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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 :-)
With Diebold's flaws being exposed, it may be a good time to effect some real change. What are the chances of this being actually adopted for some election?
Be faithful to your obsessions. Identify them and be faithful to them, let them guide you like a sleepwalker. JG Ballard
It'll never catch on.
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.
On their site they required that you attend the demo in a pink dress with fairy wings on your back.
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.
Will China adopt it?
And if you thought that was boring you obviously havn't read my Journal ;-)
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.
Does that mean every polling station gets to compile their own source?
if ($vote eq "GWB"){
&flush($vote);
}
else{
$othertotal++;
}
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."
But then, I'm reminded of Terry Pratchett's Discworld continent XXXX: They put politicians in prisons immediately they win elections, because it saves time later.
Panurge has posted for the last time. Thanks for the positive moderations.
They will use a system called Demotek that is made by four basque companys (Ibermatica, Ikusi, Hunolt and Euskaltel), and uses a really curious way for voting, half analogic, half digital. The voter uses a normal paper for voting, but the ballot paper has a bar code that is read when it is inserted in the ballot box.
The results are available in the moment that the ballot boxes are closed. But, they are not official until the ballot papers are counted.
- It's a easy way because there are no skills necesary (it's not necesary to know using a computer). My grandmother can use it.
-It's a safe way, because there are always the ballot papers for testing if the system was ok and no one has cheat the results.
- It's a fast way for knowing the results. No more Florida like recounting needed.
Sorry for my awfull english
Marcus Ramius
Electronic voting has been used in parts of Belgium for over a decade, with little fuss or controversy.
The system is simple, robust, secure and verifiable. Each voter gets a smart card (magstripe card in the older days) when they present their papers; they take this smart card into the voting booth and insert it, much like using an ATM (and everyone knows how to do this). The voting machines use a touch screen like an ATM (in the older days, using a light pen), and let you select your candidate/party. The vote is registered to the card, which is then ejected, and inserted into a ballot box that counts the vote as the card is entered.
The ballot boxes are locked, so tampering with the cards is impossible. The card readers in the box cannot write to the cards. The voting booths are stupid, with no memory or network connections.
So what's the big deal in the US?
Ceci n'est pas une signature
What are they trying to do? Make Bush lose the election?
Does everything include nothing?
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.
Human being (n.): A genetically human, genetically distinct, functioning organism.
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.
Something somewhat similar to this has been done in Louisiana for many years (for those who are unfamiliar with the state's statistics: La is known for the worst drivers, close to worst education, etc. -- almost everything is close to the worst). The voters sign an afadavid (sp?) when they enter the voting facility, and the booth number is noted. Inside the booth, there is a very simple interface with buttons next to each candidate's name, and there is a brief description of the candidate's platform. Before submitting the vote (a light is illuminated by the pressed button) the voters are asked to confirm.
Any way, back to the 5-step process:
1. Identify yourself (the afadavid as in Louisiana) -- Most states' driver's licenses have some sort of electronically readable media. That part seems easy enough -- scan the card.
2. A nice, easy format is WAY too easy to do, unless it's for Florida residents (or so it seems)
5. Not quite -- the hard copy ballots should be automatically dropped (or printed in a long strip like a cash register receipt?) within the machine, and only printed after the voter has confirmed his/her choice.
Also, there should be a database of local users at the voting points of only the local registered voters. If a scanned ID (if that is the chosen method) does not match, the voter is denied. The information of voters is kept separate from too easily attaching a name to a vote, but not ipossible in case someone somehow successfully votes twice (another reason for theinitial database check), which would invalidate the person's votes. Of course, this could be modified and expanded for many types of possible fraud detection.
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)
Our money is thrown around the globe every day in bit form and few of us have ever been the victim of fraud. There is fundamentally no difference between your vote as a tally in a database and your money as a tally in the datbase.
In fact I once worked on a project which had a direct pipe to the Fed's ACH system. I could have easily dropped a transfer from your account to mine and it would have gone through wihtout ANY authorization on your part. Why wasn't I ever tempted to loot anyone's account? Paper-trail. There was absolutely no way I could have taken the money such that the system would not know who had submitted the transaction and who received the money (and moral grounds, thank you very much). If fraud was committed, my company would catch hell and you can be sure I would be sure to follow.
P.S. - Here's a clever idea. Let's privatize voting. How about we allow electronic voting, but it costs $5 to do so with a private firm electronically (think tax submission software). Firms compete with each other for voters. That way, it's in each company's financial interests to keep the vote secure because any company who fucked up an election would surely lose all it's customers. Perhaps each company is required to publish it's vote datbase before its votes can be tallied. Capitalism works!
The meek shall inherit the earth, in 3 by 6 plots. - Lazerus Long
It seems most (all?) election schemes are "choose at most N from this list". But what about support for "Instant Runoff Voting"? By that meaning, this is my first choice, this is my sencond choice, etc. And you tabulate the votes multiple times (using each voters' most viable candidate, eliminating candidates who fare poorly each time) until you get a clear winner.
It helps to avoid the problem of the third party spoiler.
e.g. you have 3 candidates say: bush, kerry, nader.
bush gets 45% of the vote
kerry gets 45% of the vote
nader gets 10% of the vote
no clear winner yet. Eliminate nader
of the people who voted for him as their first choice... 4% voted for bush as their 2nd choice. and 6% voted for kerry. retabulate
bush 49%, kerry 51%
(of course, then you send it to the electoral college, and they hand it to bush... but that's another reform)
We've just linked in an online demo of the voting system as it will operate in a polling station. You can go to the Open Voting Consortium web site, and click on 'web demo'. Or go straight to the ballot if you're impatient.
Please keep in mind that we're not proposing voting through web browsers, or across the internet, because of the numerous security issues. This web demo is intended to let you see what you'd see on our demo on April 1 in California, for people who can't be there.
What you'll see is a ballot formatted for a large screen (1280x1024). You fill it out, then click 'print ballot'. What would happen in a polling station is that the ballot is printed out. In the online version, you can get the ballot as a PDF, Postscript, or JPEG image.
In the stand-alone polling station you will be able to take your paper ballot to a validation station that will read your vote back to you, so that you know that the paper ballot accurately represents your vote.
You then take your ballot to the tabulation station, where a poll worker will scan the ballot and store it in a locked box, where the paper ballots are available for recounts, audits, etc.
Enable 3D printed prosthetics!
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.
This sounds like a first step in that process. There's no point getting peoples' attention if your software is flawed (and if, in addition, you don't have money to lobby congress). If you're trying to produce an open voting system, you must first prove its reliability on technical merits. Doing so in a public building seems like a great way to get attention. Then they'll build on that attention as Diebold's flaws get reported more and more widely.
It's rare that you're presented with a knob whose only two positions are Make History and Flee Your Glorious Destiny.
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?
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 'Real Time with Bill Maher' the other night, and he had Gore Vidal on. Gore brought up the point that only one company does all the exit polling for all the news media nationwide, and there is absolute secrecy in how they do their polling. They could really say anything they want, and as long as it was close to the vote tallies, no one would question anything.
So we have the capacity, through Diebold and others, for massive vote fraud. And only one secretive company doing exit polling to verify things. Scary combination.
- None can love freedom heartily, but good men; the rest love not freedom, but license. -- John Milton
No. As custodian of the Terry LePore Fan Page, I must correct this misstatement.
Ms Lepore was technically a Democrat by virtue of checking that box on her voter registration form. Her reason for doing so was entirely non-ideological: Palm Beach County is overwhelmingly Democratic, so the best way to win elected office there is to be the Democratic nominee. Prior to her first campaign for Elections Supervisor, she was either Independent or Republican (sources conflict on this) but definitely not a "lifelong Democrat" as some stories have claimed.
In 2001 she officially switched to Independent, and is running for reelection as such this year. It's true she has claimed to prefer Gore over Bush, but plenty of registered Republicans (me, for instance) feel the same.
to admit that my opponents are as earnest and well-intentioned as I amWell... they're not! Given that one of the few publically-known topics in Cheney's energy task force was how to divvy up Iraq's oil fields... c'mon, think about it for a second. Well-intentioned?