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Demo of Free Software Voter-Verifiable Voting
Lulu of the Lotus-Ea writes "The Open Voting Consortium (OVC) is holding a demonstration of its Free Software voting system in Santa Clara, California on April 1, 2004 (yeah, I know the date, but it's not a joke). An announcement on the OVC homepage has further details. The Sourceforge hosted EVM2003 project of the OVC has produced touchscreen and vision-impared interface voting systems that produce visually inspectable (or machine-aided audio verification) paper ballots. As well, OVC will demonstrate systems for reconcilliation and reporting of precint results, and provide handouts and a presentation explaining the virtues of a publicly inspectible system with a tamper-proof paper trail."
I guess there are plenty of examples of doing nothing leading to the undesirable. Go for it you people. Stand up and be counted (Accurately :-)
Diebold: I quote: fraud-prone, blackbox, proprietary, expensive, idiosyncratic, unreliable
OVC: I quote:technically sound, accurate, secure, inexpensive, uniform and open voting system
That really sums it up.
If you don't believe me try a demo of the Diebold voting system
DIEBOLD: Boldling rigging where no man's rigged before
(Well... Let's not talk about the presidential election 2004)
Nothing to see here
I had been thinking that there would need to be an open standard and rock solid set of validation tools to test potential software.
OSS voting soltions is not an option that sprung to mind, but it's neat.
And if you thought that was boring you obviously havn't read my Journal ;-)
I don't think i could ever trust voting if a computer is involved to count "virtual" votes
this is just way too easy to abuse by a rogue government either now or in the future.
creating an OSS voting software actually reinforces the argument for digital voting.
Do these people have the attention of legislators and governors? There are a lot of legislators who are keen on the idea of including a voter-verifiable paper trail, and several state governors have expressed concern as well with the voting systems that have debuted so far. This is (should be) as much a PR project as it is a coding project.
With all the bitching and moaning going on about electronic voting systems, one would think that this would have been the first idea to mind, but, apparently, the average citizen can only complain and deliver shit for alternate ideas. This is fantastic that someone has organized this into a feasible possibility to demonstrate to the public. With a few public showings, this might even break into the mainstream voting arena, and, while I don't believe it will assauge all worries that people have, it should help with most, and the others will be ironed out eventually.
Thanks to all those that helped with this.
I would never trust a computer voting system, even postal votes dont seem like a good idea.
The problem (as i understand it) in the states come from the hanging chads etc that resulted in baby bush been in the whitehouse. Computer voting is been touted as *the* solution, but i would think that no matter how good this software was, putting a cross in a big box (like the UK and Europe) then having someone count the crosses is still the best solution.
Don't get me wrong, I love computers too, but what exactly is wrong with paper ballots? They work reliably, and have been for a long long time. They are cheap, simple, tamperproof - and the beauty is, the technology scales wonderfully ;)
Just 'cause you can automate something doesn't always mean you should.
no taxation without representation!
Whilst right thinking intelligent people (everyone reading this of course), realise the benefits of such an approach to voting, the people who choose voting systems (i.e. Politicians) will ask one question:
"Who is accountable?"
Because it's not a company developing this system, (who after all, always act in an appropriate, legal, and fully accountable manner :-|), politicians will believe that such 'communist' philosophies are not to be trusted. "Surely if it's an open system, it can be exploited by ne'er do wells?".
I'd liken it to companies who always buy MS - "because, hey, MS is a reputable company. They're accountable for their software". It's a mentality which goes along the lines of "Companies are better than a gang of hippies, doing it because they want to make the world a better place man."
Same old same old - whilst this will undoubtedly be technically better than anything Diebold can come up with, politcal motives will bury this initiative I fear.
"This is your life, and it's ending one second at a time."
Maybe because Dubya was not voted in 'by the people'?
How does the Belgian system enforce a secret ballot? (Which is one where nobody can find out for sure how you voted, even if you want them to find out.) How can the voter be sure that his vote has been counted? You can see a ballot paper physically drop into the box, and see that nobody has tampered with the box, and watch the counting; but how to be certain the card reader is doing the right thing?
-- Ed Avis ed@membled.com
Something like this:
Step 1: Walk into the booth, and identify yourself (Probably in the form of some number that the voting place keeps track of.)
Step 2: Select candidates in a nice, easy-to-read format.
Step 3: Print out a filled-in ballot.
Step 4: Ask you to verify correct votes.
Step 5: If you say yes, place the ballot into the slot underneath the printer. This slot wouldn't open until you have verified your votes. (clearly labeled in nice, bright letters again). If not, go back to step 2.
Step 6: When the issue of verification comes up, there's a paper trail that every voter is supposed to have looked at. If they didn't, well, that's their business. Looks like their vote didn't count.
So, in the spirit of trying to find flaws in order to preserve democracy for all, who is in charge of loading the open-source software onto the machines? This is, IMO, a crucial problem with machine voting. It's fairly easy to imagine a scenario where an "updated" version of the software gets slipped in to the computer by a zealous poll-worker who is, after all, a registered member of one or the other parties. Vote fraud with paper ballots is so hard because members of both parties verify the results. Vote fraud with e-voting would be easy, once you figured out the right trick.
Don't get me wrong; I think open-source e-voting is better than proprietary e-voting. But I would still rather have paper ballots and wait a couple of days for the results. The problems in Florida in 2000 are chump change compared to the potential fraud possible with e-voting.
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What is the advantage of electronic voting except its more expensive, more complex, and more vulnerable to manipulation.
Any sort of voting machine, chads, or plastic doohickies just add to complexity. The old fashioned pen and paper method works fine.
If it ain't broke, dont fix.
Do it like in australia. We have a balot paper where you have to mark 1st preference, 2nd preference etc etc and if us aussies can do it, surely the yanks can do it.
Or failing that, this way
First, you select the votes on a touch screen or similar.
Then, it prints out a small reciept showing in human-readable (and also machine-readable perhaps by a barcode or OCR) your vote.
Then it can be read by the machines to provide a count. But, if there is a dispute, hand-counting it is dead easy.
Because its a physical bit of paper in a physical tamper-proof box, its not possible to tamper with the vote. Plus, its easy to see that you the voter made the selection you thought you were making. And to see that your vote is definatly being counted.
And, it has the advantage of being fast to count (of course, the counting machine could be fixed but thats why its printed in human-readable form also, to allow recounts to manually recount with no doubt as to who each voter voted for)
the machines for doing this woulnt need to be particularly good. In fact, the hardware found in some supermarket Cash Registers (the kind with the screen not the kind with the little LED display) is probobly sufficient.
Basicly, all you need is a touch screen (or a regular screen and some buttons/a keypad), a reciept printer to print the actual votes and some chips to control it.
You could easily do control logic on a simple embedded system. And, its possible to make an embedded system very resistant to code modification. (just ask any arcade emulation guru about e.g. the Sega System 16)
Plus, because its printing a physical ballot paper, if the code doesnt print the correct stuff, someone will notice that what is printed on the paper doesnt match with who they wanted to vote for.
Of course, my idea will never happen since it might mean that the voters actually have some (GASP!) control over who gets elected (and of course those men in their suits with their black briefcases full of green bits of paper with past presidents on them wont like that since those bits of paper wont have as much affect on what laws get passed)
The problem with using computers to do a recount is they can be "influenced" as much as electronic voting machines. Because of that, running a recount is pointless, as the same corrupt code is run again, producing the same corrupt output. Or, the same corrupt cards are read again, producing the same corrupt output...
I know what you're saying, but there's still far, FAR too much that can be messed around with, in a completely undetectable fashion.
The software is a good start, but you can't walk up to a city/county/state government and sell them a CD-ROM full of software and claim, "This is your voting booth".
Diebold's software is almost completely irrelevant. They're the guys who make safes, ATMs, and other high-physical-security objects. The fact that the software makes the machines unreliable...well, what state/county/city ever actually looked inside the mechanical voting machine to see if it worked properly? The machines were supposed to be physically tamper-reistant.
There's also the "blame" issue. Companies have some sort of identity that cn be held responsible. (The fact that corporate structure generally hides the actions of individuals is...a nice benefit, especially if you're in the business of rigging elections. But I digress.)
So the only way for this to work is to become the enemy. Build a physical infrastructure (a hell of a lot more expensive than banging out some software) and find a progressive city willing to use it instead of Diebold. Pick up a track record, and perhaps you can compete. Then, perhaps, the conspiracy theorists will have something to point to when the state of Florida chooses Diebold at twice the price.
I agree OVC has multiple benefits over proprietary systems. However, the cynic in me says that it won't be used because the people the decide what to use will be in the pockets of Diebold. While kickbacks will be the real reason, you will hear them say things like "Well OVC has no proven track record, how can we trust them."
I wish this wasn't the case, but I'm sad to say democracy doesn't work against bribes and kickbacks.
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I worked for five years in politics, and never encountered any major official who was involved in such a thing.
Then you must not have worked in California. Or had anything to do with the US Congress' dabbling in voting rules.
Absentee ballots without excuses and perpetual absentee ballots. (Several thousand at one address, too, and I'm not talking about a nursing home or general delivery at a post office.)
Motor-voter. (A recipie for fraud, even when NOT combined with perpetual absentee ballots.)
Illegal alien voters. (And: rules against checking ID at polling places, helpful people teaching migrant workers and child-only welfare families (i.e. mommy's not a citizen) how to register and vote, "get out the vote" vans taking people from precinct to precinct - where the riders ALL go in at each precinct).
Floating ballot box tops as a hazard to navigation.
I could go on.
Yes, most of the poll workers are honest and hard-working. But it doesn't take many bad apples to spoil the barrel, since one fraudster can generate thousands of votes - and swing a close elections with millions of voters.
Once or twice, a local party official, it's true, has cheated-- and they're looked down upon and attacked, especially by the ones they 'help'.
Because they cheated? Or because they got caught, making the candiate and party look bad?
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