Smooth Paper-Backed e-Voting In Nevada

LVRyan writes "The AP via Yahoo is reporting on Nevada's new touchscreen voting machines that also leave a full paper trail. They were used in Tuesday's primaries with few problems. I had a chance to use the machine myself, and was happy with the clear verification the paper trail provides for the voter and in the case of a recount. No hanging chads here!"

Comments

makes a lot of sense, actually

[dfenstrate]

Because of gambling. Nevada's got so many video gaming machines/slot machines that they're rather adept at investigating and regulating such machinery as a state.

Or so I'd imagine.

Basically, the knowledge required to run & regulate the gambling industries electronics honestly would be useful for voting machines.

Paper trail verifiable instantly by the voter? I'm all for it!

Re:makes a lot of sense, actually

[Portigui]

The strange things is that the biggest slot machine manufacturer (IGT) isn't involved in the design of the system. That's acomforting as a Nevada resident because of the pull IGT has.

I am an engineer at IGT and I can tell you that there was never a chance of IGT being involved with any part of the voting process.

For instance, I can not play the games that I make (of course that is to alleviate the appearance of impropriety in case I win the big one). I would imagine that same logic would apply in the voting world. The voting machines used in Nevada were made by Sequoia out of Riverside County, California. My guess would be that they might not allow a Nevada company to develop the machines as they could not prevent me from voting and thus using the machines I developed.

In addition, the gaming industry is the most heavily regulated industry in the nation. The regulators dictate exactly what type of industries IGT can be involved with. We can not even develop internet gaming solutions even though it is gaming because of regulations. If we are not allowed to expand into select gaming markets, you can be assured that we can not be allowed to expand into a process that shapes the future of our state/nation.

On a lighter note, if we could develop the machines, what do you think the odds would be that Kerry would ever see the inside of the White House with the exception of the general tour?

Re:makes a lot of sense, actually

[Bombcar]

Probably because lots of people would say that the outcome is just a gamble, anyway.

If I pull the lever and get BUSH BUSH BUSH do I win the jackpot?

Not bad

[CrazyJim1]

I can't see anything wrong with this system if a person can verify their own vote was cast for the candidate they wanted. Emachines always have the potential of fraud if someone who programs it biases towards a candidate. Not to say there isn't anything else wrong with the system. www.geocities.com/James_Sager_PA

Define "fully auditable?"

[roderick]

I'd be most comfortable knowing that the machine doesn't actually count the vote - it produces a ballot which is clearly marked, easy to read and is, in turn, fed into a ballot box. This makes voting easy, the immediate user audit of the ballot easy, and a trusted recount of those clearly marked, paper ballots easy.

On the other hand, that's a good point - Nevada probably has the expertise ready at hand.

Slashdot

[AdamBLang]

Why isn't this on the front page of Slashdot instead of that Michael Moore article?

That's why Hannah Pingree (Maine state rep) ROCKS

[Mark_in_Brazil]

I can't see anything wrong with this system if a person can verify their own vote was cast for the candidate they wanted.

Right on.
That's why I'm a fan of Hannah Pingree, a Representative in the Maine State Legislature, and the sponsor of LD1759, "An Act To Ensure the Accurate Counting of Votes," now the law in Maine. The Act prohibits networking the voting machines, and requires that they print a paper ballot that the voter inspects and places in a ballot box. It originally required the machines' software to be open source, but that part got lost in the negotiations with the Maine state Attorney General. Still, it's a pretty nice piece of legislation.

--Mark

Two definitions

[roystgnr]

My definition would be roughly: "Any candidate can request a recount of the paper trail from any voting machines", which (assuming the candidates weren't forced to pay for the recount cost unless they requested a large fraction of machines to be recounted and didn't find any major discrepancies) would make it extremely hard to cheat the system.

Their definition appears to be "Nevada's system ... requires county registrars to randomly select a small percentage of machines -- from 1 percent to 3 percent of a county's total -- and compare printed records with the vote totals taken from computers' memory cartridges after polls close." That's just as good, as long as that "random selection" is made either by a provably tamperproof random number generator (hard to do right) or by each the candidates submitting random numbers to be XORed (easy to do right).

I've also used this system

[hiproductionsdotcom]

I'm a resident of Nevada and have also used this voting program. I believe it will be the wave of the future. You can actually read the paper 'ballot' as it prints out your results and can double check them against your own choices. The ballot is behind protective glass and when you press "submit ballot" the vote is added electronically and the paper ballot is sucked into a steel ballot box like Augustus through the chocolate tube in Willy Wonka! I definitely recommend this system!

try the awesome flash demo

[js7a]

Check out the 2-D barcode at the end of the paper trail.

Fianlly, someone did the right thing. Viva Las Vegas!