House To Vote On Paper Trail and OSS Voting Bill 258
Spamicles writes "A vote is imminent for the bill that is a direct response to problems in the 2006 elections. This legislation would create a paper trail for elections, require a manual audit of every federal election, and open the source code of voting software in certain circumstances. The bill currently has 216 co-sponsors and is expected to be brought to the floor of the House and passed any day."
Regardless of political affiliation... (Score:3, Insightful)
Now if we could just get mandatory picture IDs for voting, we'd eliminate nearly all of the election rigging.
Re:Regardless of political affiliation... (Score:5, Insightful)
Not that I'm complaining about the bill, but the idea that my vote for either Corporate Tool A or Corporate Tool B will now be recorded accurately isn't quite enough to make me celebrate the return of American democracy
Re: (Score:2)
media picked candidates (Score:5, Insightful)
We always have a lot of candidates, just a very few get the bulk of the press.
The current Republican party disconnect with Ron Paul is a clear example, he has a lot of grassroots support, yet very little national coverage and what he does get is artfully spun negative propaganda, whereas their globalist darlings like giuliani and now fred thompson get the bulk of the positive press. This is on purpose and this controlling the voters mindset is a long running "feature" of having our media controlled by a few people at the top. Their hand picked examples get the bulk of the news, so they turn around and can say "candidates x and y are the front runners, look how much news and interest there is!" Well, duh... These are artificially manufactured "top runner" candidates.
Want to change things, use the net and embarrass the mass media on their own news blogs and follow through no matter what once you actually get to the voting stage. Dump that lesser of the top two evils "vendor lockin" they always push, it's just plain harmful and results in the political situation you see today and what you have seen over the past generations.
Re:media picked candidates (Score:4, Insightful)
Re: (Score:2)
LAWLZ. Profit!="opposing ideologies" Like the media gives a crap about anything but the bottom line. They are all businesses, after all...
Re: (Score:2)
Re: (Score:3, Insightful)
What do you mean, passed? After profit, there's very little ideology left to explore in a mojor corporation. You can keep denying it, but until you come up with some concrete examples, just forget about it: The best candidate for GE is going to be just as good a candidate for Disney. Plenty of pork to go around for everybody.
Re: (Score:2)
The problem is within profit there are very different ideologies. The choices for long term profit are different than the choices for short term profitability. There are varying and competing ideas of how a company should expand: should it invest in other fields? Should it open new branches? Should it buy competing branches? Should it try to integrate vertically or horizontally? There is not enough pork to go around, especially with the interest of Time
Re: (Score:3, Insightful)
Re: (Score:2)
Re: (Score:3, Insightful)
Re: (Score:2)
The current Republican party disconnect with Ron Paul is a clear example, he has a lot of grassroots support, yet very little national coverage and what he does get is artfully spun negative propaganda, whereas their globalist darlings like giuliani and now fred thompson get the bulk of the positive press.
An alternative explanation to the differing amount of coverage is more likely to have something to do with how well known Giuliani and Thompson are. For every person who knows who Ron Paul is and would recognize his face, there are probably 1000 who could do the same for Giuliani and over 100 who would look at a picture of Thompson and say something like "hey - I know that guy, doesn't he play X on Y" (where one or both of X or Y are probably wrong!). I suspect the lack of national name/face recognition
Re:media picked candidates (Score:5, Informative)
He's not very 'closet' about his Libertarianism. He was the '88 presidential candidate for the LP, and has almost unwaveringly voted consistently in Congress with guidelines best described as Libertarian. However, I have to disagree with your wider thesis. Reaction polling by CNN following the Republican debates named R. Paul the clear winner on many metrics; however, the pundits didn't even mention him when discussing who they thought 'won' the debates, with their comments uniformly gravitating towards the 'front-runners'. Much more attention and coverage was paid towards Giuliani's response to R. Paul's comments on terrorism than was paid to R. Paul's actual comments. And so forth.
Re: (Score:3, Informative)
I think the two party political situation has much more to do with the voting system used in the US. With the current "winner-take-all" voting method, voting for anyone but the top two really is throwing your vote away. If the US used a proportional system of some type then third parties would have much more
Re: (Score:3, Interesting)
Unless... you weren't one of those who bought into the abortion/religious nonsense/values crap they spout to gain votes from those with imaginary friends were you?
The problem I see is this, both parties have a set of beliefs but there is party that's ideology includes protecting ALL my freedoms. I want a holy grail, I want a c
Zero Evidence (Score:2)
Re: (Score:3, Informative)
Re: (Score:2)
After exhaustive effort, the Department of Justice discovered virtually no polling-place voter fraud [nytimes.com], and its efforts to fire the U.S. attorneys in battleground states who did not push the voter-fraud line enough has backfired.
Re: (Score:2, Interesting)
While interesting sites, I fail to see how a photo ID would help things out - forged documents are forged documents. Merely adding a picture to it doesn't make it secure.
Short of a police presence, photo IDs are useless, unless your goal is to distinguish those who have an automobile from those who don't. Most people (in the US) who DON'T have a car have an income that puts them below the poverty line. And if your goal is to weed out the poor (who tend to vote either independant or democratic in the US)
Re: (Score:2)
Re: (Score:2)
That's a few too many people to keep quiet for a conspiracy. Why not just get one pollworker, or one corrupt programmer/IT person and influence votes that way?
It seems like it would be a heck of a lot cheaper and easier.
Re:Regardless of political affiliation... (Score:5, Insightful)
And make sure those pesky homeless don't try to vote.
Re: (Score:2)
Re: (Score:2)
New York uses a 6-point verification scheme [state.ny.us] to get an ID or a drivers license.
Plus, you have to actually get to the DMV office.
Let's say you're a Republican county clerk. Let's say as part of your job, you close the sole remaining DMV office [rochesterc...spaper.com] in a heavily Democratic-leaning city. The remaining DMV offices are roughly an hour ride away by public transportation.
See where we're going with this?
Sure, if you're homeless, fine. You've got time to ride the bus. Full time worker?
Re:Regardless of political affiliation... (Score:5, Informative)
Re: (Score:2, Insightful)
$10 may not sound like much, but it is for some people.
Re: (Score:2)
As I said in my OP, many organizations will help those who really can't afford it. I can't tell you how many times I've bought an ID or paid a similar fee for someone.
Re: (Score:2)
Emphasis mine.
Re: (Score:2, Insightful)
Re:Regardless of political affiliation... (Score:4, Interesting)
I know that's a very poor example, but in your black-or-white spin on who should be able to vote and who shouldn't, frankly, I'm of the mind that we're a nation of people. Property, places, and all that can be adjusted and changed. Without the people, you have no one to govern and no one to support your government. Besides, we can have a nation of 'fair legal rules' that is assisted by 'the benevolence of other people'. The two concepts are not mutually exclusive, despite your commentary.
Re:Regardless of political affiliation... (Score:5, Interesting)
Re: (Score:2)
So someone who is a drunk isn't a good choice to be allowed to vote but someone who advocates that it's a good thing when few people vote [crooksandliars.com] is?
To be honest, I'd rather someone vote who is drunk than someone who wants low voter turnout so they can manipulate the system.
Re: (Score:3, Interesting)
Now if we could just get mandatory picture IDs for voting, we'd eliminate nearly all of the election rigging.
That this is a major problem is a fallacy spread by Republicans to try and prevent poor people that otherwise have no need for a picture ID not to vote. Make picture IDs free for everyone, not cost $50 or whatever they cost these days and not make people wait more than 10 minutes in line, and I might agree with you.
Better to just make sure people aren't registered in more than one town.
Oh and there should be a requirement for a certain number of polling stations per number of registered voters, otherwise
Re: (Score:2, Interesting)
Everyone, to vote, needs a voter registration card (or your vote is provisional), that being the case making this voter id card have a picture and still be free is *not* any more of a hurdle for the poor than current voter id cards. But what is does do is prevent people from voting using other peoples cards. BTW Most 'poor' people in the US have a drivers license and a
Re:Regardless of political affiliation... (Score:5, Interesting)
Im with you on the free but it takes more than 10 minutes now and why should 10 minuted or half an hour make a difference? should voting not have more of a commitment then say the dmv?
Problem is that since Election Day is not a holiday in the USA, taking an hour out of the day to vote can be nearly impossible if your boss is a prick. And job security is something that matters a great deal to the working poor (as it means nearly as much to the working non-poor). Further, bosses in jobs worked by the working poor tend to be more aware of the greater leverage they have over their workers, and are in this specific way more likely to be pricks. Not to mention the fact that in such jobs, bosses and workers have different political interests (due to different economic class) and consequently wildly divergent political affiliations, and so there is no earthy reason why such a boss would want to make it easier for their employees to vote.
As a result, in those communities that are enlightened enough to have polling hours extend significantly past the workday hours, those who must vote after work must vote along with everyone else in the same situation; polling lines swell precisely at the times that people leave work, and remain long from that time until polls close. People not so restricted in their schedule can easily vote during the day, enjoying a miniscule cost in time compared to their working compatriots.
It is not a question of commitment; it is a question of actual discrepancy in the degree of hardship, risk, and cost necessary to cast what is an equally-weighted vote. A vote that is equal in value should also be equal in cost. More numerous and strategicaly located polling places would make it easier to achieve equal cost by reducing line length and thus making it easier to justify work-leave to go vote (as time spent would be a great deal less), or barring that, relieve the after-work vote rush so that the person unlucky enough to have to work all day can vote with approximately as much ease as a person not so burdened.
Re: (Score:2)
Re: (Score:2)
Im sorry waiting 4 hours to vote, while a pain, is *not* hardship or risk and Americans need to wrap their minds around that. Living in a nation where you cant vote at all or will be killed if you vote for the wrong person *that* is hardship and risk.
Wow, I'm sorry but I refuse to accept your "Getting a finger amputated is no big deal when you could have lost an arm" sort of logic. Yeah, if this were one, giant, objective moral universe, Americans voting or not are at a great advantage over those who hav
Re: (Score:2)
Its ok I reject you standing in line to vote for two whole hours is massive oppression logic.
Yeah, waiting in line for four hours while your kids are at home (many poor families are single parent), probably w/o babysitters (thus violating child care laws) is a hardship, regardless how you slice it
Well there is always the option of filing an absentee ballot, you don't hav
Re: (Score:2)
Re: (Score:2)
Re: (Score:2)
Everyone, to vote, needs a voter registration card (or your vote is provisional), that being the case making this voter id card have a picture and still be free is *not* any more of a hurdle for the poor than current voter id cards.
I've never heard of this. Where I vote, Massachusetts, you need to tell them who you are and where you live and they verify this according to the voter list they have. No need for any card or ID as long as you are registered.
Im with you on the free but it takes more than 10 minutes now and why should 10 minuted or half an hour make a difference? should voting not have more of a commitment then say the dmv?
Right, so lets make that commitment proportional to your position in society. If you make 10 times what a poor person makes, then you have to wait ten times as long to vote... seems fair to me if people need to prove an equal commitment to democracy.
There are many ways we could put
Re: (Score:2)
Re: (Score:2)
Land owners were good choices back when because that was the only way the government collected taxes from individuals. Now that we have an income tax, requiring land ownership doesn't work.
Re: (Score:2)
An interesting idea though, if we could split up the two forms of lawmaking into different branches of the legislature. So, say the Senate makes civil and cri
Re: (Score:2)
And there are many ways to cheat even with picture IDs. You can refuse to register certain voters. You can make some booth hard to reach (for handicapped, ppl w/o cars, etc.). You can also vote at polling station where your vote will make a difference, etc.
Re: (Score:2)
The fraud is all on the backend... voter supression (valid, legal voters), and counting mistakes/scams.
I'm for picture IDs as long as they're easy to get and free. At least no more difficult that a current voter registration card.
EFF write up on this bill (Score:5, Informative)
http://www.eff.org/deeplinks/archives/005308.php [eff.org]
I have been following the issue of election theft and computerized voting very closely for years, and I say that this bill is our best hope of fixing the elections system. It isn't perfect but compared to what we have now it is an incredible improvement. I'm also not claiming that this will fix any of the other ills of our political system, but this is a critical element to saving our democracy. PLEASE PLEASEPLEASEPLEASEPLEASE call or write your representative and beg, plead, implore them to support this bill.
http://www.house.gov/writerep/ [house.gov]
What does it do?
Requires voter verified paper ballots. The physical paper ballot is the official legal record of the vote instead of some bits in a Windoze PC.
Requires manual audits of 3-10% of randomly selected precincts. This is by far the most important part of the bill because this is the tool that can be used to detect fraud. Note, audits are currently extremely uncommon even in the cases of recounts or close elections. In many cases audits are impossible because the data needed is lost in the electronic counting process.
Would require release of source code of some portions of the voting software to certain people. Okay obviously this is a compromise between opening the source, trade secret concerns, and the practical fact that MS isn't gonna release the source to Windows or Access, which many of these systems are based upon. Still if Slashdot readers don't get that this is a step in the right direction then no one will.
Re: (Score:2)
I'm Canadian (Score:5, Interesting)
Re:I'm Canadian (Score:4, Informative)
Re: (Score:2)
Three to four? I wish it was so few. Last time, we had nine, I think. And I've had to vote on twice that many items in some elections.
Re: (Score:2)
Re: (Score:2, Insightful)
Yeah, seriously. The important thing isn't that the process is fair, it's that everyone knows the process is fair. I don't care how Free a voting machine is, if voters don't have confidence in it, democracy is damaged.
It's not enough for computer experts to say "the system is good"; everyone knows that experts can be biased or bought. Every voter has to be able to look at the process and say, "I trust this". That's why paper ballots rock.
Of course, you Americans would have to stop having dozens of
Re:I'm Canadian (Score:5, Insightful)
2000 US Presidential election - $528.9 million dollars
2004 US Presidential election - $880.5 million dollars
Predictions for 2008 say the final two candidates will need over 500 million to be competitive . That is a lot of money... And where there is money there is potential graft, embezzlement, and lots and lots of power.
Checking http://www.sfu.ca/~aheard/elections/laws.html [www.sfu.ca] I see:
2004 Canadian elections - ~93.5 million Canadian
2006 Canadian elections - ~100 million Canadian
The difference is that Canada seems to limit how much the political parties can spend rather than how much people can give. So If a party spends a lot of money on one candidate for office then there is less money for other candidates from the same party. Thus there appears to be less money in all Canadian elections than there is in the US presidential election.
Also Canada has many parties so "winning" an election may not give an absolute majority there may still be coalitions of parties able to wrest control and that gives the minorities more power to bargain with and leads to more review of the winning parties laws. Compare that to the "winner take all" system that in the US. Many laws are proposed and voted on without senators being allowed to review the full body of the law. They just know if their pork projects were included and they are told by the leadership which way to vote if they want their pet projects to get in the next time...
USA political system needs a fix. One fix would be to pass many smaller bills instead of monolithic bills with many riders attached. But that means less pet projects to make constituents happy. It is a vicious cycle currently where the US parties are both striving to break the bank as fast as possible so they get the most for themselves.
Re:I'm Canadian (Score:5, Insightful)
Re:I'm Canadian (Score:5, Insightful)
Re: (Score:2)
Re: (Score:2)
Because a large group is somehow more untrustworthy than a small one? WTF? This is a distributed task; how many collection points has nothing (in and of itself) to do with how accurately the votes are counted at any one collection point.
All ten times as many poll workers would mean (ideally) is ten times as many polling places. Or, and here is a crazy idea, we abandon the idea that we have to know who won ten seconds after the polls close (or earlier. FU very much, network television), and take as long
Re: (Score:2)
You're still going to have that government for the next 1461 days, you know. Better be careful about who you vote fo
Re: (Score:2, Interesting)
The problems in Florida were with punch-card ballots, not with hand-marked paper ballots. Remember hanging chads? Of course, sometimes marks on paper ballots can also be ambiguous.
Re:I'm Canadian (Score:5, Insightful)
Re: (Score:3, Funny)
Why not have one vote-counter per ballot cast, for the ultimate parallelization? Then counting the votes would be near-instantaneous. It would work something like this:
1. Enter the booth.
2. A random ballot from a previous voter pops up. You count the vote, and enter the result into a touchscreen separate from the touchscreen you us
Re: (Score:2)
Re: (Score:2)
Re:I'm Canadian (Score:4, Interesting)
Wow. (Score:4, Interesting)
Now just one more thing, guys: make the entire system run on Linux or other F/OSS operating system. That will eliminate the use of viruses targeted at the easily-cracked Windows operating system from the McDonald's of operating system vendors (Microsoft).
Other things in the bill (Score:5, Informative)
Prohibition of wireless networks for use in voting systems
Prohibition of voting systems connected to the Internet
Excludes the use of COTS hardware and software (what about embedded OSes?)
See the full HR-811 bill [loc.gov].
Re: (Score:2)
Now just one more thing, guys: make the entire system run on Linux or other F/OSS operating system.
If I got to add just one more requirement, it would be that the voting software was formally specified, such that the code can be machine verified against the specification, and properties of the specification can be formally proved. Sure that requires a little more work, but really, if there ever was a place where you wanted the extra assurance of security and correctness you'd think it would be in your voting software. Indeed, it not like this sort of thing hasn't been considered [springerlink.com], and even implemented [secure.ucd.ie] (w
Rush Holt (Score:2)
One of the congresscritters in question is Rep. Rush Holt. Holt holds a Ph. D. in Physics and is, from what little I know, one of the most thoughtful, intelligent, and honest members of congress. He's exactly the sort of person the /. audience should want in congress: a smart guy with technical expertise who likes to get the facts and apply them rationally.
And I can state for a fact that at least some of his staff are aware of and occasionally read Slashdot. BTW: I'm not personally affiliated with
Can't vote but.... (Score:5, Insightful)
On the other hand, if it DOES make it through, then it will go some way to restoring my faith in the US political system. Not just because of the mechanism required by this bill, but the fact that the politicians actually passed it.
I'm with you (Score:3, Insightful)
Re: (Score:2)
One, there is no way that a majority of Senators would want to be on record as voting against the bill. In order for it to be killed in the Senate, it would have to be killed in committee or poisoned. The Senate could pass a version completely untolerable (via a poison pill) to the House, which would effectively kill it for a while (or at least long enough to not affect the 2008 elections).
At any rate, it's a pretty safe bill to pass: From the Bill Summary:
"Good Intentions" (Score:5, Informative)
This bill is being called the "Patriot Act of Elections"...be sure to get all the facts before you decide it's a good thing, and I'm sure you'll decide it isn't. Here are two great resources to start with:
http://www.electiondefensealliance.org/ [electionde...liance.org]
http://www.bradblog.com/ [bradblog.com]
(and in particular on the Brad Blog, check out Ellen Thiesen's analysis of problems with this and the Senate bill currently being worked on)
http://www.bradblog.com/?p=4678 [bradblog.com]
Re: (Score:2)
If they were all bad, unreliable and unverifiable, no bank, credit card or other financial company would use them. There would be no internet commerce whatsoever. Yet, there is, and plenty of it. Which clearly proves that you can use computers (over networks, also!) for a process that you need to be secure, reliable and verifiable. And, guess what, loa
Re: (Score:2, Insightful)
EVERY transaction in banking and commerce is fully accountable for any/all parties involved.
Ideally, our votes are completely anonymous, so the analogy isn't quite right.
Take the authenticated identity component out of our banking system and I'll bet people would stop trusting it immediately. "Just slide your money through this slot, I promise you we'll take care of it..."
In this case, IMHO, the problem is "appropriate tech
Re: (Score:3, Informative)
That's not a key difference. That's an implementation detail.
And, given all the issues we've had with problems such as mass identity theft via millions of card numbers being stolen in a single swoop, do you really consider those systems secure, reliable and verifiable?
Dude, wake up and smell the coffee. The discussion is long over, and the verdict is in. Electronic voting is old hat in many places in the world.
Belgium does
Don't Reject Useful Reform Because It's Imperfect (Score:2)
While I think this issue is important, I personally haven't had the time to devote to really look at all the angles. I do know that this bill is supported by the EFF [eff.org], computer scientist and e-voting critic Prof. Ed Felten [freedom-to-tinker.com] and Ars Technica [arstechnica.com] among a vast number of others. While the bill is by many accounts imperfect, the provisions for auditing and verification are a vast improvement on the current state of affairs, where we use black box machines and can have no confidence that our votes are tallied as the
Re: (Score:2)
The Brad Blog [bradblog.com] you link to has a porn ad at the top, a bunch of attempts to discredit people by assocation, and poorly photoshopped heads of various villains. Their article on the bill [bradblog.com] doesn't say anything bad about the bill itself: It just says that it isn't as good as the original bill that was proposed. That's not a reason to vote against the bill. In some cases it directly conflicts with t
Re: (Score:2)
Just print the user's choices and never let them touch the ballot itself.
216 co-sponsors?? (Score:3, Funny)
Me too!!
wouldn't be surprised (Score:2)
good just one more thing (Score:2)
To the people recommending paper ballots... (Score:3, Insightful)
I can not see ink as a solution. So we argue about whether that ink mark is dark enough or actually in the box, etc.
Your proposed 'solution' returns us to something we have already tried and found lacking.
Electronic ballots, with paper confirmation, using an open sourced software, is just as verifiable as your old fashinoned paper + ink, but is cheaper, quicker, and harder to 'stuff'. When you have a paper + ink ballot box, all you need do is throw out 1/2 the real ballots and stuff it full of fake ones. Electronics voting with paper ballots, means there are two records, so BOTH must be modified, and they must be modified 'synchronosly', giving us three times the chance to catch you (both records must show the winner you desire and they must match up exactly, including any time, location or other coded stamps placed on the paper and electronic records.)
It takes a special talent (Score:2)
But with the statement that "I can not see ink as a solution. So we argue about whether that ink mark is dark enough or actually in the box, etc." I see that you have that talent. You should apply to your local State Election Administration, they need your skills.
Re: (Score:2)
So does the ca. 2000 U.S. Supreme Court. At least he's in good company.
In Soviet Florida... (Score:2)
Seriously though, from the state that brought you the last two election debacles, you may be happy to learn that our legislature has already enacted its own law requiring machines with paper trails. While I believe this is a step in the right direction, some of our counties will be stuck paying for electronic systems that they will soon be prohibited from using. In the case of Miami-Dade County for instance, I believe they still owe about $25 million on their new machines that they
This is Awful! (Score:3, Interesting)
Though it makes sense on the surface, the extra costs are - in my opinion - not worth the effort. I still don't see what the problem with old style ballots are. Also, we already do a 1% manual tally here in Los Angeles county. (With 5,000 precincts, that's not an easy task.) Add this new effort into the task of rolling out an election with Precinct Ballot Readers, TEV early voting systems, ballots in eight different languages, and an apathetic population who is sick of the PAC's driving everything and you have a total waste of money.
</soapbox>
Re: (Score:2)
Let's not forget, too, the fact that the Federal Government is now trying to dictate what the State Governments are to do in their elections. Somehow that just seems wrong.
I'm all for transparency and accountability (we have paper receipts for our touch screen machines) but this just goes too far.
of course it will pass after the fact... (Score:2)
Protecting Privacy (Score:2)
Solving wrong problem (Score:2)
The most important requirement for any election system is universal comprehensibility. If voting systems use anything too complex to be understood by a school leaver with passing grades in all subjects, they're too complex full stop. Most people wouldn't be able to understand blueprints, schematics and source code listings even if it became mandatory to publish them. (But, of course, I'm not suggesting that they should be kept secret; subjugating the requirements of democ
Re: (Score:2, Insightful)
Re: (Score:2)
So by "we" (Score:2)
Interesting
Re: (Score:2)
Re:Bush plans to veto... (Score:4, Insightful)
I actually think we may see more opposition to the open-source voting machine concept from companies like Diebold [diebold.com] and other voting machine manufacturers. This harkens to memory the fuss Scott Ritchie raised [slashdot.org] about Australia switching from an open source voting software to a closed one. There's some great information in that story about the dangers of closed-source voting software, and its impact on what is supposed to be a democratic process.
Re: (Score:2)
I'm pretty sure the vast (if not absolute) majority of
Re: (Score:2)
What confidence? Is there any left after the last few elections?
Re: (Score:2)