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Electronic Voting: Your Worst Nightmares are True
jfreon writes "On Democracy Now Bev Harris of BlackBoxVoting fame, disclosed (near the end of the transcript) that in the compromised 1.8Gigs off Diebold's FTP site they uncovered "an actual election file containing actual votes on election day from San Luis Obispo County, California". Problem is, the date stamp was 3:31pm - during voting hours! The Diebold system uses a wireless network card. Worse: "So that means if they can pull the information in, they can also send information back into those machines. ""
How about some protections for democracy back home first? This is utterly unacceptable.
Everything seemed to be going so nice
'till the end of all beings punched right through the ice
Look, you're ignoring the main problem. The problem isn't people being stupid and pressing the wrong name on the touch-screen (How would that happen, unless they had no coordination?), but in the actual counting of the votes. Counting the votes before the election is over gives a sign of how the election is going, and allows the people monitoring it to do whatever the wish with it, because they are not being monitored.
The general public and opponents of electronic voting will use this as "proof" that e-voting can never be stable and reliable. I fear that any blunders we have now may severely cripple public perception to the point that the masses won't WANT to e-vote, despite the ease and efficiancy such a system could provide. I also fear that we won't be able to EVER make an unhackable e-voting system - humans are falable creatures, and with something so obvious a target, there will always be attacks launched against it to expose the inevitable weaknesses, with resulting bad press.
...then again, maybe the public will get used to crackable e-votes. I mean, what, 95% of them run Windows unpatched, right?
Every technological setback may end up as another knife in e-voting's back.
The longer I'm a member of the Human Race, the more I believe Apocalypse is a valid solution.
Maybe fewer people will be able to form their opinions on freely available information that way. That's what you neocon/conservatives would like, after all. Just like Britney Spears says:
Don't question the authority. That's the way to go.
BOO! TERRO
if you want "No More Hiroshimas" then I say "You First. No More Pearl Harbors."
Unless an electronic voting method can be proven (in the mathematical sense) to be accurate and secure, we probably are much safer from fraud using pencil and paper in a highly distributed voting scheme.
Perhaps a few precincts can be corrupted with paper voting, but the whole nation can be corrupted with electronic voting. What moron puts a wireless adapter on a voting machine, anyway?
Voting is a fundamental exercise in any democratic system. I think being very cautious and conservative is justified, here. Chasing electronic voting for its own sake is simply foolish. It almost seems the push for electronic voting is due only to hungry contractors trying to make a dime for themselves. The 2000 Florida vote is merely a red herring in all this.
Healthcare article at Kuro5hin
That is an interesting comment.
Why would it be "bitter liberal types" who should be worried about voting machines that cannot be audited?
Why shouldn't right wingers also be concerned about voting machines that give you no way to verify who voted for what?
Why is it a "liberal" issues? And why do the right wingers instinctively want these machines?
Curiouser and curiouser!
we will succeed in realizing His will and our place in it.
1) God's will should be fundamentally irrelevant in the U.S. government (First Amendment).
2) The USA isn't "better" than other countries from a humanistic standpoint. There isn't anything super-special about the US that God would put it up on a pedestal over anyone else.
People who try to inject God's will into the US government are most often arrogant, naive, and ignorant Christians who think their rules are superior to any others (again violating the First Amendment).
The US is a country ruled by the People, all inclusive, regardless of faith.
Healthcare article at Kuro5hin
..next thing you'll know, we'll get an actor elected as president.
Those were the good ol' days, kid. Small government, wars that ended, and a Commander-in-Chief who kept his trousers on while working.
Come to think of it, the music was a lot better back then too, wasn't it?
I think the point is that it would be very easy to prevent any communication to or from the voting machine during voting hours, but that while, as you say, it would be possible to ensure that only outgoing communication can happen, it's relatively difficult to ensure and prove that the outgoing communication doesn't allow any incoming communication. Bear in mind that TCP/IP, for example, is inherently two-way; it's impossible to send packets unless you can receive ACK/NAK messages back.
Point is paper is a PITA. However, it is substantially more difficult to compromise a physical ballet than electronic data.
A paper trail is comparatively expensive, but worth its enduring characteristics in recording a vote.
I don't understand what PROBLEM these electronic voting systems are intended to solve. Usability? Fraud prevention? Recountability? Non-centralized weakness? For ALL of those supposed problems, these electronic voting systems are WORSE than paper ballots.
The only advantage I see is that the electronic systems can count ballots faster, but we've never had problems with the speed of ballot counting. Ballot counting is easily parallelized across all voting precincts across the nation. In fact, that is a GOOD thing because the counting process is publicly overseen by representatives from all political parties and vote tampering is limited to a smaller set of votes.
cpeterso
The people who built the machine are the same ones running the data stream. They've got ROOT. Having any data access in the middle of the election means that Diebold could write back too, and that simply shouldn't be possible with a well-designed voting system.
Definitely. Now, how do we accomplish that? I don't have contacts with the press. I've got contacts on at least one dem campaign team (surprisingly, not Dean!), even contacts in the defense industry, but the press? Nothing. Who does? How do we get this in front of them?
--Somebody infect me with a
Actually, this is one of the times I'd be LEAST likely to suspect election fraud. You seem to forget that any election more attention-getting than local school board is going to be continuously monitored by opinion polling.
If, as you suggest, the landslide was fraudulent, then the election results would have no relation to either the pre-election polls or the exit polling. This would attract an awful lot of attention in the media, and I believe that any fraud on the scale that you suggest would at least be openly accused.
The only place, in my mind, that election fraud would be useful beyond the threat of detection would be in extremely close races -- those that no one has any idea who will win. In those cases, than altering the votes by 1% would still be within the margin of error on even the exit polling, and so wouldn't be immediately suspicious.
"Evil company X is threatening to restrict our rights! Let's all get together to stop--OOOH! SHINEY!!!" -- AC
Granted that people are stupid. You choose an excellent example. The bit about stupidity is at the end.
We have people suing over spilled coffee
To be precise, we have a person suing a restaurant because it sells a product that they intend for you to put in your mouth despite the fact that it is hot enough to cause 3rd degree burns. They do this despite the fact that they KNOW FROM EXPERIENCE that their actions will cause people to be injured. Excusing the restaurant because "people should know coffee is hot" is tantamount to excusing the presence of dangerous amounts of arsenic in their fries, because "people should know that fried food is unhealthy." Note that in the case you refer to, the restaurant was NOT sued until they had repeatedly refused to assist the burned woman in paying her medical expenses.
So, what's stupid? The fact that large numbers of people BELIEVE the covert PR campaign conducted by the restaurant against the injured woman. They knowingly sold a dangerous product and lost in the lawsuit. However, they managed to generate a groundswell of support to protect themselves from future liability lawsuits.
This, of course, is symptomatic of the people's belief that corporate entities are their friends, when they are in fact their natural predators.
Yeah George Bush is a big leftist commie. *rolling eyes*
Ironically, the "neo-conservative" tradition he and his cabinet (except Colin Powel) espouse, was, in fact, founded by a former Trotskyite and Communist. See the History of Irving Kristol, father of William Kristol. So, we are in fact led by those who espouse an ideology closely crafted and derived by former Communists and Communist ideology. Former Communists running the GOP - go figure! --M
Speed in counting? Who needs it? It's not like the offcials take office the day after the election anyway -- hell, the President has to wait two and a half frickin' months. Why the rush to have an instantly-countable system?
Furthermore, in many other large-ish countries (such as France, the UK and Germany), voting is still done by making a big honkin' X on a circle next to the name of the guy you want. And no, it's not a bubble form that has to be filled in just right -- just make your damn X as sloppy as you please. No hanging chads, no network to hack, no problems reading it. And they still have the results in by the morning in time for the early papers.
So why have electronic voting again?
Cheers,
Ethelred
Everyone wants to be Ethelred. Even I want to be Ethelred.
Damn those evil Republicans!
But seriously, all politicians are evil, and substantial campaign contributions (especially from companies or special interest groups) should be illegal. Dammit!
Sure, say what you want, but I can't believe you really think the manufactures of our voting systems should fall within the same rules as normal companies.
We have special restrictions for all sorts of vendors to the US Gov. For instance most military contractors need to certify that none of their employees are non-citizens.
Saying that voting machine manufacturers should be as impartial as possible is hardly a radical idea.
We have people suing over spilled coffee,
I am completely fucking sick and tired over the way everyone trots this out as an example of how quick people are to sue, when all that person is doing is demonstrating their ignorance. Do you know the facts of the case? Do you know what happened, or are you going off of the fact that you heard someone sued because they spilled coffee on themselves.
The woman spilled a cup of McDonalds coffee on her groin. It didn't just hurt. It didn't just burn a bit.
She had to spend a significant amount of time in the hospital due to THIRD DEGREE BURNS, and required multiple skin grafts. They also found that McDonalds was serving their coffee significantly hotter than coffee is usually served. After all, it would have to be extremely hot to burn that badly. There was no reason to expect McDonalds coffee to be BURN THE SKIN RIGHT OFF YOUR BODY hot, but it was.
If you bought a beverage, spilled it on yourself, and as a result had to spend a week in the hospital, and had no prior knowledge that the beverage was that dangerous, would you think "silly me, I should have known this drink would hurt so bad even though I've never heard of this happening to anyone else", or would you think "how can they do something so dangerous without warning people?" I vote for the latter.
"You know your god is man-made when he hates all the same people you do."
This page on Diebold's website mentions that "Election results are securely stored utilizing world-class encryption techniques." As far as I can see, that's all they tell you about their encryption. Does that mean it has the same 128-bit encryption as, say, Mozilla? (Which, I suppose, is still pretty darn secure, but probably not "world class.") Is the "world class" bit is just marketing hype? Diebold doesn't say anything, which makes me a little nervous.
And what about their wireless security? You can store votes in a steel box protected by voracious bears, but if they (the votes, not the bears) aren't protected on the way to wherever it is that they count them up, it doesn't make much of a difference. (I'm assuming here that that is what the wireless networking is used for). Is Diebold using WEP, which can be broken in a couple of hours? Unless Diebold has adopted WPA early (which, given their track record on security, I kinda doubt), some schmuck could sit in his car outside the polling place and run a wireless packet sniffer on whatever traffic is being sent.
The way that Diebold seems to be hiding information on its machines' security is disturbing - you'd think that if they had solid software they'd talk a little about it to impress potential customers, rather than just making vague blanket statements. Given everything that's happened, though, that's apparently is not the case.
I produce electronic music and write little games. Have a look.
You don't want someone to take the last section as I have and conclude 'scare mongering rubbish'
this is really frightening, and must be stopped PRONTO. The computer may be useful for helping people to fill-out/print the ballot, and for rapid counting. But, as has been said a thousand times already, there must be a paper trail.
Better yet, I think the bureau of printing and engraving should make some fancy counterfeit-resistant ballots, each printed/embedded with a unique serial number in a place where everyone can keep an eye on the process.
After the election, any unused/mismarked ballots must be accounted for. The ballots should have a matching stub with the unique number and what they voted for that the they can take home with them and may at any time go to the county clerk's office to verify that their ballot is still recorded as having said what they thought they said.
I would disagree and say it is fairly radical. First of all, you are saying lets judge someone for what they think, not what they do. Beyond that, you are saying lets judge them for political thought/speech. (Giving money to compaigns is considered a free speech issue currently by the courts.)
You are telling these companies (and by companies, you of course mean the employees of these companies) that they have no right to political discourse in the United States if they are in this industry.
I can see the interview for a job in this new market segment.
Wait, I got a great idea, all companies should be forced to be politically "diverse" -- we should force companies to hire people based on thier political beliefs... Also, while we are at it, companies should also be religously "diverse" as well... screw standards, screw who does the best work, as long as you get a high enough "diversity" rating, maybe the government will give you corporate wellfare!
*sigh* -- I don't like these stupid, un-secure, un-open, non-standard voting machines anymore than the next guy, but when the political party of the company owner/employees starts to be picked at as the primary way to attack it, I start to worry deeply about political freedom in the United States.
Pass a law that states all voting systems must be open-source and reviewed by at least 5 state colleges or some such, and you will get a decent system (or you will at least know that you can't get one) -- but attacking the political beliefs of the owner/employees of a company is pathetic and sad.
Defense contractors screen their employees all the time, because security is important there. Is the security of our elections any less important?
I don't care if it's 90,000 hectares. That lake was not my doing.
Most of the websites and statistics regarding felon "disenfrachnisement" come from drug and prisoner advocacy groups, like the sentencing project... this makes their statistics suspect from the start. Many of these groups use these statistics to make voting for felons a "racist" issue. Also, some of them consider it "disenfranchisement" if a state does not automatically restore your civil rights after your sentence is served. Personally, I see no problem with making a felon fill out a form to get his voting rights back.
Further, some of the states they cite as "permanently" disenfranchising felons DO have procedures in place to restore civil rights... Florida (where I live) is a good example. Florida is often cited as one of the 10 (some sources cite 14 states) that permanently keep felons from voting... NOT TRUE. Check out this press release from the ACLU
Some states give voting rights back automatically... some have a few hoops you must jump through. Either way, committing a felony costs you. Now, I'm not aware of a single state that does not have procedures in place for restoration of civil rights. If someone wants to correct me, please do so.
Even if a man chops off your hand with a sword, you still have two nice, sharp bones to stick in his eyes.
Attacking an obviously shoddy and insecure proprietary product produced by someone who has stated they wish to see a particular party in power is seems to be directly relevant and an important part of making sure we don't get fixed elections.
However, the fact that the company is run by republicans isn't relevant. Both parties are corrupt. They're both bought, there are conflicts of interest with both, etc. Bush and Haliburton, the Clinton's and their scandal, etc. I wouldn't trust either of them and until people realize that they're simply two sides of a plutocracy we're going to be screwed.
To use these machines from an obviously biased company is tantamount to election fraud. Saying otherwise, pretending that everyone looks past their personal preferences to provide a fair playing field, is just ridiculous and goes against all of recorded history. The *only* way we'll get a fair result is if people who hate each other watch every step of this together, both watching for the other to screw up, and both afraid to cheat for fear of being watched.
It's not a question of if this particular company is crooked. That's a given. The question is how to keep everyone honest.