Schneier On Electronic Voting

Bruce Schneier of security and other fame has posted a web log entry on the problems with electronic voting machines. The post is an excellent one, and does a very good job of covering all of the issues associated with the machines. I think it's fair to say that at some point electronic voting will be ready - but it's not ready now.

Comments

Simplicity

[uid100]

What we need is a SIMPLE mechanism for voting. This leaves fewer chances for something to go wrong. Don't let feature/scope creep factor into designing a voting system, especially when it's a new from scratch system.

CNN changes exit polls numbers after the fact!!!

[relaxrelax]

This isn't a statistical proof anymore. CNN rigged the exit polls to hide the extremely unlikely discrepancy between votes and its published exit poll numbers!!!

While this isn't tampering with the vote itself, it shows CNN is trying to help Bush cover the unlikely discrepancy! Perhaps we're living in interesting times and it was a one-in-a-billion discrepancy between votes and exit polls... but since we CAN'T VERIFY THE MACHINES my opinion is that vote tampering is much more likely than not and CNN covered the trail.

http://www.dailykos.com/story/2004/11/3/3646/141 36

(backup that entire web page please, we never know)

Quote:
"Let's first look at the women. In the first sample, 53% of 1,963 people can be anywhere from 1,030 to 1,050 women in the sample (try punching numbers outside that range into your calculator, it won't round to 53%). In the second sample, 53% of 2,020 people is anywhere from 1,061 to 1,080 women in the sample. So anywhere from 11 to 50 additional women were surveyed.

Well, in the first sample, 53% of women went for Kerry, meaning an absolute minimum of 541 (541/1030) women to an absolute maximum of 561 (561/1050) women for Kerry. So in the first exit poll, somewhere between 541 and 561 women were for Kerry.

Now for the second sample. 50% of women going for Kerry means an absolute minimum of 526 (526/1061) to an absolute maximum of 545 (545/1080). So in the second poll, somewhere between 526 and 545 women were for Kerry.

So it is *technically* possible that, say, 542 women went for Kerry in the first sample, and almost all the women they interviewed afterwards went for Bush (say only 2 went for Kerry), and then you'd have 544 women say they're for Kerry. This is actually within reason. If we had the raw numbers, we could tell for sure. Or even percentages to the tenths place.

*BUT*..... With the men, in the first sample there were between 913 to 933 men, and 940 to 959 men in the second sample. So anywhere from 7 to 46 additional men were surveyed. In the first sample, anywhere from 462 (425/913) to 480 (443/933) men were for Kerry. But in the second sample, anywhere from 438 (438/940) to 455 (455/959) men were for Kerry! You had at /least/ 462 men say they were for Kerry in the first sample, and the number DROPPED to a maximum of 455 in the second sample!

THIS IS IMPOSSIBLE. I've allowed for the biggest intervals possible that would still result in the given percentages. Something is very wrong here. This is mathematically impossible."

So can any statistician give us an idea of why that kind of thing could be happening??

Proprietary Code

[arbi]

Most of the voting software used during the 2004 Presidential elections were proprietary code by private corporations that have political interests on which candidate winning. It is unimaginable how these votes can be considered as legitimate when there is no method to trace accuracy.

Open source voting software such as this one should be replacing proprietary code from private corporations.

Diebold source code reveals security flaws.

[rush22]

I apologize if this is consider trolling, but I submitted this story a couple minutes ago and since it's relevant to this story I'll post it in here (since it probably won't get approved if this one is already up. If it does make it up just mod it offtopic):

Technical director Dr. Avi Rubin of the John Hopkins University Information Security Institute (ISI) has made a presentation regarding Diebold's voting machine source code (pdf) to the National Institute of Standards and Technology (NIST has been playing a key role in the improvement of voting systems since 2002.) Turns out, amongst other major security problems, Diebold was using NIST's Data Encryption Standard (DES) to encrypt votes and audit logs. DES was developed in 1976 was proven breakable by a "brute force" system in 1998. NIST proposed revoking DES's certification last July and recommends AES or at least 3DES.

Read from page 13. There are some hilarious comments ... or they would be if this weren't a freaking voting machine!

Re:CNN changes exit polls numbers after the fact!!

[wytcld]

CNN is notoriously left-leaning. Even if you believe they are central, I defy anyone to explain to me why the fuck CNN would change numbers to suit Bush. It is pure insanity.

CNN is notoriously conventional-wisdom leaning and don't-rock-the-boat leaning. That conventional wisdom among the college educated (of whatever political party) is in some aspects "liberal" when compared to, say, that of those with only high school degrees, and the the major media almost exclusively employs college grads (Jennings being the exception) gains it accusations of "leaning left."

But conventional wisdom also says: "They would never rig the voting machines - despite the many ruthless things a side has engaged in, including faking evidence for war and voter suppression, and despite highly partisan hacks running the elections in OH and FL, rigging the vote tabulating machines themselves is just beyond imagination." And don't-rock-the-boat says, "We must make sure the sheep don't develop a fundamental distrust of their shepherds, or we (the current establishment, including particularly Time Warner, GE, Disney, Viacom) are all in trouble."

disbelief

[selfdiscipline]

I have a friend who semi-jokingly says he doesn't believe that world war 2 happened, because it just sounds too ludicrous.
I mean, seriously... an industrialized nation that is filled with some of the smartest minds in the world (i.e. Einstein was German), goes on a campaign of genocide because they decide all Jews are inherently bad people.
Truth is more outrageous than fiction. Go ahead and keep believing whatever is necessary to keep your faith in authority.