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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?
I don't know off hand, so let's put it to a vote!
A programmer is a machine for converting coffee into code.
even if you vote "abstain", or you get a small fine (unless you CAN'T be there, ie are hospitalized)
:)
At least it would stop the whining about voter turnout
it does keep a system secure for a short time until someone discovers the security hole.
You're assuming that someone hasn't already bought the "hole". You're assuming that the ballot system developers are impartial. You're assuming that if the government won't abuse any knowledge that the public has no access to.
You're assuming too much.
If I have been able to see further than others, it is because I bought a pair of binoculars.
What do security experts say about systems? They say that open, heavily scrutinized systems are more secure. For instance, any decent encryption is open. Keeping them open actually improves the encryption's strength. Same thing with open voting systems...
The number of people who find and fix flaws will far outweight those with malicious intents. As a matter of fact, non-profit organizations and academic institutions can study the code for loop-holes/bugs/etc. Academia is good at coming up with theoretical solutions to problems and would be perfect here. They will be able to analyze the software for flaws far better than any private company can (except possibly large ones like IBM, Microsoft, etc). They will be able to do it from the specifications even (how do you know the specs are correct? )
KoalaBear33
......The worst thing in my life happened when the stock market started mattering more than the economy
I've written to the voting committee, written editorials, but no one cares. they claim that it's better than paper voting because machines don't make mistakes.
once I voted 12 times. but that was because they were relying on cookies. that was fixed in the revote. once they used checkboxes instead of radio buttons, and I voted for everyone. but that was fixed in the next one.
people are lazy, and even if it's got problems, they prefer clicking on some web form to actually going and voting in person. I say if you're too lazy to get up and vote, then you probably shouldn't be voting anyway.
but nobody cares, machines don't make mistakes... yeah? well, I've got a 20 page study of georgia voting technology that disagrees.
it's high time we had an election server h4x0red to make people think twice about it.
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.
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
Here are the guidelines I came up for a fraud-resistant electronic voting system:
1: The traffic with the database server should be properly secured (ipsec, ssl w/client certs, etc.)
2: The data should be stored in an accountable way. For example, if the data is altered, there should be a way to determine this.
3: The system should allow manual verification of results.
So here was the system I designed:
1: Database server communicates with clients using ESP/IPSec protected communications.
2: Voting machines use touch-screens. At the end, the voting machine displays a list of candidates you voted for and asks you to confirm. Then when you do, it submits your data to the database and prints a ballot. The database also stores information relating to the ballot regarding which voting station you were at. You deposite the ballot in the ballot box.
The ballot contains: 1: An easy-to-scan bar code
2: A human readable ballot listing for manual verification. 3: The ballot serial number.
This gives you almost everything you get with the paper system as well as everything you get with the electronic system.
LedgerSMB: Open source Accounting/ERP