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Super Tuesday Not So Super For Electronic Voting
October_30th writes "It's Super Tuesday in 10 states (including California, New York and Ohio) and various reports are coming in that the equipment built by Diebold and various other manufacturers is proving more troublesome than previously anticipated."
LOL !!!!???
a galapagos tortoise wearing a scarf just SuCkeD My CoCK OMG!!!
??? PROFIT
ps big ups to gnaa omg
For all the voters who will be voting for the fist time, or just aren't familiar with the terminology, 'Super Tuesday' is the first Tuesday of March when 10 or so states have their primary elections.
These elections run from January through June. This means on the first Tuesday of March, a candidate will pretty much know what his chances of winning the nomination really are.
...don't question it!!!
I hope they either fix them or go back to the paper system before the next presidential election comes up. I'd hate to see another Florida-type voting crisis get blamed on technology...
George W. Bush won the democratic primary in 7 of the 10 states
They've cracked passwords to gain access to computer servers and showed that some systems relying on Microsoft Windows lacked up-to-date security patches that should have been downloaded from the Internet.
Wait, I thought computers were only vulnerable after the patches were available...
...don't question it!!!
The people that used shoddy methods to secure their product, and then decided if nobody knows about the problems then they don't exist, produced a shoddy product that doesn't work wel ?
I am shocked
Georgia Tech student Peter Sahlstrom said he found 10 Diebold terminals sitting unprotected in the lobby of the school's student center Monday. Sahlstrom, 22, photographed the machines in their unlocked cases
This has zero to do with tech but will serve to give e-voting a bad name if one of these machines is compromised. Not good.
Early returns show Dennis Kucinich winning every state, with Al Sharpton a close second in all ten...
There won't be much of a trail to audit. And the trail that their is won't tell anyone anything other than what broke, as opposed to by how much.
Ignorance might not be bliss, but it's pretty antiseptic.
This quote from the article demonstrates the comeplete lack of attention to security that runs throughout the products:
Among their surprises: all of Maryland's machines had two identical locks, which could be opened by any one of 32,000 keys or be easily picked.
What's really quite disturbing is that the unreliability of these voting systems has been well covered in the mainstream press, not just the left-wing open source communist web blogs, yet the voting officials still have no clue or interest in considering the liabilities of using these systems. It just defies reason, and makes me lean ever closer to my paranoia / tinfoil hat and wonder about payola.
"Who are in control, they are not in control of anything - they don't even control themselves!" - Glen Beck
I wonder when they will be buying their SCO license.
No need to worry, these problems should go away by the election in November. The machines just got confused while trying to add extra Republican votes since there's no Republicans running in the Democratic primary.
During the general election, this shouldn't be a problem.
Is that even possible?
Let me put it this way: it's not unpossible.
More troublesome than anticipated by whom? I'd say they were a lot less troublesome than predicted by some of the more paranoid out there... but still, any sort of cloud on a fair election process is troubling indeed... except to Bush; apparently he's only troubled by Gay marriage!
"Freedom means freedom for everybody" -- Dick Cheney
# ssh diebold.machines.gov
bush@diebold.machines.gov's password:
# gcc -o misunderestimated misunderestimated.c
#
# echo "Is our children learning?"
MoFscker
I am curious how many candidates are going to scream that the results were changed by nefarious means.
Some of the electronic voting systems have no hard copy audit trail or no open audit trail of the votes.
I really don't feel safe with some company "verifying" that the vote has not been tampered with out a proven (non electronic) audit trail.
I voted today in California and had no problem with the electronic voting machine. Then again, my presence on this site might explain that.
-1 Redundant: Same story was posted this morning :P
My lack of God, it's Trotsky!
What is wrong with counting crosses in boxes?
Sure speed of results isn't great, but in most countries with a good transport infrastructure it might take until the next morning, counthing through the night.
As the old saying goes, if it ain't broke, don't fix it.
Few members of the general public seem to have any concerns about electronic voting, but every computer professional I know thinks this is a lousy idea.
There are some things that computers are good at, and some that they aren't. Just because something is newer doesn't make it better.
It's expensive, insecure, and complicated (and thus prone to failure).
Whose idea was this anyway?
You must not watch a lot of MTV.
I read a similar article on BBC News a few weeks ago and went and did some more digging. Apparently the CEO of Diebold is a staunch Republican and contributed heavily to the Bush campaign. This may also be coincidence, but partisan elections in Georgia using the new systems also heavily favored Republicans. Call me a right-wing conspiracy theorist, but the current state of electronic voting scares me.
---- Just another spud server.
The biggest problem with these devices is that they remove the voter from the voting process even more. As it stands today, many people think that their vote doesn't count.
When there is no physical record of the vote, only a few bits on a card somewhere, we'll become even more removed from the process. It won't be long until no one cares anymore, and voting becomes a simple formality.
And the fact that making it verifiable is so easy makes me wonder....
Fellowship 9/11
I'm a Diebold basher as well. They've completely screwed the pooch, so to speak, on electronic voting and public trust.
However,
It's not so much the company 'Diebold' that is at fault as the small company they bought out that was doing electronic voting development. And had started the shit that has been hitting the fan.
Diebold is a lock and security company that happened to buy a terrible, untrustworthy little company for a forray into electronic voting.
For what it's worth.
RD
It is being reported that the largest problem was that Diebold, in a last minute decision, used the Howard Dean yell as a sound bit that indicated a selection had been made.
/humor
Several senior citizens were scared by the sounds and ended up casting votes in error for Al Sharpton. Al's name was horizontally accross from Kerry so expect a repeat of the Gore/Buchannan butterfly issue from Florida.
I voted today in greater Cleveland. We had punchcard ballots, which was good, since the power was flickering all afternoon.
Wedon't even get to vote, our blanket primary was made unconstitutional, tossed out by the state supreme court. Our november ticket is going to be PACKED.
This is good though, I can vote for anyone in any party. Its going to be an interesting presidential race in our state.
well my first kneejerk reaction would be to moderate you offtopic ;).
But secondly, the reason why people like linux is because they can make it work for them. This is the way electronic voting should happen: it should Just Work (tm). The article talks about lack of security; if this system were open, these kinds of security problems would have already been addressed. If the system were open, the costs could come down because people would realize they dont need the eyecandy of an electronic touch screen which are notoriously picky on how you press them (this coming from the guy who's owned three pda's and never could master palm os' writing language). This is why people like Linux. Now take your trolling somewhere else, and at least be on topic.
"Victory means exit strategy, and it's important for the President to explain to us what the exit strategy is." G.W.Bush
According to this article on The Guardian there are already questions about certain e-elections. The problem, as I see it, is that allegations like these can be made but it is impossible to refute them. Once the integrity of the process comes into serious question public confidence and participation can be expected to plummet.
-- Free software on every PC on every desk
What's crazy to me is that this article doesn't say ANYTHING new. Computer scientists have been bitching about the security vulnerabilities of these machines since their inception, but they're being used today.
So what's NEW? How is this NEWS? The bit about the forgotten code was semi-interesting, and the snippet about unguarded machines was intriguing. But if there are 10 million people voting, I'd expect something more substantive than this.
It seems to me that this entire article might just be another anti-Windows/commercial software troll.
*shrug*
Chicks dig my good /. karma.
Diebold has had SEVERAL articles on slashdot, all of them negative. CNN has as well. Why are the voters still using that equipment? Shouldn't Diebold be bankrupt by now?
Insecure Diebold Systems,
Diebold installed uncertified software on its units,
My personal favorite, Diebold hit by Nachi worm.
A report by CNN on the concerns of using Diebold equipment. How much more evidence do we all need?
Bored? Why not join a decent mess
Talk about cowtowing to popular opinion..
sheesh
You know where to get the Diebold memos... from the Swarthmore Coalition for the Digital Commons! Also, you may be interested in reading about how our court case against Diebold is going (nothing much is happening, we're waiting for the judge to rule, he said it might take a few months) Finally, we're working on launching FreeCulture.org, the future home of the international student movement for Free Culture, we hope to have it running soon!
Free Speech, Free Software, Free Culture
This is actually a very positive thing in my opinion. Not because it could have messed up election results, but because of the shift in attitude news like this could bring if its given fair treatment.
I think most people who read Slashdot know of the multitude of problems Diabold has and the conspiracies their organization is obviously wrought with. However, this has gotten little coverage in the mainstream press.
The only way the public at large will know of the new dangers faced by electronic voting is to hear about this more on CNN, ABC, etc. and not just online. There is still a sort of prevailing mindset with a lot of people that goes, "Ooh, its a computer, of course it can count better than a human."
When I went to vote this morning (Orange County, CA), there was this 30-something having a real difficult time with the voting "tablet". He kept wanting to give up and leave, but the poll vounteer won't let him go and tried to help him. But the poll worker can't cast votes for him, and doesn't want to know who/what he wants to vote for. So it made for a very interesting scene for all.
Funny thing is that the poll worker looks like a 60+ retired volunteer trying to talk a much younger guy through on working the tablet.
I was done in just a few minutes. I think it's much faster than the old punch card ballot. Though the tablet navigation didn't quite work as I expected. For example, I was expecting it to be touchscreen, but it wasn't. Instead, you use navigation buttons on the tablet. Also, there was one item where you can vote for up to six people. Everytime you select one candidate, the cursor moves back up to the start of the list, instead of staying on who you just voted. So you have to "cursor down" all over again from the beginning.
I wonder how long the other guy took to vote.
I also noticed there are twice as many poll workers this time. I've voted at the same place for years, and it's always been the same three people. Today the same three are there, but there are three new poll workers also, for a total of six. I think they anticipated there will be problems.
What the fsck do they mean "more than anticipated"? From what I've been hearing on NPR, watching on TV, and Reading online there has been quite a bit of anticipation about how these machines would fail in, various ways, to perform the task of executing a fair and free election.
-*The above statement is printed entirely on recycled electrons*-
And it was good.
So what's NEW? How is this NEWS?
See that glow growing brighter off on the horizon? That's the cataclysm, it's coming this way.
I have just successfully voted in Northwestern Ohio using the same punch ballots that I have always used and the sort of thing that caused the Florida mess. I had no hanging chads, no dimpled chads and if the need arises, it can be recounted. Go figure.
If we have to move to a new machine aqnd of course we do, I'm push for a printout and scanner reader combination. Idiot-proof (heh) touch screen that prints out a scanner read ballot that is read at the end of the day.
Honestly, what's so tough about making electronic voting machines that actually work? We can put a rover on Mars but we can't count votes. I guess it's the simple things that get you in the end.
Let's look at what's required:
1. The person must be able to select the name of the person they want to vote for. (check)
2. Now count which person received the most votes. (check)
3. Announce a winner. (check)
I think I might have a stab at the voting machine market. Excuse me while I go out to my garage and build one.
One bad monkey spoils the whole barrel.
The problem is that the two actors involved here, the public (government) and Diebold, each have two completely different aims. The public want a secure, easy to use, verifiable, non-bullshit voting system to ensure fair elections. Diebold wants to maximize shareholder value. A closed process will NEVER produce the desired result under those circumstances. Diebold will say "sure it works, trust us." Trusting them assumes they're not maximizing shareholder value: big mistake.
It would be sort of like fully privatizing mail delivery. Sure you could set it up as a viable company, if you are willing to entire A) drastically raise postage or B) cut vast swaths of rural mail delivery. When you get down to it the aims of the public are not compatible with running postal service as a completely private venture. The aims of the public are also not compatible with running elections as a completely private venture.
That would mean treating electronic election machines, no matter who produces them, as an extension of public service. Almost as a utility, perhaps. Political parties are heavily regulated as would be a utility, why not the very machines we use to vote?
I mean really, why all the fancy computers with touch screen monitors, why complicated software? Grab the vote in from a keyboard, encrypt it, save it, done.
Which doesn't address the problem with the voting machines at all.
The issue is not the fancy interface. (So changing to a keyboard would just add the problem of how you are supposed to collect votes from people who don't grok keyboards.)
The issue is: How do you KNOW the software that grabbed the vote (from the keyboard, touch screen, or what have you), encrypted it or not, and stored it in the database, ACTUALLY STORED THE VOTE THE VOTER CAST, rather than making up its own vote?
And how do you KNOW that the database ACTUALLY SAVED THE VOTES THE VOTING MACHINES FED IT and ADDED THEM UP CORRECTLY, rather than making up different values or being altered by some human intervention?
The MAIN problem with computer voting machines is that, along with hanging chads and dimpled ballots, they've eliminated any paper trail (actually checked by the voters themselves) of how each voter actually voted.
If the software is broken or corrupt, how do you do a recount? Ask it to give you the corrupted numbers a second time?
(Interestingly enough, that's EXACTLY how Diebold proposes to do a recount: Have the database print out the corrupted values as separate printed paper ballots for people to hand-count. B-) )
Bantam Dominique roosters crow a four-note song. Once you've heard it as "Happy BIRTHday" you can't NOT hear it that way
With all this talk about potential election fraud, with these electronic voting machines, I was wondering whether a certain idea could work:
When you fill in your voting form you get a receipt with a record of your voting and a unique number (generated on the spot). At any time you could visit a validation web site, where you would type in the number you were given and check whether the entry matches what you have. Sure you could type in a random number and see someone else's record, but since its not tied to any personal info, it wouldn't be much of an issue. If at any time there is an inconsistency, you have proof in your hands.
Jumpstart the tartan drive.
I worked in the state of Kansas elections for the presidential election in 2000.
Our location had an electronic system to cast votes. As a person walked in, we wrote their name down next to a ticket number. That ticket was then placed in an envelope attached to the outside of the machine they would vote on. In case of any inconsistencies, we could bring those people back to revote (note that we hadd no way of knowing who they voted for).
The voter entered the machine and pressed the button next to the name of the person they wanted to select. It used what was essentially a large piece of paper over a touchscreen with the canidate's name.
At the end of the night, we printed out a receipt with the results from each machine. These were called in by the location manager for early (unofficial results). Every result was also electronically recorded into two (1 backup) cartriges. These two cartiges and the paper receipts were then hand carried by the location manager to the headquarters where they were analized and verified.
*note that there were steps taken before the machines were used to verify they were not hacked.
No networking to allow hacking and whatnot. The number of votes is verified and electronically verified. There was also the ability to have people re-vote if neccessary. After the election, of all the locations using these machines, I (and the location manager) heard of only 1 technical issue. A machine had failed to boot, and was replaced an hour before the polls even opened.
So my quesiton is, what the hell are these new machines doing that equipment has been able to do for a decade (or more)?
Now we are going to have to submit to random searches before voting?
He Enjoy's It
Open Source Sushi
The tragic part is that this has very little, if anything, to do with Windows (although I understand much of the code is VisualBasic 6.0), and everything to do with simple crappy code. Really, I think it would be quite easy to program secure code in whatever M$ language these things use.
"Who are in control, they are not in control of anything - they don't even control themselves!" - Glen Beck
Comment removed based on user account deletion
A quick google search for Diebold Bush will return more than 3,200 results.
o ld-money-to-bush_x.htm.
Among the most noteworthy ones are:
http://www.usatoday.com/tech/news/2003-12-05-dieb
As such, it's no suprise that Microsoft is one of the top "contributors" to the Bush war machine.
It makes sense then, that Bush's mandate for electronic voting machines (based on Microsoft technology) would follow shortly thereafter.
But I digress, a quick google search will provide much more research data than I could ever provide here.
On the bright side, Sen. Edwards (my candidate of choice) is now openly supported by Howard Dean (which is a very good thing). However, I can't help but think that it's a little too late for integrity and values.
They've been bought and sold out right out from under us. Our responsibility to our democracy is to make sure the same thing doesn't happen in November 2004.
The questions are:
Are we done discussing it?
Are we willing to do something about it?
2000 was cakewalk compared to what's going to happen this year. We've had 4 years to bitch and moan about our rights.
Talk is cheap.
Are you guys ready to defend our rights?
"They that can give up essential liberty to obtain a little temporary safety deserve neither liberty nor safety."
Benjamin Franklin
Don't think that a small group of dedicated individuals can't change the world. It's the only thing that ever has.
Read all about it here. The election comissioner here stated in January, I believe, that she had full confidence in the reliability of the Diebold equipment. Foot -> Mouth.
What if someone manages to mess up the power supply in an area with voters for your political opponents?
Most communities already own these
Nobody wants electronic voting without a verifiable system of reciepts.
That doesn't seem like asking for a cure for aids by the end of the week.
Why aren't we seeing better voting machines or unified laws to cut down on the crappy operation of elections?
Steve
I'm republican moron, and I don't need anonyminity to post my feelings. I would never vote for Bush as a REPUBLICAN. But if you think I'm the only one who feels this way think again.
MoFscker
is the rich guy winning?
I've been listening to talk radio, and poll troubleshooters are calling in. I didn't realize it up to now, but the machines, at least in my city, are using Windows CE for the OS. Apparently a lot of the systems were booting to the desktop instead of the application (the app is on a flash memory card in the machine). I infer from the symptoms people are describing that some machines were allowed to sit unpowered and unplugged for a long period prior to the election, and the batteries ran down, erasing the script that would have executed the application when the machine was turned on. The poll workers aren't trained on what to do in this unexpected circumstance, and have to call the troubleshooters who were trained in how to get the app running. Naturally, the troubleshooters are inundated.
1 person = 9/10th of a vote....if you're lucky.
Perhaps the fact that we're voting on Tuesday is part of the problem. If all elections were held on a Saturday instead, then 1) Fewer people would have problems getting off from work to vote 2) There would be less traffic 3) There would be no shortage of potential polling places, as all the schools would be empty (personally, I've alway been uncomfortable with voting in somebody's garage). In short, perhaps if we voted on weekends, perhaps more people would turn out to vote, thus cheating in elections would be less effective?
"Freedom means freedom for everybody" -- Dick Cheney
Hmmmmmm. What do they know that we don't know?
Scenario:
Poll worker: Gee, I don't know what's wrong. Everytime we try to change the poll totals to the correct value, it suddenly switches to 18181. And what the heck does "j00 R 0wN3d!" mean? Must be some kind of error message.
DNA is a Turing machine. You, however, being dynamic and emergent, are not.
Well, the problem with that logic is that it is broken. Look at the Florida fiasco. There is a problem with our current voting method. People can't figure out how to make them work, and the machines are not punching cards all the way through. What we need is to have a neasy to use electronic system with a proper papertrail (like a printout that can be verified)
Ceci n'est pas une sig.
:wq!
Computers are Turing-Complete machines. That is to say, any computation that can be done by any sort of device can be done by a modern computer.
Security is about denying completeness. For example, the Java security model, and the Unix "chroot jail", and a network firewall are all based on forbidding certain things that are possible in a Turing-complete environment. Conversely, Microsoft is determined to ship Turing-complete mailers, which are then prone to virus infection.
The problem with counting votes is not writing the code "for $precinct in @precinct_list; $vote{candidate} += $precinct_vote{$candidate}". The problem is *proving* that nobody else has added "$vote{MY_FAVORITE_CANDIDATE} += 1000" to the same program.
And there are plenty of people out there, on all sides of the political spectrum, who would cheat like that.
Some people don't know what a box is. Some people don't understand what a cross is. Some people don't understand that the cross needs to go in the box. Some people don't realise that you need to put one cross in one box. Some people don't understand that the box they need to put the cross in comes next to the name of the candidate that they are choosing. And some people come from Florida.
Doesn't it make you feel good to know that our freedoms are protected by politicans, lawyers and journalists.
Kerry wins all ten states buy a margin -100,000 votes. The rest follow in Celebrity Jeopardy fashion. Shawn Connery was the most popular write-in candidate with an impressive -200,000 votes, but as a non-American born has been disqualified. Connery was unavailable for comment; presumably because he was busy "Doing your mother."
Someone has to do the counting. This leads to errors, accidental or otherwise. That's why when the contest is won by a small margin it's traditional to offer the loser a recount.
Paper ballots aren't so great when you're blind, illeterate or don't speak the language.
People are idits: they will put more than one cross, mark outside the boxes or fuck it up in even more amusing ways.
Metropolitan constituancies will have their votes counted quickly, but rural areas take longer. In UK general elections the Highlands and Islands usually don't announce results until the next afternoon.
On the other hand it does allow for write-ins, which I think makes it worth it.
sig
As usual, it's the physical security issues that pose bigger issues than electronic security. At my High School in San Francisco, CA, which is a polling place for all elections, including this one, voting machines are delivered to the school about two weeks before each election, and simply left in a small alcove off of a main hallway. See this for further details on this problem In short, I (or anyone else who enters the unlocked school building) have had many opportunities to simply wheel the entire kit out the door and to bring it back in some time later (this would of course violate state law, so it is left as an exercise to the reader).
Cities need to take basic physical security precautions with their voting equipment as well.
Well, sure, maybe an embedded Linux of some kind, but then Diebold would have to hire real programmers...
"Who are in control, they are not in control of anything - they don't even control themselves!" - Glen Beck
I believe these are the machines we have in Georgia, and frankly, I thought they were easy to use and they gave me no trouble. Of course, we have now used these in a couple of elections here in Georgia.
Derek Greene
That guy shooting pictures of unlocked Diebolds: Isn't he violating the DMCA?
What's really quite disturbing is that the unreliability of these voting systems has been well covered in the mainstream press, ... yet the voting officials still have no clue or interest in considering the liabilities of using these systems. It just defies reason,and makes me lean ever closer to my paranoia / tinfoil hat and wonder about payola.
Why are you worried about payola?
Worry about ballot boxes stuffed by corrupt election officials working for political machines.
That requires NO paranoia to be concerned about. When the enormous power of government is handed over to the winners of elections, the historical NORM is for the election process to be corrupted.
The battle is to keep it clean. The ONLY way to do that is to ASSUME it's dirty unless you can PROVE it's clean - in a way that's believable by every non-tech-savvy member of every losing faction.
When somebody can say, of an election, "Trust me, it's clean." - and you have to believe him because you can't check, it's almost CERTAINLY dirty. (The only thing that might keep it from being hacked is that the political machines haven't got their hacks finished in time.)
And when the election officials ignore mainstream press coverage about how it can be cheated and how simple it is to fix, you shouldn't be wondering if you're hearing a little alarm bell tinkling. You should be hearing air raid sirens and artillery bombardments.
Bantam Dominique roosters crow a four-note song. Once you've heard it as "Happy BIRTHday" you can't NOT hear it that way
I've been advocating that for years. Major elections should take place over a whole weekend.
--- Ban humanity.
- That we have electronic voting this soon
- That the app sucks as bad as it does. You can't tell me they didn't have a decent budget for that thing. They could have made it a LOT less amateur looking.
Sorry to be a part of the problem in this case instead of a part of the solution, but I just wanted to express my surprise and disappointment.RP
About diebold boxes would surprise me.... i mean, who thought anything better of them anyhow?
NO SIG
Hello kids, lets sing a song.
... (clicked on no)
... (clicked on no)
... (page protection fault)"
"If your happy with the current-administration, click on yes!
If your confident in Diebolds ability-to-provide-secure-voting-solutions, click on yes!
If your happy and you know it and you really want to show it, if your happy and you know it, click on yes
Lets try another!
"Bar bar black sheep have you cast your vote?
No sir, no sir, i was struck of the electoral role by a republican outsourced data-processing company called Diebold"
Well done! now lets try some rhymes!
"Humpty dumpty sat on the wall,
humpty dumpty found a software flaw.
But all the election officials' horses and all the election officials' men,
couldnt save humpty from a Diebold law-suit under the DMCA"
This comment does not represent the views or opinions of the user.
There you go, Harvard guy! You got the bonifieds and background, go for it. It's a great idea.
"Who are in control, they are not in control of anything - they don't even control themselves!" - Glen Beck
Yeah or doing a serial counting process, it would be even quicker.
...
All votes cast between 7-8AM are counted by noon
8-9 by 1PM
etc
I have been wondering lately if phsyically damaging these machines is not justified in a system that is supposed to cherish democracy. Civil disobedience is justified in some cases, and I believe that this is just such a case.
Remember, Americans: Bring your voter registration card, and a sledgehammer for Diebold. They are stealing our freedom to vote, the very democracy over which so much blood has been spilled, and the corrupted political process is encouraging it via awarded contracts and almost silent acquiescence.
This crosses political affiliations and affects all Americans. Stop it by all means necessary or you will lose the ability to collectively affect the policies of your country, no matter how small your individual voice might be.
Florida was punchcards, not crosses on paper.
9 year olds can fill in paper forms.
You don't need fancy electronics. You need a pen, paper, and NO PROFIT MAKING COMPANY BEING TRUSTED WITH ELECTIONS.
I found your post intriquing, but incorrect. What makes you think that there is no way for us to check if Diebold's machines really are clean? There are over 2 dozen security procedures built into their voting machines that cover the entire election process. These measures are easily verified by independant third parties and that can guarantee the process has not been rigged. So next time I suggest you don't talk about things that you clearly have no clue about.
Some people, such as Orthodox Jews, restrict their activities on Saturday. You might reply "tough for them", but any change that makes voting harder for a significant class of people is going to be opposed by elected office-holders from any party that draws support from Saturday-observing people. That's why this proposal won't go anywhere in the U.S.
Here's a different proposal: make Election Day a national holiday. A lot of people would also take the Monday off as well. I think that democratic elections are important enough to be a national holiday, don't you?
The UAW (United Auto Workers union) negotiated a contract where Election Day is a paid holiday for their members. Good for them.
just google up news:comp.risks E-voting is bad news. Save them the trouble of faking the tallies and just vote republican.
Looking for 101% in this election!
The blind can have someone read it to them. And if you are really concerned about the blind, you can have the papers printed in braille as well...
:P
And if you are illiterate or can't read the language, you probably shouldn't be voting in the first place.
This system works for 90% of the world's democracies. So why not in the USA?
I'm Canadian, and I didn't know what it means. Not all of the /. readers are in N. America or Britain either, so it's always helpful to post an explanation.
Forget the machines, the ballots, whatever. My voting experience scared me and I don't even have to mention electronic voting.
I arrived as a Non-partison voter. Three people manned the booths. I waited in line to get my electronic voter card, and the person in front of me was asked "what affiliation are you?" They responded "neutral". OK, so that sounds like me, I guess that's what I'll say (I didn't know to say specifically "non-partisan"). My turn comes up, I'm asked what affiliant and I say "neutral" too.
I put in my card, and of course the ballot screen is in plain view of everyone, but whatever I don't really care (yet). My choices come up, and I was dumbfounded. I didn't recognize any of the names, I couldn't make any choices or anything. I scanned the screen thoroughly -- the eballots themselves are simple but the interface obfuscates certain important things -- and finally noticed at the top that it said "Natural Party Ballot." Holy shit, they gave me the wrong ballot!
But wait a second, they gave the person in front of me the wrong ballot too, then! And sure enough, that person had already gotten themselves 3 screens deep into an electronic keyboard to try and type "Kerry" (I could see her screen, bogus) because none of the choices allowed her to.
Summary: the guy who gave me my voter cards must be a moron. Oh my god, this can't be an isolated occurrence. But wait, there's more.
I finally get my card settled and go vote. This time I recognize some of the names, but again I couldn't vote on the democratic primary. What gives? I flip open my voter booklet and on the second or third page it stated something to the effect of: "non-partisan voters can vote in 3 of the 7 party primaries, just request a ballot to do so".
So I requested the ballot. Moron #1 had no idea what I was talking about, asked me if I'd voted, I said "yes of course but" and he cut me off and said "well then you're done." No I'm not, look right here in YOUR BOOKLET, SEE? "Gee, I don't know anything about that." OK, done with you, let's try door #2.
The second guy was a little bit more intelligent but still had no idea. "But it's right here in the voter registration booklet, and the details take up this entire page, how can you guys not know what this is?" He still had no idea, but at least he had the good sense to ask person #3.
Person #3, the youngest of the three, was outside taking a cell phone call and came back in to help me. She at least was willing to consider that I and my voter pamphlet might be right. Rummage rummage rummage, shuffle shuffle, oh, the directions state he can vote a paper ballot. Moron #1 insists "we ain't got any", starts looking around. A short period of chaos ensues, the line stops moving forward. A box under Moron #1 contains something; he insists they aren't ballots. Person 2 gets the box, Person 3 opens it and whoa! Look at that, paper ballots.
But they're still uncertain, and it's freaking me out. Well, they reason, I must be allowed to fill out a paper ballot if that's what the booklet says. Huh??????? You guys don't *know*? WTF?
I fill out the paper ballot and hand it back to the 3rd person, who seemed the most intelligent and most aware of what was going on of the three. Of course, she took the ballot from me and folded it, put it in a corner and that's the last I saw of it. It didn't go into a box, it didn't go into any safe place. Who knows what its eventual fate might be.
Now listen, I understand that the electronic voting systems have vulnerabilities and problems and (for the most part) whackjob morons designing them. But you know what? After my experience today I am *really* more concerned about the process, the training, and the people.
They're volunteers, and man thank you, the world could use more of a helping hand in general. But they were soooo ignorant! Where did my paper ballot go? Was that even the right ballot to fill out? And the electronic one? WTF happened to
"The computers crashed," I was told. There were three poll monitors, all on cell phones, trying to get through to somebody - anybody - to help them reboot.
Once they got through, I couldn't hear everything that was said, but I did hear the words "OK, now I see 'Windows CE' - what should I do?" I left. I am going back now. I hope I get to vote.
No Inflation Taxation without Representation
From CNN:
In Vermont, favorite son Howard Dean will win the primary there, CNN projects according to exit polls.
Not to troll, but what on earth is wrong with them? Why would they vote for someone who's no longer in the race?
The coolest voice ever.
1. The person must be able to select the name of the person they want to vote for. (check)
2. Now count which person received the most votes. (check)
3. Announce a winner. (check)
You missed a step:
4. Prove the system counted the votes correctly. (Oops!)
To do this you need:
1a) The machine must make a hardcopy record of how the voter voted.
1b) The voter must be able to check that the hardcopy is accurate.
1c) The hardcopy must be preserved (along with the hardcopies of the other voters' votes), until the recount opportunities have expired.
4) When the loser says "I don't believe it!", the hardcopies must be manually counted, under the eyes of the loser's teammates, to prove that the loser really lost.
1a, 1b, 1c, and 4 are all missing from the Diebold system (along with most of the others).
Instead they have:
1d) Fiddle with the database to move votes from one candidate to another.
along with other possible problems.
Bantam Dominique roosters crow a four-note song. Once you've heard it as "Happy BIRTHday" you can't NOT hear it that way
Why do people need instructions? There a picture accompanying the yahoo article that purports to show an election officeal showing someone how to use the terminal ( albeit, it seems, prior to the election).
He is in the race. He is not pursuing the position actively. It means that his name is on the ballots and if people like him, they will vote for him.
This is happening because of panic. Pretty much anything can happen when policians panic. And it's not something the GOP did, either. We Democrats did it to ourselves and the nation as a whole.
Democratic politicians and media were paniced after the 2000 election, and were looking for somebody to blame. They chose the election machines. Do you remember all the news articles and politicians opining that everything would be better when upgraded to digital?
Do you remember any computer scientists being asked about it? No, of course not. Since it was about panic, nobody wanted to learn the facts.
Although, "we" computer scientists do bear partial guilt. An early feasibility study was run, and they botched it. They did mention problems and risks, but not in the summary or first paragraph.
I've written a blog posting on how current evote reform efforts aren't going far enough.
You know, that article doesn't go nearly far enough ... they don't
mention that by the end of this election season, somebody has quite
possibly been elected by a bug.
Politicians, voter-rights advocates and even some secretaries of state have acknowledged that the systems could theoretically fail
Stating the nature of the technical concerns with these machines this is profoundly misleading. Usually "theoretical" refers to something that basic principles could happen but that practically speaking is not worth considering. It sounds to me like some of these people may have got the message, but the amplitude is way too low. It reminds me of the joke where the engineer states an idea is a "crock of shit", and the news is softened at each step up the ladder until the CEO is told "It will promote growth."
Over the years I've learned that we technical folk use language which is too open to being misconstrued by nontechnical people. Important conclusions get lost in explanations and caveats.
The message we need to communicate is this:
Post may contain irony: discontinue use if experiencing mood swings, nausea or elevated blood pressure.
Wouldn't it be funny if, in November, the voting machines actually worked properly and were not rigged, but the election was STILL stolen? Contrary to popular belief, the main problem in Florida was not unreliable paper voting systems, which accounted for a few hundred misplaced votes. The main killer was the erroneous exclusion of tens of thousands of blacks from the voter lists by Database Technologies (DBT). http://archive.salon.com/politics/feature/2000/12/ 04/voter_file/
Diebold may come out of the 2004 election smelling like roses, so nobody will care when 2008 rolls around. And the election can still be stolen in both instances, with one weapon (manipulated voter lists) in '04, and yet another (rigged machines) in '08.
Who says the neocons are dumb? Not me!
from the article:
all of Maryland's machines had two identical locks, which could be opened by any one of 32,000 keys or be easily picked.
Not A Sig
When you fill in your voting form you get a receipt with a record of your voting and a unique number (generated on the spot). At any time you could visit a validation web site, where you would type in the number you were given and check whether the entry matches what you have.
That doesn't slove the problem. The issue is not whether YOUR vote is in the database correctly. The issue is whether the difference in the TOTALS for the various candidates or proposition yea/nays, is correct.
But it DOES create another problem: Such a reciept would let you prove to someone ELSE how you voted. Which lets him buy your vote.
(It's laws against vote-buying that keep us from getting access to the raw ballot output - which we could analyze to check the accuracy of vote totaling systems (even with paper and punched-card balloting) and look for voting patterns indicative of other means of vote corruption (such as runs of identical ballots from stuffing operations).
Such suggestions as yours come from a misunderstanding of the purpose of an election, and of checking its results.
It is not to see that your vote is counted.
It is not to see that the most popular candidate wins because that's "right" or "nice".
It's to convince the LOSER that he REALLY DOESN'T HAVE SUPPORT. So he doesn't go out and start a war to overturn the election.
THAT is why republics are stable - and why corruption in voting, or even the PERCEPTION of such corruption - leads to "political instability" (a politically-correct term for riots, vigilantism, and civil war).
Bantam Dominique roosters crow a four-note song. Once you've heard it as "Happy BIRTHday" you can't NOT hear it that way
Folks just remember, the electronic machines are here so that you dont have a repete of the whole 2000 fiasco. See, when the electronic machines go wrong theres no way to tell, so the election won't be slowed down with pesky recounts. Even if there was question about the election, it would never get in the media because while "hanging chad" can be explained to the masses, "buffer overflow" cannot. Anyway im sure Diebold is a responsible company who wouldnt let their republican affiliation get in the way of a undetectable vote tampering.
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tomorrow at the latest.Shut up and vote for John Kerry like your party bosses tell you to.Major Corporations are counting on your vote.Just punch the right button you sheep effed up in FLA bigtime in 2000.Don't even THINK about voting for Nader!
worked time and time again?
like how Microsoft is secure?
they don't have to make them secure, they just have to get their pol buddies to buy them.
A blog about stuff.
Several groups concerned with electronic voting are recommending that people vote absentee in their voting district plans on using electronic voting machines without a voter-verifyable paper trail (VVPT). In many places, the deadline for getting an absentee primary ballot has passed, but some counties using e-voting technoloyg in CA and MD are allowing people to vote on paper (though not always at every voting station in the county--often only at one or two central polling stations).
Heck, you can always just claim that you are Amish and are religiously forbidden from voting electronically. I don't know if this is true, but I doubt the poll worker would be able to call you on it.
I hope everyone realizes that we Californias got stupid-ass electronic voting because the stupid aged retards in West Palm beach, Florida were incompetent to use PUNCH CARDS.
After that, it was the Democrat party of California that screamed for electonic voting to make it easier for their older/less educated/illegal immigrant supporters to vote in whatever language they wanted. They even had the ACLU fight the election last year because too many minorites were NOT getting electronic systems.
No sane person of either party would ever want to see electronic voting - but alas, thanks to the folks that bitched about how Gore really won (he didn't), people like Kevin Shelley of the Democrat party forced us (Californias) to use fscked up electronic voting systems.
So - if any mor of you Bush-hating hatemongers keep bitching about electronic voting - just look to California - and see that THEY complained about minorities not getting to use electronic voting - see how they tried to prevent, then overturn the outster of Davis using the arguement that minorities were being dienfranchised because they didn't get electronic systems, and how it was the Democrats in chrage of this state that have brought our election system to ruin by their own devices.
Both the Democrats and Republicans are looking to have electronic systems put in place because both shitty parties think that it will make it easier for them to rig shit in the future....
so all you Democrat hatemongers - just STFU. This stupid problem is being caused by BOTH parties.
guns kill people like spoons make Rosie O'Donnell fat.
Where I vote, the "old" paper system used before last fall's recall of CA governor Davis was punched cards with chads (both polling place and absentee). That's almost as bad as the touch-screen systems. And the state is not requiring paper trails on the new systems until long after the presidential election (2005-2006, if I recall correctly). Strike 1.
The only good news here is that concurrently with the touch-screen roll-out, absentee ballots were changed to scannable paper forms.
Unfortunately, the voter guide arrived too late to order one using the form it came with. Strike 2.
So I drove down to the registrar's office for early voting and gave as my reason, under penalty of perjury, that I distrust the new touch-screen systems. They gave me a ballot and I voted. Since this is a 3-strike state, I'm glad it didn't get that far.
It looks like the only solution here for the time being is to request a permanent absentee ballot.
I voted on the touchscreens here in San Jose for the first time today.
It was a weird experience. I hit big yellow on-screen "button" at the end to cast my vote. The computer made a trilly beep and ejected the smart card. It was very uncomfortable not knowing whether my vote had been recorded correctly, though.
But then I thought back to my very first time voting, in 1996 in Brookline, MA. They had these big booths with little levers beneath every possible thing you could vote for (a little lever beneath each name, a little lever beneath "yes" and "no" for the initiatives). You'd pull the appropriate levers to indicate your vote. The thing is, I wasn't sure how to make sure that my ballot was cast. I surmised that just opening the ballot booth cast my vote--but I wasn't sure.
(There's a description of it under "Mechanical Lever Machines" at http://www.lwvnj.org/booth/machines.html. And, I now know for the first time that I surmised correctly.)
It turns out that those machines also lacked a paper trail. So for all of the times I've voted, I wonder how many times my votes actually counted.
At least with the computer, I'm SURE I cast it correctly. How do I know? Because the computer made a trilly beep to tell me. Somehow, that's more reassuring.
My vote may not actually be counted this time, but at least I KNOW it wasn't because of my screw up.So, if I buy up an untrustworthy company that has been selling turds as chocolate muffins, and start selling people those turds myself, it isn't my fault?
Hmm, better go find me a turd muffin factory... A lucrative con scheme without the hassle of accountability is too good to pass up!
Oh man im sorry i just cant help it:
Why did the American voter cross the road? To get some democracy
Knock Knock
-Whos there?
Vote
-Vote who?
Vote who-ever you like, it just gets piped to the republicans!
Hey bob, did you hear about the new election system?
No? how does it work?
It electionically transfers 'votes' from a politicial party's bank account to Diebolds!
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where is jesse jackson today? He isnt out there screaming about disenfranchised voters? wow.
where are the lawsuits and the protests?
hypocracy.
Not just elections, but in games and contests of all kinds are played not to determine the winner, as most people think. They are played to determine the losers. Think about it. What person, informed that they had won an election, game or contest, would refute that? No one. The reason we play games is so that the losers will AGREE that they have lost.
- None can love freedom heartily, but good men; the rest love not freedom, but license. -- John Milton
This proposal gets floated so often that I can only consider it malinformation at this point--a pervasive meme which works to people's detriment.
Let's say, for sake of argument, that all 50 states have their caucuses and/or primaries at the same time. They start at the same time, end at the same time. What are we going to see from the candidates?
Well, Kerry would park himself in California for two weeks prior to the primary. Edwards would take New York. Sharpton would go for an inner-city like Baltimore, Dean would take Boston and everyone would be lobbing grenades at Kerry in a desperate attempt to keep him from getting God-knows-how-many delegates in one fell swoop.
Do you see what'd happen? The candidates would campaign only in high-population areas and would talk only about metropolitan issues. Because really, if everything all gets settled at once, it doesn't make any sense for Kerry to sit down at Gwen's Diner in Lisbon, Iowa (great food if you're ever in the neighborhood) and talk to the usual crowd of farmers, hunters and retired schoolteachers who hang out there.
These people are American citizens. They pay taxes. They get overlooked by East and West Coasters every single day of the year except for about one month every four years, when the East and West Coasters come to Iowa to ask Iowans "so, now that you've actually met $candidate, what do you think?"
If you make everyone vote all at the same time, what you're going to do is tell everyone who doesn't live in a major metropolitan area--and that's forty-eight percent of the nation--that their opinions don't count, that they're too minor to matter, and that since everything's settled all at once and fifty-two percent of the delegates are decided in the big cities, that the entire political debate will revolve around big-city concerns.
A campaign season exists to allow vigorous political debate to take place. It exists to make sure rural citizens, who have as much right to be heard as you, have a voice in political proceedings.
Not sure why, but I submitted the exact same story only with more info this morning. Oh well :) The radio station that I listen to has been reporting all day about the problems with the Diebold machines. Entire polling places were shut down in San Diego county this morning due to technical problems.
A reporter for KFI named Eric Leonard has done a series of reports on the problems that California has been having with Diebold. Ranging from legislators and state employees working for both the State and Diebold at the same time (conflict of interest anyone?) to Diebold refusing to release the raw data from the machines claiming that it's proprietary technology. My guess is that they have GPLed or OSS code in there that they don't want anyone looking at.
I'm in favor of electronic voting, but this is rediculous, handing control of one of the most important aspects of our "democratic" process over to a company that runs Windows XP on ATMs!
Hopefully this will be a wakeup call for the powers that be that maybe OSS voting technology is not such a bad thing after all.
(B) + (D) + (B) + (D) = (K) + (&)
The absentee voter system already opens the door to bribery. I am not a resident of California, but I believe that you can register to be a permanent absentee voter in CA, for no grounds beyond you feel like it. So, if I were a CA resident and wanted to sell my vote, I would register to be a permanent absentee voter. Then, I would fill out the absentee ballot, show it to the person buying my vote, and then drop it in the mail while they watch. They get one confirmed bought vote, and I get my cash...
Therefore, bribery is equally possible under the current system. I don't even need the California law I cited, it just makes it easier to sell my vote election after election instead of having to obtain absentee voter status for each election.
What makes you think that there is no way for us to check if Diebold's machines really are clean? There are over 2 dozen security procedures built into their voting machines that cover the entire election process. These measures are easily verified by independant third parties and that can guarantee the process has not been rigged.
Easter eggs.
Example: Code to move 10% of the votes from "no" to "yes", or the D to the R, (or vice-versa), but only on election day, only in certain precincts, and only on candidates in particular ballot slots.
Code with such zingers would pass JUST FINE on the tests - and maybe get by even if you tested it with some extra machines during the election itself.
(Interestingly, though, one of the things that came to light is that these tests you speak so highly of usually aren't actually performed. Another is that, even in a state where an approval process was in place, voting machines were discovered (after the election) to have been running UNapproved versions of the software.)
So next time I suggest you don't talk about things that you clearly have no clue about.
Yo! Bucko! I've WRITTEN similar zingers myself. (Though only to play a practical joke, not to corrupt an election.) They work just FINE. And are damed hard to figure out even if you KNOW they're happening.
All of which begs the issue.
The point is not to make it accurate.
The point is to make it PROVABLE, even to a technical illiterate, that it IS accurate.
"Trust me, I'm an expert." isn't going to cut it when the issue is how Adolf Eichmann III became mayor of Chicago when he was polling 0.5% on the day before the election.
Bantam Dominique roosters crow a four-note song. Once you've heard it as "Happy BIRTHday" you can't NOT hear it that way
Are you guys ready to defend our rights?
What did you have in mind? Unless you forgot to finish the end of that sentence with "defend our rights *with guns?", I am uninterested in what half hearted rallying/braveheart war cry you have.
Now all of a sudden you are on board with defending rights by any means neccessary. The "Bush sponsored broken electronic voting machines" were the final straw were they? How about you put down the partisanship. Left, right, center, all will sell you down the river as far your rights go. Only way to take back your rights are with force. However, left will take your guns away "to save the children", while the right calls you "a terrorist" for discussing anything related to guns. It won't matter who you put in office, it just depends on how you like your screwing.
Personally, I like Bush's foreign policy. It's high time the world understood the US is going to do as it pleases. Sure the other little countries are going to stand up for themselves, but that's to be expected. I'd rather see an active policy vs a passive one on the part of the US. However, Ashcroft, PATRIOT, domestic spying, et. al. I don't like one bit. However, I also didn't like the DMCA, weakness in the military, and the overall blatant pimp slickness that went on during Clinton's time.
Again, put down the partisanship. Someone who likes Bush, but also likes your ideas is only going to think you are a hoser because you try to tie "one magical thing" to a particular party.
Your call has been disconnected, please check the number you are dialing and try again...
No.
Just remember if your local voting station is having technical problems (which is true for about 100% of them) dont offer your help - If you even touch the machine other than to vote you are probably commiting atleast 16 offences. Trying to diagnose the problem could be considered a federal offence, a terrorist act, and a violation of the DMCA all in one! not to mention of a violation of your local states 'visible errection in a public place' law.
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Caution: Contents HOT!
This is a test. This is a test of the emergency sig system. This has been only a test.
For an answer, ask the people of Missouri who re-elected a dead Governor to another term. Like my previous post, the average American is an idiot.
This is a test. This is a test of the emergency sig system. This has been only a test.
Hanging chads are a lot different to crosses in boxes. In Australia we use paper and pencil in our elections and we don't have any problems.
. . . are Americans more ignorant about the American politcal system than Europeans?
Gosh, I'd love to spend some time answering this, but I have Average Joe II on TIVO and I have to finish watching it to make room for American Idol.
Oh! Gotta go get the door. It's Domino's.
Ack, where are mod points when ya need em? :)
I wonder if these machines are suceptible to the same worms and things that other windows boxes are...
Not only will you get a selection on a touch screen to choose who you want to vote for, but you'll get those annoying popups with how to increase your member size!
Did you read the whole paper? Some of your concerns seem to be based on a misunderstanding of how their system works, but others were specifically addressed.
Who has access to scanners?
Everyone. Being a "scanner" in a vreceipt.com-like system means that you have a computer scanner to read the receipt, easily written software to decode the binary number it represents, an HTTP client to download the list of binary receipts recorded at your precinct, and a public key encryption program to check the digital signatures on everything. Basically a "trusted organization" is just your local computer geek.
How do you keep them from the vote buyers and vote intimidators (particularly when you are giving them to the groups with the most stake in the election outcome)?
By selling scanners at Best Buy and Circuit City, writing open source OCR software (which basically just has to read a grid of squares and say "black = 1, white = 0", which you could do by hand if you're paranoid) to use with them, and using existing open source software (say, gpg and wget) for the rest of the tasks. Open source software is an insufficient solution to evoting when it's specifically written for evoting and installed on someone else's computer (how do you know there isn't a very subtle trojan in the source, and how are you certain that the source you've read is equivalent to the binary actually running on the machine), but it's a perfect solution when it's general purpose software already running on your own computer.
Why should people trust any more that their vote will be counted correctly,
Because they can download the list of encrypted receipts online, and find their own vote on it.
and that poor code won't correctly interpret their intended vote,
Because 50% of the intermediate decryption steps are randomly published, so if anyone's software was accidentally or maliciously mis-decrypting votes, it couldn't make even a dozen errors without a (1-2^-12) probability of getting caught.
but then subtract one from the candidate the voted for instead of adding
There is no way of "subtracting" a vote in this system. After the decryption is done, what is left is a list of statements that basically say "I voted for X", and you get the totals by counting. If you don't trust someone else's software to do the counting correctly, you can download the list and count it yourself.
as happened in one polling station in GA in '00
The vreceipt.com system is nothing like any evoting system in use today; it's specifically designed to be immune to the problems which make current evoting systems impractical.
There are a couple problems it's not completely immune to:
It requires a trusted random number generator to choose which decryption steps to spot check in each stage. The best way I can think of to do this would be to have every candidate generate as many random numbers as needed, give encrypted copies of these random numbers to every other candidate, give out the decryption key once they've received the other candidates' numbers (to prevent a candidate from seeing anyone else's numbers before generating their own), and finally XOR everybody's number list together. This would have to be done after the election results were decrypted.
It doesn't prevent people from adding votes to the total. As far as I can tell, the only way to prevent that is to have volunteers at every precinct making sure that the number of encrypted votes they record wasn't any greater than the number of eligible voters stepping into booths. This wouldn't be too hard, since encrypted votes could safely be published instantly - they still wouldn't be decryptable until after the election was over when everyone with keys works together to decrypt them.
seems like the performance of these e-voting machines various significantly from "news" source to "news" source.
Eloi are stupid, throw morlocks at them!
I don't care what OS you replace M$ with, I don't see why a general, multi-purpose OS was used on these machines at all. I guess our corporate friends didn't feel like investing any time at all in making a quality product, they just slapped some little progy together to run on their fellow MBAs told them too.
Ideally electronic voting should be undertaken by a group of geeks in a non-partisan, govt-funded geek squad like DARPA and should take 3-5 years to come out with anything they are willing to put their name on. Then, after independent code reviews and penetration tests I might trust it. Might. It's too late now though, the MBAs have gotten ahold of it. Anyone wanna throw in 3 million votes for Linus?
This could be interesting. One of the states using "new equipment" mentioned in the article I linked to previously is Georgia.
According to CNN's exit poll for Georgia Kerry should have a lead over Edwards of more than 6.5% - an amount usually considered outside the statistical margin of error.
However, the result coming in reverses that trend with Edward polling at 46% and Kerry at 43%.
That is a whopping 9.5% margine of error in the exit poll! Given these polls are taken *after* your vote has been cast I conclude that:
1. The citizens of Georgia are not to be trusted (Dems anyway)
or
2. Something Florida like is happening.
You'll remember the Florida exit polls were probably correct given the number of people who *thought* they'd voted for Gore but ended up voting for some religious maniac.
Let's see what the final score turns out as about 38% of precincts are reporting at this point in time (a pretty good sample - I think).
-- Free software on every PC on every desk
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When they came for the communists, I said "He's next door. Take him away. Goddam commies."
They can't figure that out, and you think they understand the issues enough to be voting? Then again, there are assistants at the polls to help with these kinds of problems.
Oh wait this is /.
Why the hell Diebold is still used ?
Its plain simple, Diebold and probably all the other e-voting companies are just totaly INCOMPETENT.
Unpatched Windows Machines running on the same hardware as your everyday computer, no decent encryption, total lack of cryptographic voting protocols, total lack of verifyability of the results.
Those companies are not just ripping off your tax dollars, there are ripping off democracy...
And for crying out loud, there was even incriminating internal memos of Diebold leaked.
Again, I'm glad to no be an american. Feel free to mod me down. Thanks.
Excuse me, but even listeners to the BBC (British Broadcast Corporation) are assumed to know what "Super Tuesday" means... are Americans more ignorant about the American politcal system than Europeans?
... yes, we are more ignorant than Europeans.
Speaking as an American, I have to say
At any rate, most of the Americans that I've ever met are more ignorant than most of the Europeans I've ever met.
-kgj
-kgj
I'm in Orange County, California. We are one of the many counties in CA using the electronic voting machines, except mine was actually quite spiffy. No touch screen, first off. Instead, there was a scroll wheel that you were supposed to use. Perhaps a bit more complicated to the user than a touch screen, its still easier on the program. The UI was actually quite simple. Scroll to select option, hit enter, scroll to get to next area, and repeat. It gives you a chance to review your ballot, and then you hit the big red button to submit your ballot. Easy. As for accountability, there's an easy way to do it that should be in place. Throw in a cheap laser printer into each one, and print out the ballot results. The voter checks the hard-copy to confirm, and turns that into the election center. If the ballots are ever questioned, you have a large stack of print-outs to confirm! Sure, its a cost increase, for both the printers and paper, but that should remove almost all doubt.
Voting should be paper-based - with a multiple choice style coloring in of the particular candidate you wish to vote for.
Then you do an Optical Mark Recognition scanning of ballot papers into a system for fast processing of results.
In the meantime scrutineers representing all candidates lock themselves away with election officials to manually count the ballots so that everyone is satisfied.
Results can be processed quicker this way - if that's the point of these systems, and then if the automatic and manual counts don't match up you do a recount to discover where the error occurred.
Seriously though - this is a fundamental part of democratic society and 'cost-saving' should never, ever be a factor. We have been able to afford as a society the labour intensive vote-counting system up until now, so people claiming cost as the motive for e-voting obviously are driven by other reasons.
One of our team spoke to the minority leader of the Ohio Senate, and she is very upset that they are using extreme political pressure to get Ohio counties to use Diebold no matter what.
Mike Wertheimer, our team leader in our original test, will be on ABC news tomorrow morning and CBS news tomorrow night. Look for it.
We witness not a fallen world, but falling every day - The Call.
If everyone could simply access the voting system's source code, you'd get hundreds of top programmers pouring over the code, fixing it where needed, to ensure their votes are counted properly.
Until the voting system is open source, I won't trust it. How can you? Faith? That's not good enough.
- It's not the Macs I hate. It's Digg users. -
and yet they got it to work in india
Look, I'ma War President [smirk]. Since 9/11, we realized we can't sit around waiting for things to happen. We need to act now. Al Queda operatives are trying to destroy America. Saddam was a dangerous evil dictator. By hurting big business, the terrorists will win. Democrats want to let the terrorists win, tax corporations and put "Queer Eye" reruns on C-Span. These are things we know.
Now, I don't know about you, but that last election? Where people say I didn't win [lip curl], even though the U.S. Supreme Court had run out the clock to make sure I did [grin]? Well, I felt bad when I heard those poor old, octogenarian Jews in Palm Beach County get all confused over the Butterfly ballots.
Now, with those electric voting machines? We can just flip a switch and turn those confused votes into the proper votes. We don't have time to wait around for the machines to be modified to keep paper records. At least not until after the re-election [smirk].
I have been assured by all the electric voting systems companies, all great supporters of the Republican Party, that their machines are in perfect working order and don't need audits or a paper trail to mess things up. Don't let the terrorists win!
Here come da fudge!
Well yeah! They might not know any of that but still know how to pull a trigger and know that liberals are trying to remove their right to shoot wherever they want.
Doesn't it make you feel good to know that our freedoms are protected by politicans, lawyers and journalists.
" If everyone could simply access the voting system's source code, you'd get hundreds of top programmers pouring over the code, fixing it where needed, to ensure their votes are counted properly."
Bullshit. The only ones looking closely would be under a dozen plus those who actually want to crack into the system. Linux is full of holes, and it's open source. Why would this be any better.
Hey, look at that, I made Slashdot!
I'm Peter Sahlstrom, the Georgia Tech student who took the photos. I thought there were a few things I should mention.
1) A friend of mine pointed the conspicuous pile of voting machines out to me, and although I took the photos, he made the phone calls. We contacted the voting people, the press, and campus security; we received almost no response. The voting people told us the machines were locked (apparently they were...but not to anything. The mainstream press ignored us. And Campus Security said that, although they had complained to the voting people previously, they kept leaving the machines out like that.
2) The thing that finally drew attention was an article I posted to Dave Farber's "Interesting People List", (here) and to Declan McCullough's Politech (here).
3) I've made the best photos available to anyone interested. The Associated Press has two; I've got about 13 more of the highest quality (or most relevant) photos available, if someone wants to throw some bandwidth at me.
If anyone else has questions about things, let me know.
I was going to put a sig here, but I had already submitted the message.
Maths, statistics and spelling.
Linux isn't full of holes, it's your head. Now take it our of your ass and see a doctor.
Moron. Linux has flaws from time to time just like all software, and they are fixed quickly by the same people that would be looking over the voting system's code. The very nature and design of Linux is more secure then say, Windows.. but you wouldn't know that, with your holey head up your ass.
But no, you're right, AC. The only reason thousands of developers and billions of dollars are being put into linux is because they want to 'haxor ur boxor.'
- It's not the Macs I hate. It's Digg users. -
I have posted this before, but I am intersted in setting up a panel on Technology and Democracy, with a focus on e-voting:
:
I am interested in setting up a panel in NYC (New York, New York, USA) somewhere between July 9 and July 11.
Some topics that color my view of e-voting systems briefly follow
My concern is that any system be appropriately thought out, formally and precisely defined, using rigidly designed systems (not necessarily off-the-shelf), made to precisely and verifiably conduct voting tansactions, without being able to disclose, leak, or bleed any information that is not supposed to escape the system.
The Johns Hopkins study is an excellent reference and resource on the issues that have to be addressed.
I am personally interested in setting up a panel in New York in Mid-July (not much - just about an hour to an hour and-a-half), but at an interesting venue. I am not offering funding, but there could be some visibility.
I would welcome hearing from anyone who is doing interesting work in this area - in the US or overseas, that would be interested in participating on such a panel, to include related topics on technology-and-democracy.
I can not promise or expect to provide any funding, but there could be some visibility.
Thank you,
Sam Nitzberg
sam@iamsam.com
http://www.iamsam.com
I asked for a "paper ballot" -- an absentee ballot. Mailed in my request 2 weeks ago, sent in the vote 2 days ago, no muss, no fuss. Voting "in the comfort of my own home". Although it would have been more satisfying to complain in person. In 2006 when they add the paper receipts, I'll go back to the polls.
Seems my parent is being made redundant (ok quite wrong) by events...
-- Free software on every PC on every desk
I live in San Bernardino County. My precinct got the electronic voting machines for this election. They were the ones from Sequoia Voting Systems.
Upon entrance to the polling place, I signed in and the volunteer ran a card though a machine in front of her hand handed it to me. I then walked over to the voting machine. The machines themselves were quite interesting. They appeared to be able to fold into briefcase-like enclosures. Two shutters fold down over the screen, and then the screen folds back into the unit itself. It came up with the voting screen when I slid the card into the reader. The card snapped in, there was no way to get it out at that point.
The system was a touch screen, and the GUI was very simple. Two colums, press the circle next to the person you are voting for. After that, a green check appeared next to that person. Pressing "Next" at the bottom of the screen advanced to the next page, and so on until the end. The last page displayed a summary of all your votes, and the one after that had a big yellow box in the middle that said "Press here to cast your ballot". After I pressed this, the card popped back out again and I took it back to the volunteers. I don't know if the vote was recorded to the card, or if the units were somehow networked to a central server...I couldn't get a really good look at where the wires were running.
IMHO, they've got the ease of use on the interface down...And I think I can safely say if the electronic votes are backed up with a paper counterpart, electronic voting is definitely the way of the future.
-R
The oddest thing about the contradictory articles is the contradictary quotes from the Maryland Election Supervisor.
How could she say they had problems in the morning, then in the afternoon say they haven't had any problems at all?
The Yahoo(AP) article (posted 11:14 AM ET/8:14 AM PST) says:
One Maryland polling place had to switch to paper ballots Tuesday because its new electronic voting machines didn't work. State elections supervisor Linda Lamone said technicians expected to have the problem fixed quickly.
The CNET article (last updated 5:05 PM PST) says:
"We had no equipment failures at all," Linda Lamone, Maryland's elections administrator, said in an interview Tuesday afternoon.
After checking in, the poll workers gave me a 4 digit number to enter so that I could get the right ballot (it's a primary so the ballot varies by party)
The hardware I used was very easy to operate - it had a big round twisty knob that you spin until the item you want is highlighed, then you hit the enter button. There are also previous, next, and cancel buttons which only retards would need to use.
When you are done, it summarizes your vote choices.
Finally, you press the red "cast ballot" button.
It was a piece of cake to use.
That was the good part. The bad part is how the hell do I know what it reported?
I am in California and at least they say that by 2006 we will have paper trails. Here here.
This issue is a bit more complicated than you think.
Or, conversely, imagine truckloads of ballots diverted on the way to counting stations and deliberately spoiled. Shortly after the last presidential elections I remember hearing media reports of at least one truckload in Florida disappearing overnight on its way to a counting station only a few blocks away. I have no idea how many chads were hanging in that batch - and the story was never followed up on, AFAIK - but the opportunity for fraud obviously exists.
What is needed is a way for every voter to go online and verify how his/her vote was finally registered. If I can check online to see where my FedEx package is at any time, this shouldn't be rocket science.
Look, if the electronic shit is broken, dump it.
Then if you're so fucking stupid that you can't punch a hole in a ballot, we don't need you to vote. We almost got that major dip fuck Gore over this hanging chad shit.
Gore to me is the lowest of slime, next to Gephardt. It would have been interesting to see Lieberman out on his own instead of with Gore. Now he's just a used candidate.
As a "decline to state" voter in California, you are not allowed to vote in the presidential Primaries. You are not allowed to request a different ballot in order to get around this.
You are as much to blame here as the other people. You didn't understand that what you were asking for wasn't allowed.
Likely every person you are allowed to vote for was already on your electronic ballot.
the polling machines are actually Win CE.net hunks of junks, and the admin polling application was not automatically loading when the system was turned on. so I just ran the app from the microdrive in the master terminal.
got on the radio and everything about it.
yay for me.
Clearly these electronic voting machines have serious problems. But it is also clear that electronic voting is going to happen, whether we like it or not. So what would be necessary for a reliable electronic system to include?
The most important issue seems to be a paper trail. But the machine simply printing a paper trail internally is useless, as the voter would never know if it actually reflected his/her vote. (As someone else pointed out, the machine could just display one thing on the screen while recording and printing a paper copy of something else.)
So what if the machine printed out a receipt for the voter, the voter can look at it to verify that it is correct, and then must drop the receipt in a box on the way out? Those boxes would be used for manual recounts, as well as a random sample of checks to make sure that the machines are recording the votes correctly.
Just a thought... It just seems to me that the voter must see the actual piece of paper that will be used for the recount...
Easter eggs? Thats the best you could come up with? Oh brother.
The reason that a sequential transaction log would not be good is that by reviewing the voting logs or observing the machine, someone could then figure out who voted for what.
However an internal log which separated the paper into a bin after each entry would not necessarily be a bad thing (akin to the voter-verified ballot behind plexiglass mentioned elsewhere)
Microsoft is secure. I run windows exclusively and I have never been hacked or even got a virus.
Democracy is fucked. Even w/ paper ballots, look!
[o]_O
Just why your countrymen choose to keep the dubious plural identifier is beyond me... the singular form of the word doesn't exist, hence it can be dropped in the shortened form.
Moreover it frees us to speak of multiple varieties of math (i.e. maths).
THIS THING CAN TURN ON A DIME, MACROSSZERO STYLE ALSO FUCK BETA, ~NYORON
The public want a secure, easy to use, verifiable, non-bullshit voting system to ensure fair elections.
If "the public" really wanted this, wouldn't more people bother to at least show up to vote? That's the real problem: "the people" don't know what's going on, and most probably wouldn't give a fuck if they did. In the abcence of real public oversight, the small-time elected officials in charge of this stuff will just take the easiest route that appears to be to their political advantage: do what the nice Diebold salesdroid says. That is, if they aren't actually planning on rigging elections.
That problem isn't that there's a private company involved; the conflict you describe could be resolved if the government set some reasonable requirements for voting machines. That it hasn't shows that the US government is sort of broken (and I don't just mean the present BushCo junta). Over the next few years we'll see just how broken it is.
Just trying to open someone's head! I mean "mind!" Open someone's mind, um, to the possibilities! With explosives!
Just wanted to mention that at my polling place tonight with the brand new touch screens (Side note: I had to stand next to my 72 year old father, and without looking at the screen, tell him what he needed to do to cast his ballot. If this is making things simpler...)... every single one had a credit-receipt style thermal printer attached to the voting terminals serial port, printing out something everytime a ballot was cast (I was there long enough, because of my father, to get SERIOUSLY annoyed by the electronic rising scale "beep beep" that announced a cast ballot. It sounded like I was in Laughlin.) Apparently it was some sort of last minute addition.
Another interesting point... The encoding cards they hand to you just basically tell the machine who you are, and which party ticket to display for you... so when the voting is over and the ballot is cast, its just a card that needs to be re-encoded, and doesn't contain anything important. So one of the teenager volunteers would just grab the card from you, and most of the time, he shoved the cards in his pocket till he had time to walk back to a plastic bin by the encoder and dump them back in to be reused. This caused ALL kinds of consternation with the mostly older voters in my precinct. A few tried to snatch the cards back from him and others were sure he was mishandling their ballots.
I've been working as a Chief Election Officer since 2001 in Fairfax County and I have worked a precinct with the new electronic voting machines as of last November.
The new machines take some getting used to but they do have their advantages.
The machines we use are WinVote machines. I can't remember the manufacturer but it is not Diebold. While I can't speak for other states and counties where voting takes place, I can speak for Fairfax county's methods.
There are a number of checks and verifications that take place before the polls open in the morning with the machines that we receive. We first have to verify that the correct machines have been sent to our princinct, as they all have serial numbers on them. The use of metal sealing bands with an imprinted number on them guarantee that we have received the voting units intact, and without tampering.
We have two types of smart cards that are used for voting. Two precinct smart cards are kept by the Chief and Assitant Chief of the princinct. Session smart cards are assigned to the precinct, one for each machine we're issued.
These smart cards are programed to only function for the election held on that particular day. Also, once the machines are initialized by the precinct smart card, the machine goes through a configuration that certifies it to our precinct and loads the appropriate ballot.
The machines are touch screen accessible, and use a form of embedded Windows XP. There is the ability to present ballots in large type for the visually impaired, as well as an audio ballot (where the computer instructs you to touch one of the four corners to make selections) for the hearing impaired. The entire unit has a battery backup like a notebook and can be detached to assist elderly and the disabled by bringing the machine to them, allowing us to satisify our mandate to provide curbside voting.
Internally, the machines have an access cover that requires a key to protect the sensitive areas of the voting unit. There is a thermal printer, which records the machine stats at the start of the day: a protected counter that shows how many votes the machine has cast in its lifetime, a session counter that identifies the number of votes on that machine for that polling session (0 at the start of the day), and the current memory counts for every candidate or issue (also 0 at the start of the day). A USB flash disk also is connected which actually stores the data. It is protected by a seal that must physically be cut before removal.
One interesting thing I learned is that when the polls are opening, the units switch on a wi-fi connection to communicate with each other. One machine is designated the master, and the others become slaves. We set which machines we have been assigned and that is set in memory until the polls close. I asked the question about security issues but was assured that the wireless link only activates for a short time when opening or closing polls and is deactivated the rest of the time.
If a voter is ready to vote, one of our Election Officers will use a session card to activate one instance of voting (a ballot). We not only instruct the voter, stand by the machine and answer any questions, but the county was nice enough to provice a video tape that loops so that people when they come in can see directly a demonstration of how the machines work.
If someone would like to start over, or decides they require the large type ballot, the session card can be used to cancel the current ballot. In this case protected and session counters do not advance.
We had one case last election day where a guy got fed up and left in disgust with the system, and we asked him if he would like to restart the ballot process. He declined and asserted that he wanted his ballot cancelled, which we did, as is his right.
Some success stories are that a few senior citizens, probably in their 80s, tried the new machines and actually were very pleased at these new "high-tech contraption
go to the diebold website and you will see a patriotic picture of an eagle. the text "every vote counts. click on the eagle to find out more." reassures us that diebold really cares about preserving our democracy. unfortunately, if you click on the eagle you just end up at an empty page. too bad... i guess diebold really doesnt care about our votes...
"More troublesome than previously anticipated"?
These were anticipated to cause a meltdown if chernobyl proportions... you can get worse than that?
Oh yeah right. I'm supposed to take SEIC's word that Deibold's machines are reliable.... And I have a bridge I'd like to sell you...
ALL the independent computer experts that aren't connected to the **strangely incestuous** world of e-voting companies agree that these machines are a big disaster waiting to happen.
You need to research this more thoroughly, for you are sadly misinformed. Deibold's OWN PROGRAMMERS think their software is crap. Look it up.
Ex President Richard Nixon's party is the worlds biggest
hackers convention contributer. It is estimated that by the
year 2010 hackers will have their cadidate in the White
House. "Nixon was to lame at taking care of business"
said the party's representative about Hacking Diebold machines.
It appears that the party estimates to have enough votes for the
next 100 elections.
This report reprinted from the Washing Post.
Every registered voter would get a unique voter ID# issued to them privately.
At the time of voting, the machines would issue each voter a receipt containing their ID# and what they voted for. If you didn't vote, you'd get a receipt in the mail saying you didn't vote. The id numbers would not be linked to your name in any sort of publically accessible way, unless perhaps if you chose to make yours public knowledge.
After the election, every ID# and what they voted for will be listed and tallied on a publically viewable website. You could see what everyone else voted for, not knowing their names of course, and you could see your vote listed in the tally. Even if you didn't participate in the poll but were regsitered to vote, you would see that your registered voter ID did not vote. This way, anyone who is paranoid can look it up to make sure their vote was counted correctly. The receipts would need to be difficult to counterfeit, since having valid receipts that conflict with what is on the website would be be the only way to prove that the system miscounted votes.
With this sort of system in place, the only way the machines could rig the vote would be to somehow get extra registered voters into the system and place votes for these imaginary registered voters. The vote would have to be fairly close already to rig in that fashion, since it involves inflating the number of registered voters above what it was in years past, and a large rise in the number of registered voters would prompt people to investigate.
I wish I had posted this sooner, because it seems ridiculous that we don't implement an idea such as this. It's a fairly simple thing to add to the current system.
Story at:
http://news.com.com/2100-1028-5168670.html
You sir, are full of shit and an idiot. Non-partisan voters in California are allowed to vote in the presidential primaries for 1 of 3 parties if they so choose. Those parties are republican, democrat, and american independent. It's actually a bit more complex than that, since each of those 3 have different rules about which inter-party elections you can participate in, for example republicans don't let you choose presidential candidates, but they still let you choose other positions. As a non partisan, you also have the option to request a ballot that does not include any inter-party elections (a true non partisan ballot). I voted in CA as a non-partisan voter myself today, and the polling people, despite being really really old, actually were pretty intelligent and informed me of those 4 options. There were 4 different ballots I could choose from, and I chose the one with democratic candidates, which includes democratic presidential candidates. Open up your "sample vallot and voter information pamphlet" to read all about what I'm talking about.
And don't go posting about shit like this without looking it up first, moron.
I voted in California using one of the electronic booths and, at least with the setup they had, I don't see how anyone could tamper with the equipment. In an enclosed room with poll workers there. If someone is tampering with something it's obvious and they can't get away with it. "..in some cases simply by ripping out wires." I mean c'mon, someone is really gonna not notice that happening at a voting booth?
Yeah, from the article it sounds like there have been a lot of stupid mistakes made, but I'm sure that's happened at one time or another with the old system as well.
They just need to sit down and figure out how to secure it better. I'd say Public Key Cryptography, or digital signatures but you aren't going to get the average joe American to learn/use a Private Key. But, I guess I don't understand how people are going to be able to _hack_ into servers? Are these things hooked up to networks where someone can get access? You'd think they would keep the machines stand-alone and then dump the information into a machine that isn't connected to any networks under supervision of the FBI/Secret Service for protection from tampering.
"Hard work never killed anyone." -- Some Dead Guy
These events take place on the day of the Californian Primary Election. All events occur in real time.
SIG: TAKE OFF EVERY 'CAPTAIN'!!
Well, "until next morning" is way too slow when mainstream media and the Secretary of State is working for your opponent.
"BSD: Free as in speech. Linux: Free as in beer. Windows 10: Free as in herpes." --Man On Pink Corner in #52607549.
Who is the genius putting Windows on these things
These machines are not on the net. Whoever is coming into contact with the OS has physical access. At that point Windows or Linux is largely irrelevant.
I really think that the problem here is just the implementation
No. The problem is the mindless urge to use computers for voting in the first place. Newer and hitech are not always the answer. Paper ballots are far superior to electronic ones. If hanging chads are a problem then use a scantron-like fill in the bubble method. Now you have both a machine readable and a human readable format. Computers should be relegated to the counting.
I'm as skeptical and un-supportive of the e-voting as the next Slashdot reader. But really, what problems were there yesterday as a direct result of the e-voting? Here in MD, there were three or four precincts that reported some type of problem with _some_ of their voting machines. I bet that that's no worse than the older method which used some kind of optical reader and had its own mechanical/electrical set of issues. So while there is still a likelihood of a bigger problem in November, I don't think you can call yesterday's primary "not so super". Details blown out of proportion on Slashdot, oh my! ;-)
From what you describe, it sounds to me like the whole problem here was human error with regards to how the machines were handled. You say "Oh no, Windows CE!", then go on to say not a single thing that the OS itself was at fault for.
I'm no more of a fan of the crap from Redmond than anyone else here, but I figure there are enough things that Windows does deserve to be blamed for that we don't need to throw in any that it doesn't deserve.
Perl - $Just @when->$you ${thought} s/yn/tax/ &couldn\'t %get $worse;
an all-night draw poker game among all interested candidates
As if we didn't have enough straight-faced liers in politics already?
According to CNN's exit poll for Georgia Kerry should have a lead over Edwards of more than 6.5% - an amount usually considered outside the statistical margin of error.
Depends on the number of people polled vs. number of votes cast.
However, the result coming in reverses that trend with Edward polling at 46% and Kerry at 43%.
That is a whopping 9.5% margine of error in the exit poll!
Even if the exit poll has a confidence interval less than the margin between the two candidates, that interval is still accurate for only 95% of the time. There's a five percent chance that the real figures are something outside that confidence interval. The public is being deceived whenever polls are advertised as being accurate to +-x %.
I don't understand what all the quibble is about. I did my voting yesterday (I'm from Maryland) in about 15 seconds. It was that easy and quick. I had absolutely no problems what so ever.
I keep thinking something along these lines. Diebold & Friends keep complaining that various things We The People demand would hurt their profits, and I keep wondering why it is they assume a right to any profits at all in this matter. This is obviously a very important function of our democracy. If you wanna step in and try to make a profit, okay. Do it right, and if you can make your money back and then some, fine. But if you can't turn a profit doing it right, then either take a loss in the process of helping your fellow man, or get the fuck out of that sector. You don't get to redefine the basic need; you can either do it or you can't.
Seems nobody in the right places wants to ask that question.
Quantum materiae materietur marmota monax si marmota monax materiam possit materiari?
American's only vote when it matters.. like who's going to be the next American Idol.
I know you were only joking, but the funny thing is, you're actually right, and network execs have noticed. The wheels are already turning for an "American Idol"-style TV show to choose a presidential candidate. The show is called "American Candidate," and although it won't let me see the page because I'm not in the US, here's the link.
The hope is that if an election is "glammed-up" like TV shows, that voter interest will be piqued. In all seriousness, a surprising large number of people actually do vote in shows like "American Idol," and "Big Brother." If we could harness that kind of excitement and focus it on something like an election, we may just be able to restore voter interest.
Like woodworking? Build your own picture frames.
Please, please, please don't watch that last episode of Average Joe 2! Think of the children!
The worst part of it was her "deep, dark secret" that the previews kept going on about. I was expecting that she tortured small animals or drove a GMC Pacer or something, but not what it actually was!! (no spoiler, but it sucked. And I had watched every episode - I want those hours back.)
People bitch about a left wing media conspiracy, but it's not left vs right, it's something else entirely. But what, I'm not sure.
of dispensing and detect sarcasm.
I guess I was wrong. And you are correct in your reasoning in your second statement, I did mean multiple branches.
Quoteth the harried math minor: "Keeping all these different maths straight is making my head spin."
THIS THING CAN TURN ON A DIME, MACROSSZERO STYLE ALSO FUCK BETA, ~NYORON
Contrast this with the story from the Associated Press. Rachel Konrad seems tech savvy, but my perception of them is that half the stories there could easily have started life as notes with pencil and paper and then been composed on a trusty Underwood typewriters.
I don't think it's left vs. right in this case as much as it's pixels vs. ink. :-)
Why don't you login, fool?
And start naming the major holes "linux" is full of because I say you're full of shit.
If you're talking about a specific distribution, then get on with it, enlighten us.
Ohh wait. You won't do that. Because you're full of shit.
- It's not the Macs I hate. It's Digg users. -
One possible use for electronic voting would be to randomize the order of the candidates on the ballots. It is well documented (too lazy to find link) that candidates whose names come first on the ballot get more votes.
Why? Because a number of voters just vote for the first name on the ballot. Slightly pathetic...
Thank you Mario! But our princess is in another castle!
Easter eggs? Thats the best you could come up with? Oh brother.
Ridicule, eh? So you have no answer for my showing that a malware-loaded voting machine could easily get past the certification tests you claim make closed-source voting machine software safe.
I win. B-)
But as to your question about whether it was the best I could come up with: Nope. It was just the quickest, and easiest to understand proof-of-concept.
Another: Magic vote/unvote sequences or other magic input sequences.
Akin to the cheat codes on games or magic phone numbers that get you into configuration modes on your cell phone. Everything works normally until you "dial" #3001*12345* or say "xyzzy", then you get extra menus and options.
Similarly, do the magic sequence and you trigger the voting machine to do the same sort of thing described in the "easter egg" example.
I could go on. But I won't. Regardless of whether they're doing it or not, the people who program these things already know too many ways to corrupt the process without having me design some more for them.
So I won't post my "best" ideas, just to win a debate I've already won.
You now have two proofs-of-principle that certification of closed voting software is not an effective safeguard, because it can easily be passed by malicious software.
The incentive structure is to corrupt the elections. (You can win FAR more that way then you lose if you get caught, even if it takes the company down.) The prize is control of the country with the largest economy in the world, or a subdivision of it - along with a potential rakeoff of much of that economy (a third of which is already distributed by government hands). The cost is other people's freedom - which millions have died to acquire and defend.
I think we can afford a little printer paper. Don't you?
Bantam Dominique roosters crow a four-note song. Once you've heard it as "Happy BIRTHday" you can't NOT hear it that way
I was watching a local news program (I live in Florida) on touchscreen voting about a month ago, where the issue of a paper trail was raised in debate.
One representative against the idea of a paper trail said that a paper trail wouldn't work because blind voters would have to ask for help on confirming their vote from the printout, which would violate their right to keep their voting choices private.
I truly am terrified that the accuracy of this election will be unverifiable. Did you know that Diebold has made huge contributions to the Republican party, and that Diebold operators have remote Administrator privileges on every voting machine out there? It's soooo easy to put two and two together, isn't it?
...for the same race and didn't have a problem once. So, whats the big deal?
See my post:0 61&thre shold=-1&commentsort=0&mode=thread&cid=8450035
http://yro.slashdot.org/comments.pl?sid=99
Many of the critics just don't understand how the receipt system works. I would be MUCH happier with much more trust in the voting system if we did the receipt thing. Sure, votes could be bought, but that's possible already with the absentee system. Considering the number of votes that need to be bought to make a serious difference, and the harsh legal penalties we would have against it, I don't think it's a big issue really. It just wouldn't be worth it for someone to try to buy a crapload of votes and risk going to jail over it.