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CA Sec. of State Panel on Open Source Elections
goombah99 writes "The Open Voting Consortium has announced that California Secretary of State Bruce McPherson is forming a panel to investigate using open source software in elections. Suggested Panel members include Security expert Bruce Perens and Python guru David Mertz who is associated with the sourceforge EVM2003 voting machine project. This is big since a favorable outcome could help fund prototypes of true open source election equipment and systems."
Paper and pencils can be made by anyone. Scrutineers are handy too; and scaleable.
Just ask yourself the following: "Who has more money to pay lobbyists -- Diebold or the Open Source Movement?"
I've abandoned my search for truth; now I'm just looking for some useful delusions.
This is very important in terms of keeping what's left of our democracy alive.
The number of abuses possible using Diebold's is simply staggering...
I'm impressed with a lot of the people campaigning against slimy voting machines - one is http://blackboxvoting.org/; there are people who have been devoting their lives to this since the last election... More then I'm good for!
Open Source voting machines will make it much easier for potential problems to be spotted, and a hell of a lot easier to get them fixed! The current companies don't really need to worry about fixing their problems - after all, what's wrong with fixing elections?
--LWM
...we can inspect the source on the actual machines prior to their use (like, before they are locked down 24 hours before the election starts). Better yet, if the entire compile operation has to be done in front of the public so observers can see if any "special libraries" are added in at the last second.
The concern here is that since it is open source, any neer-do-well with a compiler could set up a backdoor to do evil things with the software, and then [Diebold, Microsoft, Satan, etc.] can claim that "oh noes! open source is open to attack!" and scare people back into the dark.
This has to be done in a completely transparent manner or else it could be disasterous.
Slashdot in 5 Paragraphs
A receipt, whether a plain-text record or a number you can use over the phone or the internet, makes coercion so easy as to be laughable. What happens when your employer support some particular ballot measure, sees it fail at the ballot box, and then has an off-the-record policy where you show your receipt to the right people, and if it that says you voted for the measure, it will be in your favour the next time layoffs come around? What about a union shop that wants to make sure people voted, and voted for the "right" people? How about the police department wondering who supported the tax increase to pay for more police officers?
Sadly, because there are so many ways to abuse a verification mechanism, I have to conclude that a secret ballot must be kept absolutely secret, even from the voter himself once he drops it in the ballot box. And that's why I still favour pencil and paper, or punched cards. At least there's something tangible to go back and recount.
-paul
Pistol caliber is like religion: everyone has their favourite, and theirs is the only right choice.
I think they need to concentrate not on a system that's open-source, but on a system where you don't need to trust the hardware to be able to verify the results. Open-source would be nice, but IMHO the critical requirement is more that you should be able to determine whether the reported results are correct without having to put unconditional trust in any one part of the system.
Eg., a system where the terminal records your vote electronically, then produces a printed ballot with both human-readable and barcode on it. The barcodes can be scanned quickly, so it's possible to compare the electronic results to the printed ballots. A template of the barcode for each possible value can be used to let humans quickly determine whether the barcodes match the human-readable name. And the voter can verify before putting his printed ballot in the box that the human-readable names on his ballot match the way he voted. Securing the physical ballots is similarly amenable to methods that insure that it'd take an improbable conspiracy to actually succeed in tampering with them.
transparency is introduced as a means of holding public officials accountable and fighting corruption. When government meetings are open to the press and the public, when budgets and financial statements may be reviewed by anyone, when laws, rules and decisions are open to discussion, they are seen as transparent and there is less opportunity for the authorities to abuse the system in their own interest.
Closeness and secrecy tend to be associated with dictatorships and tyranny.
EvilCON - Made Famous by
The dream might have been true once, but not anymore. Today it's an illusion, a type of propaganda, to accept the status quo: That the very rich becomes ever more rich at the expense of the rest. Many have two jobs, but can't really makes end meets. They work hard, but they will never strike it rich. No Western country has such an uneven distribution of wealth and capital, and is so rich at the same time. But still the poor is left to fend for themselves as best as they can as recent events so tragically shows.
In all this open source/closed source voting debate people completely miss the more important question: *why* are you pushing for voting machines in the first place? What problem are you trying to solve?
As a Canadian, I am completely baffled by our neighbours south of the border. Here in Canada, the *entire country* uses identical paper ballots and it works beautifully. Nothing can be more simple, transparent and verifiable than that.
Let me give you an example I really like. Back in 2000, Canadian federal election was called at the end of november, so it occured a few weeks after the US election. We knew the results the next morning (or, those who cared to stay up late, knew it the same day). In the meantime, our friends south of the border were still counting pregnent chads and butterfly ballots. At that point everyone went "huh? *that* is the world's greatest democracy?"
So seriously guys, what problem are you trying to solve with punch cards and computers? It clearly can't be the scale. Canada has twice the population of Florida and way more political parties. Convenience? No, can't be that either. One of the problems in Florida was that the voters found the butterfly ballots confusing. Speed of counting? No, can't be that. Canada, with twice the population and much greater voter turnout, managed to count all the ballots by hand in a few hours after the polls closed. So... uhhh.... what?
The way I see it, anything other than paper ballots serves only to obuscate voting and provide pork barrel for corporations that "donate" enough money. Electronic voting machines make the problem much worse. If there is no physical record of a vote, fraud and vote tampering is ridiculously easy. Think about it: how can you trust that a computer will add 1 vote to your candidate when you press the button? A group of security researchers have answered that question: you can't. Voting machines must contend with two conflicting requirements: verifiability and voter anonymity. Therefore, the only machine that provably satisfies both requirements is one that prints out a piece of paper that you deposit into the ballot box. In other words, a machine that acts as nothing more than a high-tech pencil. Whoop-deee-dooo! big progress!
So anyway, while open source voting machines are "better", they still don't solve the root of the problem: electronic voting reduces transparency and simplifies vote tampering. The proper solution solution is to go back to paper and pencil. But no, we can't have that. That would be admitting a mistake. And USians never make mistakes. Besides, paper & pencil is only used in those backwards uncivilized countries like Canada, Britain, Germany, France, Japan, etc. We are all k00l and high-tech and stuff!!!
___
If you think big enough, you'll never have to do it.
I think the main critique is between "successful"/"Prosperity" and "rich". My parents are by no means rich, but they live comfortably off their salaries, and own their own home (the half that the bank doesn't). Furthermore, they raised 2 kids, and have gotten me into college, with my little sister not far behind. The American Dream is if you work hard, you'll make it through OK. Now, on to the topic: It's a darn good thing. This way, we can all see flaws or attempts to manipulate the ballot (not that I'm accusing, just saying it could happen).
Just think about how many people are pissed about the last two elections and all the criticism of Diebold from very visable sources like Farenheit 9/11 and all. Regardless of what your view on that was, I think that this is an opportunity for FOSS to really shine in the eyes of voters.
-- Knowledge shared is power lost. -- Aleister Crowley
for example, one method which I read about not only keeps a paper record (which the user never has to handle, but is there for recounts)
Though hopefully they can see this paper, so they can verify that it is correct before it is automatically placed in the box. This is where the verification takes place, and after that you have all the usual physical security issues.
but prints out a tracking number that the user can enter on the election board's website and verify that their vote is in the system and who it is listed as being for.
Aaaaaaaaargh! Nooooo!
"Hello, Rei. If you could please verify for me that you voted for Mr. Burke, so I can give you the fifty dollars like I promised? If not, I'll just have to break your kneecaps, as I also promised." -- One of my campaign staff enforcement officers.
Anonymity is one of the parts you can't leave out of the system, okay?
The enemies of Democracy are
Canada does elections right.
They crack open the boxes at the precinct level. Anyone who wants to sit around and watch the counting is welcome to do so. Once the counters and witnesses sign off on a count, it's done and over with. All that remains is to transmit the precinct numbers, which could be easily done over the phone, with confirmation by transmitting the signed count document.
What's so hard about doing it that way and having the ballots just be big squares of newsprint with boxes you put an X inside?
Today it's an illusion, a type of propaganda, to accept the status quo: That the very rich becomes ever more rich at the expense of the rest.
The status quo is class warfare, which you have perpetuated wonderfully in your post.
First, rich don't get riched "at the expense" of anyone. When someone gets richer, that doesn't mean they stole that money from someone else. Why do you hold such disdain for someone who is successful, who has worked smarter or harder, or planned better than someone else? Can you not reserve some of your disrespect for those poor people that neglected their educations, have never worked hard, have come to rely on the teat of the government instead of themselves, their family and friends?
We have people in America that qualify as "poor" but own TVs, cars, have cable service, cell phones, name brand clothing, free K-12 education, and the list goes on and on.
Just because we classify someone as poor doesn't mean they are really poor, especially when compared to other countries around the world which you hold in such high regard.
They work hard, but they will never strike it rich.
Simply working "hard" doesn't mean you will -- or even deserve -- to strike it rich. That's lunacy. That's not the American dream. The American Dream is that the only one stopping you from being successful in America is yourself.
That, and the bureaucrats.
But still the poor is left to fend for themselves as best as they can as recent events so tragically shows.
The tragedy is that this was the first time many of these people had to rely on themselves instead of mother government. Now you see what happens when you make people rely on government... and the inevitable happens: government stumbles.
What happened to personal responsibility? That is the corner stone of the American Dream. If the American Dream truly is dead as you claim, then it is for this reason alone.
Ironically, the word ironically is often used incorrectly.
Yes, because everybody knows that paper is a write-once, ready many system with built-in user authentication which cannot be hidden, destroyed, or otherwise tampered with.
It can be made so.
The trick here is to use an external system to verify the correctness of the voting system, called "election observers". The idea is that any person can volunteer to become an "election observer", and once they volunteer they get to sit around to verify that every voter is correctly verified and audited; ensure that everyone who comes in gets an equal chance to vote and put their vote in the box; and ensure that the box is correctly escorted and not tampered with. Because the "vote" is a piece of physical paper, this can all be done with relative ease. The database is a box. You can look at it.
When votes are electronic, this is not an option. You cannot sit there and stare at a Microsoft Access database file to ensure its integrity is preserved. You cannot sit and watch the electrons pouring over the ethernet cable to make sure none of them are being tampered with. You can of course write a computer program to do these things-- audit, observe, etc-- but then you run facefirst into a truly intractable security program, that of trusting trust. Okay, you've got this e-vote auditor program. How do you trust the auditor? How do you know the numbers the auditor is looking at are the ones that are really going into the database? How do you know the auditor hasn't been compromised?
When votes are physical objects marked in private booths and dropped into little boxes, we can trust the auditors because the task of auditing is simple, and because the auditors are numerous and diverse. Election stations will typically be watched by members of two or more political parties, meaning that if you wish to rig an election you can perhaps corrupt or fool a small number of the election observers but certainly not all of them. If you want to know how easily electronic auditors can be fooled en masse, well, look at every Microsoft worm ever. Then consider that the Nachi Worm successfully infected ATMs at banks, ATMs made incidentally by voting machine manufacturer Diebold...
Irritable, left-wing and possibly humorous bumper stickers and t-shirts
The mayhem from an OSS voting system in California could be potentially horrible for open source software. It's impossible to have an election with paper and pencil that doesn't get scrutinized. Hell, it was impossible for Florida to have an election with punch cards.
If paper and pencil or styli and punch cards can be questioned open source could be trashed by the media and politicans alike. It won't be long before Microsoft and HP roll out their own 'secure' and 'trusted' and 'robust' solution to mop up the mess.
This could also be a move to discredit open souce if the CA panel finds that OSS is too insecure to use for elections.
This seems like a bad idea to me. All it takes is one stupid reporter jacking up a mass emotional response by saying the OSS operating system has "known security flaws with well documented vulnerabilities that anyone can download off the Internet" to result in an (appointed) ludite judge ruling the machines are too insecure to use for an election. Watch the lawsuits fly off the wall faster than attorneys can catch them.
Before the OSS party line is toed too closely I see this posing a far greater risk to the general acceptability of OSS than the marketing armies of proprietary software companies.
The Luddites were ahead of their time.
First, rich don't get riched "at the expense" of anyone. When someone gets richer, that doesn't mean they stole that money from someone else. Why do you hold such disdain for someone who is successful, who has worked smarter or harder, or planned better than someone else?
Clearly you haven't seen some of the golden parachutes flying around. Carly Fiona got 21 million dollars as a reward for getting fired for driving HP into the ground. Of course, her job at HP was a reward for getting fired for driving Lucent into the ground. You can work hard, work smart, and make a nice 120,000 dollar a year living for yourself. Or you can raid pension funds, make terrible but flashy decisions, and jump ship with millions of dollars before the consequences of your bad decisions catch up to you. And while you're at it, don't forget to cook the books leaving your workers out in the cold when your company goes under. Don't worry, by that time you'll have made your money and cashed out.
Money isn't a zero-sum game, but it can be close. The GDP only goes up by so much every year. I totally agree that the person who invented bubble wrap deserves the fortune he has recieved. And there are some examples of that kind of wealth. But most of the people who get rich do so doing things like re-selling consulting services at 500% markups to poor dupes. Or selling substandard armor to the military at insane prices. Or by using marketing techniques to make parents feel bad if they don't buy their kids McDonalds every day. And nearly everyone who is rich is so because their parents were rich.
Simply working "hard" doesn't mean you will -- or even deserve -- to strike it rich. That's lunacy. That's not the American dream. The American Dream is that the only one stopping you from being successful in America is yourself.
And that is what the grandparent poster was saying was incorrect. It's not "yourself" that stops you from getting rich in the US. Getting rich is a secret club, and if you don't happen to have a friend at diebold, or had the misfortune of being born black, you're pretty much screwed. That's not to say there aren't successful black people out there, but how many black presidents have we had? How many presidents have we had that dragged themselves out of poverty as kids?
One of the odd things about the American Dream is that it perpetuates the myth that the lower class is the lower class because they are lazy or uncreative. Go read Nickel and Dimed: On (Not) Getting By in America . She goes into some great details like how if you can't save up 3 months rent, you must rent by the week at much higher costs, further preventing you from saving anything. Or how by being poor and therefore not having a car, the only jobs you can get are on bus lines, severely limiting your options and further guaranteeing that you will stay poor.
Or better yet, take a sabbatical from wherever you work, and live a lower-class life for a few months. I think you'll be surprised to find that the working class, despite having different lingual characteristics, are every bit as bright as you or I, and generally work their tails off. But the American Dream says that if they are doing that, why aren't they successful? Either they must be actually lazy, or the American Dream is wrong.
You can guess which one I believe in.
the only one stopping you from being successful in America is yourself. That, and the bureaucrats.
Right. Those god-damned people at the FDA. My coolant-pops were a big hit at the auto shop. It's all a bunch of red tape about fill-out-this-paper and half-of-our-mice-died. Just get off my back!
What happened to personal responsibility? That is the corner stone of the American Dream. If the American Dream truly is dead as you claim, then it is for this reason alone.
I'l
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