Hardly Anyone Cares About Computer Voting Problems

Avidwriter writes "It's a sad thought that Roblimo explores in a NewsForge article about computer voting fraud and how you'd think all honest politicians would be working to make sure computerized voting systems are open source, and why open source wouldn't hurt well-run voting machine companies' profits. Not that most people care, since they don't even bother to vote, right?"

Comments

Re:in australia I hear they have mandatory voting

[Mjec]

[In Australia there is compulsary voting,] even if you vote "abstain", or you get a small fine (unless you CAN'T be there, ie are hospitalized)

Yes, voting is compulsary, but thanks to protection of privacy there is no way for them to know whether you actually voted or no. You just have to turn up, and place a ballot paper - it can theoretically be blank, and for some people often is. But everyone turns out, and it is a much better system. We actually get a reasonable representation of the opinion of the people.


But with response to the article:
Yes! There is a need in the US for a better voter turnout, and if machines are in use it needs to be difficult to be forge or modify votes. Go me, master of the blindingly obvious!

For those who haven't heard of Condorcet

[Magic Thread]

The Condorcet method of voting requires that each voter rank the candidates from best to worst. It's generally a good system, but has been criticised for being hard to understand (maybe not for those of us on /., but for the stupid voters). Another interesting voting method is range voting, which assigns a number value to each candidate based on that candidate's desirability.

Rated voting, which is a special case of range voting, was generally the best method (i.e., it maximised voter happiness) in a test of various voting systems. Also see ElectionMethods.org.

An improved voting system would certainly make lots of things better (though due to Arrow's paradox, a perfect system is impossible). I think we also need to improve the voters. The most heard criticism of Condorcet's method is that it's hard to understand, and it's really not all that complex at all.

Minor bit of reality check here boys...

[ComputerSlicer23]

I've done contract work for ES&S (actually most of the work I did for them was when they we're know as AIS). I've seen what they get to do for verification. Trust me, somebody reads every single line of code there is. They have specific rules, and very rigorus tests the machines get put thru. I worked for the guy who did most of the original coding for the E100. I helped to start the port for the E500, which turned into the E600 model. Actually I started to finish the port. It was originally in Z80 assembly, they completely ported it to C, and they lost the machine, and all the backups from about 6 weeks before it finished. I was the first guy to start finishing the port.

The company I worked for did all of the original design assembly of the PCB boards.

Everything is done on paper (on those models, I hear they have other electronic only models). So it is completely auditable via a recount. The Federal Election Commision certifies the software and the hardware as fit for use. Once certified, no changes can take place without a re-certification, and justification for all changes made.

They use QNX as their base operating system, and use essentially fax based technology inside the system. They scan it using the fax scanner, using timing bars to tell where the bubbles are. They then read the black/white values using an A/D converter (at some point, they switched to infrared technology instead of fax technology). Each machine gets fed test sets of thousands of ballots ( I want to say over 100,000 ballots go thru the system during the final testing phase). Which the exception of a mis-feed, or jam (which has to be detected), there can't be any mistakes.

They are pretty serious about it. At one point I knew every guy who did the day to day coding on the systems. They are plenty trustworthy. Maybe not coding gods, but naferious evil plots just won't happen. Sorry, take your conspiracy theories and go home.

Oh, and no one in their right mind would want to read the code. For a variety of reasons. First it's boring as hell. Second, the rules make it nearly impossible to write interesting code. All function can have on and only one return. No function can be over 200 lines long. No matter how clear the function is, it can't be longer then 200 lines. Why 200, got me, but it's the rule. There are rules against using macros, and rules about function pointers, and rules about recursion, rules about how data structures have to be stored. Rules about lots of different things. Rules about election layouts. Rules about ballot layouts. All kinds of mind numbing rules.

Open sourcing them, or making them available under NDA for a third party audit, sure seems like a good idea. However, there are plenty of safety measures in place to assure that the right things go on.

Christ the machines run while being hit by a giant as static electricity gun. (Vandigraph generator, I believe it was called).

Kirby