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Electronic Voting in the News
heymarcel writes "After a negative review of the Diebold voting machines by the State Gaming Control Board, it looks like Nevada has gone with a competitor for the upcoming election. And Secretary of State Dean Heller is requiring paper receipts. According to the Associated Press story, Nevada is the first state to do so." There's another story about Nevada voting machines as well. zapf writes "It appears that the major e-Voting machine vendors have banded together to form the 'Election Technology Council.'" Reader SemperUbi writes: "Demand for a voter-verified audit trail is really gaining momentum these days. The Voter Verification Act, introduced yesterday by Senator Bob Graham (D-Florida), would require a voter-verified paper audit trail, ban the use of 'undisclosed' software and wireless communications for voting machines, and require mandatory surprise recounts -- all in time for the November 2004 election. Rep. Holt's HR2239 in the House requires much the same thing. Resistance to both bills may focus on the aggressive timetable, but the effort is worth it -- as Warren Slocum once said, democracy ain't cheap. Take that, Diebold!" And finally, a Maryland newspaper dredges up an internal Diebold email that recommends gouging Maryland if the state wants paper printouts for its Diebold voting system.
Geeks 1.
Diebold 0.
We did it.
What happened to the goons that were supposed to hush this under the rug? They failed?
What's so bad about being lazy? What if there was a war and nobody showed up?
Must be anonymous and verifiable...
the best Scheme(method) I have heard involves a unique key assigned to each vote and given to each voter... Each voter can then check up on that vote at any time to ensure that it is counted... Further, the list of votes could even be published and publicly browseable... such that each citizen or perhaps restricted to voters could identify and verify the vote.
Food not Bombs is a nice platitude but it breaks down when you notice that the Bombees are usually well fed
"The candidate you are about to choose is not supported by us and may cause instablity in your state: Are you sure you want to continue?"
I'm amazed that companies whose sole purpose is to provide secure, reliable data management (ATMs, and now voting machines) would be so incredibly stupid regarding security and integrity of systems. Diebold's attitudes toward their voting machines make me wonder about their ATMs, and if they are as insecure and poorly implemented as the voting machines were demonstrated to be.
This is one place where we should definitely push for open source software with peer review. Otherwise we'll have elections under control of a few people without any recourse.
Do not look into laser with remaining eye.
In the US, you get the best democracy money can buy!!!
Not to shamelessly promote EFF or anything, but they have some really good information on e-voting on their website. Here's a pre-made letter to your senator (for those living in the US) asking him/her for support in the fight for secure elections.
People say I'm crazy, I got diamonds on the soles of my shoes...
We used to vote with paper and a pencil. Then we got those computers to vote with, because it was cheaper and more efficent. Now those PC need to print your vote on a piece of paper.
In short we succeeded in replacing a cheap pencil by an expensive computer with totaly no advantages.
It is reported that the American people are very happy to have receiptless electronic voting machines. No dissenting reports can be found...
A state that needs total accountability for its main industry (gambling) requires the same in the voting process. Right now, in Florida where I live, there is no accountability for fraudulent voting practices so long as you vote for the party in power. I almost want to move to Vegas now.
Karma Whoring for Fun and Profit.
For a good source on the electronic voting issue in general and the push for Rep. HR2239 in particular, see Verified Voting.
E-Voting machines.
Big business hides the memos,
Congress wants answers...
Rule #1 -- Politics always trumps technology.
I had $500 on Diebold!
If everything goes right, its easier to have a machine count it- they are usually much better and less error prone than humans (thus, the improvement over pen/pencil).
But if they are just as prone to hacking as humans are ("count this in favor of John Steed or your family gets hurt!") , then there is no advantage.
It comes down to convenience vs. auditability. I don't trust people not to cheat. I want that auditability.
In the future, I would want to not be isolated from my friends in the Space Station.
Even if you do produce a paper receipt, most people won't even look at it. Even those who do look at it will probably just toss it in the trash bin on the way out. We're such a consumer culture, the average american tosses printed receipts several times a day.
Now if we printed out a decorative "Don't blame me, I voted for so-and-so" certifiate people could use to impress their friends (seeing as voting is for the most part a social event nowadays for a lot of people, so they can discuss politics at cocktail parties)...
====
Crudely Drawn Games
According to news reports, a hacker broke into the Ohio company's servers using an employee's ID number and copied a 1.8-gigabyte file of company announcements, software bulletins and internal e-mails dating back to January 1999.
I'm sure the subject has been discussed before, but what if the original hacker is caught? It's clear that the information "stolen" is of critical importance in the debate over the trustworthiness of Diebold, and electronic voting in general. But will that hacker be able to use the importance of his/her discovery as a mitigating factor in court?
It seems like a parallel situation would be this: My neighbor has a tall fence, topped with electrified razor wire, plastered with "NO TRESPASSING" signs, and a tiger prowling the grounds for added security. I suspect that he is planning to commit a crime on his property -- say I've heard he's planning to kill his wife for the insurance money. If I ignore the signs, scale the wall, avoid the tiger, and take pictures of his detailed murder plans (which he conveniently leaves on his dining room table), I may prevent Ms. Neighbor's untimely demise.
Am I guilty of trespassing? And even if I am, was it worth it? I'd say yes -- I'd commit a small crime to prevent a much larger one. Was the Diebold hacker thinking along those lines? Or were they just out for a walk with the tiger?
Stressed? Me? Of course not. Stress is what a rubber band feels before it breaks, silly.
Buying voting machines at $3,500 a pop is just plain silly. Why don't some of you code monkeys quickly gen up some software that will:
1. Interface a generic touch-screen monitor
2. Run on FreeDOS (linux is overkill for this one)
3. Allow the Supervisor of Elections to load a database with the election particulars
4. Allow any old cheap PC to read the election database and arbitrate an election via the touch-screen.
5. Print out a ballot which the voter then verifies and drops into a box for later counting by humans.
If all voting and counting are done at the precinct level, in public with witnesses, then it will be damn hard to cheat on the election. By the way, to those who cringe at the thought of counting all those votes, most precincts have no more than 3000 voters registered . . . and only half of them ever vote. The last Canadian Federal Election was counted in less than four hours. One other detail, give each voter a bar-coded tag when he checks in to vote. The tag is his ticket to drop one (1) ballot in the box.
These paper receipts are a poison placebo, that will keep us screwable at the voting booth. What are we supposed to do with a receipt? They merely give the false illusion of security, while papering over the same insecurity problems. We should just inspect the pretty-printed "receipt", and drop it into a slot if we like it enough to cast it as a ballot, before leaving the booth. Optical scanners can get an early sanctioned count at the close of polls, but the official record must be the actual cast ballots. In the current fraud climate, any candidate requesting a recount, by human hands, if necessary, should be accommodated, no questions asked.
The paper ballot should never leave the booth. Many voters might be intimidated by buyers/threats into bringing the receipt to a vote controller, even if there are easy ways to vote differently from a receipt. By settling for a paper receipt, we're handed the illusion that there's a paper trail, so the pressure's off. But the fraud will continue unabated.
--
make install -not war
for electronic voting. Sure, it's "modern" to have a computer-driven thing, but the old-fashioned way seems to have far less problems in theory. I'll grant that the implementations have sometimes been poor (I now have a new phrase 'hanging chads', which sounds rather unfortunate), but if you're going to spend this much money, why not simply make a good implementation of a normal system ?
:-)
...
:-)
In the UK (about 1/6th the population stuffed into 1/50th the area, so our voter-density is far higher, and hence counts will be higher) there has never been much of a problem. Sure, it takes 12 hours or so for the tallies to come in from all around the country, but how else to deploy the 'swingometer'
Simple system. Pencil. Anonymous paper. big dirty cross in the box for the candidate you want. Big separation between the candidates. 2 crosses or ambiguity means a spoiled vote (effectively "none of the above"). Count them all (done by volunteers) and you're done.
Sure, we get some recounts, but the system is so simple it's hard to justify flipping a vote from one candidate to another.
Just seems like it's a mountain out of a molehill
Simon. (dons flameproof suit
Physicists get Hadrons!
What is the actual benefit of voting electronically? Many countries use the tried and true method of voting using paper and pen -- just mark your X in the square next to the name. Volunteers tally up the votes at the end of the voting day and, within hours of closing, you get your results.
It's something everybody understands. The paper waste is minimal compared to the paper output of election-related things -- government paperwork, campaign signs, and flyers in your mailbox and everywhere else. You absolutely don't get hanging chads, broken levers, or some other malfunctioning convoluted contraption. Recounts and verifications are simple -- get those same volunteers to count 'em again.
Geek factor aside, where's the benefit of going electronic?
Want to improve your Karma? Instead of "Post Anonymously", try the "Post Humously" option.
Let's remember something else.. the state puts out the contract for these, and ACCEPTED them.. they were the ones responsible for spending the money wisely, NOT Diebold.
If the state failed to insist on a paper trail, how can you scream at Diebold for not providing one?
To code an OSS solution? Or someone at least funding an OSS voting system? Seems like there would be a lot of prestige, not to mention publicity. How about one of the colleges? It makes since to have big business in a lot of things, but not our ballot boxes.
Quack, quack.
For the last decade, when I vote, I fill in circles on a sheet - sort of like filling out the SATs. When I am done, I feed my ballot into some box/machine.
I don't know where or when the ballots are counted, but we have long had machines which could read these ballots. There is a paper trail. Every time an idiot plays the lottery, he also practices filling out a ballot (as the lottery tickets use a similar method).
Obviously, this must spend lots of money getting fancier systems which are no more acurate, and for now leave no paper trail.
Where law ends, tyranny begins -- William Pitt
I think the idea of the paper trail is mainly important so there is a record folks can understand-but with good encryption it shouldn't be necessary. What _is_ necessary is better means of monitoring low tech vote fraud-and that probably means cameras at the polling places-and _never_ allowing ballots or media out of the view of a camera--and good encryption on those records.
If people got to keep their receipt, it would do away with the secret ballot system that American democracy is founded on. Others posters have mentioned the practical consequences of eliminating the secret ballot system.
There's not much less interesting to a politician that a zillion copies of the same letter. It just plain smells.
Write your own! If you want, look at the EFF letter as a model. But don't just rephrase it. Use those parts which get your dander up more than the rest, and write your own words as to why it pisses you off so much.
Infuriate left and right
Especially since I haven't heard one remotely reasonable explanation why companies (like Diebold) that make a large number of electronic transaction devices (ATMs, food/entry access, etc.) all of which have/require paper trails and full auditability suddenly found themselves incapable of providing paper trails and auditability to something as important and potentially controversial as elections.
When this is actually fixed, maybe I'll be less cynical. Maybe.
"...is requiring paper receipts. According to the Associated Press story, Nevada is the first state to do so." Actually, AP says that Nevada is the first state requiring paper receipts "in time for the 2004 elections." Previously (in November) California's Secretary of State Kevin Shelley "ordered that all new machines purchased after 1 July 2005 must have the functionality, and existing machines must be retrofitted by 1 July 2006." (from the Register article, at http://www.theregister.co.uk/content/4/34142.html
"require mandatory surprise recounts"
Mandated surprises tend to lose that "surprising" quality.
In all matters of opinion, our adversaries are insane. -Oscar Wilde
You make a very valid point here. Robert Cringely makes this same point another way in I, Cringely:
I, Cringely linkage...
Seeing the story of Diebold wanting to gouge Maryland for adding printers & an audit trail to their voting systems makes me think that Diebold did not just forget to put in a printed audit trail, but they deliberately do not want one.
I'm all for your suggestion. REQUIRED open source software in voting machines, with an extensive audit trail, not just of the machines, but the servers, protocols, etc. Competent crypto should be used extensively to protect the systems' integrity.
Meldroc, Waster of Electrons
Holy Shit! My Rep actually did something both intelligent & useful. Time to send the "Good Boy" fax.
Jaysyn
There is a war going on for your mind.
I mean, seriously, with everything that has happened it is about time hackers not only whine about it, but actually steps up and creates a system that does it right. There's nobody more qualified to do it than a bunch of hackers anyway, and it should be an ideal field to show what can be created, and it should be a rock-solid business plan: You sell hardware and open code.
Start with a prototype that does what the proposed bills say, based on a free OS. Then move up to implement the best things out there (there was this crypto proposal here a couple of weeks ago), and then strip down the OS to the bare essentials needed for the operation. That way, conducting an exhaustive review of the complete source becomes managable.
Really, hackers should see this as a great business opportunity!
Employee of Inrupt, Project Release Manager and Community Manager for Solid
A receipt would prevent anonymous voting; it's what you'd provide to -- oh, Enron -- to prove that you voted for the "right" candidate. Then they pay you. (Maybe a meal, or by not firing you, or whatever.)
An audit trail is what's needed. And a paper, voter-verifiable copy of the ballot you just filled out is exactly the right thing there. But it must never leave the polling place,
Let's stop having slashdot advocate that the world make it even easier to sell out to corporations and other organizations that are corrupting the political process. Stop calling them "receipts" in the stories, and get editors who stop making such mistakes. Let's try to be up-level from the Faux News Network.
http://sourceforge.net/projects/free/
http://sourceforge.net/projects/vote/
http://sourceforge.net/projects/freevote/
http://sourceforge.net/projects/votesystem/
http://sourceforge.net/projects/kbvote/
"You want a toe? I can get you a toe by three o'clock... with nail polish."
like Dennis Kucinich, who really started the ball rolling on the Diebold situation by publishing links to the memos on his Congressional website.
You want democracy? Then vote for politicians who have made a career of fighting corporate power.....like Dennis Kucinich....
eat shiat and bark at the moon
Someone needs to start an OpenEVOTE on Sourceforge.
By the People, For the People.
In California the ACLU has been opposing a paper trail claiming it will negatively affect the experience of blind voters.
Well, personally I don't doubt that it would probably be a negative for blind voters.
Myself, I have a slight case of cerebral palsy and I'd certainly be upset that I had been inconvenienced at the polls, but I would at least have the fortitude to understand that I shouldn't put my one need above the needs of the many.
I can hardly see the justification behind supporting a fairly small proportion of the popilation while causing the rest of us to suffer.
Fix the system for the larger population and then work on it for the handicapped among us.
Caution: Contents under pressure
Ok, how about:
Article on Salon...
Harpers...
Bradenton Herald...
Harvard U. School of Gov't Reseach Paper...
One or these days, they're going to declare it treasonous to be so criminally ignorant. Wise up before then.
You're forgetting: the duty to produce a list of voters who should NOT be allowed to vote because of their ex-felon status was delegated to a private firm.
This firm was hired in 1997 as a result of Florida Statute Section 98.0975, which mandated the use of a private firm to provide the names of potentially ineligible voters who remained on the voter-registration rolls. They were hired by the Florida Director of Elections, Ethel Baxtor (a Democrate), before Harris was even in office.
This firm produced a list and gave it to Harris saying 'hey, this list is over populated and needs to be rechecked by your officials - who should know who really IS an ex-felon in your state.' KH said 'No problem, just make it as "comprehensive" as you can, we'll sort it out!' So, the overloaded list was handed to KH... what did she do? She turned around and distributed it to the counties and their polling places, as is, and claimed that it was carefully reviewed before being put in to use.
That's what she was required to do by Florida State Law. The legislature, not the Department of State, required county supervisors to remove the names of these persons from the voting rolls if they were unable to determine that this information was incorrect.
End result? Hundreds, if not thousands, of eligible voters were turned away at the polls.
The US Civil Rights Comission struggled to find 5 such people (and 4 of the people they did find were eventually allowed to vote).
By the way, most modern industrialized (and even some not so industrialized) nations have realized that blocking ex-felons from voting is just another way of disenfranchising a class of voter - akin to poll taxes and the like. Reconstructionist bullshit, to put it nicely.
This isn't isolated to just Florida. 9 states have a lifetime voting ban on convicted felons, and another 32 states have some sort of restriction on felons voting. This is hardly something that can be blamed on those evil republicans.
Article on Salon...
Guess you missed this correction.
Harpers...
Here is Katherine Harris' response to the garbage the Palast published.
You might also want to read the USCCR Report, which states in part:
The report does not find that the highest officials of the state conspired to disenfranchise voters. Moreover, even if it was foreseeable that certain actions by officials led to voter disenfranchisement, this alone does not mean that intentional discrimination occurred. Instead, the report concludes that officials ignored the mounting evidence of rising voter registration rates in communities..
The Dissenting Statement is also a worthwhile read on the subject.
What is it with America's love of voting machines? They don't use them virtually anywhere else.
Haven't you bloody Americans learnt the KISS system - Keep It Simple Stupid.
This means no bloody machines, period !!! If Australia (& also virtually the rest of the democratic world) can do hand counted paper ballots, then so can the US.
The only reason they use machine systems in the US is to cut costs, but the simple fact is they arn't as good (they invalidate more votes then hand counts do, they intimidate & confuse a good percentage of voters & they increase the odds of something fucking up (murphy's law)
Look at the mess, as well as the fucked up punch card machines you have counties with lever machines, other with optical machines, toggle switch machines, push button machines & also touch screen systems too. Then there are places like Oregon where all votes are of the mail in variety (which obviously discriminates against the homeless & disorginised). The simple fact is that huge numbers of people are intimidated with this complicated mess that's one of the reasons why most Americans don't vote & why the US has about the lowest voter turnout in the OECD.
Look at all the people that are intimidated by machines & even now still refuse to use Automatic Teller Machines, & there are plenty more people like that then just the illiterate, the elderly & immigrants that have poor 2nd language skills.
Its as if the bureaucracy in the US are on purposefully trying to discourage the masses from voting.
The only way to go is to Keep It Simple Stupid. Which means aiming at the lowest common denominator & designing a system that the stupidist simpleton can understand.
Which means 'X marks the spot' / 'tick the box' hand ballots.
That means a piece of paper with the candidates listed in a columne & another columne of boxes on the side with just one box next to each candidate.
Here are a couple of examples of 'KISS' paper ballots, the 1st one is an example of an Australian preferential ballot (any Americans who support 3rd parties should be demanding that the US system be made either preferential or proportional, otherwise no 3rd parties will ever make any long term headway), the 2nd ballot is an example of an 'tick the box' ballot.
As far as counting goes the US should be doing what Australia does (& most of the rest of the developed world does similar) & hold the vote on a Saturday (I wonder how many blue collar workers in the US chose not to vote because of the incoveniance of voting on a Tuesday), using local schools as voting centres. Then leasing indoor stadiums & convention centres nationwide which are to be used as counting centres for the thousands of temp workers employed to count the votes. Each counter also has a Labour & conservative coalition scrutineer looking over his/her shoulders. You see by voting on Saturday it means there's a huge availability of temp workers to count ballots (useally teachers & other public servants after extra dosh) & party volunteers to scrutineer counting, which wouldn't be available if voting occured for some bizarre reason on a Tuesday
Sure its labour intensive, but as any UN election observer will tell you this is the best system if you want high turnouts with low rates of invalid votes & a result that's as accurate as can be, by Monday morning at the latest (actually in the vast majority of elections we know who's won by about 8pm the same night).
Also all politicians must be removed from any decision making processes as far as the running of elections are concerned, etc.
Look at the way democratic afiliated local officials OKed the hand count iin Palm Beach & then the Republican Florida SoS blocked the hand count (& she was Bush's co-campaign manager, which makes it an even worse conflict of interest). That sort