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Indian Voting Machines Compared with Diebold
Hanuman_Ji writes "The Indian general elections, 2004 is now complete - and the result is an upset. As reported earlier, this election was conducted entirely through Electronic Voting Machines (EVMs). This article gives a nice overview of the machines used in this process and also adds a comparison with the Diebold machines. More information is also available at the equipment manufacturer's website."
"...and the result is an upset. As reported earlier, this election was conducted entirely through Electronic Voting Machines (EVMs)."
I see no reason why using EVMs would necessarily result in an 'upset', unless of course they are using closed source voting machines in which no one can review the code to see there isn't any hanky panky.
Things that should be open source: voting machines, encryption programs, anonymous p2p applications, the majority of things dealing with security.
Each machine has its own strengths and weaknesses based on various design goals. If you happen to be looking for fair and accurate voting tech, by all mean go with the Indian setups. Diebold's customers have different requirements is all.
Thank god. What's the point of internet voting? If someone can't be arsed to walk 100 yards to vote, why do we want to know what they think -- they probably don't. We have proxy and postal votes for people who really can't make it to a polling station.
in any case isn't `secure internet' a conradiction in terms?
_O_
.|< The named which can be named is not the true named
It works because the main responsibility still rest with the election officials, not the electronic device.
The main difference from a normal electoral system is that the "box" is a button-based data recorder here, instead of a ballot paper box. Everything else is the same, no roles were being replaced.
Btw, anyone knows if there is a button for casting invalid vote?
Hey, that's my password you are typing
Why? With over a billion people, even if a small percentage can "afford equipment that would let them crack the system", that's still a lot of people.
Yet Another Web Site
It's not possible to add encryption to any problem without also adding complexity. Or, more precisely, the complexity is inversely proportional to the strength of the system.
Key management in a massively distributed system is a hard problem. It WILL create additional complexity.
EVM's aren't the problem (IMO). Unauditable systems are the problem. India appears to audit a vote count and ensure that there aren't more voters than expected. But I don't see how their system allows someone to ensure that their ballot was thrown to the correct candidate.
And because the Indian election spans multiple weeks, it's feasible to call for a re-election in certain locales. This would be a major change to the US system, which expects results within hours of the polls closing.
nt
This P.I.G. will walk on the water, This P.I.G. will walk on the sea, This P.I.G. will walk whereever he wants.
I don't really see how you could use secure internet voting. As a part of a democracy, it is important that the election is a) secret b) and that the voter ain't forced in any way.
This goes into a ring. If the voter is ensured that the election is 100% secret, ie. no one can _ever_ get to know who you voted for, then it's also more difficult to force someone to vote for a certain candidate.
This is allready becoming difficult to ensure, as the bad guy might force the voter to bring a video cam, and film the list as he fills it out. However, the bad guy can't come with the voter, into the voting booth, and stick a gun to his head. If voting via the internet, from home, becomes possible, we suddenly have this problem. The bad guy can be standing behind the voter, with a shotgun pointed at his head. And even if you imply such things as a cam, it still can be faked relatively easy. And it is easier to steal a digital signature or something, as it either matches, or don't. A handwritten signature can be faked, but it is still possible to check further if things points in direction of fraud or not, by comparing the signature with others that you have positively done. With a digital signature, it either matches or not. There's no grayzone between a fraud and a real. So I don't think decentralized voting is a thing for the future. We still need the centrals, the voting boths, with a controlled envirorment.
Assembling etherkillers for fun an profit
It's just too hard to fix an election if the system is simple or reliable. It seems there is a need to keep voters confused and distracted, and this would fit perfectly with the Diebold design.
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"outsourced to India!"
Maybe it was. Does anyone know for sure who wrote the code?
Actually, I don't see why it has to be a pc based solution at all? Why an OS and all the extra hassle and security holes that it brings (yes, even with Linux).
I'll take the Indian system over any pc-based setup any day. No exploits in the software, no network connection to attack, and just as secure as paper ballots (ie relying on the officials not to tamper with the box). And if you want to make the tallying automatic too, it's as simple as putting a jack on the back that gives read access to the internal memory.
The only downside, as someone previously mentioned, is that it's quite easy to stick something over the names on the machine itself. Layer of plexiglass on top, maybe (to make it obvious that the names should be *under* the glass, not on top)?
Jw
OTOH, they presumably do so on a daily basis, so it just becomes `go 100 yards out of their way'.
There is a widely recycled assumption that we need to get more people to vote and/or `become involved in politics'. This seems to be to be amazingly stupid. We need to get more people to think about politics. The voting etc will come as a natural consequence. Getting them to vote without thinking first is just a way to reduce the average information content of an election.
_O_
.|< The named which can be named is not the true named
One also should not fail to notice the amount of paper and trees saved by india's shift to the electronic voting machines.
this sig violates slashdot rules
Maybe I'll move to India. It's probably easier to get a job there anyway.
One of the principle reasons for the upset was the fact that much of India's economic progress was due to their "in-sourcing" of foreign tech jobs. Well, at least that was the appearance to the working poor in India. The new party is going to try to spread out India's economic success to a greater percentage of the population. In short, there's a very good chance India's economy is about to tank. Between that and your snide melodrama, your employment opportunities aren't very good.
"God is a comedian playing to an audience too afraid to laugh." -Voltaire
The problem with most current electronic voting machines is that they don't provide a voter-verifiable paper trail. It doesn't matter how much you encrypt connections and verify source code; in the end, any modifications to software are invisible to the voter. This can make election rigging nigh undetectable, so the fact that an election goes off without hitches has no real bearing on the honesty of the election.
Once EVMs create a hard-copy receipt for the voter to verify and drop in a separate lockbox, there will be a better chance of trusting them. A random sample of the hard-copy receipts can then be counted (by a separate company or government entity) and compared to the percentages tallied by the electronic system. When discrepancies occur, they can be analyzed in detail to determine whether or not fraud was involved.
Yes, we do need the massive complexity of Diebold or similar systems to run American elections.
no, we need something simple yet scalable. The two are not mutually exclusive. Anything built on top of Windows is needlessly complex.
Why is he a token muslim? Or he does not follow islamic rehtoric? or becasue he was elected because the 'secular' congress party (one that is now head by sonia) did not support the first candidate of 'hindu nationaists' becasue he was a chtistian and she saw a risk that is president is christian then people will not want PM to be one too? inspite of fact that anthony was from congress too?
They rose to national power largely on feelings risen by anti-Muslim riots & the destruction of an ancient mosque, and many of the worst criminals rose to positions of power.
yes, like the lallo yadav and mulayam sigh have been saints now that 'saintly' congress needs their support?
India has a large Muslim minority, so the eccentric-scientist-Muslim was given the powerless position of President,
if you have been in India you will know the influence this person has been. his books on future vision of india have been best sellers.
It's vaguely equivalent to allowing one black guy who doesn't play golf into an all-white country club.
mind you language and i pity your ignorance!
where did my sig go? where's my sig at?
I don't know about your locale, but where I live (and most of the United States) people have the option of casting an "absentee ballot". This essentially amounts to voting by mail. You get a form from the registrar's office, fill it out, and mail it in before a specified date. Then, election day, your ballot is actually counted. (Thus fulfilling the constitutional requirement for elections to be held on a single day.)
Absentee ballots were originally intended to allow people who would not be in the vicinity of their homes on election day to vote anyhow. It has evolved into a tool for a substantial chunk of the electorate to vote from home.
Secure internet voting would be a logical replacement for absentee ballots.
Also, keep in mind that there really isn't much fraud protection in the existing system. Nothing stops you from registering your dog, getting an absentee ballot for him, and casting a vote in his name. When we're evaluating voting systems, keep that in mind. The present system is very insecure - it's ultimately reliant on people being honest. In places and times when people haven't been as honest, fraud has occurred. Yes, in the USA. Yes, in democratic strongholds like New York and Chicago. I don't know about LA, I think they are too laid back to cheat very much (as cheating does require _some_ effort.)
The thing that I like best about the Indian system is that it essentially duplicates the old-fashioned paper ballot, without the paperwork. Instead of a box that the voter puts his ballot in there's a little electronic box that adds up the votes as it goes along. The control boxes are physically taken to the central voting registry and manually unlocked to record the vote counts, with interested parties having immediate access to the results and the ability to do a precinct-level recount almost immediately.
Notice what's not there: no network to expose data to possible manipulation between voting machine and central server; no fancy machine lacking tamperproof seals; no fancy database with built-in unpassworded backdoor "for support purposes"; no MS software anywhere in the loop; no manufacturer's president sworn to "delivering the vote" for an incompetent incumbent. It's those last couple of items which will prevent the adoption of the Indian system in this country.
Just my $.02,
Ron
Impeach Barack Obama for violating the Constitutional requirement to be a "natural born" citizen to hold the office of P