Slashdot Mirror
From the Trenches of Electronic Voting
Avi Rubin, an expert on electronic voting systems, worked as a judge in two elections in 2004, and he worked the chaotic Maryland primary election yesterday. His blog article about a day spent with Diebold voting machines gives impressions from the trenches of electronic voting. From the article: "The least pleasant part of the day was a nagging concern that something would go terribly wrong, and that we would have no way to recover. I believe that fully electronic systems, such as the precinct we had today, are too fragile. The smallest thing can lead to a disaster... I can't imagine basing the success of an election on something so fragile as these terrible, buggy machines... As far as I'm concerned, the 'tamper tape' does very little in the way of actual security... I hope that we got it right in my precinct, but I know that there is no way to know for sure. We cannot do recounts."
I hope that we got it right in my precinct, but I know that there is no way to know for sure. We cannot do recounts."
Ok, correct me if I'm wrong, but wouldn't such a system keep a master table of every vote that was recorded, at what time, on what electronic ballot, what location, and by whom? Therefore, in truth, they could in some manner confirm every voters vote with the voter themself? I know they're not going to do it, but wouldn't that data be available, therefore recounts are possible by confirming each voters vote with the actual voter? Example: The master record says you John Doe voted for Patty Sue, is this correct?
As discussed yesterday - the chaos in Maryland had nothing to do with electronic voting or the specific Diebold machines. The problem was one of logistics that just as well could have happened with any voting system. A necessary component (the smart cards) needed to activate the machines were not delivered to the polling stations. I suppose you could argue that since the system is more complex, it is easier to forget something like smart cards which are not required for mechanical voting... but I would counter that even with other systems, it is certainly plausible that critical items could be forgotten (I am sure at some point a "traditional" polling station somewhere has ran out of ballots or pencils or something similiar...)
"It takes considerable knowledge just to realize the extent of your own ignorance." - Thomas Sowell
Problem Exists Between Touch-Screen and User
:D
I was one of those 'disinfranchized' in the Maryland primary last night. Being a junior, I share the same name as my father except for the title. I heard some of the horror stories from my parents when they voted at their polling place, located just inside Baltimore City. After I got up to the judges to get my card to vote, I learned that I was 'Cancelled'. They let me do a provisional, however.
Chatting with my father, talking with a third election judge that was assisting everyone, and my own observations revealed a startling fact. Basically, the two judges manning the touch screens and the voter rosters are F-in' idiots. They had no idea how the touch screens worked. They didn't know you could scroll to see more names, so how many people were turned away, with them saying a voter wasn't in the system? My father had to point out and explain how to use the system. And he is NOT a judge, nor affiliated with the voting system other than by being a normal citizen voter. And that other judge 'politely' informed me of the other judges general intelligence as he was helping to set me up at another booth with the provisinal.
Most likely, the two geniuses knocked my name out when they were dicking around earlier, leading to my provisional ballot. Thankfully, as a Republican (in a heavily-Democratic Balt. City), this was only a primary. Having my ballot lost here wouldn't be as bad as in the general election. I'm definately worried about the general election, however.
I'm also curious as the the density of these 'voting irregularities', including the political makeup of the regions they are located. I'm not saying it's politically motivated; I'm just curious if the old addage about "Republicans have no heart, and Democrats have no brains" has any truth to it.
I hope that we got it right in my precinct, but I know that there is no way to know for sure.
Then you didn't get it right. There can be no "hope" in voting records. Either it's right and verifiable, or the voting system is a failure.
Developers: We can use your help.
With this mad push to electronic voting the part of Neal Stephenson's Cryptonomicon keeps coming to mind, where some "gnomes" trigger an electromagnetic pulse from the street and fry everything in a building. How hard would it be to disable huge geographic areas with something like that, if and when such a thing is put into practice? It's a high-tech spanner in the works.
At least when I voted yesterday I marked a paper ballot which was then read by an optical reader. Even if you fried the reader I could still mark my ballot and it could be hand-counted.
We have secret elections for a number of important reasons. One of the most important is that your vote can't be used against you. There are a lot of people who would like to be able to see how you voted and would buy an illegal copy of the database you propose. A crooked politician might use voting records of people whose votes he should work to suppress. An amoral employer might fire employees who didn't vote as the employer wanted. The stereotypical example is that thanks to a secret ballot, if a deeply crooked politician hired thugs to intimidate voters, the voters could vote for his opponent, then lie about who they voted for to protect themselves from the thugs. I doubt this happens in the US, but it's probably a very real concern in Iraq.
Search 2010 Gen Con events
From the blog: Diebold must be held accountable for hiring people who know nothing about the machines and it appears, elections.
At least Diebold is consistent....it doesn't know anything about voting machines and elections either.
Besides the fact that voters could be disenfranchised due to a power outage, you also have the problem of hardware failure due to power outages or brownouts or spikes, which could result in the loss of the voting tallys that had been accumulated to that point.
Paper and pencil are power-failure tolerant.
For that reason alone, all voting should be paper and pencil based.
You are being MICROattacked, from various angles, in a SOFT manner.
The current difficulties with touch-screen voting are really just a 21st-Century continuation of the fine, American tradition of rigging elections. It's been going on for most of the time the United States has existed; the only difference being that it is much harder to be able to prove it's been happening and even harder to get a court to hear the matter. To paraphrase Joseph Stalin: "It's not who votes that matters, it's who counts the votes that matters". The argument over voting goes all the way back to founding of the nation. Many of the original framers of the Constitution felt that the populace should be prevented from engaging in free and fair elections; that the voices of the governed should be muted if heard at all and public sway of government policy should be kept to the absolute minimum. Hence the reason for the foundation of the Electoral College.
Voting has always been a class struggle. The democratic revolutionaries of the 18th Century were treated with much of the same disgust as any populist movement: the labor agitators or the original communist revolutionaries (I mean true communists, not totalitarianists, who simply re-instated a class system within a supposedly "communist" structure). Ruling minorities have always feared the "unwashed masses" would start considering self-governance. That very difference of philosophy forms the fundamental difference between "liberal" and "conservative" and the argument has gone on for centuries. For example: Martin Luther's proposed democratization of Christianity; the democratic revolutions in America and France; the anti-slavery movement; the labor movement; socalist & communist revolutionaries -- all sprouted out of the desire of the governed to have a say in their governance (if not do away with ruling classes entirely) and demand a greater share of the profits of their labor. Against which, of course, the ruling classes have fought with tooth & nail, sword & musket. And now, electronic voting machine. The rulers learned their lessons well: force is met with force, but if the masses are taught to believe they have a say in their governance, they'll tolerate all manner of injustice.
The various populist movements in the United States made strides in circumventing the barriers placed between the governors and the governed. By the 20th Century, the most egregious forms of vote fraud had been minimized--though not totally eliminated. Unfortunately, thanks to Diebold, Sequoia and others, those achievements have all been discarded. We have to simply "trust" that these ultra-conservative businesses will count the votes accurately -- even when those votes are in direct opposition to their corporate agendas. In other words, we can't trust them. The first instances of massive voting fraud via touch-screen electronics occurred in 2002, and the lawsuits over those fraud cases are *still* tied up in courts. Furthermore, now that the Bush Administration, with full complicity of the GOP-dominated Congress has stacked the State Supreme & Federal Circuit Courts with hard-right partisans who basically adhere to Machiavellian ethics (the ends justify the means), I'll be surprised if this debacle can actually get the judicious consideration it deserves.
America: Land of the Free Market and Home of the Brave Investor. Our "Democracy" is a sham and always has been.
We're being set up again. This time, whether through incompetence or fraud or a combination of the two, many elections will be found to be invalid. With that being given, the Supreme Court will have little choice but to declare that the encumbents, "fairly selected" in a prior election, must continue to serve until the law suits are settled. That might be for one or possibly several more terms. Be prepared for several more years of shenanigans by the usual suspects.
I wonder if this could backfire on the perpetrators that are hiding in plain sight. If the RICO Act were found to be applicable against the scoundrels that I'm suspecting, we could end up with a ruling that the most recently elected officials from an untainted election will be recalled to serve in office. Given that, We could end up with Bill Clinton back in the White House much to the chagrin of those who desperately want to remain in power and keep the country's money flowing into the hands of Halliburton and the Carlyle Group.