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Open Voting at OSCON
fmclain writes "The Open Voting Consortium (OVC) which has already been mentioned
here
will be demonstrating its
open source voting system,
which includes a voter verifiable paper trail, at this year's OSCON in Portland. The
Mercury News
(free reg.) describes this as the touch-screen holy grail. Given Diebold's
troubles
in California this can't come too soon. The OVC
has already demonstrated a working system in Sacramento."
Of course, the most important aspect of this system is that it creates a voter-verifiable paper trail and thus more accountability.
This is all implemented on a state level. Call your local representatives NOW. This is something you personally can get involved in. Chances are, particularly if you live in a backwater state like I do, that your state senators have never heard of open source. It's your responsibility to educate them.
If you wanna make sure your vote doesn't get hacked, get involved!
The Federal Election Commission has a FAQ About The National Voluntary Voting System Standards. The FAQ indicates that to meet the standards, an election system must satisfy either "FEC's voting system standards" or pass tests "by independent testing authorities (ITAs) designated by the National Association of State Election Directors."
The National Association of State Election Directors has, among other things:
(1) a List of NASED Certified Systems;
(2) an Updated List of NASED Certified Systems; and, most importantly,
(3) an Overview of the Certification Process.
Has the Open Voting Consortium made any attempt to get their software certified?
Only Women Bleed (Sex, Sharia remix)
It's too late (200 days left) to manufacture new voting machines for the 2004 election. We're probably stuck with the touchscreens peddled by Diebold, SIAC, Sequoia and ES&S, all of which have had severe field problems (some of which seem deliberate). But we've got enough time to install OSS voteware on these machines. And to test them as deterministic, reliable and accountable by paper trail.
Now you can help, in standard "Open Source Community" fashion. Email stories about this OSS voteware, and the serious problems with the proprietary voteware it replaces, to your local newspaper, TV station, and elected representatives. Keep your tone serious, professional, and no-nonsense about your intolerance of votefixing in the status quo. You have about 75 days left in which to be heard - after that, there's no time to do anything but whine. And soon after that, even whining will be out of the picture.
--
make install -not war
Wouldn't someone be able to do this with a closed source app as well? Closed source is not the same as no source.
"Have you ever thought about just turning off the TV, sitting down with your kids, and hitting them?"
No, because the paper ballot is deposited into the ballot box after the voter receives and verifies it.
Great minds think alike; fools seldom differ.
2) Different groups doing each count
This used to be done by having representatives from each party there for the vote counting, corroberating the results. In some countries, in addition to party monitors, independent non-partisan groups check the vote count. In the U.S. however, we have been lulled into trusting the vote count and so as far as I know these efforts haven't been organized recently. Now electronic voting machines that don't produce any sort of auditable trail prevent citizens from exercising this level of oversight should they desire to. There are a few groups talking about non-partisan election monitoring this November. I'm aware of VoteWatch, and perhaps the League of Women Voters and the ACLU will organize monitoring in particularly vulnerable districts. Is anyone aware of other efforts?
That's NOT what happened in California.
The software itself didn't work.
Diabold has now admitted it didn't work and apologized for it.
California should sue Diabold.
Cruz Bustemente should sue California and the governator should be recalled.
Article Here
http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/articles/A3 4424-2004Apr22.html
Pretty much, California's Voting Systems and Procedures Panel decided by a UNANIMOUS vote of 8 - 0 to block counties from using Diebold machines for the November elections.
I'm normally very cynical when it comes to politics, but it's nice to see my state get (somewhat) of a clue.
All electoral methods (indeed most forms of government) represent a tradeoff between different considerations.
For voting methods, criteria of "goodness" might include this list [wot I mostly nicked]:
- The voting system should always give a result
- If a voter improves the ranking of a particular option, that option should not be disadvantaged (monotonicity criterion)
- Removing a candidate should not change the winner of an election unless that candidate is the winner (independence of irrelevant alternatives)
- Every possible outcome should be achievable
- Non-dictatorship (i.e. more than one person's vote matters)
- The number of seats won by any party should be in proportion to votes cast (Proportionality)
- Simplicity of process, and accessibility to largest range of voters
- Speed of election and count
- Reduction of potential for dispute after the fact
In fact, Arrow's impossibility theorem has shown that the first 5 of these cannot be simultaneously met if there are more than . So pick one with disadvantages you can live with.See this interesting Wikipedia article for further discussion of these ideas...
Paul "Say no to feeping creaturism"
Condorcets Method
But I am not sure you are sufficiently informed on the nature of our great United States we are a Democratic REPUBLIC and the although I agree Condorcet's method may remove some of the "You wouldn't want to throw your vote away" syndrom that influences so many voters there is still the electoral college and even worse, as the last election demonstrated, it just doesn't matter.
I agree with you on one point: How we count our votes does not equate to voteing reform. We must fundamentally change the methods used in the election of our leaders if this is to be a truely free Democratic Republic. Now try and explain that to the people who have the power to change it. They are the ones the current system put into power eg: the least likely to suppot change.
-FM
"It's all just meme meme around here"
I'm not sure if it's because of me (a /.er who's been doing a "Chicken Little" impression about electronic voting for a couple of years now) or because of Ben Cohen's (as in "Ben," the founder of Ben & Jerry's, tho' he's no longer working there) organization, True Majority, which has been sending her e-mails about e-voting, among other issues, but my mom has gotten into this issue. She lives in Maine and sent me an e-mail about an act recently passed in the Maine Legislature entitled An Act to Ensure the Accurate Counting of Votes. Note: navigation is a bit weird on the linked site-- if you go to the text of the Act, the whole text of the bill will not appear on a single page. You will have to use the arrows at the top and bottom of the pages to navigate around through the Act. You can also download a copy in M$ Word format.
Oh yeh-- there's an amendment. To see it, click on the "Amendments" link on the "Bill Text and Other Docs" page, or click here.
This is a sweet little piece of legislation. My favorite parts: it prohibits networking the voting machines, requires the voting machine software to be open source, and requires the voting machines to print paper ballots that are inspected by the voter and then placed into a ballot box. I am deeply impressed with this, and with the sponsor, Maine State Representative Hannah Pingree.
Here's a question: does anybody other than the OVC have a product that meets the criteria specified in the Act?
Responding to the parent post, I'll say that Maine can be considered a "backwater state," and its legislature has produced what appears to me to be a kick-ass piece of legislation on e-voting that explicitly requires open source software. Do big, rich, important states like California have such good legislation? I think not. Score one for the backwater states!
--Mark
PS: if you're near a Ben & Jerry's scoop shop, go there next Tuesday, April 27, and take advantage of Free Cone Day!!!
"It is nice to know that the computer understands the problem. But I would like to understand it too." --Eugene Wigner
Till these topics die.
... when you get your first job. If you are a mandatory voter (literate person from 18 to 65) you have to go to Electoral Court and register to vote. In the process of registering, you receive the "Título de Eleitor" (voter id), in which you have the number of you voting section. To change jobs, and specially to get a government job, you have to prove you are a registered and regularized voter (you voted in the last election, or regularized your voting situation after it).
I live in Brasil. We have had voting machines in the last 12-14 years (yes, twelve to fourteen -- it depends the size of the city you are in). Brazilians here: the first election here in Belo Horizonte to use the machines were the mayoral (and city council, state representation, governor, house and senate) before FHC was elected (as I count it, 2 years + 8 years + 1 1/2 = 11,5 years). I know it, because I was "mesário" (election "table" official? election "clerk"? what is a good English translation?) in the previous election, and in the two subsequent elections). IIRC, there were electronic ballot boxes in Rio and Sao Paulo in the election before that (the only two cities larger than Belo Horizonte).
Our voting machines are mainly of three different (internally) models: (a) the old ones, that use VirtuOS (*) as the OS, (b) the new ones, that use WinCE as the OS, and (c) the newest and deprecated ones that have the second printer to print your vote, show it to you inside a clear acrilic case, and mix it with others inside the machine.
Externally, all of them look roughly the same: a box similar to the old "portable computers" of the eighties, with a 5-6" diagonal LCD and a big numerical keypad in the right side of the screen, that has, besides the 0-9 keys, "confirma" (ok), "erro" (cancel), and "branco" (white).
The electoral process (from the point of view of the voter) begins
In the election day, you scan the newspapers (or the Superior Electoral Court website), search for the address of your section, and go there. No, there is no transit vote, you can only vote at that address. If you can't get there, you'll have to "justify" your absence.
At the section, you will present your voter id to one the "mesários", and if you don't have it on you, you can still vote (you can show other valid id), but will be delayed. The mesário will search for your name in the vote-ticket sheet, and annex it to your id while you vote. You will sign a receipt in a sheet, and proceed to the voting "booth". Another "mesário" will type your voter id # in a remotely connected keypad, setting the machine in the "ready to vote" mode.
The voting "booth" is really only a desk with the voting machine over it, facing nobody else in the room, and sometimes with a cardboard "cover" around it. You will "dial" the numbers of the candidates, in order. when you dial all the digits of one candidate, a star-trek-like chime rings, his/her face will show up in the screen, and if you digited it right, you hit "ok". otherwise, you hit "cancel" and start over. After typing all the candidates, you hit "ok" one last time, the machine chimes again, and goes to "stand by" mode. You have voted. If you don't want to vote for nobody, you can hit "white" instead of the candidate ## (accounted as a "white vote", or "none of the above" -- this is the equivalent of putting your paper ballot in the box without marking anything), or if you really want to protest you can type 9999 or other non-existent-candidate-#, and your vote will be accounted as a "null vote", or "I'm really pissed of" (the equivalent of drawing pictures or writing "improper expletives" in a paper ballot)
Then, you get your id back, your ticket (keep it together with your voter id!!), and you go home. Ah, bars do not open (theoretically) in the election day, so hope you have bought your beer in the day before).
From the point of view of election officials, things are more complicated. The machines
It's better to be the foot on the boot than the face on the pavement. ~~ tkx Kadin2048
0) It's way easier to use than punch cards. Press buttons on a touch screen.
1) It's way easier to verify than punch cards. Just read it.
2) No hanging chads. Inspecting a ballot does not alter the ballot.
3) No hanging chad jokes.
steveha
lf(1): it's like ls(1) but sorts filenames by extension, tersely