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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?"
Not that most people care, since they don't even bother to vote, right?
Most people don't even bother to click the link to read the article; you think they'd actually get up, leave the house, drive to the voting center, and push some buttons to vote? That's way too much effort involved.
I browse Slashdot at +3, Funny
Security through Obscurity works as a temporary stopgap. It doesn't last long, but it does keep a system secure for a short time until someone discovers the security hole.
Voting takes place once every two years in the US (different for other countries). And it only takes place on one day. Security through obscurity can hold that long.
On the other hand, divulging the source code to the system beforehand (otherwise, what's the point to having the system being Open Source) makes it that much easier for evil-doers to find the holes in the system. Keep in mind that these fraudsters aren't going to fix the hole and "turn it back over to the community". They will have plenty of time to find the exploits and they will exploit it on election day.
Yes, in general Security through Obscurity is a bad idea, but in one-off systems like electronic voting, it is the best method of keeping the system secure short of armed guards and video cameras.
Its sad that the same people who scream for open source voting and open source this and that are the same people who bemoan the cheaters once quake 1 and quake 2 source was made public (though not open source) .
You would think that voting machines you would want simple and private code with high encription.
"Hmm, who should I vote for? The puppet on my left hand? Or the puppet on my right? Wait a second! There's one guy holding the puppets!"
Sad, but true. How can a donation be political (in support of policy), when you pay both teams?
I can see it now. Next Bush campaign - democracy in the USA! ... Maybe not :)
.02
cLive ;-)
ps - the more paranoid amongst you may also wish to check out the Bilderberg Group.
-- Trinity in high heels carrying a whip: The donimatrix - there is no spoonerism
In the Quebec seperation referendum (sp?), which failed only barely, had quite a few spoiled ballots, most of them on the "no" side, and most of them questionable. So I guess it depends more on how much supervision by all parties the system gets.
I remember seeing a study mentioned on the news about problems with computer voting, but I don't see it mentioned in this story.
Potential for fraud is a good thing in the eyes of sufficiently corrupt politicians. If it were completely impregnable, then those with the inclination wouldn't be able to fix elections. As much as I love throwing technology at a problem to try and solve it, I really don't think that eliminating a paper trail is *really* a good idea when we talk about electing such powerful people.
How about instead of changing the way we cast our ballot, let's focus on changing the ballot? Plurality voting is about the worst voting system there is. Of course, if we went with Condorcet, third-party politicians might actually get elected.
I'm a lawyer, but not yours. I wouldn't represent someone who thinks taking legal advice from Slashdot is a good idea.
Open Source can't hurt, but
you'd -still- have to be sure
that -all- the executables
were made from the final source,
that everybody has access to,
for the eVoting Boxes.
Then, you have to insure that
no changes are made just before
the machines are used... etc.
That's one theory. Mine is that more and more people distrust the government so much that they don't really believe that who we vote for has anything to do with who they tell us won. So voting machine fraud is just a new tool for the new world order (not a term I invented, one Daddy Bush liked to use) to use to do what they have been doing for a while.
I'm an American. I love this country and the freedoms that we used to have.
Don't get me wrong, I think open source is great, and usually results in better-quality software. Heck, I'm posting this on Mozilla Firebird (recently permanently switched from Opera).
But what's the big deal if it's not open source. As someone already mentioned, in the case of the limited window of voting, security through obscurity shoud work fine.
If the project leaders of some product decide to go Open Source, I say GREAT!!! Everyone wins!!!
But just because a product is NOT open source, should it be criticized?
And besides, most politicians don't no cr@p about PC tech, let alone have any clue as to what open source is. Unless a politician sees it in their best interest (like their researchers say teens and the PC oriented don't like them) I doubt they would push for anything like this. Remember, most of them come from old-school big businesses (or old money) and still see the world through old-school capitalistic glasses.
Voting, on the other hand, is a much simpler problem, and the problems with fraud are much better documented and understood. Those that control the rules can control the voting -- but that's a problem with paper ballots as well as electronic. In this case, the risks of opening the code are outweighed by the risks of not opening the code.
Most people find it hard to care about a "theoretical" problem until it happens in reality.
"And this is my boy, Sherman. Speak, Sherman." "Hello." "Good boy."
The duty of the government is to protect the rights and well-being of it's citizens.
Where do you pull this from? The people of Australia should decide the "duties" of their government. Not you.
My point exactly.
Give each person a randomly unique number when they turn up to vote. Have them enter the number with their votes, check that it's valid, and record both.
After the election, make all the votes available. Everyone can check the totals, and anyone who made a note of their number can check that their vote was recorded correctly. If there's any vote tampering going on, everyone who's vote got tamperd with will KNOW, not just suspect, that the election was rigged.
My full rant on the topic is at href="http://zcat.wired.net.nz/evote/
455fe10422ca29c4933f95052b792ab2
For a long time, "honest politician" has been an oxymoron, a laugh amongst the working class. Heavens, we all know there is no such thing. It was Simon Cameron in the 19th century who gave us the modern American definition of an "honest politician" --
"An honest politician is one who, when he is bought, will stay bought."
The real truth is that most people don't vote because they know their vote doesn't matter. No matter who you vote for, unless you write them a big check, they aren't going to listen to you anyway. No matter how many emails you send in, how many phone calls, how many pickets, it doesn't matter. Unless you have money, you are just a noise that the politician tunes out.
Did the US people want the Patriot Act? A war against Iraq? How about a real 911 investigation? What about the banks selling all your personal data in California? The list is endless. The laws that are passed are not there "for the people".
An awake mind sees that the people get what the politicians give them. Which for well over a hundred years in America has been what the special interests, corporations, and other powers tell the politicians to do.
The big step forward for a better America would be to actively choose not to participate in the biggest lie of all -- that our country is a democracy run by the people and that voting matters.
Think what would happen --
PULLING THE LEGITIMACY PLUG
PULLING THE LEGITIMACY PLUG II
As Thomas Jefferson said long ago, "Honesty is the first chapter in the book of wisdom".
Isn't it time that we, the people, started being honest with ourselves about the current state of our so-called "democracy"?
You either
1. Go to jail for short stay or
2. Pay a fine
In practice you don't even have to pay the fine. Almost any excuse is enough to get you out of the fine. In fact, I know people who have tried to 'do the right thing' and pay the fine, and been refused!
The fine notice may simply be a way of checking that you're alive, at the same address etc. Gets people's attention better than a survey.
Vino, gyno, and techno -Bruce Sterling
Yeah, the duty of the government is to protect the rights and well being of its citizens but it's also up to the citizens to protect each other.
Being required to vote is in the best interest of everyone in the country and it's a small price to pay. You can't tell me that you're life is so significant and hectic that you cannot accommodate casting your vote? Give me a break.
I truly believe that if you don't vote (or in an Australian citizen's case cast a blank ballot) you have no place to criticize politics or the actions of politicians until you do so.
Just my $0.02.
I love the smell of Karma in the morning
Whether or not individuals have a duty to protect others is a religious/ethical issue and it certainly should not be mandated by the state. If you want to talk about requiring things of your subjects for the common good of all, then you're talking about communism. If they can require you to go to the polls on a certain day, then they can require you to spend a couple days cleaning up a floodzone, or maybe a couple months of filing papers for Big Brother...
If I told my mom that it was secure, she would believe me. Most of my co-workers too. If *some company* tells my mom that it is secure, she will not believe them. I think this is pretty obvious.
" If you want to talk about requiring things of your subjects for the common good of all, then you're talking about communism"
So a criminal justice system is commie plot now is it?
Seriously as members of a community we are expected to contribute to that community as well as take away, other wise the community collapses. Voting is your way of saying this is the person/group I want leading the community. If you don't vote then you have no right to complain about who gets in.
I think you're being unrealistic. Instead, I side with Scott Adams' comment on the importance of your vote: The value of your vote is actually negative if its influence on the outcome is outweighed by the time and effort spent casting it.
Throw in the fact that you can be a conscientious citizen, get yourself well informed on all the candidates and issues, and have your vote negated by some ninety-five year old lady who is voting for Al Gore because he wore the best tie... can you blame us for getting cynical?
You want the truthiness? You can't handle the truthiness!
Have you ever tried to explain "source" to a politician? I have. Let me tell you. Just getting them over that hurdle is tough enough. Most of them are lawyers, and for some reason lawyers tend not to care much about tech. Sure there are exceptions, but I can't help but get the impression that most lawyers would still be using quills and ink if they could get away with it.
So. When you go to policitians with this issue and say "The system should be Open Source so someone can perform a security audit" what they hear is "Our special interest group has an opinion about how the system should work". Really. I don't see any way around this problem either. We could sit around and wait for the public school system run by these politicians to produce lawyers who aren't computer and science illiterate, except of course that by now most of the politicians are products of that very same system!
I see a positive feedback loop here, which like all positive feedback loops tends to create instability. Now... how many politicians have the background to understand that analogy?
For all intensive purposes, "whom" is no longer a word. That begs the question, "who cares"?
The point is that they're still giving you a choice. You still have the option of casting a blank ballot. No one reads it and no one is holding gun to your head.
I would agree with you if you didn't have this option or if you were handed a ballot with three choices and all contained the same name.
Are you seriously comparing the Australian Government to a communist one? Seriously, you're being unrealistic.
Go outside, the world misses you.
I love the smell of Karma in the morning
Then stop making gross generalisations. You did not qualify your statement in any way shape or form. If you want to stop people from thinking that you are some sort of libertarian nut job then a little more thought into your posts might be a good idea.
gantrep obviously hasn't thought this through. Paying taxes to pay for roads and education is also a commie plot (according to his view). As is 911. Stupid government attempting to help people help others.
If you don't vote then you have no right to complain about who gets in.
I'm not so sure about this one. I use to think this, but have now modified my view somewhat. While holding that view, I couldn't see how I could complain about a government who I helped vote to power. IE, only those who did not vote for the ruling party can complain (or vice versa). Also, people I know in politics would also tell me that "I can't complain if I don't directly do something about it". IE Unless I'm attending peace marches, writing letters to papers, signing surveys, or even stand for government I shouldn't be complaining about it. Locally, it makes more sense. If I care about the dog droppings in my local park (I do), then why aren't I picking them up myself, or writing letters telling the pollies to do something, or even attempting to be voted in on a "no dogs" policy.
My modified view is something like "Everyone can complain, but the more someone does about something, the more they care about it". IE, listen to complaints of people who make a lot of effort regarding fixing the problem (Voting is an effort). If they can't even be bothered to vote, then I may not think their complaint is worth listening too.
Paper ballots provide an audit trail, but the ballot boxes themselves can (and have) been tampered with.
The only useful purpose served by an electronic system is a "quick tally", and possibly less chance of a spoiled ballot, although butterfly-ballot like errors can be set up on a touchscreen as easily as on paper.
Providing a count at the polling place, by a multi-partisan local group (each candidate should be able to produce someone to go to each polling place) reduces the chance of fraud dramatically. Make the hand count the official tally, and the electronic count used only for quick totals.
For a little more accountability, apply modern cryptography to tie paper ballots to their electronic counterparts for cross-checking if required. Make a recount and cross-check mandatory for narrow spreads or manual/electronic dissagreements.
Demand voter-verified, locally counted paper ballots.
if you are just reading and bitch'n, you are part of the problem.
/. for a reason. Why waste the effort?
It only takes a few minutes to express your views, or cut 'n paste someone else's you agree with. Noise works wonders to help bring an issue before a legislator. On average, very few people actually write any kind of response. Those responses they do get carry some weight.
This means we have a chance to punch well above our weight if we actually do *something*
So, do something. Do it each week. These stories are here on
Join the EFF. If you *really* can't part with the $25 or so to do that, at least use their EFFector mailing list. They provide very timely call to action letters that make providing your input easy.
Put your legislators address in your address book. When you have a thought, just send it to them. Does not have to be fancy, it just needs to be honest and somewhat timely.
I recently worked to help push the Oregon Open Source bill through the house. (HB2892) We failed because a well known AeA lobbyist (Jim Craven --I think.) had the ear of the house speaker. We did make this decision hard for Karen Minnis though. She heard a *lot* about Open Source. Maybe next session she will hear more.
This experience showed me that change requires ongoing dialog with our representitives. It is the only way to counter the lobbyists. Lobbyists offer deals and dollars. The only check on these is public opinion. --Votes.
I met and spoke with many legislators. They are people just like us, who are interested in the issues. Most of them want to know what you think and are willing to take the time to learn it.
Approach them as you would any other person you know. --Just start a dialog. Sure you will get form letters, but after a few of those, you will get actual reply mail. This is valuable.
Tell them you vote. Tell them your stand on the issue. Let them know about interesting news items. A good example for those living in Oregon would be the current Wyden bill.
--This is a great bill. Its risky for him. He needs to hear thanks and support. I wrote him today expressing exactly that while asking if there is anything I can do at the same time.
Do something if you want to see things change.
Vote --- Write your legislature --- Talk to your friends.
--It matters.
Blogging because I can...
On a practical point, if the 'old ladies' vote randomly, their influence should average out to zero. If they don't vote randomly, doesn't that mean they have a voice which should be heard?
Numbered Ballot Papers. I wonder why they didn't think of that before.
Oh, I remember. The greatest advance in democracy since, well democracy really ,SECRET BALLOTS.
I have enough nightmares about electronic voting already. You go into the polling station at 08.30am and they tick your name off against the roll. At 8.32am a vote is cast for Candidate X (as certified by the audit trail in the system.) Guess who voted for whom.
Just because your vote is just one in millions, a drop in the ocean, you fail to recognize this: Without the drops, there can be no ocean!
And the flavour of all the drops, is what makes the ocean. Now, the politicians ARE representing you. This is what leaders you get when you're cynical, care-free, repress your feelings and do nothing. Do you want it to get better or worse, it's your choice. At least, you COULD have said that you've done the best you could, but now you can't say that!
http://www.debunkingskeptics.com/
That's why a two-party first-past-the-post system sucks ass! Most pick the lesser of two evils, but it doesn't even matter; they tow the same line when it comes to things that count and show their "partisanship" by arguing about lesser legislation that hides their collusion.
An ideal democracy would be where everyone's voice is represented, like in Germany where proportional representation allows representatives to be selected based on their party's percentage of the popular vote. That's the way it should be (and hopefully soon will be in Canada, or at least Ontario, down with Ernie)
"If liberty means anything at all, it means the right to tell people what they do not want to hear." --George Orwell
Face it's true. If you say that there could be mass voter fraud, no one will believe it, unless it's shown to them in a horribly embarassing way. Therefore, what needs to happen is this:
In some small voting district (preferably one of the smallest in the nation) that has electronic voting, some third party candidate, or even better a write in candidate needs to get AT LEAST twice the total world population voting for him. Someone would for sure get arrested for the unforgivable and henious crime, not of election fraud, but of making the powers that be look bad. At least done this way, the obvious defense would be that harm could already be done, this person just made sure it was known since no one would listen. Not that I think that would help much.
However if some lunatic fringe candidate were to get 900% or 1000% of the total possible vote, and all of that were to come from the same district or even pricinct, there would be some attention given to it.
There is a civil war coming in the United States. Remember which side has most of the guns
The black box testing is pretty complete, and very good. You set the time and date to the time and date of the vote. You bring in a set of ballots that is larger then any single machine will be expected to process. You run the complete ballot set. At that point, the machines are in all ways, exactly as they will be when shipped out. You read the code from start to finish.
What else do you want? You've got a known regression test, in the precise conditions that will be shipped. At that point, it's merely user error that can happen (or procedure wasn't followed). What can you do to ensure end to end integrity at that point? Sure you can verify that a particular machine is correct, no problem. They send out 1500 machines to different voting centers. How do you plan on using the source code to verify that all 1500 machines have the proper configuration, that they have the proper software, and the hardware is properly configured. Yes you can verify that a single sample you saw at a given moment in time was configured as per the specification, however, open sourcing it, won't allow you to verify the machines at the time they are used. If you don't trust it, count the ballots. The ballots are right there, there is nothing more to subvert them that couldn't happen in a stardard paper vote.
The standards exist, and they are transparent. If you'd like to check them, go pick up a machine from the ES&S, and test it. If believe that the FEC's guidelines are insufficient, lobby to have them changed.
If you want to do the check, lobby to be there when the FEC does the test ballot sets. Examine the test sets, and verify the results of the test. Bring your own set of test ballots and request to test them against a sample machine. It's not like you need the source to do any of it. Buy a machine, set the time on the machine to the day of the vote, then run them. Then re-run them over a period of days while the machine is left on, or turned off to simulate the situation you desire.
Run the precisely as they would be on the election day. Simulate the tests with known results (I don't believe the all test sets are known by ES&S). Submit random tests to which you have the answer. Submit a test deck that has ever known pattern filled in for the upcoming election.
Then aquire a cryptocryphic checksum of your choice, that you believe at a later date you will be able to verify while voting. How you do that, without actually running the ballot voting machine, I don't know. At some point, the people who are running the voting machines must be trusted. If you can't trust them, you can't have a legitimate vote. It's the same reason why FPS will have always have cheats. It's inherint in the system, that an uncontrolled quatity exists, and can subvert the system because it has too much access, and information to make it look like everything is as it normally would be.
You can't have trust at any level. Anything that you didn't personally do, isn't trustable. As soon as a voting machine leaves your sight, it's absolutely not trustworthy any more. You can't watch anyone do the work (I've seen too many people who are good a slight of hand). You have to absolutely verify so many things, that it isn't trust worthy. Actually, as I recall, they wrap, and lock the machines, so there can't be any tampering.
Do you trust Linux? How do you think it has no bugs in it? I've hit known bugs in it. How do you know that the version of Linux you use, is the version that Linus ships? How do you know that the Re
A couple of years later I'd almost completely lost interest except in the soap-opera aspect of the political game. Organised party politics is a waste of time, designed to keep the middle-aged, early retirees and people on long-term invalidity benefit occupied. The others are power-crazed over ambitious types just like you find in any other occupation. (It's not the money, not in the UK anyway, where cabinet ministers only get about 70K sterling IIRC.)
The last year or so have made it clearer than ever that real power is in corporate boardrooms and the country clubs of the US, and proved the truism of the old adage "If voting changed anything, they'd make it illegal". I'm more and more cleaving to the Chomsky-esque view that the organised political scene is just a distraction, a meaningless soap-opera designed to keep us asking the more profound questions.
The ludicrous US turnout rates - what is it, 35% in /Presidential/ elections? - is only a few decades ahead of Europe IMHO. These people can't claim any sort of popular mandate. Basically what I'm trying to say is: it all sucks.
> The only canidate that made any sence was the Green Party canidate. As the Green Party is still treated like the lunitic fring by the media, the chance of one of their canidates rising above statistical noise is almost zero.
So you didn't vote for them, because it would have been a wasted vote - but then you wasted your vote anyway?
In the 1992 UK general election, there was a poll conducted by a national newspaper that revealed that 60% of the population would have seriously considered voting for the Liberal Democrats (the third party in the UK, typically gets 10-20% of the vote) if they thought they had a chance of winning.
If even people who think the green party candidate 'makes sense' refuse to vote for them because they won't win, there's little chance they'll ever be perceived as anything but a lunatic fringe...
What happens when I only get 2 parties to choose from, and both of those are determined to expand the scope of government, when I am strongly opposed to just about any possible expansion of government? If I don't choose between apples and apples, in effect ENDORSING the 2-party system, then I have no right to speak my opinion? Get real.
I suppose you also believe in the old line, "if you don't have anything to hide then you'll be just fine with the police state".
It's very simple and has been studied to death. It's APATHY, indifference.
It's not that we are too busy, it's not that we don't trust voting booths, it's not that we don't think our one little vote is going to make a difference... it's that we don't CARE who gets voted in.
Clown on the right or clown on the left, he's still a clown. "Who gives a rats ass. It's just powerful people doing shit for other powerful people. I work 50 hours a week, come home, eat dinner, let the dog out, watch corporate sponsored news, and go to bed, and it's what I'll do for the next four years too."
Is it sad? Hell yes, but it's not the "people's" fault. If they have a reason to vote, they will. They just don't see a good reason. They've literally given up.
We saw an election literally "stolen" in the last presidential election. We also saw a president get into office even though most in the country voted for the "other guy" (if you remember, Gore had the popular vote, but not the electoral vote). You wanna talk about an apathy spreader, that was it.
We (Americans) simply don't care, as we haven't been shown any reason to. Left or right, we still see a power hungry corporate lackey
"The greatest obstacle to discovery is not ignorance - it is the illusion of knowledge." - Daniel Boorstin
Yes, an idiot will negate your vote. But look at it another way: you get to negate an idiot's vote.
As copyright owner of this comment, I authorize everyone to defeat any technological measure which limits access to it.
Yes, there is a difference between basic rights and derived rights. Whether or not I have the right to freely make copies of a piece of software and distribute them to friends is a derived from property rights. With the right to property comes the right to engage in business, licensing and contracts. One of the government's jobs is to protect property rights by protecting people from fraud and theft.
Maybe I have some special rights as a shareholder of a company, or as an employee, but these again are just derived from property rights, which are protected by the government.
Government can only take away or protect our rights; they cannot give us anymore.
The right to drive a car is not a basic right, but it is a derived one. It is derived from the rights to liberty and property, and should not be taken away unless one's use of a car violate the rights of others.
The government does not really give you the right to drive a car. You already have that right. If there were no government, there would be nothing to stop you from driving a car, save individuals and corporations. Government protects your right to drive a car from those individuals and corporations that could try to prevent it with force.
Besides the phrasing, I don't see what is American-Centric about my definition of basic human rights, especially considering that the ideas originally came from chiefly European philosophers, and considering the incredible prevalence of violations of those rights by the US government, and how much the American people are willing to disregard them. Even about eighty years after our government was founded, we still practiced slavery, possibly the worst kind of violation of human rights there is.
I would be interested in hearing what you see as the basic rights of mankind.