterpunch.org] is an unproven allegations of an effort to suppress black votes in South Carolina.
If you live in a swing state you were probably bombarded by auto dialers and recorded messages which if you actually listen to them, you found were basicly slander. Apparently there is no accountability or regulation of the bile you can pump out to voters, en masse, using computerized dialers these days.
Many right wingers love to point out how Afghanistan had "free" and democratic elections for the first time in nearly forever. Well they forget to mention that one candidate, Karzai, former oil executive, and America's hand picked ruler had a U.S. supplied helicopter so he could visit every tribal chief, while the rest of the candidates couldn't campaign much outside Kabul because its to dangerous the roads in much of Afghanistan. And of course when Karzai flew in to a tribe he could hand out buckets of "reconstruction" money to the tribal chiefs who in turn tell their tribe how to vote, illerate people in the countryside with no media access so it works.
Its going to be interesting to see how rigged the elections in Iraq look. Putting my hands to my head like Karnak, I predict the U.S. favored candidate will win
At this point nearly every contested election in the third world is being "influenced" by the U.S. and the CIA, and increasingly Putin is trying to influence them his way in Russia's sphere of influence. Of course Russia's elections have also reached the point they are a sham. Putin controls most of the media, and suppresses opposition parties so he is for all practical purposes a dictator again.
Its not really such a leap to assume U.S. elections are being rigged either. The 1960 election was probably rigged by the Democrats and swung the election to Kennedy. It would appear likely that since the Reagan era and especially since the late 1990's the Republican's have formed a well oiled machine for acquiring power at any cost. Not sure you can just blame it on electronic voting. It includes intimidation of minority voters, massive mobilization of white, conservative voters through churches in violation of their non profit restrictions, ruthless smear campaigns against the Democrats(Clinton impeachment and Kerry Swift Boat Vets). Of course the Dems help them out a lot by being incompetent and pathetic(exemplified by Kerry).
The next move you are going to see towards a Republican dominated police state, and they are already talking about it, is a change in Senate rules for approving judicial nominations. Since the Republican's didn't get the magic 60 votes to steamroll the senate, they are apparently going to try to just change the rules for approving judges in the Senate to a simple majority vote. They can then proceed to pack the courts, especially the Supreme Court, with radical right wing judges. I predict it may well happen
We make sense? (Score:5, Funny)
People who voted for candidate... (Score:4, Funny)
I have a very simple solution! (Score:5, Funny)
Sounds like a plan to me...
Re:I have a very simple solution! (Score:3, Informative)
But that's what they did! When you touched "Kerry" on the touch screen, it would record a vote for Bush. I've been talking about this for weeks. It's about time the NY Times picked it up.
Or it would tell you it recorded a vote for Kerry, and that would get magically changed to Bush later.
The only way this differs from the Soviet system is that they are perpetuating the illusion of choice. As long as most every
Voting machines are not inherently buggie (Score:3, Insightful)
Re:Voting machines are not inherently buggie (Score:4, Insightful)
No security burden ... (Score:5, Interesting)
Voting may seem similar but it is VERY different. You get a statement every month to reconcile against your personal records. There is an individual trail that you can take to the bank and say "see, you fucked up!!! Give me my money back!!!"
No such burden exists for voting systems. The customer does NOT receive a statment in the mail.
Furthermore, I would suggest that the "once a year" model of "use" should NOT be a problem since these systems are SO FUCKING SIMPLE!!! Any developer worth his salt could design tests to find errors. And any company worth it's salt would EXTENSIVELY test their software before deploying it to the field.
The "private" nature of voting means that any system designed to allow a voter to "check", will probably allow others to "check" as well. The best solution I could think of is smartcard driver licenses that digitally sign your vote. But even then, the motor vehicle dept will have your "private key" as well as any other personal parameters.
I guess one could add randomly seeded keys to the voting machines and randomly generated numbers to hash each vote ID. But those to seem succeptible to precinct worker mischief.
In the end, the easiest solution is to BAN, the on-screen vote verfication phase. Vote verification takes place after a ballot is printed behind glass. If the voters rejects the ballot it is visibly voided in some way and the voter get to change their choices. If it's accepted, it's automatically placed in the ballot box.
Re:Voting machines are not inherently buggie (Score:3, Insightful)
"Inherently buggier" may not be the right phrase, but the point the author was trying to make is that voting machines have not been tested enough for them to be used for something as important as voting (without an auditable paper trail).
Buying books online... (Score:5, Insightful)
1. The voting machine does not keep track of any votes. A voter will walk up to the machine and be presented with a list of candidates. Next to each name there will be a box. The voter makes a mark in the desired box with an electronic stylus. A write in blank will be available if needed.
2. At the bottom of the screen there will be two large boxes. One will be red and says "I wish to make changes on my ballot." The other box will be green and it says "I am satisfied with my ballot." After touching the green box another screen will come up. It will basically say that by touching continue you will be done voting. A go back button will be provided in case someone got to this screen by accident.
3. After clicking done, your ballot will be printed out at the machine you are at. This will allow you to look over the completed ballot before having it counted.
This system is the best of both worlds. The voting machine itself does not count anything. It is just an interface for making the completed ballot. There is a paper trail with this system. This system will also cut down on waste due to extra ballots that were not used. Finally a change the ballot at the last minute will not be a big deal since the interface is electronic. The ballots won't have to be printed weeks in advance.
Whats the rush ... (Score:5, Insightful)
In any case, you can trust the individual vote totals on the machines (with manual central tabluation) just so long as you do random audits, or targeted challenge audits to check for irregularities.
Any audit that turns up a problem would trigger a manual recount of all precincts.
BTW, I don't think there is anything wrong with hand counting. You may think it's too expensive. But what is Democracy worth to you???
Well *ours* sure are. (Score:5, Insightful)
and I can say that while voting machines in general are not something much more complicated than an application preferences menu, the ones we used here in the U.S. in 2004 ARE inherently buggy.
Even when they were not switching votes, or crashing in the middle of voting, there were fundamental user interface design issues.
For example, a large number of complaints were lodged because machines would not allow a person to vote a party line, and then modify one or two votes. Any sensible designer knows how to do something like this right.
Another problem is that they had a big flashing vote button that turned on as soon as a ballot had any votes on it. So if you were at the first screen, and you voted, the vote button would start flashing. Any sensible designer would know that some users would think that they should press the vote button to get to the next screen, but when pressed, the ballot would be cast and the ability to vote on all the other candidates would be lost.
Finally, there were machines that showed you a review screen, but on the review screen, hitting enter, which is the key used normally to scroll down, to see if there is more, would actually alter the first vote on the screen. On a review screen. Ah and cooincidentally, the first vote on the screen was for president and hitting enter would switch it to Bush.
Whether deliberate or caused by some of the most incompetant programmers on the face of the earth, that is some buggy shiznit.
(P.S. I'll be posting my results when I'm done, probably on daily kos. I'll link that somewhere in the page you get when you click on my signature.)
Simple program ... (Score:5, Insightful)
The huge irony here is that a "voting program" is about the simplist thing you could write. Thousands of people have written RPG character generators that are more complicated than a voting program.
The fact that they've fucked it up so badly strongly implies that the fuckups were all intentional.
Re:Simple program ... (Score:3, Insightful)
I'm personally also willing to believe that they were fucked up by committee. If one programmer, or perhaps one programmer and one designer, wrote it, in consultation with, but not being controlled by, a group knowledgeable with voting procedure, I think we'd have a nice, workable system.
True fuckups happen when you give design control to a committee.
Re:Voting machines are not inherently buggie (Score:3, Interesting)
One for the ladies (Score:4, Informative)
Re:One for the ladies (Score:5, Funny)
(With apologies to any 17 year old transgender grandmothers I may have offended.)
"Chad" might say otherwise... (Score:5, Insightful)
Re:"Chad" might say otherwise... (Score:5, Insightful)
Purely electronic voting machines are not auditable, ther e is no meaningful way to recount the votes ("Recount (Y/n)" just redisplays the totals already submitted, unless the machine is really screwed up).
As a Replubican and GWB supporter I am opposed to electronic voting machines that have no tangible paper trail. Such machines do not invite trust but instead invite mistrust and foster conspiracy theories. Only with an ability to account for each vote should such machines be used in our democratic process.
The HEADLINE said Bush won ... (Score:4, Interesting)
Yes, they performed an AUDIT, not a recount. And the headline was spun to "legitamize" the election. Indeed, if you knocked out all the ballots that the machines ignored, Bush DID indeed win the election.
If you used the standards of counting a hanging chad where no other chads were displaced, and you counted obvious write ins, Gore was the winner.
But I am glad to see a Republican who mistrusts these machines. Primaries can be hacked just as well as genreal elections
It feels good to vote in New York... (Score:5, Interesting)
Re:It feels good to vote in *upstate* New York... (Score:4, Interesting)
the experience would probably have gone more like this (if you were trying to vote for Kerry)
1) When you get to the front of the line, be told that if you want to vote a straight Republican ticket you can use any of the machines, but if not, you have to wait a little longer because half of the machines are "stuck on the republican side"
2) Get in the booth, pull down a lever, and have it not quite click. Or refuse to go down.
3) Notice that for some strange reason, you can only vote for Kerry as a Democrat, not on any of the other party lines, because the levers are broken (New York allows third-parties to nominate a major party candidate, so votes for that candidate get counted for the purposes of party viability. The Dems hate third parties.)
Re:It feels good to vote in New York... (Score:3, Interesting)
Thank You!
I have always been one of those Moms that dragged the kids to the polls on election day. We have lively family discussions b
blackboxvoting.com (Score:5, Interesting)
a. The Supervisor of Elections has unreasonably delayed providing information.
b. The certification was based on inadequate and incomplete information regarding the election results.
6. Some or all of the information requested on Nov. 2, 2004 by Black Box Voting is still missing from 59 of the 179 voting precincts, including portions of or all of the voting machine tapes for those 59 precincts, which are a vital part of official paper record of the election results from those precincts.
7. Complete information on problems with the voting machines prior to and during the election has not been provided.
8. Complete information relating to memory card failures during the election has not yet been provided.
9. Only a partial list of the transmission logs from the Accu-Vote optical scan server has been provided. Despite repeated requests, the Elections office has refused to provide to the Volusia County Democratic party the official election results, now stating that those results will not be available until December 1, 2004.
10. The Elections office has provided incomplete data regarding Early Voting and Absentee ballots. The Supervisor of Elections, for example, reported that the total number of absentee ballots and Early voting ballots, combined equaled 89,999 votes, yet the published figures for those totals is 84,100 votes, leaving over 5,800 votes unaccounted for.
11. In addition to the pattern of delay in providing the requested information, the true election results are in doubt because of numerous violations of election law procedure and unanswered questions concerning the results.
12. The polls were opened early and closed late during Early Voting.
13. Many public records, including one signed results tape from a voting machine were found in the trash. Many of the requested records not furnished by the Elections office have been found in the trash. Results from the tapes found in the trash do not match the results of the copies of tapes furnished.
14. An email from Mark Earley, of Diebold Elections Systems, Inc., to the Elections office was provided which asked the recipient for an explanation of why Volusia County had more memory card failures than all of their other Florida customers combined, and then asked why the 17 memory card failures which the Elections office reported on November 3, increased to 25 before November 12, 2004.
15. The reported memory card failures were significant and troubling and included reporting zero votes after one week of voting, requesting permission to upload votes before the voting began, and messaging whether the card should be reformatted.
16. According to a statement by the Supervisor of Elections on November 17, 2004, the GEMS computer is not networked, and is "stand alone." The furnished computer logs show evidence of at least two attempts to remotely access the GEMS central tabulator, which is claimed to be secure. A computer screen shot printout on November 17, 2004 (found in the trash) shows that the GEMS computer at that time had two networked hard drives.
Re:blackboxvoting.com (Score:3, Insightful)
I'd think if they bought good cards, pretested them,
Re:More evidence from A to 16. (Score:5, Insightful)
Yeah well, guess what. The President wasn't the only question on those ballots. Volusia county wouldn't have changed the outcome of the presidential election if it had voted 100% Kerry. But what about state elections? County seats? Mayors? Democracy must happen at all levels!
Why don't you get over your obsession with Kerry and Bush, and look at the big picture here? Accept that the truth is that Volusia county for certain has MAJOR human-created voting problems (or are you going to tell me that a bug in the machine made the election officials "forget" to sign the forged results that Volusia has been giving out as real? BBV pulled the real signed results out of the trash. Or are you going to tell me that BBV has a forgery, that they successfully forged the signatures of ALL of the election officials and the real document was accidentally signed in invisible ink?) and other counties may have had problems either human-made or machine-made.
Re:More evidence from A to 16. (Score:3, Insightful)
Not much of a point of choosing any candidate if your opponents control the voting machinery, is there?
Re:More evidence from A to 16. (Score:3, Insightful)
Move along, show some unity... blah blah blah (Score:3, Insightful)
IIRC, it went something like:
"Now that the election is over it is time for Deomcrats to put aside partisan differences and support our commander in chief.... just like the Republicans did for Clinton"
Re:blackboxvoting.com (Score:5, Insightful)
"But if the economy continues to improve over the next 4 years and the war in Iraq is concluded the Democrats major issues will have gone away."
If everything is better then all is well.
But, I think you'll find Democrats having a hard time beliving that America's troops will be back home in four years and our economy will be back on it's feet. (Remember National Debt == Future Taxes) But if it does happen, if things do get better, if the national debt goes down, if we got back the freedoms we lost right after 9/11, and if we bring our troops home (alive), all over the next four years, are you suggesting the democrats in general will be unhappy?
Don't be silly. If Bush and the Republican congress can really make this country a better place, then Yay! Four more years! We just don't think he can do it. He certainly didn't with his first four.
We're not voting for prom queen here. We're voteing for who we think can make a diference.
Buggier and full of holes - check out the demo ! (Score:5, Interesting)
From Chuck Herrin's info sec website: It's an amazing demo [chuckherrin.com]. Be sure to check out the associated FAQ [chuckherrin.com] which is as easy to read for the layman as for the techie, and full of citations. Share it with you friends and family !
For you party-liners out there, Chuck is a Reublican who wants you to understand that this is not a partisan issue [chuckherrin.com].
Truely Amazing Diebold Facts (Score:5, Interesting)
My favourite excerpt is the following:
Of course, there is no proof that these gentleman have continued their illegal ways. They could have become completely reformed, law-abiding citizens by the time they started work on the Diebold voting systems.
Everyone... Smile (Score:5, Funny)
Sperm Sample Required? (Score:5, Funny)
If you think ladies would have a problem providing a sperm sample, you REALLY don't get out enough.
Sincerely,
A Concerned Slashdotter
in canada (Score:5, Interesting)
Re:in canada (Score:5, Funny)
I bet the winner looks pretty funny when the election's over!
evel candidate (Score:4, Funny)
On purpose. If an evel candidate seems to be taking over a precinct, despite his evelness, the precinct official can adjust the voting machine to correct for the injustice done by the evel voters of the evel candidate. You can't do that with paper ballots.
Of course, the Soviet Russia solution was even better - they simply put only one candidate on the ballot. Just ONE. This way there was no way for any evel candidate to take the election, ever, because he simply wasn't on the ballot.
Re:in canada (Score:3, Interesting)
I think that's actually a large source of the ballot problems. The questions which the state poses can also skew the election. E.g. Are you in favour of Gay marriages? Do you support abortion?, now that that's out of the way, which candiate would you like? Bush or Kerry?
If you wanted to skew in the other direction, you could include a question about manditory military service.
Are the ballot questions designed to prevent this kind of creative skewing, for example, by having the ballots reviewed by al
ARTICLE TEXT: (Score:5, Informative)
I still pore over credit card statements, but mainly to see whether some person, not some machine, has issued the proper refund credit or made an improper charge. I've sent e-mail messages to the wrong people by mistyping an address or hitting the oh-so-dangerous "Reply All" button, but never because the system routes it where it shouldn't go. When I travel, I assume that the e-ticket I booked through my computer will be valid and that frequent-flier miles will show up in my account.
Yet when I went to my polling place in Washington on Election Day, I waited an extra half-hour in line to cast a paper ballot, instead of using the computerized touch-screen voting machine. Am I irrational? Perhaps, but this would not be the evidence.
A columnist in The Washington Post recently suggested that nostalgia for paper ballots, in today's reliably computerized world, must reflect a Luddite disdain for technology in general or an Oliver Stone-style paranoia about the schemings of the political world.
Not at all. It can also arise from a clear understanding of how computers work - and don't. The more you know about the operations of today's widely trusted commercial computer networks, the more concerned you become about most electronic-voting systems.
The phenomenal reliability of the systems we trust for banking, communication, and everything else rests on two bedrock principles. One is the universal understanding in the technology world that nothing works right the first time, and maybe not the first 50 times.
When I worked briefly on a product design team at Microsoft, I was sobered to learn that fully one-fourth of the company's typical two-year "product cycle time" was devoted to testing. Programmers spend 18 months designing and debugging a system. Then testers spend the next six months finding the problems they missed. It is no secret that even then, the "final" software from Microsoft, or any other company, is far from perfect.
Today's mature systems work as well as they do only because they are exposed to nonstop, high-stakes torture testing. EBay lists nearly four million new items each day. If a problem affects even a tiny fraction of its users, eBay will be swamped with reports immediately.
Millions of data packets are being routed across the Internet every second. If servers, domain-name directories or other components cannot handle the volume, the problem will become apparent quickly. Years ago, bank or airline computers would often be "down" because of unforeseen problems. Now they're mostly "up," because they've had so long for flaws to become exposed.
The second crucial element in making reliable systems is accountability. Users can trust today's systems precisely because they don't have to take them on trust. Some important computer systems run on open-source software, like Linux, in which the code itself can be examined by outsiders.
Virtually all systems provide some sort of confirmation of transactions. You have the slip from the A.T.M., the receipt for your credit card charge, the printout of your e-ticket reservation. If your e-mail message doesn't go through, there is still the copy in your "Sent" folder. This is the technology world's counterpart to the check-and-balance principle in the United States government. The first concept, robust testing, protects against unintended flaws. The second, accountability, guards against purposeful distortions.
Which brings us back to electronic voting. On the available evidence, I don't believe that voting-machine irregularities, or other problems on Election Day, determined who would be the next president. The appare
Why don't they just work? (Score:5, Interesting)
Re:Why don't they just work? (Score:3, Interesting)
Re:Why don't they just work? (Score:4, Interesting)
I recommend all other experienced programmers set aisde an hour or two and read the reports. You will be astounded.
Re:Why don't they just work? (Score:3, Insightful)
People often compare these machines to ATM machines, electronic cash registers, and on-line transaction systems. OK - maybe there is some valid basis for comparison to on-line transaction systems.
When I think of e-voting systems, I look at them and the appropriate design discipline in terms of embedded [weapons] systems and controllers.
- The choice (or new development) of an O/S should reflect only the requirements for the application (in t
/. ladies should have no problem (Score:4, Funny)
Given the assumed ratio of
Re:/. ladies should have no problem (Score:3, Funny)
(Now I know why they call it the "why?" chromosome.)
Fortunately, evolution has granted /. women brains in lieu of sperm - I'm sure that none of us will have difficulty accessing the NYT site without your help. In other words, don't gum up your keyboard on our account.
PS. There's no remainder in a ratio.
Bush's MANDATE (Score:5, Insightful)
Seriously folks, stop worrying about Ukraine and start looking at what went on in your own back yard. The Ukranians seem to be handling things quite nicely themselves, but where are the mass protests in the US?
Re:Bush's MANDATE (Score:5, Funny)
Re:Bush's MANDATE (Score:3, Insightful)
Re:Bush's MANDATE (Score:3, Informative)
Re:Bush's MANDATE (Score:3, Insightful)
Yes. It DOES have to do with provisional ballots, because provisional ballots are what ALLOW people who register at the poll on election day to vote.
Bugged ? I'll say ... (Score:5, Funny)
A clear test of good will (Score:4, Insightful)
In either case, these process by which such officials get themselves into positions of power over the voting system should be examined very closely. No democratic government can rule when it stands of being accused of stealing an election.
Unless of course that is what it has done.
Re:A clear test of good will (Score:3, Funny)
Indian Electronic Voting Machines (Score:4, Interesting)
This simple article [eci.gov.in] explains the EVM's used
And the winner still isn't... (Score:3, Insightful)
I will support voting machine reform when those same advocates support registration reform. This election was a mess not because of evil Republican voting machines but because people were paid (some in crack) to register voters which brought in fraudulent voter registrations. From illegal aliens to cartoon characters, the number of bogus registrations was staggering. Lets make sure all votes are counted, as long as those votes are from citizens of United States. I need a drivers license to rent a movie or fly to Vegas, its not too much to ask a voter for a state drivers license to vote in that state and for a drivers license that states if a person is a citizen. Its not intimidation or voter suppression. If showing your ID to a little old lady at the polling place is intimidation, then what is showing it to a pimply teenager at Blockbuster?
How do you know? (Score:4, Insightful)
Erm. How do you know that? I'm neither agreeing nor disagreeing with you, I'd just like to know what special information that you have access to that, say, the New York Times doesn't? If you've got some sort of audit logs from all of the voting machines, please, by all means, share with the GAO [capitolhillblue.com].
This election was a mess not because of evil Republican voting machines but because people were paid (some in crack) to register voters which brought in fraudulent voter registrations.
I call bullshit. There two -- two -- known incidents of people being registered fraudulently, according to the Republican National Committee Vote Fraud group. (Listen to This American Life's November 1 episode, "Swing Set [thislife.org]," Act 2, which is 21:10 into the episode.) Not only were both of these committed by petty criminals paid by the registrant to sign up voters (that is, it was not systemic, just a pair of dopes), but it doesn't matter, since there is, in fact, no way for Mary Poppins to show up and vote. The other case was a Colorado man who registered 35 times. He can only vote once, as you can imagine, so, again, it doesn't matter.
Your implication that there is any parity between two isolated incidents of greedy workers signing up people wrongly and the massive, jail-time-yielding Republican work to suppress the vote or, worse still, systemic Diebold/ES&S fraud is well beyond ludicrous; it is, simply, stupid, and I am embarrassed on your behalf, because it seems that you don't have the good sense to be embarrassed for yourself.
-Waldo Jaquith
Check out what these guys are doing: (Score:4, Interesting)
An open-source system that runs on commodity hardware, with an encrypted, anonymous ballot. Definite paper trail to allow for recounts. Why there isn't a clamor to get this off the ground is beyond me. A similar system has been working in Australia for years.
That's James Fallows (Score:5, Interesting)
Audit friendly machines (Score:3, Interesting)
Why can't they attach a printer to each machine where the voter will see a paper ballot being printed at the same time he/she submitted their vote on the screen? They will hava a last chance to see their vote before it is automatically dropped into a see through box.
If there was a problem with an individual vote the person will call for assistance immediately and with a proper procedure in place, the vote could either be cancelled or approved.
Makes sense?
Buggy Metadata (Score:3, Interesting)
These types of errors are hard to test for because it is not testable until the ballot is set and every new ballot demand a new round of testing. These types of errors won't be solved by better testing of the machine or by OSS. At best, the voting machine software designer can provide easy-to-use tools to ensure that the ballot layout and voting interpretation/tallying software is in sync.
Swiss Internet voting built on two-factor authenti (Score:5, Informative)
Geneva's e-voting system uses a method of two-factor authentication that provides foolproof security. Citizens receive a card which gives them their option of voting over the internet, by mail or in person. The card includes a 16-character personal ID code, and a four-character security code, similar to a PIN number, which voters must scratch off to reveal. The voter who chooses the online option then visits a Web site and types in the personal ID code, and then a secure connection is established. Then, an online ballot form is provided. Before casting their vote, the second authorization factor must be entered, and the voter then types in their security code, along with their date and place of birth.
Because the online voting system is tied to a single register of voters, authorities can protect against voter fraud (multiple voting). The safeguard guarantees that a person can vote only once, whether in person, by mail or on the Internet. There are, of course, no hanging chads, and the results are extremely accurate. It took Swiss officials 13 minutes and five seconds to count the online votes in September's ballot. Twenty-two percent of voters from the test regions cast their ballots online.
Re:Swiss Internet voting built on two-factor authe (Score:4, Informative)
The Swiss system doesn't provide propper 2-factor authentication, as both pieces of information are something the user knows. No biometric or hardware token authentication is invoved. Itercepting the card and knowing a little about the person will give an attacker access.
Even 3-factor authentication doesn't provide foolproof security, unless you mean secure against fools as attackers.
The Answer (Score:5, Insightful)
The mechanism used to *create* that paper record doesnt matter, so long as it remains in the posession of, and can be inspected by, the individual casting the vote, after it is created and before it is counted. It can be done by hand, or with the assistance of some ATM-like machine that then *PRINTS* the paper which neither does any counting, nor keeps any record of who is voting. In fact other than the printed output, it should keep no records whatsoever. It should not even know the identity of the voter.
The paper vote record itself, should also not have any sort of information which could identify *who* the voter is. The machine used to read and count the paper record *MUST* be open, auditable and its entire process and function must be fully and publically documented. After counting, the paper ballots should drop into a box, or otherwise be retained to allow for recounts.
Open Source Voting (Score:5, Interesting)
You won't have transparency until every part of the voting process has been moved into the open source domain for thorough examination and auditing. The current systems are all closed source, and the system which "prevents" cheating is controlled by the same people responsible for gerimandering, and is readily bypassed via "emergency" updates.
Furthermore, we shouldn't have to file Freedom of Information Act requests in order to have ballot results released. This information should be freely available, preferably on the websites of the various counties that do the tallying.
Also, a person's vote absolutely must be recorded in a non-electronic manner at the time of polling. Paper ballots are essential. Even if those paper ballots are printed by the voting machine after the voter casts their votes, it must be produced. Otherwise, a recount is no different than refreshing the calculations on a spreadsheet.
While this is all a good idea, it isn't like a system like I described actually exists. I believe MIT formed a group to produce such a system, but four years later they've mostly just produced research papers. There is a group which is currently working on such a system, but they are currently suffering from severe under-funding and various bits of social blockage. They're the Open Voting Consortium [openvotingconsortium.org]. I strongly urge everyone to go check them out.
These have already led to a recount in Ohio (Score:3, Funny)
The best I've seen so far (Score:5, Interesting)
Paper Ballots Are Best (Score:5, Insightful)
I have a low-tech solution to the voting problem: Use paper ballots.
Here is the process:
- A voter arrives at their polling station.
- An election official confirms that the voter is eligible to cast a ballot.
- The official hands the voter a paper ballot and is told to make their choice in private behind a screen or inside a booth.
- The voter takes the ballot, goes into the private area, and makes their choice by placing an X next to the candidate of their choice.
- The voter returns with their folded ballot and deposits it into a sealed ballot box.
At the end of the night, the official opens the ballot box, tallies the totals for each candidate, and reports the totals to the main office conducting the election.Elections held this way are simple and secure. There is no worry about paper trails or verification, because the ballots themselves are the proof.
As for the ballots themselves, they look something like this:
I guess what I am trying to say is that elections do not need to be complicated by technology. The method I am proposing there depends on the ability of people to count, nothing else.
The method I propose here really works too. Where I live, it is the standard for both my provincial [electionsontario.on.ca] and federal [elections.ca] elections.
I really hope that the voting method throughout every county in the U.S. is reformed. Personally, I know it is hard to accept election results when your preferred candidate loses, but at least where I live, I know that the vote itself was fair.
Re:Paper Ballots Are Best (Score:4, Interesting)
What do your exection boards do when someone marks an X in BOTH spots? What if someone puts a slash in one, and a slash in the other? What if someone circles a candidate's name, and doesn't put an X? What if they put an X over the whole name? What if on the 10th counting, the light pencil marks on a ballot have been smudged off completely? What if they just put a tiny dot in the middle of the first candidate's box (like they rested the pencil there), then didn't mark anything else in either? I'm asking because this is the kind of nonsense that put Florida on the map 4 years ago.
I personally think that the current, unauditable, unverifiable electronic voting fad is a bad thing. I don't, however, think giving people a piece of paper and a pencil is necessarily the answer.
You're right that a paper ballot is a good thing.
There is a lot of good sense behind a two machine system -- One machine accepts user input, verifies user input, and prints a machine-and-human-readable ballot in a consistent and verifiable manner. This prevents the "input error" scenarios, where the voter doesn't mark the ballot properly; it also makes the ballot easy to machine count, and makes the mark more permanent than a pencil. The second machines just read and count ballots.
The voters enter and confirm their choices on the first machine, are given a paper ballot form they confirm (again), then they slide it into a ballot box. The paper ballots are later counted by the second machine, and if there is any doubt, they can be hand counted by the election board with observers from all candidates' election comittees present. Permanent record, recountable, two verifications by the voter (one on screen, one on the paper in their hand).
Re:Paper Ballots Are Best (Score:5, Informative)
Q1: What do your exection boards do when someone marks an X in BOTH spots?
A1: This ballot is spoiled and is not counted.
Q2: What if someone puts a slash in one, and a slash in the other?
A2: This ballot is spoiled and is not counted.
Q3: What if someone circles a candidate's name, and doesn't put an X?
A3: This ballot is spoiled and is not counted.
Q4: What if on the 10th counting, the light pencil marks on a ballot have been smudged off completely?
A4: When the ballots are counted, they are separated into separate piles, each pile for a separate candidate. Then each candidate's votes are put in an envelope and sealed.
Usually, if the votes are not contested, they will never be counted again. If the vote is contested, each of these envelopes is reopened and recounted. At this point a faint vote for a candidate will still be counted.
In general, the ballots see so little handling that the likelihood of the voter's intention being lost is exceedingly unlikely.
Q5: What if they just put a tiny dot in the middle of the first candidate's box (like they rested the pencil there), then didn't mark anything else in either?
A5: The instructions state the voter must make an X, but it is actually left for the individual officials to make the decision if the ballot counts or not. The general guideline is to count the ballot according to the voter's intention. A misshapen X or a round dot would probably be approved, so long as no other mark could be found on the ballot.
I'm asking because this is the kind of nonsense that put Florida on the map 4 years ago.
I agree, and they are good questions. In a tight election, a recount may be the best idea. Paper ballots do not do away with recounts in tightly-contested elections, but they do make vote counting very, very simple.
Before you write back saying that my answer to your first three questions (which was that the ballot is spoiled and is not counted) is unacceptable, ask yourself this: How hard is it to make a single, unambiguous mark (preferably an X as instructed) in a big white circle beside a candidate's name? And yes, to answer another question, for those people that have physical problems marking their ballot, they are allowed to bring an assistant or aide with them to mark their ballot.
NOOO! (Score:3, Funny)
The biggest question.... (Score:3, Interesting)
Just a thought.
Yes, the machines would still be buggy... (Score:3, Insightful)
Automated Voting.... (Score:3, Funny)
Buggy voting machines (Score:3, Funny)
FOOLS! Amish won't use a MACHINE to vote!
Why the Democrats lost the election (Score:5, Insightful)
1. Democrats relied too much on young voters: Problem is that while the 18-24 year old age group makes the most noise, when it comes to voting, they consistently turn out to have the worst voting record. Hollywood celebrities and singers backing Kerry (in hopes of getting young citizens to vote) probably harmed him more by alienating the older voters. Bill Clinton didn't win the election by capturing young voters' votes, he won by capturing the older voters' votes. Now back to Bush vs. Kerry. Majority of voters 65 and older voted for Bush. Majority of voters 24 and younger voted for Kerry. And guess who won?
2. Democrats did not learn form the Austrian elections: The Australian Prime Minister Howard took a lot of heat for supporting Bush and his war in Iraq. The media expected a big loss for Howard on the last election, but Howard ended winning by a good margin. When the Austrian voters were polled, most of them responded that they voted for Howard because economy was a bigger issue than the Iraqi war.
3. Michael Moore and Bin Laden: Telling you that those two guys dislike Bush would be an understatement. However, their messages probably ended up helping Bush more than hurting him. I like Moore's movies because they are entertaining, but unlike the left-wingers, I find his movies highly biased. What Fahrenheit 9/11 did was it ended up causing Bush supporters to work harder to get Bush fans to vote. It's the same thing with the Bin Laden message before the election. Most Americans hate Bin Laden so why does he believe that Americans will listen to him? If he came out and told the Americans to drink milk on Mondays, most Americans will stop drinking milk on Mondays just to spite him.
4. Democrats relied too much on minority voters: Minorities tend to vote Democrat but Democrats didn't realize that minorities can be religious as well and the religious tend to vote Republican. The Republicans pushed the gay marriage and abortion issues to successfully split the minority votes. Why do you think that 44% of Hispanics voted for Bush? Kerry realized this and pushed the fact that he is a Catholic but that fall short of Bush and him pushing the religious agenda for the past four years.
5. Democrats discounting the gun owner voters: There is a good reason why the 2nd Amendment has not be abolished; many Americans own guns or believe that they should have the right to own a gun. (BTW, commander-in-chief for the National Guard is still the President, thus making them more like a federal troop than state militia). Kerry knew about this and pointed out numerous times that he's also a hunter and he'll never take the guns away. However, his voting records betray him and the Bush camp used it to win the votes of the gun owners.
6. Democrats pushed the draft issue: Another issue pushed by the left-wingers was the draft, when only draft bill presented so far was by a democrat and only one other democrat voted for it. Now with Bush reelected, where's the draft? Do the left-wingers honestly believe that most Republicans and Democrats will cast a career ending vote for a draft bill even if one makes it to the floor?
I stayed up on the election night to track the results and the exit polls in general seemed to give Bush an edge so I really wasn't surprised that he ended up winning and Kerry conceding rather early. I'm pretty sure that there were miscounted votes and other voting difficulties but I'm pretty sure those issues exis
Re:What? (Score:5, Interesting)
Re:What? (Score:3, Funny)
Since the New York Times started reporting it. Of course, these are the same folks who also brought us Jayson Blair, so it's not like it's much of an endorsement these days.
If we make sense, then I demand a retraction. Or a fish looking at a melted clock dial. This is not a |.
Re:If Kerry had won, there'd be no "controversy" (Score:3, Interesting)
Regarding that comment about a Kerry win and the docile nature of the opposing party: It also helps that there are actual choices on the ballot too. Though I doubt very much that nobody in the Republican party
Had Kerry won, he STILL would have lost ... (Score:3, Interesting)
If Kerry came up a winner, they Republicans would have done the SAME thing they'd done in 2000. They would have voided the results of an electronic voting machine (Volusia County 2000) and taken votes AWAY from Kerry.
This time, their vote theft was so overkill as to avoid that unfortunate event in 2000.