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Experts Critique SERVE Internet Voting System
linuxwrangler writes "SFGate is reporting that a critique by four security experts claims that SERVE, a system being developed to allow US citizens overseas to vote via the Internet, is so vulnerable to attacks that it should be scrapped. The other six experts who examined the system declined to issue a report. Nevertheless, the Pentagon stands by the system and plans to use in in elections next month."
Internet voting. What's it all about? Is it good, or is it whack?
they have enuf problems as it is! dont start anything else until u are ready
It's a shame that the government and these companies can't get their act together, and build a simple, secure voting system that includes a paper trail. Why is that so complicated. I'm currently serving in the US Army in Germany, and an online voting system would truly make life easier. It's a soldiers job to defend democracy, so it's a very sacred thing for us to be able to take part in it. To be able to vote right over the internet without much hassle is something has taken far to long to develop.
Here is the no rego NYTimes link for the article mentioned in the report.
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*This is the cute bunny virus, please copy this into your sig so it can spread
We'll be counting hanging TCP connections?
I've heard the idea batted around that only those residents of the actual States should get the right to vote as they're vote has a direct bearing on the policies that will affect them, whereas expats are removed from such policies by living in foreign countries. This suggestion also leads to the debate about allowing illegal immigrants the right to vote.
I have been pwned because my
If the U.S. govt would ask a University Comp-Sci department (any University) to initiate an open-source secure electronic voting system, this problem would solve itself very rapidly.
Why do these things continue to go out to bid instead of being handled in academia where they should be?
The reason that it can be true that 1+1 > 2 is that very peculiar nonzero value of the + operator
...100% of respondents (in this case, all qualified) say the system sucks, and the people in power say "Nah, go with it!"
The optimistic interpretation: The pentagon is full of idiots.
The pessimistic interpretation: The pentagon is full of corrupt people.
My interpretation: The pentagon is full of corrupt idiots.
The same policies may affect them if the expat returns one day. Or it may affect family they left behind, in which case it would affect them even if they are not there themselves.
In Soviet Russia, in-person voting can't seem to get YOU right!
The thing is that it is not only EX-pats who would benefit from this system. It is anyone overseas - tourisits, people on bussiness etc..
"Now who ever said we need security. Hell, we can sue everybody that abuses the system. They'll leave their IP adresses anyway." I can't come up with another sensible reason why not to fix something insecure.
THIS IS THE INTERNET. PLEASE PICK UP YOUR SERIOUS BUSINESS SUIT AT THE FRONT COUNTER.
From the article:
"We've had things put in place that counteract the things they talked about."
Gee, thanks for being specific. I'm convinced.
2) Allow Voting
3) Announce result
Using this task order means that 2) is redundant and therefore has no impact on the result, therefore you do not need a secure system and can save money by purcasing a system off your friends
There are thousands of troops overseas who'd like to vote. Given that an election's outcome could easily determine the amount of time that these men and women remain overseas, I say their opinion matters...
I'm not sure why there's a push to do this electronically instead of the absentee ballots that troops have been using for years, but it's probably something to do with "possible impropriety" in how soldiers' overseas ballots were counted (or not) in 2000.
I'm not surprised how easily people are willing to believe the worst in things. Four out of six people said it was crap. The other six said nothing. That doesn't make it crap, it means that six people declined to comment. I don't know about in the U.S, but here in matters like these, you need a majority consensus to scap a concept.
--
The last digit of pi is four.
The techniques used in this report are EXACTLY what should be used in the overseas voting system!
Most Americans don't vote, so I think it's only fitting that the people who are most effected by American policy now have a chance to have their votes counted!
NarratorDan
"If you're not confused by quantum mechanics, you really don't understand it." - Niels Bohr
Ofcourse chinese boys who fancy themselfs the people of china`s cyberdefence force where dossing the single central server but nobody noticed (ofcourse the bofh`s notices but they didn`t tell) afterall nobody showed up for voting. (Or where all those sequential militairy ID`s coming from a sinle ip voting for the same candidate real votes? (Hey a good thing we store vote and voter next to eacht other in the database or we wouldn`t have known now would we?)
ofcourse adobe who everybody in this world trust has been sending more then just updated currency recognition through their update service, they also included an "voting assitance agent" that was dormant for a year.
Sure this is just what I think when I read this but I watch way to many movies! DoSing chinese and people wanting to rig elections don`t excist in real life now do they?
What is the Pentagon doing developing voting systems? As a major recipient of government money, with no funding guarantees, wouldn't it have a significant vested interest in election results?
Vote by absentee ballot this year. I reckon the paper trail might be necessary (again).
Vonnegut: "What is the purpose of life? To be the eyes, ears, and conscience of the Creator of the Universe, you fool."
To see a world in a grain of sand, and then to step back and see the beach where the sand lies
... not working right when 700,000 Privates with the last name of Chen vote for the Communist party candidate. Who needs a Manchurian Candidate when you can just elect Chairman Jia Qinglin himself? :-P
~UP
Eat the Path.
Err... What does the Pentagon have to with the development of voting systems?
Last time i read a newspapaer, i understood the U.S was approaching being a military police state, i didn't resalise it already was one.
Democracy is dead.
Well, I vote. Every election since 1984. I don't care what the rest of the voters do. That's their problem. The laws say for me it's one person, one vote. I vote! Maybe not the group I wanted doesn't win after the counts come in, but that's life. It will be very long before another republican gets my vote. He ignores my wishes after I voted for him, so he get's no more votes from me.
Considering the US military presence in so many countries (I think 145 at last count) whats wrong with a few polite soldiers, a few witnesses, and a paper trail.
Lightning fast counting with no paper trail seems too much like an adaptable magic wand to say whatever Bush wants it to say.
ls
More like every election until 1984, am i rite?
Ahh yes, I see what's going on here..
Create an insecure system which is vulnerable to hacking / errors, and you have a perfect way to keep Bush in office. Bush losing by a small amount in Florida again? No problem, someone at the Pentagon can just fiddle that in a moment and voila! Bush has won! The 'secure' system has no errors, it must be true!
That is too funny!
I've also voted in every election since I turned 18. I was barely eleven in 1984, so it's not as many votes as you have made. However, the simple fact is less that 40% of Americans vote. What does that say about American democracy? Answer: Most Americans don't care enough to vote. There are too many reasons for me to count.
Mr. (Miss||Mrs.) AC, my hat is off to you, and here is a toast, "may this election signal the turning point in American political apathy."
NarratorDan
Yea, I responded to an AC.
"If you're not confused by quantum mechanics, you really don't understand it." - Niels Bohr
I'm so surprised to see everyone piling on the paper trail red herring. Why should SERVE be held to an entirely different standard than the other voting systems currently in place? Last time I voted it was with a fancy schmancy touchscreen. Was there a "voter-verifiable" paper trail? Nope.
I guess it's flattering to be greeted by your own words when you click on a story, but it doesn't change the fact that this person, Mork29, completely plagiarized what I wrote a few months back on another Linux security certification story
...
I wish I could prove this, but I can't list any comments beyond my last 24. Honestly, why would I accuse someone I don't know of plagiarism if it weren't true?
Shame on you, Keith Yelnick
things they talked about -> not supporting the system
things put in place -> government assassins
Sounds pretty clear to me.
...they will have the right to vote. No taxation without representation.
People say I'm crazy, I got diamonds on the soles of my shoes...
...for people to realize this is a bad idea?
"And the winner is, g_bush@hotmail.com with ten billion, one hundred million, one hundred and eleven thousand, and one, votes."
As much as it hurts a patronizing academe like yourself to hear this, the truth is that the insecurity of the Internet is the weak link here, not the developers.
SFGate is reporting that a critique by four neo-conservative experts claims that the voting system, a system developed to allow US citizens to express their opinion, is so vulnerable to attacks that it should be scrapped
I guess they won't stop pushing these lousy systems until Mickey Mouse gets elected president. So let's all help them along, why don't we?
Does everything include nothing?
I've worked overseas, both in and out of the military. In both cases, I had to pay state income tax to my legal state of residence, not to mention federal income tax and social security tax. If they are going to tax me, even when I am living on the other side of the world, they damn well better allow me to vote.
Mea navis aericumbens anguillis abundat
Sadly, the man is 1337_Aragorn_2k4
In some parts of the country it can take up to 10 years for a legal immigrant to progress from visa to green card, and then there's a further 5 year wait before he can apply for citizenship
Notice that the article only talks about using Internet voting as an alternative to absentee voting for citizens abroad and only in U.S. government agencies where secure Internet-enables voting stations can be set up. This is good Internet voting on a large scale will never take place due to logistical [for lack of a better word] rather than technical reasons. Electoral law requires that your vote be made in a manner that is free from influence (intimidation or vote buying). This is controlled by ensuring that voting goes on in select locations where campaigning is not permitted. Even campaign posters within sight of a voting station must be taken down. With Internet voting, essentially anyplace could be a voting station. I could set up a little voting party for my friends and let them vote on my computer. Don't mind that there is paraphernalia all around for my candidate, or that I'm looking over your shoulder. After the party, laptop and cell in hand, I could help all the little old ladies in my neighborhood vote too.
forgotten and now only gets airtime when giving endorsements to screaming, wild-eyed New Englanders. But don't you think it's about time for you to get over it ? Besides, you'd better start saving up that pubescent energy of yours for [chuckle] Hillary's campaign! God knows she'll need it...
I seem to recall that at least one state (Nevada?) does this and "NOTA" has on occasion 'won' in state-wide races.
Man... I don't see how you concentrate with that incessant beating of their rotors outside the window of your bedroom cum Faraday cage. It's like some hideous airborne Telltale Heart. Louder louder LOUDER! Tear up the planks!
Allowing illegal immigrants to vote is a good idea. They're covered by the constitution, yet have no voice when it comes to the law.
If all men are truly created equal, they must have the vote.
> I've heard the idea batted around that only those
> residents of the actual States should get the
> right to vote as they're vote has a direct bearing
> on the policies that will affect them, whereas
> expats are removed from such policies by living in
> foreign countries.
Yeah, I've heard lots of ignorant and unfair ideas batted around in my time, too...
We're just as American as you are, thank you very much. And it's not like we're unaffected by US Government policy... For example -- you think Americans living abroad are exempt from paying taxes? If the US declared war on Australia tomorrow (granted, that's an unlikely event, but nevertheless), do you think the Aussie would just let me hop the next flight out of Brisbane Internaitonal back to LA? Hell, no -- I'd be interned as an enemy national.
In addition, living abroad gives us a unique advantage in seeing just how US foreign policy affects other countries and US relations with them.
> This suggestion also leads to the debate about
> allowing illegal immigrants the right to vote.
Apples and oranges. And what, pray tell, is there to "debate"? Answer: Zero. Nada. Zilch.
If immigrants can qualify for US citizenship, then they get to vote in US elections. Non-citizens are not allowed to vote. I think that's pretty easy to understand.
As for me, I was born and raised in the USA of native-born American parents; my American ancestors fought in the Revolution, the Civil War, and both World Wars; I hold a US passport; I pay US taxes. I am definitely a US citizen, and I definitely am enitled to vote in US elections.
Some people obviously have very fucked up ideas about what "citizen" means and no clue as to what it's like to be considered a foreigner.
Il n'y a pas de Planet B.
If the D.C. sellouts on either side of the aisle even dream of rewarding lawbreakers with the precious right to vote in the USA, they'd better wake up and apologize.
It's spot-on true...
Or, maybe it's the time has come for the world's first open source President of the United States. If he starts acting like a loon, just dpkg-reconfigure..
Ahh.
-el
Anonymous Cowards have no testicles and should be ignored. Why are you still reading this??
..and I'll be your next President!
*evil laughter*
Lisp is the Tengwar of programming languages.
I have been following this SERVE project for over six months. I don't know where the authors of these various newswire stories are getting their information, but AFAIK this system is still in development/testing and there are absolutely no plans for it to go live in February 2004.
None of the electronic voting systems that have been approved for use by the federal government are secure. Doesn't that tell you anything? Can't you take the hint?
Government doesn't want security, reliability, or verifiability from voting machines. It wants the ability to control the results. Everyone involved wants to control the results, because it's the only way to guarantee that everyone involved gets to keep their job!
A voting machine that the government can (whether directly or indirectly) control is one that will remove from the people what little power they have left over the government. To the government, this is a good thing -- it desires power above all else. Most people in power do. And there's no form of government with more power over the people than fascism.
Make no mistake, a fascist form of government is what the current government wants. With controllable voting machines, the government can achieve this while simultaneously making itself appear to be subject to the will of the people. In fact, I doubt there's really any other good way to achieve that.
Use 'slashdot stuff' in the subject line in any email you send me if you want to get past the spam filter.
You think he wants the 120,000 soldiers in Iraq voting when they know a Democrat would likely bring them home to their loved ones?
I won't be suprised if Bush wins again with as little as +0.0001% votes in the 2004 elections.
I think that it might be possible, but not using cookies, of all things, and via SSL, which we all know is not foolproof (ie: ironclad), there might be a way for us to vote in the "e" fashion.
Now, I'd like to propose that the vote be moved ahead to happen every Month or Week, so that our approval ratings apply with some weight.
Put a revolving door on the Presidency - like it's that important that we keep an eye on who has control.
I know that's unrealistic, considering the expense involved, but wouldn't that be cool? (I'm the prez - I fukk up for a week, next month I'm outta here because of it.)
Kinda would put reality back in the driver's seat, wouldn't it? My twenty cents, (I'm splurging here - feeling generous, and I care about this shit)
db
Cig:
ôô
to improve, Sparky? Had you bothered to actually read the article, you'd know that SERVE is not intended to replace all of the various voting systems used throughout the US of A. It is a specialized system that's being tested as a possible way to prevent disenfranchisement of a very specific subset of the voting population: Uniformed Services members, their dependents, and U.S. citizens living overseas. Booyakasha!
In Switzerland, we have tested from some years now an online voting system (more than 4 years ago already). I can not assure that there is an absolute security but until today, it appears no problem at all. The last census in 2000 was on Internet and it was a great success, people were very happy and have for a lot of people, using the Internet way instead the paper.
Switzerland is in Europe the most developed country in Internet with more than 70% of people using Internet.
There is a LOT of security check (for me a little too much hehe), at least three codes on each page, but for what I've studied the system, it appears very good, strong and evolved.
Now it is used for some small votes until that it will be absolutely validated. After that, we will have the possibility to use it for national vote.
Perhaps you should have test SERVE on some small votes before to use it for a national election. From other countries, people were looking the last US election with a suspicious mind, it would not be very good that one time again USA will have huge problems with that!
But Internet is for sure the voting machine of the future !
Not only that, but Americans living abroad are likely to return to the US. Lots of people live abroad for short periods of time and come back. Businesses do this, universities do this. And, of course, the military does this all the time.
In my case, I'm out of the country for 2.5 years, and there are three elections (02 primary, 02 general, 04 primary). Just because I'm out of the country for a couple of years doesn't mean that I'm not going to be affected by the outcome of these elections when I come back.
-esme
For example -- you think Americans living abroad are exempt from paying taxes? Well, actually they are if they make less than $70,000 and the income is not from the US government. http://www.familyhaven.com/careers/travelcareers/t axesabroad.html
Especially since the current administration is setting precedents that American citizens can be prosecuted under American law when they return to an American jurisdiction for legal acts performed while in another country.
Yes, I know, they're doing it "for the children," but it's still a disquiting state of affairs. There's nothing to prevent them, once the principle is accepted, from extending this to press drug charges against some guy who smoked a joint while he was in Holland.
KFG
I swear, this seems like an onion article or a monty python sketch.
"We've had things put in place that counteract the things they talked about."
Yeah, those things that counteract things are just great. You can xyzzyfy the floobargs to make them do really cool things too.
There is no way to verify that the vote recorded inside the system is the same as the one cast by the voter.
Sounds like the wheel of fortune of election systems. Sadly, the regular electronic election systems (diebold anyone?) are no better. Without a paper trail it's impossible to guarantee accuracy in any way. Which is why I'll predict now that Bush is going to win the next presidential elections. Even if his cabinet has zero involvement with nudging the vote, the republican control over all currently deployed electronic election systems pretty much assures the next elections will not be fairly held. If it's possible to mess with a voting system, someone will.
A real solution would be to put the various central government jobs, congresscritter, senator up to president on eBay and auction them off. eBay is reasonably secure and at least we are taking a fair view of the political system. The money raised goes towards the next year's budget.
First off, before lots of people visit our site, could one or two of you please, PLEASE mirror our site as we have very limited bandwidth (8GB per month).
I have just put up the beginnings of an Australian political party based largely online, and one of the central tenets is to have members be able to directly influence policy creation and modification by submitting secure, anonymous-yet-verifiable votes. In the age of near ubiquitous internet access I see this as the most logical progession of true democracy.
Of course, implementing it securely so that the system is free of possible coercion by design is very difficult, and one I am not able to create. I have set up the rules for our member voting in our party's constitution (please mirror this if you can) but the technical operation doesn't exist yet. We aim to use only open source software for all our needs (and currently do) so one of the ultimate aims is not only to have this for ourselves, but to give it all away freely to anyone else who wishes to begin their own party (that includes our website setup, constitution, and anything else). In my more far out visions I see our party (called Net Effect) having not only intra-country branches, but clones of itself in OTHER countries, with the only requirement being that the ideals remain the same.
So, if anyone thinks they can assist us in writing an open source, verifiable client for cross platform e-voting (for party issues, not actual federal/state elections) please contact us via our forum which can be accessed from our website:
www.neteffect.org.au
Many thanks in advance, and again, please mirror us if you can so we don't end up killing our very limited bandwidth! Could slashdot viewers please use any mirrors that emerge if possible before using our URL? Thankyou.
Visceral Psyche Films
So, is it which culture you beleive in, or which country you pay taxes to?
The problem is not the absence of a paper trail but the fact that the internet cannot yet compete with paper when it comes to security, verification with anonymity, resistance to undetected alteration, and just plain user confidence. Friends, we should be moving away from paper. But given the current state of the internet, how can we? We should not be condemning SERVE because it doesn't use paper. We should be condemning the internet because it isn't as good as paper. And working to fix these problems.
Note that this is not a computer security problem. Even if the voter's identity is established to a certainty, it doesn't ensure the voter is not being coerced.
There is simply no substitute for casting your vote in a manner that ensures your choice is unknown to those who might wish to coerce you. The only viable method for doing that is to have your privacy ensured in a public polling place, by poll watchers.
Some of us would say they should be deported. We have a high enough unemployment rate that we don't need to be importing workers. The country is full, find another to live in or go back to your home country. Try becoming a Japanese citizen sometime if you're not born there.
Lightning fast counting with no paper trail seems too much like an adaptable magic wand to say whatever Bush wants it to say.
Why Bush?
Those dead people in Chicago, the inner city residents who get bussed from polling place to polling place, and those who aren't, er, technically citizens, weren't voting Republican last time I checked.
Does you're side really want to start talking about voting fraud (as opposed to metaphysical "voter intent" and "hanging chads")?
Oh, well, you see, this system is only intended for use with soldiers away from home so that they might participate in delights of democracy, (other than lavishing it upon the freedom-starved denizens of this world, that is).
Since it's for the soldiers, then it only makes sense that, um, the military provide the system. Or something like that. .
See? It all makes sense! Every baby-step towards outright fascism is always easily rationalized.
Now please return to your trench and stop asking questions.
-FL
Simple and secure online banking is commonplace - but there is no anonyminity involved.
Simple and anonymous vote counting is easy - but if you want to make it secure you have a whole extra set of problems
The electoral college system is democratic. If the electoral college had turned out to be the independent, deliberative body that the Framers envisioned, that might not have been the case, but in reality it is nothing more than an administrative way of conveying the results of the popular election in each state.
The electoral college system is democratic , but combined with state laws providing that the winner in that state gets all of the electoral votes, it weights the votes in each state differently. Voters in heavily Democratic or Republican states are virtually powerless, while voters in swing states like Florida wield enormous influence.
We will never know if Gore would have won the presidency on the popular vote, because a popular-vote election would have been fought in a completely different manner, and maybe even with different candidates. To assume that the results of a popular-vote election would have been the same as those of the real (electoral-college based) election is the height of folly.
Is the lesson of Florida - whose electoral votes were in such close contention that it went all the way to the Supreme Court - really this lost on people? I've seen the numbers as low as 500 votes, and as high as 2,000, depending on who sponsored the recount. Florida has more than 16 million residents. If 5,000 more of them had bothered to show up and vote, things might have been much different today. (I'm not saying we'd have a different president, just that there would have been less contention, and less resentment.)
My father has never voted in his life, and says he never will unless the electoral system is replaced by the popular vote. It's a shame, really. How many hundreds of thousands of people think that way, and could sway an election if they actually went and voted instead of standing around saying "fuck it, I don't think this is fair?" Presuming my father loathes Bush, he's wasting a vote by not going and voting for a challenger. Presuming he loves Bush, he's wasting a vote by not going and supporting him. Either way, by not voting, he's basically casting a de-facto vote for whichever candidate wins.
Your comment reminds me of my father, except instead of "this isn't fair," it's "they all suck." I'm sorry, but the fact is that "None of the Above" can't run this country. 363 days from now, on January 20 2005, one of {Bush, Dean, Kerry, Edwards, Clark [, a few longshots]} will be running this country. They might all suck, but one of them has to suck the least in your opinion. One of them disgusts you less than any of the others, even if he's the biggest longshot. Go vote for that person. If you can't be bothered with the primaries, at least go to the polls in November and vote for "the lesser of all evils." It's your only chance that you won't get stuck with the candidate who sucks harder.
There are a lot of people who hate George W. Bush, and are quick to criticize, but when you ask who they voted for, they tell you they didn't vote. If you don't vote, you forfeit the right to complain about your President.
Vote, and be glad that we still have the right to do so. It's one of the most important things you'll ever do.
"BSD: Free as in speech. Linux: Free as in beer. Windows 10: Free as in herpes." --Man On Pink Corner in #52607549.
So how does a population regain control of a fascist government? I'm open to suggestions. --You know, there's a clock ticking here. The German intelligencia spent a lot of ink complaining loudly about the Nazis even as they rose to power. Didn't do much good. In fact, I believe it got a number of people bundled off to prison camps on charges of sedition. Clock's ticking folks. It's not going to get better on its own. This next election is going to be fraudulent.
-FL --(Hm. Funny. I don't recall the neighbors owning a white van. .
It is wrong to compare the SERVE system to the traditional elementary school polling place paradigm with enclosed booths, minders, etc. You have to compare it to the system it's intended to replace/augment: the current overseas absentee ballot system, which is also subject to coercion.
Just curious.
there's no place like ~
Maybe the reason they want it to be secure is to entrap those people who might want to influence the elections from abroad. Make a system look easy to manipulate and you'll find that people will try and manipulate it. I shudder to think how much counter-surveillance goes on, with the aid of these "unsafe" systems.
of course... I could just be paranoid. ;)
click-clack, front and back. I'm not moving this car otherwise.
That's a valid point, but there has been a lot of talk about using systems like SERVE for domestic voting, so I think the issue of coercion needs to be raised.
It also suggests that the SERVE system is not attacking the problem of voting by deployed service members in a manner that solves the real underlying issues.
Electronic voting could be had today.
The fact is-- a simple, secure, electronic voting system which includes an electronic signature and paper trail would not be too hard to put together. The hard parts are already built.
I would design a system to have the following components:
1: Kerberos V authentication
2: Digital signatures on database entries (this is probably the hardest part because you have to figure out how to generate a signature based on many fields, though a simple field1 || field2 || field3, etc. should work. Such a signature should include a timestamp which should not be updateable in subsequent operations.
3: Paper ballots that would include a number of features, such as electronically readible barcodes for voting and human readible printouts.
4: Source code for all components would be publically released the day after the election results were finalized, with an appeals process for determining what to do if a critical flaw is found.
Conversely, one could release the source code months or years before and ensure that experts could thorougly review it before it is put into use.
Either of these strategies would provide a very small attack window for someone wishing to exploit the system.
5: Tallying would be handled in a certain manner as well. This would mean that all results would be tallied in the database in order to produce a preliminary result. Then the following process would be used to help eliminate fraud:
1: All bar code readers would be calibrated with cards to ensure that they were reading all names correctly.
2: A random sampling of ballots (maybe 10%) would be rescanned and the display would be checked against the database and the printed version. This sampling is simply done to detect attempts at fraud. If fraud is suspected, a full and audited recount could be orchestrated.
These systems would be confined to voting areas (perhaps in embassies, etc.) and once this process was complete, the ballots would be sent back to the US, and the data electronically shipped.
You might note that this is not what they are talking about doing. That is because they want a simple, secure voting system which works over the internet with people using their own computers. This is fundamentally insecure and this deficit cannot be remedied without a really radical solution, such as embedding smart cards in passports, which could be used to sign transmissions..... Even then, smartcards are easily damaged, so this won't work either.
However, the solution I have outlined would reduce the labor involved in counting ballots to a small fraction of what it currently is, perhaps making it more accessible to expats.
LedgerSMB: Open source Accounting/ERP
I hate to ask, but did anyone besides me read the actual report? These comments were based on attending (sitting) through two 3 day meetings, not even noting if the authors actually bothered to ask any questions or just sat through the powerpoints. Does anyone think these were the only ones there? Even the authors acknowledge they were not.
.org, put out a press release and say anything to get your 15 minutes of fame. Maybe my age has soured me but I smell trolling for a morning news segment.
The criticisms basically fall down on "computers are broke and can be exploited" - ain't that a newsflash. They fail to note that the system is being deployed in physically secure areas over a segment of the internet that is not accessible from non-military servers, the IP is not even available on standard DNS servers.
It is worth noting that they spent much space at the end telling the media how to get hold of them for interviews, is OPRAH listening?
Seriously, these are the days when you can register anyone as a
Incidently, for those wondering what interest the Pentagon has in elections, just ask all the military personnel stationed out of port and overseas that had their votes tossed out by party challenges in the 2000 elections. If they HAD been counted then the Supremem Court wouldn't have been involved in that year. Then again, maybe that's what really scares people about this whole idea.
It doesn't matter what you wrap your emotions around, Reality is a brick wall specifically designed to scramble eggs
The problems with the system seem to all stem from the risks of tampering on the client side.
People are worried that a worm or deliberate tampering could change the vote of the user without their knowing. If a Knoppix CD was sent to each person who wanted to vote overseas this would guarantee that whatever PC they are working on would be clean. You could configure up a nice script to pop-up a box with some simple questions after the OS loads like Proxy settings for cyber cafes, etc.
Does you're side really want to start talking about voting fraud (as opposed to metaphysical "voter intent" and "hanging chads")?
As a matter of fact, YES. Very much so. This is not a Republican issue, or a Democratic issue, or Libertarian or Green or Constitutional or any other party issue. This is an American issue, one which crosses party boundaries and loyalties. It is about the country, not a party, whatever party that may be. The goal is a strong democracy, above and beyond pointing fingers at which party is more guilty.
ANYONE who engages in vote fraud is reprehensible. Saying "Yeah? Well they did it, too!" is no excuse, and, by dividing people into us-versus-them camps, does nothing to advance democracy.
Even if this causes political damage to my party of choice -- and I am a Democrat -- I am willing to accept that if it promotes democracy throughout the land. I will NOT put party loyalty above this most fundamental principle, and I object strenuously to those who do.
Liberty. Justice. Democracy. They're worth fighting for.
Unfortunately, with remote technology the only way to have results that are verifyable as correct is to remove anonymity from voting. Currently when you roll into your local voting precinct they record your info with a pen and paper and let you have at voting. It's irrelevant to track who you vote for because all that matters is person A showed up and voted, and as long as the number of people matches the number of ballots all is good.
With e-voting, it becomes necessary to know specifically who voted AND who they voted for and print them some sort of reciept for verification. The reason is that a computer system obfuscates accountability. Someone could attempt to screw with the results and blame it on a glitch in the system. At least with a hard copy paper trail for each voter things would be verifyable...with leads to the question: Why not do it the old fasioned way? Fill out an absentee ballot and mail it home.
Does have recent residency/visiting requirements. If you have been out of the country for X years without visiting, you don't get to vote. After all, I might know who the prime minister is (nice lady - chatted to her once) but I would not know who the local MP is in the area I lived in so many years ago.
You've obviously not read Nietzsche, or understood him. The strong get to define moral norms, thus socially might becomes right. The Genealogy of Morals is his history of this happenning repeatedly in the past. However, he in fact goads the reader to defining their values and fighting for them. A society that is strong, to his mind, is one that suffers repeated dissent, and adapts.
Yes, Nietzsche hates Christianity and socialism, but that's because he doesn't want people to obey. That might becomes right is why one has to defend and assert one's own values, not yield to another's!
Wikileaks, no DNS
Please leave beliefs for religious nuts. And dont forget taxation without representation.
Vote for new mod!!! Score:-2,Imbecile
> So, is it which culture you beleive in, or which country you pay taxes to?
That's irrelevant. I'm a US citizen with the rights, responsibilities, and liabilities that go along with being one.
Il n'y a pas de Planet B.
What does this imply for business applications over the Internet? Perhaps simple commercial transfers do not require the same level of security and reliability as voting does, but would a company be wise to use the Internet to transfer mission-critical information? Of course, critical business transfers have the advantage of not needing anonymity, but there are other weaknesses in the Internet that allow subversion of critical communication.
Taking stuff apart since 1969 (TM)
Here one way of looking at the problem:
You don't vote in the election. You tell your computer how you want to vote and the computer votes for you.
So: should you trust your computer?
Smart people don't trust something that flexible and software driven.
I think a reasonably secure single purpose system could be devised. This would in effect be a personal voting machine. However it would have the same drawback that all voting machines have: the needs of democracy aren't factored into the design requirements, only the convenience of officials.
Post may contain irony: discontinue use if experiencing mood swings, nausea or elevated blood pressure.
> As for me, I was born and raised in the USA of native-born American parents
...[have]... no clue as to what it's like to be considered a foreigner.
I presume you are an Indian.
> We're just as American as you are, thank you very much.
Even if you spent 10 years out of the country and have no plans to go back? What about 6 years? 4 years?
> Non-citizens are not allowed to vote.
See the comment above. I have lived in this country for 10 years. I have been a permanent resident all this time. In my particular case I am not applying for citizenship for exact reason that it allows me not to vote and skip jury duty, but I am not sure that another person similar to me shouldn't be able to vote. I have seen foreign citizens living half their lives in the USA with a foreign passport for completely valid reasons. Which country should they vote in? The one they left years ago or the one they lived in for decades? Similar argument goes for illigal immigrants, although in that case I am completely against any right given to them.
> Some people obviously
And some do.
Fine, here's the non-tinfoil-hat version of my comment.
My point is that the system we have been using, called mailing in paper ballots, works fine. The electorate even recognizes the extra difficulty in receiving votes from military personnel out of the counry, and bends over backwards to make sure the votes are counted.
I said "technically" should not have been counted. I don't think it would be fair or proper, (though technically it would be correct) to dismiss their votes because the mail took an extra day to get here from Guam or whatever.
Funneling all the votes through some black box at the Pentagon seems entirely un-Democratic. There is no need for the middleman, and there's certainly the possibility for impropriety when your employer is collectig your votes, then handing them over to the poll workers. And since it's electronic data, tampering will be that much easier.
But I guess you're not worried about that. The Pentagon asserts the system is secure, end of story, right?
Do you want fair elections or do you want to see your candidate of choice elected, regardless of what America's voters want?
Google turns up one result for an effort in Australia, but I can't find any cost for the system, or a download link. There's also this post about a Python project, which appears to be talking about The Open Voting Consortium, which has a SourceForge project page.
So it seems that there are movements happening, but these don't seem to be getting anywhere quickly. Does anyone know of any other projects?
- The Amazina Llama
We've had the technology available for years - instead of voting over PC why not vote over POTS? Display printable instructions just in case someone's using a dialup Internet connection and have them dial a toll-free number and touch-tone their choices to the gummint.
This doesn't need to be rocket science, honest ;-)
we see things not as as they are, but as we are.
-- anais nin
Does it strike anybody as odd that the Pentagon is developing a voting system???
I understand this is intended for overseas servicemen, but it's also for citizens abroad.
Surely this would fall under some other department like maybe, the Department of State?
Sheesh, you Americans...
Vs lbh pna ernq guvf, ybt bss abj. Tb bhgfvqr. Syl n xvgr.
Glen Flood, a spokesman for the SERVE project, said that while the input from the four-member panel is "welcome," it represents only a minority view. Six other members of the original 10-member panel assigned to study SERVE haven't raised any security objections, he said.
"This group is really only a small faction of the peer review group," Flood said.
What a profoundly ignorant statement. It doesn't matter how many are saying something, it's what they say that is important.
What he really meant was, "we bought off the other six."
Folks, everyone keeps focusing on technology and that is not the real problem. Our systems ensures that you can vote in secret and that no one will know how you voted. Your boss can tell you to vote for John Kerry, but you can go to the polls, vote for Clark, and then tell your boss you definitely voted for Kerry. He can't ever find out.
With Internet voting, your boss can say, "Vote into my office and vote for John Kerry". Sure it may be illegal, etc, but will you risk your job to report the boss? Maybe she isn't explicit. Maybe she sayd , "Well, if CLark gets elected, I'll have to start laying folks off. Where as with Kerry, jobs are secure". With the boss lookng over your shoulder, what do you do?
The polling place and its security and anonimity are essential elements of secret balloting!
The problem is that the only time that the Electrol College system provides his benefit is when things are really close. (If it's a landslide, no one bothers with recounts or other arguments.) As a result, we can just about be assured of an especially bitter fight with divisive politics. For the next four years both sides will continue to argue that they deserve the Presidency and that the other side is illegitiment. There is a very real risk of this attempt to simplify the problem simply making tempers hotter and the bitterness deeper.
On top of that, the Electoral College leads to strategies that have nothing to do with serving voters and everything to do with optimizing game theory. If you live in a strongly leaning state, it's likely that neither candidate will spend much time there. The likely winner knows he has you in the bag and won't bother and the likely loser won't waste time better spent on states with closer races. While there are isolated exceptions (I believe a big part of the Bush strategy in 2000 was to fight hard for a handful states generally thought to be untouchable), in general it holds true (even for Bush in 2000). Given a more representative system (perhaps the electoral college, but requiring them to vote proportionally to popular vote in the state) candidates would have incentive to visit are wider ranging area (primarily those with lots of swing voters).
The electoral collge, as it stands today, is more of a problem than a benefit. The simple shift to proportional voting by the collage would help, but everyone has to do it at once. (I believe one or two states do it now, but the effect is that they're almost entirely ignored; it's a better investment to go for a whole state than to fight over one or two electoral college members).
Search 2010 Gen Con events
"Nevertheless, the Pentagon stands by the system and plans to use in in elections next month."
what is this junk? it's OUR election. not the pentagon's. they can't just ramrod this kind of thing. this is SO out of their domain, it's not even funny. who's taking this to the courts?
the real way to make a security-prone election software stink (as it should) would be to push 120 million votes for sadam hussein! ousted by bush, only to replace him. =)
"Forgive us our trespasses, as we forgive those who trespass against us." -Jesus Christ The Lord's Prayer
Time to take that old copy of Dianetics out of mothballs, I guess. Here I've been ignoring it because scientologists say it's the greatest thing since sliced hobo when I really should have been looking beyond that.
Seriously, dude. What did you expect the guy to say? "Um, I guess we'll close the SERVE project down because a minority of our experts had some problems with it"?
Sheesh, next you'll be telling me that those 9 out of 10 dentists who recommend Trident are full of shit and we should really be listening to the one dissenting prankster who recommends Bubblicious to his patients who chew gum!
2004 election turnouts by state...
...In a shock result South Korea managed a 9875% turnout!
Florida: 43%
Texas: 51%...
There are two states who divide up electors that way. If I may so express it:
"Nebraska and Maine
Are the only two states
Where electors divide
In proportional rates
With more weight to large shares
And less weight to small.
The forty-eight others
Are winner-takes-all."
Both states give two electors to the party who go the most votes, and then divide the others according to the shares they won in the election. Neither state is really big enough for this to make a difference, though. Here's some more information about it.
GROGGS: alive and well and living in
> I presume you are an Indian.
None of my ancestors are from India (that I know of).
My ancestry is mostly Anglo-Scotch-Irish. I do have some Native American ancestry (if that's what you're referring to, I said "native-born", not "Native American", but yes, some of my ancestors were Original Americans -- Cherokee, Blackfoot, and Pomunkee, to be exact), and one known African-American ancestor. Not that any of that matters. I don't consider myself any more or less American than someone whose last name is Tsang or Fernandez or Kaminski.
Oh, and before you or anybody else tries to lay a guilt trip on me concerning the fact that some of my ancestors drove other ancestors of mine off their land, or even owned some of them, don't bother -- I had nothing to do with that, I don't practice slavery, genocide, or forced resettlement and don't condone any of those things, so fuck off.
What I do share responsibility for is what the current US government is doing, and why I consider it not just my right but my duty as a good American (and a good citizen of the planet) to do my bit to help vote it out of office.
The point I was trying to make is that all of my ancestors have lived in what's now the US since the mid-1600s. That makes me about as "native" as anybody. Let's face it, at some point everybody's ancestors originated somewhere else and were at some point in history either immigrants or invaders.
> Which country should they vote in? The one they left years ago or the one they lived in for decades?
Whatever country they're citizens of. If they want to vote where they live, they should become naturalised. If I decide that I'd rather vote in Oz than in the US (which, given the current US regime's predeliction for police-state-ism, what with Shrub's clone of the Reichssicherhauptamt, is starting to look like an attractive option), then that's what I'll do.
Il n'y a pas de Planet B.
Exactly how "smart" would computers have to be before they could be considered personnel? If the legal definition were low enough the General officers could just order someone into the whitehouse....waha! Officer: Private Cray I want a republican senate this year!! Cray: Sir yes sir!! m
Um, I think the issue is that the four who spoke out against SERVE were the only ones to speak. It's not like the other six came out in favor of the project -- they simply refused to comment. Not exactly what I'd call a ringing endorsement.
--------
If I can own an idea, does that mean I can legally claim some portion of your soul once I tell you that idea? Or even if you just come up with it on your own? Heck, who needs contracts written in blood...
"What in the name of Fats Waller is that?"
"A four-foot prune."
"Bush Boy" can't rely on Jeb anymore, so why not use an inferior voting system to get re-elected.
The day Microsoft creates a product that doesn't suck, it will be known as the Microsoft Vaccuum Cleaner!
I am very concerned about the trend to using e-voting in this country. It seems to me that it is way too easy to hack something like that with no way to trace what happened. I would like to suggest the following solution (perhaps someone else has already thought of this, but I don't know why no one seems to be talking about it). It uses standard, off the shelf hardware, relatively simple software that does not have to be proprietary, and guarantees a paper trail. Please let me know what you think and if you think it's a good idea, lets try to push for its adoption.
Voting would be a 2 part process.
Part 1 would involve printing of the ballot. The voter would go to a booth with a touchscreen where he/she would choose candidates from a menu corresponding to the choices in that particular election district. After the voter has chosen, he/she would push the print button and a ballot would be printed on standard 8.5 x 11 paper with the appropriate boxes checked. Included on the ballot would be a bar code indicating the voter's choices. If the voter makes a mistake or changes his/her mind, a new ballot could be printed and the old one discarded. This part could even be done at home.
Part 2 - The voter takes the paper ballot and deposits it in a ballot box. There would need to be security measures to ensure that a voter only places one ballot in the box at a time, but this should not be hard to do. At the end of the day, all the ballots would be fed through a bar code reader and tabulated. Ballots would be kept for verification purposes. If need be, they could be rescanned, or if someone suspects foul play with the bar codes had counted.
This method could be easily adapted for the military. Step 1 would take place at a computer at the soldier's location. The printed ballot would then be mailed or otherwise sent in a signed and numbered envelope to a central processing facility(s).
That's it. It would be cheap, efficient, and many companies could produce the software (or it could be open source). And the whole process would be transparent and auditable. Let me know what you think.
If the US declared war on Australia tomorrow (granted, that's an unlikely event, but nevertheless), do you think the Aussie would just let me hop the next flight out of Brisbane Internaitonal back to LA? Hell, no -- I'd be interned as an enemy national.
...
;)
We could just threaten you with exporting more Fosters (a chemical agent if ever there was one) and with encouraging Russell Crowe to record more "music". Look, I know that probably contravenes the rules of warfare, as well as being absolutely reprehensible, but desperate times
do you think the Aussie would just let me hop the next flight out of Brisbane Internaitonal back to LA?
No, but only because there are no flights direct from Brisbane to LA, you have to go to Sydney first
(However, it's been a few years since I made that trek, so it might have changed)
As for me, I was born and raised in the USA of native-born American parents; my American ancestors fought in the Revolution, the Civil War, and both World Wars; I hold a US passport; I pay US taxes. I am definitely a US citizen, and I definitely am enitled to vote in US elections.
Yes, I've lived for an extended period in the US, and I'd agree in principle, even thought the situation is reversed. I fully expected to retain my rights as an Australian citizen during that time. Except: I didn't have to pay Australian taxes while I was there, just US ones. I guess the "tax treaty" that we have for this sort of thing just isn't symmetrical.
> We could just threaten you with exporting more Fosters...
Nukes trump Foster's but only just barely. (I like Toohey's myself.)
> there are no flights direct from Brisbane to LA, you have to go to Sydney first
Never been to Sydney, I've always gone via Auckland.
Il n'y a pas de Planet B.
Nukes trump Foster's but only just barely.
:) As you will have noticed, no-one here drinks it.
And that's exactly why we export it
(I like Toohey's myself.)
Toohey's eh? Not a bad call. Try Toohey's Old if you get a chance next time you're here. And also give "James Boags" a try, currently my domestic beer of choice. More expensive but well worth it.
Never been to Sydney, I've always gone via Auckland
Ah, I see. I'd forgotten about that option. I might try that next time, anything to shorten that trans-pacific flight even by a little bit.
> Toohey's eh? Not a bad call. Try Toohey's Old if you get a chance next time you're here.
I've yet to bring myself to try Victoria Bitters -- it's those initials, they give me the heebiejeebies.
As for "next time" -- I quite like it here, not planning on leaving anytime soon, thanks.
I've got used to driving on the left now, you see, and I don't want to be forced to re-learn (again).
Il n'y a pas de Planet B.
I've yet to bring myself to try Victoria Bitters -- it's those initials, they give me the heebiejeebies
/. who lives in Brisbane that I didn't already know in real life.
VB is my lowest limit of toleration. Then you get into real swill like XXXX. If I'm absolutely stuck with no other choice, VB is what I'll go for.
As for "next time" -- I quite like it here, not planning on leaving anytime soon, thanks
I wasn't sure if you were still here or not. Well, glad to hear you like it!
This marks the first time I've run into somebody on
I've got used to driving on the left now, you see, and I don't want to be forced to re-learn (again).
Ah, yes. I know this well - I just snapped back after a few weeks once I got back.
What's really strange is that my memories reversed themselves as well at exactly the same time - for example I now recall conversations I had while driving in the US, talking to the passenger on my left. Of course, it would have been the other way around in reality. The passenger would have been on my *right*.
Alternatively, some care deeply but think the candidates on the ballot all suck and stay away from the polls in disgust.
I would suggest then voting for a third party (Green, Libertarian, whatever), or doing a write in. I voted for Harry Brown (Libertarian candidate) in 2000, not because I expected him to win (I'm crazy but not stupid), but because given the choice between our current overlord and Al 'Clipper Chip' Gore, didn't seem like much of a choice. Of course it didn't matter anyway since I don't live in any of the ~3 counties of Florida that actually decided the election.
You're not a Supreme Court Justice either, I'd venture to guess...
The U.S. papers have not been following the situation in America very closely, but currently there is a major political struggle between the Democrats and the clique of fundamentalist clerics.
Plus ca change...
I refuse to believe corporations are people until Texas executes one. -- desert rain on http://www.dailykos.com/user/
It can't defend against vote-buying.
In the old (U.S., at least) way, you either mark a ballot and shove it in the box, or pull levers behind a curtain. In either case, there's no reasonable way for anyone to know how you voted. If someone's offering a 6-pack of decent beer in exchange for your vote, just say ``Sure.'', take the beer, and vote however you please. On the darker side, you just tell the extortionist you'll do as asked, then vote as you please. The secret ballot, plus the public nature of the polling place, make you proof against such shenanigans.
On the other hand, if you vote from the privacy of your own home, the briber/extortionist can make sure he's getting value for money/threat.
A someone pointed out recently, to continue to guarantee this freedom, we've got to ban camera phones from the voting booth.
I refuse to believe corporations are people until Texas executes one. -- desert rain on http://www.dailykos.com/user/
Too true, and one reason most states' election laws put fairly strict limits on who may get an absentee ballot, and for what reasons. I suspect the justification is that we'll pay the price of a few paid-for ballots in order to extend the vote to that much larger population which can't get to the polls in person.
As a result, I'm suspicious of the few experiments with mail-in ballots. It exposes the entire electorate to the same problems. See, for example, a California town's forum and A news column on Washington State's state-wide mail-in balloting.
I refuse to believe corporations are people until Texas executes one. -- desert rain on http://www.dailykos.com/user/