Slashdot Mirror
BlackBox Voting Tests California Diebold Machines
Doc Ruby writes "The California Secretary of State has invited Black Box Voting to hack away at some Diebold voting systems. The testing is set for Nov. 30, 2005. Evaluations conducted by Black Box Voting in San Joaquin, Marin, and Alameda counties (Calif.) reveal that a critical paper audit component is missing for all absentee and mail-in ballots, and also for recounts. (Black Box personnel were hired by the Libertarian Party to conduct inspections.)"
I've launched a website called votemerich.com, where registered users vote someone rich. We've discussed various methods for trying to keep it to one person per vote. Because this isn't a real election, we can make everyone's voting record public so that anyone can search for fraud. What we'll probably end up doing long term is a combination of snail mail and email verification. Any other suggestions for pure online voting?
Learn more about Steorn at Free Energy Tracker
(Black Box personnel were hired by the Libertarian Party to conduct inspections.)
FINALLY. I am *so* happy we finally have (or are at least starting to get) our heads on straight here. PAPER TRAILS. What the HELL were we thinking before? Has the "almighty computer" glazed over the majority of citizens' eyes by now? Are we ready to think LOGICALLY with fault tolerence here? If the DoD could "invent" a fault tolerant network to potentially survive multiple neuclear attacks, do you think we can start putting that line of thinking to how we elect presidents? Too late this time... And look where it's gotten us!!
I applaud and encourage this "inteligent design" and evolution of our checks and balances. Let it go much further in this direction, and may everyone follow suit.
It is pitch black. You are likely to be eaten by a grue.
I say that in addition for every election a random sample of machines should be manually counted. You randomly pick some machines (or test centers if you believe tracking individual machines removes too much of the private nature of voting), with higher probability in closely contested areas, and count the paper ballots. If they disagree at all with the electronic results, a full recount is to be performed on all machines. Again, differences are to be checked for on a per machine basis.
The machines would be locked down after elections, with no access allowed to them until the results are certified/calculated (including any recounts). Any machines which show discrepancies are then to be analyzed by an independent team of computer scientists and engineers.
The recounts must be done by hand, or at least some of the recounts. However, in addition you can recount a larger set using some electronic ballot scanner. For extra security the ballot scanner should be made by a different company than the voting machine itself, preferably more than one company.
The paper ballots themselves should be shown to the voter after they vote (through a transparent window) so he/she can verify they contain the correct information. If the paper ballot contains information in a machine only format (bar codes) a separate random recount should be performed to verify that there is no discrepancy between what the machine format says and what the human readable information says. Preferably the information should be stored only in human readable formats (ie: one which is easily human readable and one which is a bit harder to read but easier for a machine to read).