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Slashback: Election, Election, Election
No, because the punchline is: New Mexico still uses dead trees. The bug was in the software that counts paper ballots.
New Mexico was given to Gore on election night by 6,800 votes because of buggy computer software. That software "failed to read" straight-party votes (oops!), and worse, it "also chose at least one candidate from another party."
If computer flaws had thrown an electronic-vote election, you'd be reading about it on the front page of every newspaper across the country, and pundits would be telling us (sometimes in ways very funny) how foolish we were to trust our votes to those nasty computers.
How many presidential elections does our 19th-century technology have to nearly destroy before the alternatives get serious consideration?
A friend in Sweden tells me that the U.S.A. is now being referred to as the B.R.A., the Banana Republic of America. Maybe by the 21st century we can have 20th-century voting machines installed at our polling places, what do you think?
(New Mexico could decide the election if Florida's votes are thrown out, Oregon goes to Bush, and one or two more improbabilities occur.)
Voting, right here in River(side) County Riverside County, California, used touch-screen voting in this last election. This is very different from internet voting since there was no network to the outside world. I think this is an important step and certainly should be done first.
ABC News's report describes Riverside's system and shows a photo. Randall Gardner points out that the local paper has a great story with an overview of the system and reactions from voters -- glitches, yes; late tally, yes; but all in all it sounded like a positive experience.
With a capital V and that rhymes with C and that stands for Canberra Dracophile points out an article from the Fairfax IT News website, which:
reports that voters in the Australian Capital Territory (in which our nation's capital, Canberra, lies) "could be the first in the nation to trial electronic voting at next year's territory election", according to the territory's Chief Minister, Gary Humphries. They're hoping to pass legislation next month to bring this about. Sounds cool, but the article goes on to quote Humphries as saying, "You might as well be doing it from your own home." Is it just me, or does this raise the possibility of voters being coerced into a particular vote where this sort of thing can't be seen? I'd prefer to see electronic voting available only from polling booths.
No grunge typefaces please User-interface wonks should enjoy this pure-and-simple design contest. Web Memes, Inc. is asking you to design a ballot, preferably one as unconfusing as possible while still using (spit) paper. You also get to make up your own candidates and issues.
(If the competition were digital, instead of paper, it would be a tough call between Amazon.com's new user interface and AmIPresidentOrNot.)
Busily coding your next election... ...is Jason Kitcat, who says "I'm working really hard on the next release and haven't given it the PR time it deserves." Allow me.
FREE is "Free Referenda & Elections Electronically," "the first open source system for conducting electronic votes." We're now jumping from mere electronic tallying of votes in polling places to actual internet voting, so please keep your hands inside the browser at all times.
Originally an academic thesis, FREE is now GPL'd, written in Java, and its design background is available in whitepapers. I haven't tried running it. Someone let us know if the project could be useful.
See also thebell.net, which comments:
...the majority of paper punching systems used in the U.S. do not produce repeatable results when ballots are tallied more than once, which means that election officials lack the means to objectively distinguish between fraud and error under these circumstances. ...we should in fact be looking to Internet voting systems in order to try to reduce those faults and thus provide for more security than what is available today -- not less security.
The seriously skeptical view Let's end on a sobering note. Scoffing at The Bell's claim to have tackled the subject a mere six months ago, Rebecca Mercuri points out (on Dave Farber's IP list) that others have been thinking about internet voting for over a decade. She writes:
Internet systems indeed DO promise FAR LESS in the way of auditability (recounts) and anonymity (privacy) than do the paper and other manual systems presently in place. To promote the belief that Internet voting, in any way provides a SAFE VOTE, is wholly erroneous.
She has an intimidating collection of links to (mostly) academic papers on the subject on her Electronic Voting page.
And in conclusion The only viable form of government is perl-based: we need a bicamel legislature with an eclectoral college. Thank you and good night!
And now for something completely the same! A note from timothy: The next piece in our continuing Hellmouth Revisited series is online. Feel free to go read it.
NOTICE OF REVOCATION OF INDEPENDENCE
To the citizens of the United States of America, In the light of your failure to elect a President and thus to govern yourselves, we hereby give notice of the revocation of your independence, effective today.
Her Sovereign Majesty Queen Elizabeth II will resume monarchial duties over all states, commonwealths and other territories (except Utah, which she does not fancy). Your new Prime Minister (The Right Honorable Tony Blair, the 97.85% of you who have until now been unaware that there is a world outside your borders) will appoint a minister for America without the need for further elections. Congress and the Senate will be disbanded. A questionnaire will be circulated next year to determine whether any of you noticed.
To aid in the transition to a British Crown Dependency, the following rules are introduced with immediate effect:
1. You should look up "revocation" in the Oxford English Dictionary. Then look up "aluminium". Check the pronunciation guide. You will be amazed at just how wrongly you have been pronouncing it. Generally, you should raise your vocabulary to acceptable levels. Look up "vocabulary". Using the same twenty seven words interspersed with filler noises such as "like" and "you know" is an unacceptable and inefficient form of communication. Look up "interspersed".
2. There is no such thing as "US English". We will let Microsoft know on your behalf.
3. You should learn to distinguish the English and Australian accents. It really isn't that hard.
4. Hollywood will be required occasionally to cast English actors as the good guys.
5. You should relearn your original national anthem, "God Save The Queen", but only after fully carrying out task 1. We would not want you to get confused and give up half way through.
6. You should stop playing American "football". There is only one kind of football. What you refer to as American "football" is not a very good game. The 2.15% of you who are aware that there is a world outside your borders may have noticed that no one else plays "American" football. You will no longer be allowed to play it, and should instead play proper football. Initially, it would be best if you played with the girls. It is a difficult game. Those of you brave enough will, in time, be allowed to play rugby (which is similar to American "football", but does not involve stopping for a rest every twenty seconds or wearing full kevlar body armour like nancies). We are hoping to get together at least a US rugby team by 2005.
7. You should declare war on Quebec and France, using nuclear weapons if they give you any merde. The 97.85% of you who were not aware that there is a world outside your borders should count yourselves lucky. The Russians have never been the bad guys. "Merde" is French for "shit".
8. July 4th is no longer a public holiday. November 8th will be a new national holiday, but only in England. It will be called "Indecisive Day".
9. All American cars are hereby banned. They are crap and it is for your own good. When we show you German cars, you will understand what we mean.
10. Please tell us who killed JFK. It's been driving us crazy.
Thank you for your cooperation.
[source unknown]
(I know this is way down at the bottom, so not likely many will read it, but I'm still interested in people's opinions. Let me know what you think.)
My Ideas for United States General Election Reform:
The electoral college needs to stay. A president should be elected because he receives the support of the majority of the states, not the majority of the people in the nation. Small states and minorities would lose out considerably if the electoral college were completely abolished.
Alleged problems with the Electoral College:
Myth 1. The American people do not really elect the president
The American people, of course, still elect the president, but not directly. They never have. This is not a problem, and never has been. Some people like to point at elections in which the president has lost the popular vote, but won the office because of the Electoral College. A good example of this is George W. Bush in the 2000 election. If one were to look at a map of the United States, one would see that Bush won the support of the majority of the nation, while Gore won several pockets of large population. If the Electoral College were abolished, candidates could campaign only in these pockets of people, and win the office of the presidency even though the majority of states supported a different candidate.
Nobody argues that in a basketball tournament, the winner should be the team who scores the most total baskets combined from every game. The baskets have to be arranged to win games, just as the votes in a General Election have to be arranged to win states. However, I suggest to:
The electoral votes allotted to each State corresponds with the number of Representatives and Senators each State has in Congress. Instead of the majority winner in a particular state receiving the entirety of that state's electoral votes, have one electoral vote per Congressional district and two for the state majority.
Myth 2. Your vote counts for more if you're from a larger state
The number of electors a state received is directly proportional to the population of the state. Assuming that a state has 100% voter turnout, every vote counts as an identical percent of an elector. In fact, it is the smaller states whose vote counts for more, because each state has the two electors corresponding to Senators regardless of size. The problem ensues when one state has a high voter turnout, while another has a very low voter turnout. In the latter case, one's vote is worth quite a bit more. Therefore I propose that the number of electors be:
Using the national census, calculate the population of the United States and divide by 435 (the number of members in the House of Representatives). This will result in the number of people per congressional district. However, instead of counting basic population, count the number of people who voted in the previous general election. Then organize the congressional districts based on this information. This way, votes from states with large populations but with very low voter turn-out don't count for more than votes from states with higher voter turn-out.
Myth 3. Faithless electors can swing votes
A much-touted problem with the Electoral College, the fact that electors can change their vote at the last minute has never been a problem. In the very few times it has happened in this nation's history, not once has it even come close to changing the results of an election. In addition, the electors are generally chosen from the prominent members of the political party for whom your vote is case. That is to say, if you vote for a Republican president, you are in actuality voting for the Republican elector who has been chosen by party leaders. If your vote is cast for a Democratic president, you are electing the elector whom the Democrat party has chosen. There is very little chance that such a person would choose to go against the wishes of his party without good reason.
A bigger problem is that a president might be elected without gaining support of the majority of the nation, especially if the votes are divided among three or four parties. A form of run-off voting, such as Instant Runoff Voting or Instant Pair Runoff Voting (Condorcet), would solve this problem.
Instant Runoff Voting allows voters to rank candidates as their first choice, second choice, third, fourth, and so on. If a candidate does not receive clear majority of votes on the first count, a series of runoff counts are conducted, using each voter's top choices indicated on the ballot. The candidate who received the fewest first place ballots is eliminated. The ballots are then retabulated, with each counting as a vote for the top-ranked candidate listed on the ballot that is still in contention. Voters who chose the now-eliminated candidate have their votes transferred to their second choice candidate--just as if they were voting in a traditional two-round runoff election. This process continues until a candidate achieves more than fifty percent of the vote. However, this still encourages people not to "vote their conscience." A more effective system is the Condorcet, or "Instant Pair Runoff Voting" method.
In the Condorcet election method, voters rank the candidates in order of preference. The vote counting procedure then takes into account each preference of each voter for one candidate over another. It does so by conceptually breaking the election down into a series of separate races between each possible pairing of candidates, hence it is sometimes referred to as a "pairwise" method. If one of the candidates beats each of the other candidates in their one-on-one race, then that candidate wins. Otherwise, the result is ambiguous and an optimal procedure is used to resolve the ambiguity. Unlike our current plurality election method, the Condorcet system gives voters little incentive to falsify their true preferences.
More detailed information about Condorcet voting can be found here: http://russp.org/ElectionMethods.org/CondorcetEx.h tm.
Other thoughts to consider:
Thanks for your input. Please email me with comments and suggestions.
Dlugar
Computer Go: Writing Software to Play the Ancient Game of Go
For the past week, I've been watching and reading the news with increasing trepidation as one person after another attempts to pass off their partisan opinon as the one and only correct, unbiased interpretation of the law. Campaign staffers, GOP and Dem politicians, regular voters, the digerati, and even the press. I view both the Democrats and the Republicans with equal distaste, and am equally unhappy with either candidate. I think that's about as unbiased as you're gonna get. Am I the only one in America?
Ironically, the most level-headed non-partisan statement I've heard yet has come from Al Gore. And not even that was without a slant.
And as I've been watching this whole circus, I've been hollering at the TV screen and muttering to my newspaper, "stop acting like third world politicians, pretending you aren't arguing from an extreme position!" All these people, especially James Baker and Mindy Tucker, seem to have absolutely no clue as to how biased they sound when they make their public statements. They're so blinded by their partisanship they can't see how hypocritical they look to people who are only interested in a fair outcome.
Of course, what should I expect from Florida? Chicago and Louisiana may have the reputations as corrupt, but I used to live in Florida. Based on the amount of corruption, con artisanship, and good ole boy networking I endured there, I was immediately cracking jokes about how ironic it was that the outcome of the presidential election would depend on the integrity of Florida officials. It is a banana republic folks, in a lot of ways.
There are a lot of Americans who believe that we have the most honest, ethical system of government in the world. And they have good reason to believe it - it's drummed into us from day one. And it may still be true. But always remember and never forget: that doesn't mean it's completely honest and totally ethical. To say "it can never happen here" is to leave the door wide open for corruption. And I fear that's what we have done.
Look at it this way: when money can buy policy in DC, the way it does now, just how soon will it be until money can buy an election? And has it happened already?? We need to keep asking those questions, or else it will happen right under our noses.
Heck, that's exactly why I voted for Nader. There's too much influence in Washington by special interests with lots of money. Nobody there does anything if it's not greased by megabucks. Is that ethical? Is it good government? It disturbs me that these practices are so widely accepted. I know I'm not the only one, but it seems there aren't enough of us.
And, in closing, I have to unleash my inner conspiracy theorist or he's gonna eat a hole in my spleen: it sure smells a lot to me like the Bush boys tried to buy an election, and it blew up in their faces. But we'll probably never see any evidence to support that... then again, stranger things (cough, Monica, cough) have happened!
I can see the fnords!
It's perfectly feasible to have computers at the polling stations. It would mean an accurate count the first time, and avoids much the concern about people cracking the system. We should concentrate on getting the computer voting system up and running, and worry about the extra issues raised by connecting to the internet later on.
Not every computer needs to be on the net guys!
Drag n' Drop DVD Recommendations
You need a hard copy as proof that you voted. It's easy to alter digital records if you know how, but to falsify 10,000 paper ballots is another story. I think we should *always* have a physical record of a vote or any important action/transaction (like major bank transfers, pay stubs, credit card bills, etc.)
I'm a little segfault, short and stout.
Repubs:
The smartest character today is, IMHO, the judge in his ruling on today's 5pm deadline:
His ruling on the 5pm deadline is basically: "Yeah, she [the Secretary of State] can ignore late results" (Repubs happy because that's the law), "but not arbitrarily" (Dems happy because the judge has introduced ambiguity).
- That's either the work of great cowardice ("Fuck, I don't wanna touch this!")...
- ... or wisdom of Solomonic proportions ("You two idjitz can't agree on who's [baby|election] this is? Fine, gimme a sword, we'll carve the [sprog|decision] in half and you can each have custody of your half. Now get the fsck out and don't talk to me until one of you does something that shows me who the real [mother|statesman] is.")
I'm not sure which of the two it is, but I have a hunch it's the latter.How about a computer vote which prints out two optically scanable ballots. One for you to submit, and one for you to keep as a receipt. That way, you get the best of both worlds. Instant results, plus a fallback to count against in case of fraud.
We would like to see a system that would still have the voter go to a polling place. The voter would go into a booth and make their vote electronically. The voting hardware would print out 2 copies of what was selected. On the paper would be a machine readable version of the vote, like a bar code and a human readable version. It also would have a unique number for use later. The voter then must compare the electronic vote and the paper. If all is OK, the voter tells the machine to submit the vote. The voter must then give one copy to the poll person which would place it into a ballot box. At a later date, the voter would be able to go to a web site that would allow the voter to enter the unique number to verify that their vote is in the system.
Random sampling of the paper outputs, both bar-code for speed and human for extreme cases, could be done as a check on the system.
This system would have the speed the electronic proponants want, and it would have a hard copy for the luddite folks.
"Those who make peaceful revolution impossible, make violent revolution inevitable" - JFK
According to CNN, on presidential elections:
Under New Mexico law, if the candidates end up tied, the winner could be determined by having the two men sit for a hand of poker -- with the state going to the winner.
New Mexico statute requires that in case of a tie, "the determination as to which of the candidates shall be declared to have been nominated or elected shall be decided by lot." In practice, the usual method for this rare event has been to play one hand of five-card poker.
This was last done in December 1999, in a local judge's race. Republican Jim Blanq and Democrat Lena Milligan played one hand of poker in a courthouse with dozens of people watching, and Blanq won.
I'd like to be the dealer for that game!
m
http://www.cnn.com/2000/ALLPOLITICS/stories/11/14New Mexico had problems because their ballot includes a single punch which indicates that the person wishes to vote the "straight party ticket" for whichever party they select. This means that they do not wish to individually indicate their selections.
The problem develops when "voters chose to vote a straight party ticket, but also chose at least one candidate from another party, election officials said. "
In other words, if I select that I want to vote "straight Democratic Party ticket" and then also punch a vote for Bush for President, the machine would get confused. That was the problem.
In any case, I think we've had as much Election coverage as anyone can stomach... so, let's just wait it out.
Thalia
Is there any way to do this securely w/o a physical record of the vote?
Yes.
In Applied Cryptography, Bruce Schnieir describes several possible protocols for secure elections.
None are perfect though, something we should remember before we go installing MicroSoft Vote v2.04 everywhere and end up with more problems than we started with.
The most interesting variant is "Voting without a Central Tabulating Facility" where each voter does some cryptographic gymnastics on their vote, and passes the result around so everything is counted in the open, no secret counting agency necessary. No one can tell who voted for who, it will tell you if someone tries to vote twice, or if you try to change someone else's vote. Incredible!
In another example, each voter encrypts their vote with a random serial number such that when the vote is over, each voters # is published and individual voters can confirm who they voted for, but who anybody else did, and the Central Counting Agency cannot identify voters from their vote.
Again, the protocols are not perfect, but they're an excellent starting point if you're interested in secure voting.