Slashdot Mirror
Voting Machines Vs. Slot Machines
dmh20002 writes "Being a Nevada resident and knowing people who write code for slot machines, I was aware of the stringent measures the state of Nevada uses to vet the security of slot machines. The Nevada Gaming Control Board audits everything about them, both physical and soft, for unintentional and intentional security holes. Hearing the hoopla on voting machines, the contrast was obvious. Slot machines are about money, which is more important than votes, apparently. Now the state of Nevada is looking at electronic voting machines and plan to apply some of the same safeguards. Just applying the Nevada technical standards for gaming machines and vendors to voting machines would be a start, since there don't seem to be any standards for voting machines. A funny/sad sideline is that in Nevada, every year or two a programmer or engineer goes to jail for exploiting slot machines."
This is, what I call, a "DUH!" moment.
We should have thought of this a LONG time ago.
What is possibly even more disturbing is the fact that our paid officials, you know, the ones that are supposed to be looking out for our best interests, didn't think of this either. Or, and this is something that must be considered, they did and didn't do anything about it.
Book quote that I think applies here: "If god had wanted me to vote, he would have given me candidates"
Mod me down with all of your hatred and your journey towards the dark side will be complete!
Similarly, I should know that some standards and enforcement is in place when I vote. Otherwise, I'm putting my trust in someone I don't know and who has interests that are probably different than mine.
Voting should not be about trust, it should be about results. Any third party should be able to verify results, regardless of their interest.
You know, this is a really neat example of the kind of thing folks who develop new products should look for -- useful precedents and knowledge from a seemingly tangential field.
Of course, the item about slot machine fraud shows that -- no matter how stringent your precautions are -- if the stakes are high enough, people will try to defraud your system. Some will succeed.
The important thing to keep in mind is that this is just as true for our current voting technologies as it will be for electronic voting.
A funny/sad sideline is that in Nevada, every year or two a programmer or engineer goes to jail for exploiting slot machines
Engineers tend not to be highly political, but they certainly are greedy. I think the likelyhood of engineers trying to exploit voting machines is a lot lower than engineers trying to exploit what are essentially money-dispensing machines.
It is true that engineers can be used as tools by those who are more interested in rigging elections, but that's also true with slot-machines. The engineer greed factor is still missing.
How about state lottery systems and machines? Almost nationwide, these outfits are audited & controlled to a degree which shows where our real priorities are.
I don't think the point is the amount of cash, it was the position that he was in. If he was greedy, he could have gotten away with a lot more. If you are put in the position he was in then you should be punished to the full extent. This is not a case of stealing a candy bar but a knowing effort to write a script and involve other people in the conspiracy. I think he got off easy.
Stay tuned for new sig...
Consider this:Silicon Crackers Tackle Casinos or Revenge On the One-Armed Bandit The fact is, in nevada there is a cottage criminal industry which revolves around ripping off slot machines. These are just individuals. Imagine if they were an organization with the resources of a modern political party trying to game the system. Now imagine if the people making the slot machines were contributing to and had a vested interest in that organization.
Um, he did steal $50,000 for himself and loads more for his pals. That's an income. He took the equivalent of some poor sap's job for a year and continued after he was arrested.
He stole the cash by abusing his government job. Everyone knows you only get away with that if you're at the top.
-- Jared Earle | "There is no spork"
How about bribes? That certainly involves the greed factor!
True, but instead people like that have come up with a system where they use our money to buy machines that they can rig and stay in office with. You do understand there's a reason why they knowingly buy defective voting machines, don't you?
I'm an American. I love this country and the freedoms that we used to have.
This is a solution from Bartcop.com, and it's both clever and simple. Absentee ballots ARE a paper trail. So if you're worried that voting machines aren't going to count your vote, and won't leave a paper trail which would let election officials catch them at it, vote via absentee ballot and leave your OWN paper trail.
I think the big difference is timing. If the state finds a problem with a type of slot machine then it doesn't go into service. The only person hurt is the machine's developer. If, on the other hand, there's a problem with a type of voting machine then what do you do? You can't just put off an election. The timing of those is usually mandated by law.
Sorry, it was 'light wand'. More info in this comment.
The 'coin whip' is just what it sounds like. The old fashioned piece of metal just as heavy as a quarter which you could place into a machine, but had a piece of wire or string built into the metal that would allow you to yank it out after the machine counted it.
Good quote, too many chars. Seriously, the slashdot 120 char limit sucks!
We've already got good voting machines here - they're called Lotto machines. Any wino can walk in with a lotto ticket that he's scribbled on with a piece of road tar, and the machines do a great job of reading the ticket - plus, you get a paper printout for verification - plus, the system knows which ticket went to which store. Audit trails, hardcopy - Hmmm,
But we don't need (or want) all that silly accountability stuff to re-elect Bush do we
Please help, I am sigless - will code for sigs.
The voting machine scandal should be raised to the level of a public outrage. It's clear that nefarious corporate interests are foisting inadequately engineered products on the state election commisssions, in their usual, cynical, "good enough for government work" way.
In the weeks after the 2000 Presidential election, I wrote a letter to my congresspeople recommending that the system be rendered electronically by individuals who know about safety-critical, high-availability software. Airplane code, gambling-device code, medical-device code, etc.
This is not by any means new technology or new processes. But because the states see a great need, it has become a new scam for brainless, heartless business jerks to exploit.
Write your state and national legislators. Get the laws changed to ensure that the design and implementation of e-democracy includes the same care that is used when re-counting paper ballots.
I know this is a joke and all, but as someone who is a gambles on sports online and would like to continue doing so, I can assure you that gamblers would rather have someone in the white house who doens't have a christian right stick up his ass about issues of vice.
Barney Frank is the only elected official I've found who talks reasonably about the future of gambling. (Namely, let people do what the hell they want with thier own money) (Funny, you'd think that should be a Republican stance... but it isn't.)
He got half (7 years) the recommended sentence (14 years, out of a mx of 20) , and will most likely be out on parole in 1/3 the time (approx 2 years).
So lesse, abusing gov't position, and 1/10 the total jail time (2 years out of 20). Sounds about right.
In the future, I would want to not be isolated from my friends in the Space Station.
Less than half the people in the US utilize their right to vote (38% voted in our last local election). Maybe they all think their votes are insignificant, maybe they did the math like you did? But the thing is, those people could change the course of any election in this country if they decided to vote.
It's not about a single vote, but about the millions of potential votes that don't get cast.
But you're right, this is a "pie in the sky" perspective. From an individual point of view, one or two votes does not make a difference in any election. But what about millions of millions of people ignoring their rights as Americans to vote? Imagine what history would be like if those people voted? I bet, historically, the world would be a different place all together.
-troy
What's to stop the State from taking your received paper ballot, and paying some data entry grunt $5/hour to re-enter your paper ballot as an electronic vote? If the rest of the system is electronic, election officials won't want to have a dual system in place. Perhaps absentee ballots in these new electronic systems will switch to some sort of secure website, telephone voting, etc to even cut out the data entry.
Either way, once part of the system is electronic, the whole process can be questioned.
The comparing disturbs me less than the fact that gambling comes out looking better.
-- this is not a
After reading your replies to other posters, it doesn't seem like the 'coin whip' or the 'light wand' would apply to voting machines. Regardless, those sound like exploits of the hardware and mechanics. There may be similar vulnurabilities with current (non-computerized) voting machines. I don't think this invalidates dmh20002's point that voting machines should at least be subject to the same scrutiny and review as slot machines.
You do understand there's a reason why they knowingly buy defective voting machines, don't you?
Yea, they're gubment officials and, therefore, totally incapable of making an intelligent purchase decision, no matter how obvious the decision is.
I guess it's easier to just throw away the taxpayers' money and claim another completed project and this snazzy new upgrade. Most of the voters will say "hey - a computer! Yay!" and think (because they're, technologically speaking, complete slobbering morons) that the computer must be secure and good at counting and all that crap. Never mind that the easiest way to trash accuracy and reliability is to increase complexity which is exactly what this does. There are flaws in paper ballot voting but, so far, there are WAY more problems with electronic voting.
Some of the stuff on Slashdot only riles geeks and really only ever will/should. But, frankly, the number of problems with e-Voting disclosed in stories that have hit Slashdot so far is unbelievable. It sickens me to think the government is so inept and/or crooked to continue with this and the public is so apathetic to not care. I'd also like to know why much of the major media is silent on this. It's all very disturbing. This is one of the few times I wear my tinfoil hat out of fear instead of just for looks...
Alito: A vote for Alito is a punch in the eye to put that bitch back in her place!
Consider second: the most powerful political position in the world was decided by a margin that is substantially smaller than the number of /. lurkers currently nodding and saying "Yeah, Voting SUXX0RS".
A single vote isn't much, but a handful of moderately motivated people rounding up their non-voting friends could have changed history."Every year or two a programmer or engineer goes to jail for exploiting slot machines."
It says a lot about wages for programmers.
And then they have to compete on price alone, not convenience. If they collude, they can agree on regions to cover and keep the prices inflated (artificially).
Now substitue the above with Republican and Democrat...
=Shreak
But the thing is, those people could change the course of any election in this country if they decided to vote.
[Freakin' Preview]
Only if they all voted the same way. If 40% of the people who voted, voted for one candidate, then chances are, 40% of the people who didn't vote also would have voted for that candidate. What I'm trying to say is, if you could get all those non-voters to vote, their votes would likely be split almost identically to the proportions of those who already vote. The end result would be the same.
Like woodworking? Build your own picture frames.
Here's something I was just wondering when I took cash out: Why can Diebold manufacture reliable cash machines that create a verifiable paper trails, but can't make voting machines to do the same? The machine gives me a receipt, and even when I ask it not to give me one, I can hear it printing something inside, related to the transaction.
Wait a minute. You're telling me that this guy had the balls to pull off a (never-before-done) win that happens *1 in 100 billion* times? And this guy *openly* worked for the government group that verified the validity of casino games?
That isn't greed at all. It's just stupid.
May we never see th
Ahh, if only math were so easy!
You have no proof that what you claim is true. How do you know that the non-voters today would be split 50/50 on all issues? That depends on many factors, not the least of which is the economic and financial conditions of most non-voters.
I would guess (and this is a guess so it's not worth much more than your blind conjecture) that many non-voters are low income to poor. Thus they might be more inclined to vote for democrats. If this were the case, not that many votes would have shoved Gore in the White House (I'm not saying this is good or bad, but that more democrat votes would have had this effect).
So before you go assuming that the non-voting public is split right down the middle, you might want to consider the multitude of factors that make up political differences in America.