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Who's Blocking Verified E-Voting?
ClarkEvans writes "The NY Times has a great editorial today calling out the League of Women Voters for their counter-productive lobbying against verified voting. The article states that Diebold voting systems has given lots of dough to these opposition groups." There's an AP story about the issue as well.
And there was me thinking that maybe, just maybe, the corruptive rot of politics hadn't sunk through to supposed grassroots groups like this. Guess I should've thought better and realised that astroturfing like this is doable after all. How much power do these groups hold? With the money they're being backhanded by Diebold, they might be able to exert some unwanted influence on the issue. :/
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GNAA
As long as it is secure, I can't see how an electronic system could be worse than paper ballots that you look at and can't tell which candidate the voter voted for. If the system verified for me which candidates I voted for before I left the poll, that would be great (so I know my vote got registered correctly). And certainly there is some kind of permanant audit trail that could be verified later?
I Am My Own Worst Enemy
I've written the League several times over the last few months. Their stance is not only wrong-headed, but they refuse to listen to their constituency. The NY Times article refers to a group of disabled people, ones who happen to have a great deal of influence with the LWV, who were given foundation monies from Diabold. You cannot pretend that politics is not involved here.
I've posted about this on Slashdot before but looks like it's appropriate to post again.
Here's a link to the realaudio stream of the radio show I refered to.
In our state our governor, Jeb Bush, is against the whole verified voting idea. Suprising considering the whole fiasco here in Florida last time.
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... The paper trail is the ambulance in the
Date: Fri, 7 May 2004 19:41:29 -0400
To: letters@nytimes.com
Subject: Secure Voting Techology
May 3rd's article "Who Hacked the Voting System?" begs the question:
why must these complicated voting systems be all encompassing?
Imagine a process where selecting candidates and tallying choices is
distinct. The voter enters a booth, uses a complicated touch-screen
machine, and emerges with a human-readable card clearly stating
their candidate. Then, the voter walks over to a brightly lit
election desk, feeds this card into the tallying machine, and
deposits their card into the ballot box.
Security is straight-forward. Voters will tell you when a
touch-screen system make an error. This leaves the tallying machine
to secure. Luckily, it is in plain sight and its operation is
simple. Further, if the tally is questioned, some or all of the
ballots can be reviewed by human eyes.
Candidate selecting technology is complicated. Card tallying ain't.
Let's keep them separate.
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Date: Sun, 23 May 2004 11:19:17 -0400
To: letters@nytimes.com
Subject: Demand Grows to Require Paper Trails for Electronic Votes
In the article Demand Grows to Require Paper Trails for Electronic
Voting, published May 23, 2004, Doug Chapin from the Pew Charitable
Trust said: "You can either build a fence around a cliff or put an
ambulance in the valley
valley. Certifying the machines and testing them in the first place to
make sure they are secure is the fence around the cliff."
I think Mr. Chapin's analogy is poor, it is not an either/or, one would
properly do both. However, if he insists with this analogy, I suggest
Verified Voting is more analogous with the ability to ensure that the
fence around the cliff is actually working. The only way to detect that
a voting technology reflects voter intent is to complement touch screens
with a simple print-out listing the canidates the voter has chosen. Then
the voter can review their choices and stuff this print-out into the
ballot box so random or challenge recounts can happen. Lacking this
ability to verify voter intent, we are left with only one way to ensure
that our democracy is working -- trust a for-profit corporation.
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Date: Fri, 11 Jun 2004 10:09:04 -0400
To: letters@nytimes.com
Subject: The Disability Lobby and Voting
I am so happy to see the NY Times call-out the League of Weoman Voters
for their counter-productive stand; also, I can't believe that despite
my calls, Senator Dodd has joined this nonsense.
An optical scan solution can offer the best of both worlds. A
disabled-persons friendly touch screen or audio-system can be used to
generate the ballot; while the actual counting of the optical ballots
can be done with a much simpler optical reader.
By breaking the problem of filling-out and counting ballots, we get the
best of both worlds; the intermediate ballot provides the paper trail.
It is also easier to test optical scanners for compliance -- there is
less code to review, and deterministic inputs/outputs allow testing to
be automated. Further, since only one optical scanner is needed per
district, and can be closely monitored. Let user-friendly voting
machines thrive, but make sure they don't do the counting.
There is a third requirement for fair elections, and that is balanced coverage. Forget the liberal bias, or the conservative bias, the truth in the US is that there is a 2 party bias. 3rd parties are ignored, and given short coverage in the guide of 'to be fair'.... In Europe, 3rd parties quickly gain recognition due to the mix of ballot variety (lots of parties to consider), election style (more representive focused) and the coverage they get. Here in the US, if you aren't a Republicrat, or a Demopublican, you have to fight for coverage. People with a true shot, ie enough ballots that they could win, or will likely affect the course of the election should be coveraged with EQUAL access
I'm voting for Michael Badnarik Libertarian, who is also on almost all of the ballots
and so should you, if you think Government is out of control. Kush and Berry won't change that, and you're just voting for the lesser of 2 evils.
Vote for Good, vote Badnarik!
Help achieve Liberty in your lifetime - join the Free State Project - http://www.freestateproject.org
Two obvious requirements for a fair election are that voters should have complete confidence about their ballots' being counted accurately and that everyone, including the disabled, should have access to the polls. It is hard to imagine advocates for those two goals fighting, but lately that seems to be what's happening.
Yes, indeed. And even after reading every linked article I still don't understand how, exactly, that requiring paper trails for electronic voting machines could in any way impede equal access to polls (for the disabled or anyone.) A little help here -- please?
The issue is whether electronic voting machines should provide a "paper trail" -- receipts that could be checked by voters and used in recounts. There has been a rising demand around the country for this critical safeguard, but the move to provide paper trails is being fought by a handful of influential advocates for the disabled, who complain that requiring verifiable paper records will slow the adoption of accessible electronic voting machines.
OK, here's a stab at it -- "requiring verifiable paper records will slow the adoption of accessible electronic voting machines." But, er, why would it slow anything? And, if it does, can't we just use the "old way" (traditional polls) until the "new way" (electronic polls) is made more reliable and secure? I'll try again:
Leaders said paperless terminals, which about 30 percent of the electorate will use in the November election, were reliable.
Er, OK, but this is both tangential and arguable. I still don't see how requiring verifyable paper trails impedes anyone's access to the polls.
They had "no reason to believe" computer terminals would "steal your vote," the league said officially.
Well, there is some reason to believe that they'll make a mistake or be susceptible to fraud. See linked articles. Again, why do paper trails impede the disabled from voting? I'f I'm in the League of Women voters, it seems that, not only am I not going to get a straight answer to that, but I must support the position publicly (or at least not oppose it) -- yikes!:
League bylaws stipulate that local chapters must act "in conformity" with the national organization's stances. Individuals who take contrary positions cannot identify themselves publicly as league members.
League president Kay Maxwell says paperless computers, which can be equipped with headsets and programmed in multiple languages, make voting easier for the blind and illiterate, and for people who don't speak English.
OK, most computers are "paperless." Generally, it's the printers that have the paper in them. And, in my experience, most (all?) computers may have a printer connected without much trouble. Kay seems to imply that connecting a printer will break headset or multilanguage support -- wha? I'm still confused.
Furthermore, she said, demanding a paper trail so close to the presidential election would require hundreds of counties that have installed electronic systems to spend millions of dollars on printers, paper and technical upgrades at the last minute.
Well, I guess they should have done a little more due dilligence before sinking time and money into an insecure voting system. Why should we all have to pay for that stupidity?
For current members, Maxwell said, voter registration problems and dismal turnout -- particularly among minorities -- should be bigger worries than potential hackers.
These aims are not opposing -- it's possible to address security without impeding the ability of minorities to vote. I can't even see how the issues are related. Sounds like smoke and mirrors to misdirect attention away from the payola they're taking in from Diebold. Sad, really.
"From a voting rights perspective, we care a great deal about the openness of the system and access to the system, tha
everything in moderation
All of our money, nuclear power, nuclear weapons monitoring and management, life support systems, transport systems, airliners etc are managed by computers, yet apparently they are not up to the task of incrementing a counter for a name.
If Diebold machines get in the 2004 primary election, we're all screwed if we're not voting for Bush. Think about it.
If by some chance, Kerry wins the election, I predict all our critiques and cynacism will end up being used against us, as the mainstream media will suddenly ressurrect the Diebold story and use it as fodder to throw the whole election process into question, and likely land it back on the steps of the supreme court. I know that sounds like a ridulous assertion, but so was what happened last election.
With no paper trail to verify, and the media going apeshit because Bush has been dethroned, it wouldn't be unrealistic to have yet another major election up in the air.
The first thing I can think of, is if for example, they did away with providing a receipt for credit card transactions. Maybe a lot of companies would only deduct the correct amount but what would you do if someone over charged your account and pocketed the difference? You would probably not realize the error until after you received your bank statement and then disputing the issue would be more difficult without you being able to produce documentation to support your claim that there is an error.
It's so boneheaded and stupid I can't believe it is a subject to be argued over. Unbelievable.
This past Tuesday, Virginia held a primary election, and the city of Alexandria used the eSlate voting system. When I inquired to the election board as to why a voting system was in place without a VVPT, even though the eSlate was technically capable of such a provision, here is part of the response I got from the Alexandria election board (HAVA=Help America Vote Act):
This is in clear conflict with the alexandriavoter.org website:
In other words, the eSlate may be technically capable of providing a paper trail, but current state and federal law does not allow the paper trail to be created as it does not meet HAVA standards.
The statement made by the website is therefore false and misleading--the eSlate can NOT be retrofitted to provide a paper audit trail. Whether the inability to create a paper audit trail is caused by technical or (in this case) administrative restrictions, the end result is the same: the eSlate CANNOT be reliably audited.
I have a letter here, containing this plus a few other paragraphs, that I'm sending to the board, plus the state and federal representatives and senators.
Government's idea of a balanced budget: take money from the right pocket to balance...oh who am I kidding?
Binary-encode the results and a serial number (used to uniquely identify the vote in the tally - note that all current ballots, at least where I live, are serialized), salt it, then encrypt it using one of several public keys (there could be thousands of them). Append information that determines which key is used. Print out the data as a two-dimensional barcode. This barcode could be read at a machine at various government offices.
Yes, there is potential to have someone else read the barcode, but there are physical ways to limit the abuse (have a "trusted" person or people put the barcode through the reader, the voter can then view the vote through goggles or an American-Football Instant-replay style viewer, there are many other options). At this point you can make sure nobody is going in there to check more than one vote. Someone could, with a great deal of effort, check several receipts, but it would be impractical to verify votes on anything even approaching large scale. You could make it a felony to knowingly do so, etc.
This gives you a printed receipt that no one can read (unless they get all of the private keys) or trace back to a specific voter. The voter can personally go back to the gubmint and verify their vote against the database. This could, of course, still be rigged, but it would require a more or less complete compromise of the systems involved.
Help save the critically endangered Blue Iguana
Madison was on $5000 and Wilson on the $100,000. The $100,000 note was never circulated (only used for transfers between Federal Reserve banks) and both have been out of print for a really long time.
That's some pretty obscure greenback presidents to make a metaphorical point with.
Were you just guessing?
It's still hackable, the same way they do it now. Ever wonder who counts ALL the ballots? You can get a count at the precinct level with a poll watcher and a dispute, but higher than that level? It's done by private accounting firms. Only in a rare instance like in 2000 in florida is it publically transparent.
The vote has been hijacked for years, they just keep coming with variations on the same scam. Everyone got a computer by the late 90s, so they had to "computerise" it, make it new and shiny like everything else. There's no way to have a locked down system that is safe from government intervention, especially with the connivance of media at the top corporate levels. THEY do the counting and THEY report on it. all you have is their word against...who's? Really, who else gets to count the entire vote? You can have 15 paper trail receipts, it still won't matter. And it REALLY doesn't matter when they control the political process by such shenaningans as only allowing the top two parties in the official national public debates, or allowing broadcasters with a public granted "license" to reject running contrarian political ads, or by never/minimally covering third parties or alternative candidates in the so called "news", or by even ignoring a lot of the contenders except the top few mainstream ones in the two major parties.
The system is rigged from the start, not to mention legalised bribery from lobbyists.
I still vote but it's from inertia more than anything else, I don't think it really matters, the system is NOT going to allow a non-system candidate to "win" anything important. Who we get as a "president" is determined in advance by a coteire of important international but not publically welll known figures working in the background, and that's it.
It is NOT a coincidence that the shrub was ostensibly visiting the pope at the vatican while simultaneously a few miles away in stresa italy the planets most powerful people were meeting in ultra secrecy and with an almost total media blackout of the event. Contrast that verifiable meetings news coverage with the current G8 summit. Same or higher level of important and powerful people at both events-yet, who really knows about the former, you see anything about it on abc/cbs/nbc, etc? Neither the timing nor the news blackout was any sort of coincidence.
"Presidents" are picked and put into power, they are not voted-in by the electorate nor by the electoral college, that is political melodrama at best,it keeps the "marks" happy/confused to use an old carny phrase, gives them the illusion that they have any real say in matters.
Even better would be a write in candidate. Especially if the machines don't support write in candidates.
President Harry Ass McGee.
Serve Gonk.
I rarely, if ever, hear voting questioned in America. The times I have heard anything about tampering the report is treated with distain (Obviously some jaded canidate is lying).
If you think about it, considering human nature and our voting system, votes HAVE been tampered with, and probably on a pretty wide scale.
It is unbelieveable that nobody ever caught anyone tampering.
Tampering would help incumbants, those with the power to use it and hide it.
I can believe that tampering is rare, but to never have heard about it at all?
I don't know if people understand just how bad this could get. I was one of many who felt that the 2000 election was a bit fishy, but since it was really close, I could accept that it was effectively decided on a coin-flip. In any case, it was decided, and there was nothing reasonable to be done about it at the time. At least I knew there was another presidential election coming up in 2004.
Since then I've come to *really* distrust Bush and company. Besides the deceit leading up to Iraq, it seems that the Bush administration has developed a pattern of deciding that their desired policies are more important than legal and constitutional niceties like habeas corpus, trial by jury, the Geneva Conventions, etc. I can completely imagine some members of the administration deciding that "staying the course" is more important than the peculiarities of one election.
Maybe I'm over-reacting and being paranoid, but there are a lot of people like me, people who sat quiet after the 2000 election because they had faith our democracy would handle things eventually.
Now suppose the 2004 election is decided for Bush by state or two which uses a bunch of these voting machines. Then what do I do? Do I take it quietly again, when I've got no way to know if there was cheating?
Again, I'm one of many. Our democracy may not be strong enough to handle 35% of the public believing in a pattern of stolen presidential elections. After all, what do we do if voting can't change things?
"So why the *hell* not just use paper votes in the first place?"
Because in the U.S. we have a government that is on a fast track to dictatorship and global empire. The people in power very much want to be able to rig elections so they cane be sure they get the right answer. They also want to sucker the American people into thinking that they still live in a democracy, and that their vote counts for something (when it doesn't). They don't want the little people to get upset about living in this new form of smoke and mirrors dictatorship.
The good people in Canada have a nice little country with no aspirations to dominating the planet so fair elections are still in order, though they won't really count for much either since you live next door to the world's biggest bully.
@de_machina
If we're to the point that people can't vote their conscience without fear of reprisal then the First Amendment is already dead and revolution -- violent revolution -- is necessitated.
Seastead this.
I think I have a solution to all this voting nonsense. The first step is to issue every voting age american a Public and Private Key , as per PGP.
Then, when the voting is actually taking place, the votes are encrypted using the Government's widely-known public key, and is digitally signed using the private individual's Private key.
This way, even the voting machine doesn't know what votes a given data stream actually contains, since the signature of the individual changes the representation of the votes. When the gov't. recieves the vote, it decodes the message using it's own private key, and then re-decodes it using the voter's known Public Key.
In other words, don't count on a machine to do the counting at the voting machine level. Assign one public, open-source machine to decode all the votes once they have been registered. There is no reason for the voting machines to do the counting themselves.
Another possible method would be to use two seperate machines for the voting. The first has a touch-screen and all the bells and whistles, and punches you a physically verifyable ballot, which is then put into the second machine, which reads the card and asks you to confirm the votes again. When you do, then a physical counter is incremented. The first machine is all or mostly electronic, and the second entirely mechanical, so there is no funny business.
Yep. Back when I lived in Canada (and maybe still), there was something called "declining a ballot". You show up at the polling place, they check that you're allowed to vote there, and -- as they hand you the paper ballot to take into the booth -- you officially decline it. They have to record that fact.
If enough people (a majority of voters, I think -- never happens) decline the ballot (vs just not showing up), that particular election is void and they have to do it over. Roughly the equivalent of voting for "none of the above".
I did it once -- none of the major party candidates were appealing, the Rhinocerous Party was (very conciously) a joke, and the Libertarian candidate in that area was even loonier than the Rhinocerous candidate. More satisfying than just staying home.
-- Alastair
OCR is 100% accurate for letters designed to be read by it. You've seen them on checks before, they have blob-like endings to guarantee differentiation.
Some work would be required to make them both human and computer readable, but there are many very talented font creators out there who would be glad to do the job at a reasonable salary.
What's the fuss?!
:) ]
It's even simpler. Simply do not use voting machines at all!
What is wrong with the good old system of voting?
Am I missing something? It has been working for centuries now, why is it suddenly so outdated that it has to be abolished?!
BTW: I'm writing this as a E.U. citizen, the same 'modernization' of the voting system was proposed here. Gladly, most of the parties who demanded such a system are now opposing - Thanks to the diebold scandal...
[It is an issue noone talks about any longer - And this is can be counted at least as a partial success against electronic voting
The fact that Stalin was a communist doesn't preclude him from being able to point out the built-in structural faults of capitalist democracies. In fact, he thought enough about their inherent problems that he rejected the system entirely. I'm not defending Stalin, just pointing out that he was not at all ignorant of politics. He was certainly much less so, in fact, than the average U.S. citizen.
I think you have a point, but I also think you miss the original posters' point. The quote attributed to Stalin in this context seems less about American politics than it is about Soviet politics. This is what is truly sad-- a commentary about Soviet totalitarianism being so darned close to the way American politics are going.
BTW, as a very interesting critique of both the Soviet and American political systems, I highly recommend reading "Perestroika" by Gorbichev (sp?). It does go a long ways towards discussing the good and bad of both systems and how the author sought to bring these together in creating a new way in the USSR.
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