US Paperless Voting Bill Advances

A couple of weeks back we discussed the effort to require voting paper trails in US federal elections. Now WhiteBoxVoter writes: "Democrats and Republicans in the US House of Representatives agreed today on a compromise that will push through a bill banning paperless voting machines and requiring a voter-verified paper record for every vote in the country, after government sanctioned hackers showed how they could break into all three of the top voting systems used in California." The NYTimes reported on Thursday that even if it passes the House, voting-machine reform that would take effect before the 2008 elections may die in the Senate.

Comments

One more chance...

[Tuoqui]

...to rig an election

Why?

[RAMMS EIN]

``voting-machine reform that would take effect before the 2008 elections may die in the Senate.''

Because, for some reason, politicians (not only in the USA) seem to be opposed to verifiable, reliable voting methods.

Re:Why?

[Ngarrang]

``voting-machine reform that would take effect before the 2008 elections may die in the Senate.''

Because, for some reason, politicians (not only in the USA) seem to be opposed to verifiable, reliable voting methods.

Well, yeah, because if they allow the technology to mature, then no longer will one candidate be able to waste tax payer money by suing for another vote count. One click of the mouse and voila, there is your recount. Want another? *click*

Re:Why?

[Seumas]

Does it really matter? I don't need an auditable paper trail to prove that most voters are self-serving "what can you do for ME" idiots. People who can't tie their shoes, have no teeth, vote based on what the candidate says about baby jesus or what kind of free government services they'll get out of it, think men used to ride dinosaurs and pronounce cement like it was something that came out of the ocean get the same voting power as the student of politics, history, art, sociology, science, world history and has the capability for abstract thought beyond pondering if they are - indeed - smarter than a fifth grader.

When all is said and done, all we've done is enforced a paper-trail to prove retardedness.

Re:Why?

[aichpvee]

Not true at all. Voters (at least in the United States) largely do NOT vote their self interest. If they did we would have a whole lot fewer people voting republican while making little more than minimum wage just because that candidate talks favorably of their imaginary friend.

Re:Why?

[Elemenope]

I'm divided on two levels.

The first level is whether to respond to you earnestly or snarkily, as it seems that while you are somewhat flamebaiting, the ideas you are expressing are not exactly uncommon amongst the Slashdot crowd. Would it do to point out merely that many (probably most) of the monsters in humanity's history (and their many apologists) were earnest students of politics, history, art, sociology, science, and world history? Or does it bear mentioning that education and intelligence of a superior caliber is nearly universally consummate with superior arrogance and ambition? Or the further obvious fact that studying those things does not free a person from the grip of a desire to self-aggrandize or seek to support their own interests at the public expense?

The second level is my ambivalence regarding the underlying point. I'd sure like to believe that smart and well-educated people make overall better decisions in the public sphere. Certainly it is true that stupid and ignorant people make spectacularly bad decisions in that same sphere. On the other hand, the democratic model outright assumes that people, smart or stupid, will vote their interests and not their beliefs (and one might add that interests and beliefs ought to match in equivalent proportion to intelligence); if people don't do that then many of the underlying assumptions that validate elections and public politics are vacated. It is in the general domain of smart people to assume that being smart is superior in all conditions, much in the same vein that rich people assume that being wealthy is a superior condition to all others. And equally fallacious, for pretty much the same reasons.

Personally I find your brand of cynicism offensive, and for my part have met enough educated people to pray that academically inclined folk never ever wield disproportionate power to their numbers. They are the ones who are ruled by ideology to the exclusion of reality, and with overweening senses of self-adulation seek to save the 'dirty masses' from their ignorance and conditions. I am not impressed. Surely there are other ways of viewing the world that are equally destructive, and those I would also never wish to possess power wielded in excess of the numbers of people who possess them; this is why democracy is the worst system except all the others, and the one I'd rather try to get to work rather than spew pointless invective upon it.

Interestingly, with occasional recent counter-examples I will admit, stupid people tend to choose people smarter than themselves to represent them.

Re:Why?

[TapeCutter]

"I don't need an auditable paper trail to prove that most voters are self-serving "what can you do for ME" idiots. People who can't tie their shoes, have no teeth, vote based on what the candidate says about baby jesus or what kind of free government services they'll get out of it, think men used to ride dinosaurs and pronounce cement like it was something that came out of the ocean"

You left out "intellectual snobs".

Re:Why?

[amRadioHed]

Yes, and what a reliable recount that is to. What an amazing technological advance it will be to be able to instantly recount the same corrupted vote totals whenever you want.

Re:Why?

[MillionthMonkey]

Well, yeah, because if they allow the technology to mature,

Voting technology is centuries old and is already constrained by game theory to be as mature as it can get- if all players play optimally in a struggle for power within a democracy, they will necessarily have to assume that all other players share the wish to gain an unfair advantage by perverting the election process. Absent any compelling reason for a change voting technology cannot be "improved" upon without eroding confidence in the integrity of elections and shrouding them in suspicion. And no electronic system will ever be able to dispel mutual suspicion as effectively as paper.

When we run out of trees and can't print ballots anymore, perhaps the appearance of a conflict of interest will go away. Until then, the appearance means it is a conflict of interest- without a very good reason for screwing with them, it is simply not safe to assume that the true motive behind any effort to "improve" elections isn't theft. This makes the way we vote now unimprovable unless it becomes well understood by everyone involved that we need to improve it for a good reason. No such reason currently exists.

Bubbleheads on cable TV have sold many of us on the idea that democracy is in crisis somehow if they can't announce a winner within hours of election night- which is totally absurd. Recounts are quite cheap, we have months to get it right, and if we rush, the losing side has a legitimate, reasonable complaint that the election might have been unfairly decided. To put it delicately.

then no longer will one candidate be able to waste tax payer money by suing for another vote count.

As a taxpayer I am quite willing to pay for a vote count. An undisturbed recount in 2000 for example could have saved me a lot of money.

One click of the mouse and voila, there is your recount. Want another? *click*

That makes a lot of sense- optimize for speed when the demand is for accuracy. I weed guys like you out in interviews.

Re:Why?

[Actually, I do RTFA]

his is why democracy is the worst system except all the others, and the one I'd rather try to get to work rather than spew pointless invective upon it.

American democracy is an inferior system to the republic that the US's founders set up, and the parlimentary system that Britain uses. Both have proven superior.

Re:Why?

[zippthorne]

If they're making "little more than minimum wage" then their self-interest is to keep things the way they are. Raising the minimum means some of 'em will lose their jobs. People all over will choose to make a little less money in exchange for a smaller chance of making zero money.

Just because you have shallow economics skills doesn't mean that the people currently at the bottom don't understand the fundamental problem.

Minimum Wage Hikers like to pull out the "rising tide raises all boats" phrase that is also used by supply-siders to justify lowering taxation. But the problem is that a minimum wage increase isn't a rising tide. It's a boat-lift on a large number of small boats, which in a fixed volume of water means the tide itself actually lowers.

The supply-siders are also a bit shallow in their understanding, though. It's not the taxes, per se, that constrict the wealth generating power of the economy, but inefficient central spending. Inflation is just another kind of tax.

Re:Why?

[KylePflug]

I've worked in a recount. I'd much rather have the corrupt count be at least efficiently generated, instead of through the sweat of misinformed, underinstructed, and ultimately ignored temp workers. The 2004 Washington gubenatorial debacle is just one of a million examples of the seemingly obvious truth that if the first vote was too close to call, recounting it is merely reshuffling the same deck of dubious cards. Just because you counted again doesn't mean the same statistical errors and intrinsic problems in vote counting aren't there.

Re:Why?

[Sunburnt]

Bubbleheads on cable TV have sold many of us on the idea that democracy is in crisis somehow if they can't announce a winner within hours of election night- which is totally absurd.

Thank you! This need on the news providers' part, to "call" the election before that night's Late Show, has somehow infiltrated our mass culture to the point that plenty of folks accepted the dominant Republican talking point for the 200 recount: "But it'll take tiiiiiime! And mooooney!"

For chrissakes, people, the election is held over two months before the inauguration. We've got time. Perhaps the news providers are just concerned that our country's population of historical amnesiacs will forget there was an election by the time a fair hand count could be completed, but that's hardly a reason to fuck up peoples' expectations of their democracy.

Re:Why?

[Sunburnt]

plenty of folks accepted the dominant Republican talking point for the 200 recount

Wow, didn't even catch that typo with two previews.

I would like to point out that, yes, I am aware that emperor Caracalla was unelected, had already served a couple years by 200, and certainly garnered no support from any factions that might refer to themselves as "republican."

Re:Why?

[MillionthMonkey]

I've worked in a recount. I'd much rather have the corrupt count be at least efficiently generated, instead of through the sweat of misinformed, underinstructed, and ultimately ignored temp workers.

What you'd rather have as a recount worker is completely irrelevant to me as a voter. This is not being done for your benefit. And it's not like you have to do this all the time. I couldn't care less how much time or sweat it takes you to get it right. I'd much rather see individual batches of votes corrupted in different random ways by numerous temp workers, than see all the votes be corrupted at once in the same way "efficiently" by a single source of error.

Just because you counted again doesn't mean the same statistical errors and intrinsic problems in vote counting aren't there.

They aren't there. There are now different statistical errors associated with a recount of the deck (along with some fixed errors like voter error). That's because the count errors are random and not systematic (always favoring one outcome). If they were systematic, like a corrupt voting machine or a corrupt recount worker might create, then an efficient recount would only confirm the same error. A "dubious deck of cards" will have to do because I don't trust you to regenerate the deck.

Re:Why?

[Scudsucker]

If they're making "little more than minimum wage" then their self-interest is to keep things the way they are. Raising the minimum means some of 'em will lose their jobs. People all over will choose to make a little less money in exchange for a smaller chance of making zero money.

That's the right wing spin alright. But as usual, right wing spin and reality aren't on speaking terms. The truth is that states that have raised the minimum wage have created jobs faster than states that haven't. Keeping the minimum wage down just means that people will have to work more jobs and more hours just to make a decent living, so the CEO can keep his 20% annual pay increase. Speaking of, if the minimum wage had increased at the same rate as CEO pay, it would be over $50 an hour.

Re:Why?

[Anonymous Coward]

Voting technology is centuries old and is already constrained by game theory to be as mature as it can get...

I believe you may be close to a truth?

Do you believe you've attained it?

Re:Why?

[mpe]

What you'd rather have as a recount worker is completely irrelevant to me as a voter. This is not being done for your benefit. And it's not like you have to do this all the time. I couldn't care less how much time or sweat it takes you to get it right. I'd much rather see individual batches of votes corrupted in different random ways by numerous temp workers, than see all the votes be corrupted at once in the same way "efficiently" by a single source of error.

The problems in the US run rather deeper than just how votes get recorded and counted. You'd also need to eliminate recording voter's political allegance/party membership on lists of voters, differing nomination rules for different candidates, having officials of political parties conduct elections, etc, etc.

There are now different statistical errors associated with a recount of the deck (along with some fixed errors like voter error).

"Voter error" may actually indicate a problem with the election itself. e.g. no way to indicate "none of the above".

That's because the count errors are random and not systematic (always favoring one outcome). If they were systematic, like a corrupt voting machine or a corrupt recount worker might create, then an efficient recount would only confirm the same error. A "dubious deck of cards" will have to do because I don't trust you to regenerate the deck.

The low tech method of counting by hand with scrutineers present solves a lot of problems. If you use machines it's virtually impossible to find suitably qualified scrutineers...

Re:Why?

[mpe]

Bubbleheads on cable TV have sold many of us on the idea that democracy is in crisis somehow if they can't announce a winner within hours of election night- which is totally absurd.

Especially considering that plenty of countries, outside of the US, do manage to return results within hours using completly manual systems for counting ballot papers.
This appears to be a way to draw attention away from real problems such as well funded lobby groups, points of view unrepresented by politicans/candidates, politicans who have been politicans "too long", etc.

Recounts are quite cheap

Especially if they are done "there and then" with ballot papers, counters, scrutineers, candidates, etc all in one place.

we have months to get it right

Which is a quite unusual situation. In many places the results of an election take effect within days, even hours.

Very wierd that the richest country in

[figleaf]

the world cannot come up with a good fail-proof electronic voting system.
We need to learn from the successful all-electronic voting system from the world's largest democracy India.

I hate to see some many trees being cut down in the name of democracy to create those paper ballots.

Re:Very wierd that the richest country in

[SoapBox17]

If India jumped off a bridge, would you?

Just because they did it doesn't mean everyone else should. And just because you haven't heard about major problems caused by it, doesn't mean there weren't any.

Re:Very wierd that the richest country in

[RAMMS EIN]

Countries don't come up with voting systems, people do. And people in the US have come up with some very good systems indeed.

Unfortunately, support for better voting systems has been lackluster at best in the circles where the decisions about them actually get made.

Once again, it's not a matter of technical know-how, but of political will.

Re:Very wierd that the richest country in

[diamondmagic]

"Paper" could mean as little as a few names and base-64 numbers printed on recycled thermal paper. It just has to identify who voted what. And India's voting systems have never exactly been known to get the job done perfectly.

Re:Very wierd that the richest country in

[RAMMS EIN]

``just because you haven't heard about major problems caused by it, doesn't mean there weren't any.''

And even if there hadn't been any, that doesn't mean there couldn't have been any. If we're making an effort to improve the voting system, we might as well do our best to make sure it is as good as we know how to make it, instead of implementing a few improvements for show and waving away any remaining problems.

Re:Very wierd that the richest country in

[Anonymous Coward]

The system in India is not voter verifiable. Nuff said.

Re:Very wierd that the richest country in

[AuMatar]

Actually no, it does *NOT* identify who voted what. That would destroy the secret ballot, a cornerstone of democracy. Or do you want bosses threatening your job if you don't vote the right way? The job of a paper ballot is to allow the voter to see that the ballot is correct, and to allow for recounts.

Re:Very wierd that the richest country in

[diamondmagic]

... It identifies what was voted where (polling place).

Re:Very wierd that the richest country in

[XxtraLarGe]

The job of a paper ballot is to allow the voter to see that the ballot is correct, and to allow for recounts. While that sounds cool and all, the question is, how difficult would it be to for them to program it print out the votes the way the voter put them in and then to count votes differently? It would only have to happen in a few different places to affect the outcome of an election.

Re:Very wierd that the richest country in

[Anonymous Coward]

I tell you what... As soon as the US agrees to require everyone to show voter identification cards, we'll worry about all electronic voting.

Re:Very wierd that the richest country in

[DaleGlass]

Which is exactly the reason for printing the votes.

If somebody suspects the counting was rigged, they take the paper votes and count that, by hand.

To avoid something slipping by you could do a sanity check, by counting X% of the paper votes, and verifying that the percentages are close enough to what the machine said.

Re:Very wierd that the richest country in

[Nasarius]

Or do you want bosses threatening your job if you don't vote the right way?

This is an absurd argument, which I've heard even from people who oppose no-excuse absentee ballots. It is extremely illegal for your boss or anyone else to make such a threat. If said boss tries to do that to a few people, it is extremely likely that one or two will be smart enough to contact law enforcement, and boss goes to prison for a very long time for tampering with a federal election.

There are plenty of ways to influence an election. Personal extortion is a really bad one, and should not even be a part of these kinds of discussions. Of course the secret ballot is important to free and fair elections. But fearmongering about ludicrous scenarios is a bad idea.

Re:Very wierd that the richest country in

[HUADPE]

Illegal as that may be, secret ballots have other implications too. If I call my congressman's office advocating against, say HR 42, which would regulate the sales of science fiction novels, I don't want to have my opinion discarded cause I voted for the other guy in the last election. The above bill is fictional and is a lame reference to Hitchhikers' Guide To the Galaxy.

Re:Very wierd that the richest country in

[AuMatar]

Except that there's a long and storied history of exactly this happening in the past. Study US elections in the late 1800s and early 1900s, especially in New York and other major cities.

Re:Very wierd that the richest country in

[NuGeo]

Right you are. Also, the risk of getting caught for something so illegal simply could never be worth the intended payoff. How many votes can you extort out of people without getting caught? Probably not very many. In fact, the more people extorted, the better the legal case you'll have against the boss. One person saying their boss forced them to vote a certain way might look crazy and not have much credibility, but 100 people saying they all were forced to vote the same way can be pretty damning.

Re:Very wierd that the richest country in

[TapeCutter]

"While that sounds cool and all, the question is, how difficult would it be to for them to program it print out the votes the way the voter put them in and then to count votes differently?"

Yes, the main issue is not the kind of ballot used, the issue is how do you "keep the bastards honest"?

It's not about a "perfect system" (there is no such thing), it's about minimizing the opportunity and scope for cheats. Provided the voter understands the ballot paper in the first place, a machine that prints the ballot for the voter is at worst a waste of money, a machine that counts the ballot for the election is at best a waste of money.

A traditional hand-counted paper system (where the counters themselves are political adversaries) may be imperfect in many small ways that can be exploited by both sides. The traditional paper system with it's "checks and balances" (ie: international observers and adversarial counters) has been seen to be fair by countless real life tests all over the western world for at least the last 100yrs - why dick around with the fundemental principles of the most basic tool of democracy?

Trivia: Edison's first patented invention way back in 1869 was a mechanical voting machine - he proposed to install the system in the Senate to count up/down votes. The Senate declined to use it with many senators from all sides sighting it as a risk to democracy and an insult to their integrity.

It beggar's belief that an informed "Joe Sixpack" would fail to draw a similar conclusion.

Re:Very wierd that the richest country in

[dooode]

On the contrary voter machines in India have been extremely effective...even in absolute lawless remote villages and areas where forced voting was common and things were managed by powerful goons, these machines have restored normalcy.

A single machine could cast only a few votes per minutes. That means even if some one forces in a remote village polling booth and tries to forcefully vote, he can cast hardly a few votes until corrective action is ensured.

Secondly they ensure accurate counting and when votes run into a few million per constituency, the counting could be finished off in minutes rather than days.

Third they are secure and portable. There are regions in India which used to require arduous procedures just to transfer ballot boxes and then securing them and bring them back to main counting centers. A voting machine which is just the size of a laptop could be shipped much more safely.

And last of all there have been no instances of rigging them yet.

I believe if they are effective in a vast chaotic election scenario such as India where more than 1 billion people are involved, I have no reason to believe they cannot handle a much more advanced and sophisticated crowd in US. I found US to be much more techno savvy...It is really hard to understand then why such a big fuss around the use of technology....and moreover one which has proven its worth.

Re:Very wierd that the richest country in

[Sunburnt]

So before attending to a problem that demonstrably allows a few well-informed people to completely alter the results of an election, we should come up with a costly and unconstitutional solution to a "voter fraud" problem that isn't a problem at all, at least according to the Bush Justice Department's own politically-motivated five-year study of voter fraud?

What a terrible idea. Good move, posting anonymously and all.

Re:Very wierd that the richest country in

[SoapBox17]

No instances of rigging yet.

I wouldn't be suprised to learn that in these remote backwards villages there are few computers. the vast majority of Indian population probably doesn't have the resources to carefully attack a voting machine. But it has already been shown that it is quite easy to attack them here in America. You could very well be describing a Diebold machine under ideal conditions. But ideal conditions never last very long.

Re:Very wierd that the richest country in

[mrosgood]

I have a counter example. If a poll site has a single computerized voting machine with a "voter verified paper audit trail", then yes, you can infer who voted for what.

No Privacy on KC's Touchscreens

I live in King County WA. We use Diebold's AccuVote TSx. Just one per poll site (for now, they're trying to eliminate paper poll ballots).

The devil is in the details. Each jurisdiction has it's own arcana and administrivia. So your local mileage may vary.

Re:Very wierd that the richest country in

[Anonymous Coward]

"That would destroy the secret ballot, a cornerstone of democracy."

Actually, that's more of a practical consequence of having to deal with the sorts of people that would harm you (directly or indirectly) based on how you voted. I don't think it has anything to do with basic democratic theory, viz., that the people choose their governmental representatives.

One might even argue that the fact that we do need a secret ballot is one of the best arguments against universal suffrage, because we make it plainly obvious that some people aren't to be trusted with the knowledge of others' votes (yet because we don't have the capabilities to make democracy run so smoothly, we are practically required to let such people be represented by the government even though they undermine the good faith of the entire system).

Re:Very wierd that the richest country in

[mdmkolbe]

"I hate to see some many trees being cut down in the name of democracy to create those paper ballots."

At least in the USA, paper is made from trees that are grown for that very purpose on tree farms. They are never taken from the rainforest (it would be to expensive to ship overseas) and local forests are considered less advantageous than farms because the trees on a farm are a lot easier to harvest and tweak to meet our needs.

So if you love trees please remember: using more paper = more demand for trees = more tree farms = more trees. Support both democracy and more trees; use paper ballots.

Re:Very wierd that the richest country in

[demonlapin]

I can't find exactly what I'm looking for, but I'm fairly certain that India's electronic system is meant solely for parliamentary elections. In the American system, such a thing is almost completely useless, as most elections involve an enormous number of smaller offices. In my next election, I will vote for a city council member; a county sheriff, tax assessor, clerk, judge, DA, and supervisor; and a state representative, senator, commissioner of insurance, public utilities commissioner, auditor, secretary of state, agriculture commissioner, and governor. And those are just the offices on the Democratic and Republican primary ballots that I saw on the county web site.

I'd prefer paper, but...

Re:Very wierd that the richest country in

[swillden]

Not weird at all, especially considering that the consensus opinion of many of the brightest minds in computer security, worldwide, is that the state of the art in computer security isn't capable of producing a secure electronic voting system.

The only oddity here is that Indians trust their system to produce accurate results.

Re:Very wierd that the richest country in

[ap7]

The Indian electronic voting system has its own flaws. Rigging is rumoured to be happening here too. But because of general lack of awareness and the perception that electronic stuff is invulnerable, few (apart from those doing the rigging), actually seem to understand the problems.

What I fail to understand is the general anti technology attitude of many here when voting machines are concerned. Do we switch back to paper accounting and abacuses because the existing computer systems are vulnerable to all sorts of security threats? We do not. So why not aim to make the voting machine perfect instead? The paper ballots are hardly foolproof. In fact, rigging was rampant in India when ballots were held with paper. This was the reason the country switched to electronic voting machines. There is no simple and permanent solution in such cases. The back and forth game will continue. It is the attitude that will decide whether the voters or the rigging experts win.

Won't someone please...

[Anonymous Coward]

Think of the trees!! :-P

Re:Won't someone please...

[RAMMS EIN]

Those who would sacrifice essential liberties for temporary preservation of trees deserve neither trees nor liberties!

Re:Won't someone please...

[Anonymous Coward]

That's what they said on Easter Island...

recycled paper?

[Twiceblessedman]

No doubt they'd use recycled paper. "I hate to see some many trees being cut down in the name of democracy to create those paper ballots."

Like A Paper Trail Means Anything

[NeverVotedBush]

Print one thing and record another.

Why should you having a piece of paper saying you voted some way mean anything? Last election the exit polls indicated a result significantly different than what was declared official.

Re:Like A Paper Trail Means Anything

[pb]

...and that is why you'd have a voter-verified paper trail instead. And recounts, don't forget the recounts.

Re:Like A Paper Trail Means Anything

[AuMatar]

You spot check. Count the vote in N% of the precincts. If the count doesn't match, automatic full recount on the paper ballots.

Re:Like A Paper Trail Means Anything

[spiffyman]

Someone already said to spot check, and that's important. But you also have the ability to have a far more accurate recount in the case of a close election.

If every voter has verified that the paper version of his/her ballot is correct, then a hand recount is a nearly foolproof way to discern the will of the voters. Of course, the physical security of the ballots remains a concern, but that problem's always been around.

Re:Like A Paper Trail Means Anything

[fangorious]

Print one thing and record another.

Having the voting machine record the votes is part of the problem. The reason electronic voting became such a national issue was because of the error-prone ballots in Florida. The solution was to simply come up with a ballot that you couldn't fill out improperly. A simple electronic voting machine the produces a paper ballout which is simultaneously readable by human and machine is the ideal solution. It allows for quickly counting the ballots by machines and is easily verifiable by both the voter and the election board to confirm the machine count. It reduces the development and verification costs of the voting machines because you can develop it without any internal storage or networking. It also means there's no need for a company to concern themselves with trade secrets or state secrets and strengthens the argument for requiring the source code be made public.

Why should you having a piece of paper saying you voted some way mean anything?

I haven't read the text of the bill, but I'm under the assumption that it's requiring a paper ballot, rather than a paper receipt. The ballot is left at the voting station after the voter confirms it is correct.

Re:Like A Paper Trail Means Anything

[jd]

In an anonymous system, it is (by definition) impossible to match up a single paper vote with a single electronic vote - always assuming the electronic votes are kept separate at all.

The ONLY workable system is to keep all individual votes separate in both forms and re-tally them independently. It makes no difference then whether the paper copy is identical to the corresponding electronic copy, if the grand totals for each add up to the same value. In which case, why would it matter if the sequences were not identical, provided the totals were?

However, it would be easy enough to have even that possibility checked for. Have each vote marked with a 4096-bit string that is either totally random or some sort of extremely strong cryptographic hash of the vote plus time plus other data. All you need is values that are unique and preserve anonymity. (They can't therefore be sequential or trivially derived from things that are knowable.) This would be included in both the electronic copy and the paper copy. If the extra checks are needed, simply look for unique vote IDs that exist in one system but not in the other, or for unique vote IDs where the two versions of the vote are not the same.

Is there anything else that can be done? Sure. Public key encryption can be used to digitally sign things, and the public and private keys should be kept apart. Simply put on each voter registration card an electronic tag with a public key. Two copies of the private key are made. One is at the central voting office and one is kept with independent electoral observers. When a vote is cast, the vote + unique vote ID is digitally signed. When a discrepancy is found between what is electronically cast and what is on paper, you check the votes with the suspect unique vote IDs. For each of those votes, exactly one private key (owner unknown) should match, and vice versa. Just run through the keys until one matches, then mark that key as used. If a key needs to be used more than once, then you have evidence of attempted ballot box stuffing and you can remove all votes signed with the same key.

Ok, anything else? Sure. When a vote is electronically cast, one copy goes to the central voting office (votes should NEVER be counted at the local voting center) and one copy should go to the independent observers. Both copies should be encrypted using public key encryption per voting center - not only to allow counting by center but also to validate that no center is getting more votes than voters and to prevent man-in-the-middle attacks. The independent observers should have statutory powers to challenge an election result if they detect inconsistencies, errors in procedure, flawed tallies and failures within the official body to deal with errors.

However, we now hit the hardest problem of all. As Plato noted in his "Republic", voter stupidity is the greatest flaw in democracy. When you look at the amount spent on education - just under one point three billion - it seems like a lot. When you examine how much that works out to, it's about $50 per person per year. Dunno about you, but $50 isn't going to do much educating. I doubt it'll even cover getting people familiar with a new voting system. If the only way democracy can work is through an enlightened populace, then no voting system will cure the flaws present in America.

Re:Like A Paper Trail Means Anything

[Anthony Baby]

I've been thinking about this subject a lot since the 2000 election. I am against electronic ballots with no paper trail, but I now wonder whether a paper ballot can guarantee more than a warm fuzzy.

Spot checking N% of precincts as you suggest sounds good to me. How will these checks be implemented across the country? Could a Federal election rule be made to force all states to perform a check? If so, would states have the freedom to decide the process for performing a check? Were it left to the individual states, would state governments vote to make spot checks mandatory in every election, or would the checks be required only when a losing candidate challenges the results? And what of the candidates? Should a candidate be trusted with the right to not challenge? Some candidates will accept results out of the spirit of good sportsmanship, but if since we are talking about the will of the people here, maybe a candidate should never be trusted to speak on behalf of voters, even those who supported him/her.

Slipping on the tin foil hat for a moment... If what we fear is voting machine software which will change or drop votes, then we must also fear that the paper trail can be forged by that same software; telling the voter one thing, but telling election officials another. This assumes that any recount would be made by analysing a printed record of votes taken from the machine by the election officials, and not by going around the community and collecting printed reciepts voters leave the polls with.

Re:Like A Paper Trail Means Anything

[ravenshrike]

The solution was to simply come up with a ballot that you couldn't fill out improperly

Heh, there's no such thing as idiot-proof, and since all that is required to be able to vote is age and lack of major felonies, there are a whole lot of idiots who do so

Re:Like A Paper Trail Means Anything

[Brickwall]

Spot checking N% of precincts as you suggest sounds good to me. How will these checks be implemented across the country? Could a Federal election rule be made to force all states to perform a check? If so, would states have the freedom to decide the process for performing a check? Were it left to the individual states, would state governments vote to make spot checks mandatory in every election, or would the checks be required only when a losing candidate challenges the results?

Geez, you don't have very much imagination, do you? Say the percentage is 5%; For each state, you randomly pick 1 out of every 20 polls (which is trivially easy; have two lottery type machines each filled with balls from 000 to 999, a ball drops from each machine, and that is used as the seed number for a random number generator. Repeat for each state.) For federal elections, I would say the federal government gets to set the rules. And if the feds do set such rules, do you think most state voters would accept anything less in their state elections?

And what of the candidates? Should a candidate be trusted with the right to not challenge? Some candidates will accept results out of the spirit of good sportsmanship, but if since we are talking about the will of the people here, maybe a candidate should never be trusted to speak on behalf of voters, even those who supported him/her.

Here in Canada, there are mandatory recounts if the margin of victory is less than 0.1% of valid votes cast (i.e. doesn't include spoiled ballots, etc.). In addition, anyone - not just the candidate - is free to demand a recount without specific evidence of wrongdoing. Also note in Canada, the results announced on election day are "preliminary results". Over the next seven days, the votes are recounted by non-partisan members of Elections Canada, usually with "scrutineers" from each party present to accept or challenge the validity of any particular ballot. Once these recounts are done, the "official" results are published. I vaguely recall one instance where the official result changed the preliminary result (i.e. the defeated candidate on election day actually won the riding), but I can't remember when.

Slipping on the tin foil hat for a moment... If what we fear is voting machine software which will change or drop votes, then we must also fear that the paper trail can be forged by that same software; telling the voter one thing, but telling election officials another. This assumes that any recount would be made by analysing a printed record of votes taken from the machine by the election officials, and not by going around the community and collecting printed reciepts voters leave the polls with.

But the whole idea of the printed paper trail is that the printed paper is given to the voter, who then confirms that it registered the candidate he voted for. That paper is then dropped in a sealed box, which is only opened if a recount is requested. Are you suggesting that the voting machine would use some form of disappearing and appearing ink to change the paper trail? If not, please outline *exactly how* a machine which registered the vote electronically, printed that vote for the voter, who reviews it personally to ensure it's correct, and then deposits said vote into a sealed ballot box, could be "fixed"? Your idea of having the voter take his receipt home with him is the most ridiculous solution I've ever heard.

Re:Like A Paper Trail Means Anything

[Anthony Baby]

And if the feds do set such rules, do you think most state voters would accept anything less in their state elections?

Never overestimate what we Americans are willing to accept in our elections. So Canada has mandatory recounts? Our laws seems to differ from locale to locale.

Are you suggesting that the voting machine would use some form of disappearing and appearing ink to change the paper trail? If not, please outline *exactly how* a machine which registered the vote electronically, printed that vote for the voter, who reviews it personally to ensure it's correct, and then deposits said vote into a sealed ballot box, could be "fixed"? Your idea of having the voter take his receipt home with him is the most ridiculous solution I've ever heard.

I wasn't actually suggesting that voters take receipts home with them as a solution, just that were it a solution, it wouldn't be a good one. As for the voting machine forging things, it's really simple. You've assumed that the hypothetical voting machine prints a vote that the voter can verify before depositing it. That's not the reality here. You vote on screen. The machine records the vote, and that is all. The US government wants paperless voting. I think it's safe to say both major parties want it, so the future is not a voting machine that prints a vote that voters will manually drop into a sealed box. The most we'd likely see is a voting machine that prints a receipt for the voter. The voter still doesn't know absolutely that his/her vote was recorded in the machine as desired. No disappearing ink, just a very real concern if all we do is add a printer to a voting machine with shifty software on it.

Re:Like A Paper Trail Means Anything

[Speck'sBacon]

If the only way democracy can work is through an enlightened populace, then no voting system will cure the flaws present in people. There... Fixed it. :P

Make something idiot-proof, and they'll just a bigger idiot.

Re:Like A Paper Trail Means Anything

[sdnoob]

>>> voter-verified paper trail

one more thing to confuse the old people down in florida...

what do we need this for anyway? the hackers could do a better job at "voting" than the clueless idiots we have casting the ballots now.

Re:Like A Paper Trail Means Anything

[Brickwall]

I think it's safe to say both major parties want it, so the future is not a voting machine that prints a vote that voters will manually drop into a sealed box. The most we'd likely see is a voting machine that prints a receipt for the voter.

I bet most California politicians of any stripe (Repub/Dem/Moonbat) disliked the idea of a cap on property taxes but somehow, that got on the ballot, and became law. What happened to citizen-sponsored referenda or propositions?

And I agree with other posters on this and other threads who wonder why the first Tuesday in November is the only day you vote. Here in Canada, we vote on different days for our federal, provincial, and municipal candidates. The municipal one is normally the most complicated, as you are often voting for mayor, ward councillor, school trustee (and we used to vote for hydro trustees as well, although I think that's gone now.)

At any rate, I still want someone to tell me why my concept of an electronic machine that prints a copy of your ballot, which you, after reviewing it, then put into a sealed box at the polling station, doesn't meet the criteria of a swift count with a tamper-proof backup system.

Re:Like A Paper Trail Means Anything

[Anthony Baby]

At any rate, I still want someone to tell me why my concept of an electronic machine that prints a copy of your ballot, which you, after reviewing it, then put into a sealed box at the polling station, doesn't meet the criteria of a swift count with a tamper-proof backup system.

I think it does. It's just that Congress doesn't care about your idea. Capitol Hill has been deaf to public demands for tamper-proof systems of numerous types. The voting machine industry lobbies Congress just as every other industry does, and it has done a pretty successful job of convincing Congress that open systems are dangerously susceptible to tampering. Many people even suspect voting machine companies of favoring specific parties and candidates. For example, the CEO of Diebold Election Systems did fundraising on behalf of Bush and [paraphrasing] promised to deliver electoral votes for him.

Patent this

[Anonymous Coward]

Forget the electronic gizmos.

Use dice. It don't tax us voters too much, and probably end up picking the better (whatever that means) candidate more often. And save us a mint while at it.

Magic eight balls is also good, but I've seen pornographic versions of that, and now sure the conservatives from the bible belt will warm up to that.

Re:Patent this

[JavaBear]

Whatever happened to just using a good old #2 pencil or if you are really adventurous, a ballpoint pen?

Why must we go with e-voting?

[PianoComp81]

I don't see why we must go completely electronic. In the county I live in, we fill in very large circles on paper using a marker. That paper is then fed into a machine that electronically counts the votes. It's just as efficient (time-wise) as completely electronic voting, but it doesn't require the complexity that the e-voting machines require. It also allows for an easy-to-read paper-trail system (unlike the "hanging chad" problem back in the 2000 election) for when a recount is required.

Re:Why must we go with e-voting?

[jellie]

I've always wondered about the security of optical scan voting machines. Wouldn't they be susceptible to many of the same problems as the DREs? I mean, they're still just a computer, and must decipher the various marks on the ballot to determine which are votes. But at least they do require a physical ballot to be saved.

Re:Why must we go with e-voting?

[LordNimon]

The whole point behind paper ballots is that, in case you don't trust the computer, a human can tabulate the votes by looking at the ballots. And the ballots are accurate because the voter looked over his ballot before putting it in the ballot box.

Re:Why must we go with e-voting?

[jellie]

I'm a proponent of paper ballots and of a voter verified paper audit trail (VVPAT), and I find optical scan ballots to make a lot of sense. But I can see where electronic voting machines (not necessarily DRE), if designed properly, would be superior to an optical scan machine. What I meant was that a poorly designed optical scan machine would have similar problems to these current crop of DREs, wouldn't they? The manufacturers of the optical scan machines are the same ones who design the DREs, and we already know how incompetent they are.

Re:Why must we go with e-voting?

[Rich0]

What do you do with half-filled circles and stray marks? What if they fill in Bush but write in Gore?

That is the big problem with paper ballots - they can be incorrectly filled out.

I'm for a hybrid approach - GUI for ballot validation, secure voter-verified paper audit trail for counting...

Re:Why must we go with e-voting?

[0x0000]

The manufacturers [...] we already know how incompetent they are.

I don't think they're incompetent at all; they designed a system to allow them to sell the elections to the highest bidder, they sell elections to the highest bidder, they get mad paid. They do, quickly and efficiently, the [illegal] job they are hired to do, AND they get away with it. Remember, this is privatization at work - these are highly paid, influential lobbyist and contractors, not bumbling bureaucratic government functionaries. The incompetent ones are e.g. the Secretaries of State and Boards of Elections who sell our collective asses to the political organizations who are the major customers of the election fraud specialists.

When a criminal action is organized on the scale of what we've been seeing in the US national elections, I think it becomes important to look at who is enabling, allowing, and/or paying for the criminal activity, not just the criminal. In this case, Diebold is just more hired, neo-fascist thugs, true, but they are not the incompetent ones, yet. Any appearance of incompetence there is simply their constructed facade of "plausible deniability" - I.E. that's how they get away with it [rigging elections] - by getting people who should know better to think they're simply incompetent, not the thorough-going, deeply rooted Evil we now know them to be - or at least, to be a part of.

It's all part of the "Contract on America" - you might remember that: 1984? The Economic groundwork for the more recent USA PATRIOT Act? Voodoo Reaganomics, and Dubya the First?

Re:Why must we go with e-voting?

[Ironpoint]

There is (was) hundreds of millions of dollars to be made in e-voting. We did not need e-voting, but politically connect companies needed e-voting machine contracts. The whole concept of replacing a piece of paper with a multi-thousand dollar computer that is used once every couple years is ludicrous. Politicians can't just give your tax money to their buddies. That is a crime.

Sorry, a big 'duh' has to go along with this comment. Unless there are some out there that think that border fences cost $10 million per mile, embassies cost $500 mil, and 120,000 soldiers are spending $400 million a day.

Re:Why must we go with e-voting?

[Sunburnt]

What do you do with half-filled circles and stray marks? What if they fill in Bush but write in Gore? That is the big problem with paper ballots - they can be incorrectly filled out.

Which is why court mandates for recounters to accurately "determine the intent of the voter" are such nonsense. Throw out the incorrectly marked ballots.

Re:Why must we go with e-voting?

[mrosgood]

That is the big problem with paper ballots - they can be incorrectly filled out.

Nice strawman.

With precinct-based optical ballot scanners, the machine detects undervotes, overvotes, and stray marks. The voter is then given a "second chance", the ballot is spoiled, the voter gets a new ballot. These procedures are part of why voting on precinct-based optical scanners is the most accurate and reliable way to vote today.

Re:Why must we go with e-voting?

[mdmkolbe]

My home county uses a fill-in-the-bubble system, but I have never seen any indication that it would do what you describe. But it does sound like a good idea. Can you provide documentation to back up your claims?

Re:Why must we go with e-voting?

[Millenniumman]

Throw out the incorrectly marked ballots. You mean the ones marked with the candidate the counter doesn't like?

Re:Why must we go with e-voting?

[mrosgood]

I encourage you to call your local elections office and ask to become a poll worker. You'll learn more in a day working an election than you can read online in a year.

The "second chance" feature of my county's Diebold AccuVote OS (optical scanner) units is covered in our poll worker guides. Alas, I can't find an online link for that guide.

Black Box Voting's doc cache has a copy of the AccuVote OS manual online. I just did a quick scan. The ballot rejection feature is mentioned on page 35. Here's the entry.

I'm reasonably certain that all the other vendor's precinct-based optical scanners would have the same functionality.

Note that disabling this feature is a very, very bad idea. Part of how Florida 2000 was gamed was turning off the second chance feature in heavily Democratic areas. So if the ballot had an error, the machine just accepted the ballot and didn't count the votes. (Florida isn't a "voter intent" state. I don't know all their rules. But I think it's an all or nothing system. So any error on the ballot invalidates all the votes.) Meanwhile, the second chance feature was left on in heavily Republican areas. This is one of the reasons why different jurisdictions had different rates of undervoting and rejected ballots.

If you're really curious, email me at zappini gmail com and when I find my electronic copy of our poll worker guide, I'll send it to you.

Re:Why must we go with e-voting?

[Sunburnt]

You mean the ones marked with the candidate the counter doesn't like?

That would imply that each ballot passes through only one set of hands, which would be a terribly silly, accountability-free way to count votes.

Re:Why must we go with e-voting?

[Rich0]

Only issue with this is reliability.

What percentage of ballots will validate OK in the first count, and have a stray mark in the recount?

I'm sure it isn't 0.0000000%

A computer-printed ballot is more likely to be accurate on all passes, and I can't see any issues with this solution security-wise.

No solution is perfect - but we can aim for the best solution possible.

Re:Why must we go with e-voting?

[Rich0]

Good luck with that in a close election!

And define incorrect - 99%-101% filled in? Stray marks up to 10 microns in size? No paper ballot is perfect, so my stray mark might be your printing defect.

With a machine-generated paper ballot you can define specs and apply specs and six-sigma the final product to near-perfection. If you can make a skyscraper with 10,000 I-beams that doesn't collapse you can make a voting system that doesn't miscount votes. But not when everything is hand-made...

And whose votes are most likely to get tossed under an ultra-strict reading of the rules? If the answer isn't nobody-in-particular good luck!

Re:Why must we go with e-voting?

[mdmkolbe]

Thank you for the link. I will definitely give some thought to your suggestion of being a poll worker.

From the looks of it, this won't handle stray marks. So unless you reject on undervotes (bad for people who choose not to vote on a particular race), the case of someone circling outside a bubble would be missed. Having the computer fill-in-the-bubble for you, would help with that (and in my mind is the only good reason for e-voting).

To be clear, I would like to see a voting system that has one machine produce a human (and machine) readable hard-copy that is then counted by a different machine. The hard copy is the ultimate arbiter in a recount. (Of course this might only replace hanging chads with low toner and smudged or jammed paper.)

Windows...

[Celarnor]

FTFA:

The testers were able to penetrate the GEMS server system by exploiting vulnerabilities in the Windows operating system as delivered and installed by Diebold. Once this access was obtained, they were able to bypass the GEMS server to access the data directly.

Personally, I think that the level people are flipping out about these is ridiculous. From a software point of view, it should be relatively to do. You see applications where the userspace has no interaction with the OS all the time (i.e, public libraries). The other attacks that are discussed in the full article are things like this, would would be accomplished with--oh, I don't know, maybe locks?

Finally, with this level of access, the testers were able to manipulate several components networked to the GEMS server, including loading wireless drivers onto the GEMS server that could then be used to access a wireless device plugged surreptitiously into the back of the GEMS server.

Re:Windows...

[Anonymous Coward]

Exactly - there's nothing technically hard about this at all. "Write a program that shows a list of names, lets you select one name, and increments a count" - sounds like an assignment for an introductory programming class. Lock up the machine so it can't be modified, and that's it.

The only thing that makes it hard is politics - too many companies that don't know what they're doing, trying to squeeze as much money out of it as possible, and willing to lobby as hard as possible to do so.

Re:Windows...

[dana340]

The problem with it is the security, you're right. with something like the election, someone is going to be wiling to put their resources into rigging the election, look what's spent campaigning. Bribe the guy that sits there to watch the machines and make sure no one gets in, and boom, you have all the access you need if you're a black hat. Or better yet, get a job working in polling place, and just be that guy. now those locks are not there, then sell you services to the highest bidder.

because we can't trust our politicians, we can't trust an all electronic voting system. I see the need for one, but there should also be a paper backup.. you know just in case the server cluster crashes on election day, or it's compromised electrically.

Use an electronic voting machine with a paper receipt. one goes to the voter, the other one is displayed through a glass window to the voter to make sure that the system "tallies" it correctly. If there ever is a question, check the paper copy of the output.

Re:Windows...

[frdmfghtr]

Use an electronic voting machine with a paper receipt. one goes to the voter, the other one is displayed through a glass window to the voter to make sure that the system "tallies" it correctly.

No, no NO!

NO RECEIPT goes with the voter. This would create a market for buying/selling/coercing votes. "Bring me a vote for X and I'll pay $5!" or "Bring me a vote for X or else your house may spontaneously catch fire."

Re:Windows...

[dana340]

Very good point... Thank god for peer review. funny how no one else is talking about the rest of the ideas set forth.

Probably offtopic, but

[wamerocity]

I think we should keep voting as a solid paper trail until we fix something far more important that just HOW we vote: who votes.

I find it odd that our country spends the GDP of some small countries in campaign spending, and yet there is one small change that I think would revolutionize the way people vote: make Voting Day a holiday. Yes, just like the 4th of July, all companies close, school is out at all levels (elementary, middle/high school, and college.) Make kids realize that this is something important. I think anybody would be hard pressed to argue that celebrating the 4th of July is more important historically or iconically than voting.

Re:Probably offtopic, but

[imemyself]

Maybe, but I think a lot of people would just go party or something instead of using the time off to vote. And companies are required by law to let their employees have time off to go vote. With all of the news coverage on election day, I think that just about everyone is aware of what is going on, even if they don't care enough to vote. It also wouldn't be possible for all companies to close. What about news stations, telecommunications providers, restaurants, security and custodial staff in many companies, etc.

I'm not saying that making it a holiday would hurt, I just don't think it would actually get too many more people to vote.

Re:Probably offtopic, but

[JavaBear]

Not a bad idea. I know they do that in for instance South Africa.

But it seems to me that what really need changing is the whole 'registered voter' thing, it needs to be abolished. Simply allow anyone with a social security number to go in anywhere in their precinct, and vote.

Re:Probably offtopic, but

[razpones]

As I understand it, in Australia its a civic obligation to vote, not a right, punishable with fines if one does not participate?, am not sure of the fines thing, but it seems to me that its an obligation to be part of the democratic process, maybe we should take the same measures here in the U.S.

Re:Probably offtopic, but

[Agripa]

While we are at it, let's make the Republicans and Democrats the only legal parties so as to reduce ambiguity, save money, and remove the third party spoiler effect.

Re:Probably offtopic, but

[profzoom]

What about the service industry? A good-sized chunk of our nation's population (myself included for several years between undergrad and grad school) works in retail, food service, etc. These places will certainly still be open even if Election Day were declared a national holiday - the first Tuesday in November seems like the perfect time for a big sale to get the Christmas shopping season started!

Re:Probably offtopic, but

[bhalter80]

As someone who like many other reads of Slashdot has a professional job instead of a 9-5 type job I can say that while I am permitted time off to go vote on any given day the time alloted to the project I'm working on doesn't get extended by that amount of time nor does it make any of my work disapear. I like the way they do it in France, vote on Saturday. All elections are held on Saturday, while this may not make voting any more accessable to people working manufacturing jobs where work schedules can be a mix of weekday days and weekend days it would make voting more accessable to a lot of the country. It would also become a family activity where mom and dad can go vote and take their kids with them, perhaps even have a discussion about what they're going to do, who they're going to vote for a why.

Re:Probably offtopic, but

[L0rdJedi]

Or you could just vote absentee. That way, you can fill out the ballot during your offtime and at your leisure. Maybe do your local initiatives one day, house and senate another day, then everything else on another day. That's what my wife and I do and it works out wonderfully. I think the absentee ballots come a month before they're due (you can even drop them off at the polls on election day), so there's plenty of time to fill them in.

Re:Probably offtopic, but

[Anonymous Coward]

I don't see why they don't just pass laws REQUIRING you to vote or face a penalty (preferably jail). That solves the problem of people not voting eh?

Re:Probably offtopic, but

[ignavus]

In Australia, all elections are held on a Saturday, from 9.00 AM to 6.00 PM. Well over 90% of the population that is eligible to vote turns up (voting is compulsory in Australia).

Anyone who cannot vote that day (religious scruples, health, travel, etc) can lodge a postal vote before hand.

Works fine.

Re:Probably offtopic, but

[the not-troll]

Here in Germany, we vote on sundays. You can lodge a postal vote here, too, but religious scruples would be looked upon as ridiculous, because the elections are held in church buildings (though in public schools and other public buildings, too), thus you can just go to church and make your vote before or after service.

Indeed, I think that voting on a weekday is a very efficient and reliable way to reduce the numbers of the people voting.

Re:Probably offtopic, but

[the not-troll]

Jail would be overkill. Not voting should just be an infraction, not a crime, i.e. most countries where voting is compulsory just charge a fine of $50 or something but don't throw you into prison.

Re:Probably offtopic, but

[bigpat]

[quote]While we are at it, let's make the Republicans and Democrats the only legal parties so as to reduce ambiguity, save money, and remove the third party spoiler effect.[/quote]

People use tactical voting to mitigate the spoiler effect... which is the problem. With a rigged two-party system, people like me don't get a candidate that they can vote for, because you get parties which end up with alliances which de facto disallow candidates of particular combinations of positions. So, for instance you won't see a pro-choice and pro-gun rights candidate get nominated for the general election, even though that might be just fine with the general electorate. And you won't see an anti big government candidate from either party because you get the most allies in political party by handing out government paychecks to supporters, their relatives and friends.

Other combinations are also de facto disallowed from time to time when activists get control over one of the party's. Can you imagine a Democrat that wanted to cut taxes? Or a Republican who wanted to cut the defense budget?

With the nature of politics controlled by private institutions which are in turn controlled by unelected activists, the democratic and representative form of government is threatened.

If anything we should ban special treatment for the two-parties on the ballot and we can best mitigate the spoiler problem by using run-off ballots.

Re:Probably offtopic, but

[Millenniumman]

If someone doesn't care, why should they be forced to provide input? Especially considering their input won't be very valuable, owing to their apathy.

Re:Probably offtopic, but

[Millenniumman]

Because if you don't care, A. you shouldn't have to vote, and B. your vote will probably be thoughtless.

Re:Probably offtopic, but

[jalagl]

Or better yet - vote on a Sunday. That's how it is here in the country where I live.
And if you work on a Sunday, by law, your employee has to give you enough time to go and vote.

Re:Probably offtopic, but

[mpe]

With a rigged two-party system, people like me don't get a candidate that they can vote for, because you get parties which end up with alliances which de facto disallow candidates of particular combinations of positions. So, for instance you won't see a pro-choice and pro-gun rights candidate get nominated for the general election, even though that might be just fine with the general electorate. And you won't see an anti big government candidate from either party because you get the most allies in political party by handing out government paychecks to supporters, their relatives and friends.

Nor would you see an anti drug prohibition candidate or one for reducing copyright terms and scope; since that is indirectly anti "big government".

Re:another attempt from that fucktard

[Anonymous Coward]

So, what are you doing?

Open Source Voting System ?

[JavaBear]

Why don't the Open Source communities in America try to join forces and develop an open voting systems specification (software, hardware and communications protocols), one that is completely open and free to use and implement, and which the individual states can produce themselves (or at least have local companies do it) if they so choose?

Basic demands for any electronic voting system is that it is open, safe and that the results are verifiable. That means that the voting set-up/definitions as well as the machine output and logs must be in plain text (signed to prevent/detect tampering of course) and be made publicly available for all to verify. Not to forget the paper trail.
Ultimately, any voter should be able to plug in a USB drive, and get a complete dump/snapshot of the voting machines software - source and binaries, logs and it's latest hardware certificates.

Re:Open Source Voting System ?

[evanbd]

Ultimately, any voter should be able to plug in a USB drive, and get a complete dump/snapshot of the voting machines software - source and binaries, logs and it's latest hardware certificates.

No, you shouldn't be able to do that. Why? It provides a false sense of security. If the machine is compromised, it would be all too easy for the machine to lie in the dump. If you want to check the software, you should have to shut the machine down, and pull and dump its program storage -- which would make it much harder to have it lie to you.

Not all voters need to be able to check the software while the machine is running -- it's sufficient that there be a mechanism to examine (publicly!) the software in general, for election officials to be able to inspect individual machines, and most importantly, for each voter to be able to read the paper printout of their ballot that gets counted in a recount and verify its correctness.

Re:Open Source Voting System ?

[aspjut]

Something like this?

Re:Open Source Voting System ?

[JavaBear]

Yes, and yet, not exactly. I was thinking about an OLPC like approach, in that is would be simple and cheap but where some of the security is in the hardware and where the machine refuse to load up the firmware/voting data if it detects unauthorized software/data.

Of course such a machine may cost a bit more than $100, and probably shouldn't be made out of plastic.

Btw. Is it possible to have a transparent layer on top of a screen that reacts to electrical input by changing size, in order for the screen itself to create for instance Braille text?
Obviously, combining this with a touch screen in a way that does not permit the Braille layer to make screen selections may be impossible...

Re:Open Source Voting System ?

[kiniry]

We are working on it. In fact, coincidentally, this week there is a major meeting going on in Germany about exactly this topic, among others.

See http://kathrin.dagstuhl.de/07311/

Cheers from Dagstuhl,
Joe Kiniry

Still a safeguard

[grahamsz]

If the result varies signifcantly from the exit poll then one party is very likely to demand a paper recount. When the two don't line up the vendor will come under pretty intense scrutiny.

Re:Still a safeguard

[geminidomino]

If the result varies signifcantly from the exit poll then one party is very likely to demand a paper recount. When the two don't line up the vendor will come under pretty intense scrutiny. Scruitized, most likely, by the incumbents (sp?) who only benefited from the skew.

Still absentee ballots are often bogus

[philpalm]

They don't require a fingerprint on an absentee ballot, so vote stealers would rather use this method. Notice how skewed absentee ballots are to the regular population. Thus even with a paper trail, unless they go thru absentee ballots and uncover who voted for what, you will never be sure the election wasn't stolen....

Here in Canada ...

[Anonymous Coward]

... we vote using birch bark for one party, pinecone for the other and different coloured leaves for all other parties. See Rick Mercer's Report for details.

Re:But... but... but....

[doom]

Voting Democrat in the hopes that they'd fix the system was always an act of desperation, but what else could you do? Are you seriously suggesting we'd be better off in some way if Congress were Republican right now?

Exactly ....

[taniwha]

where I live we mark our choice on a piece of paper ... when the polls close actual people open the boxes and count who voted for whom ... scrutineers from both parties watch the counting to make sure all is well .... results are still in by 10pm .... our system even has a paper trail ....

Re:Exactly ....

[Lars Clausen]

Same in mine (or is mine the same?), see here for details. Both counts (!) are open to the public, too. What more could you want?

-Lars

Next election? That's rather wishful.

[Fantastic Lad]

There's not going to be a next election.

There. I said it.

Please let me be wrong.

-FL

Black Box Voting

[jesup]

Anyone really interested in this should read about this bill (the "Holt bill") at both http://blackboxvoting.org/ and also http://blackboxvoting.com/. Note that these two sites have very different takes on this bill!!! IMHO, they both have valid points. BBV (.org) has done a great job pushing forward the problems with the current systems and raising the visibility of the issue (and ferreting out some real doosies by Diebold, etc). However, since we're not likely to get anything better for this cycle, people should consider if the Holt bill would improve things. The danger would be that people might assume that "ok, now that we have paper trails all is OK and we can stop worrying about it."

Here in Chester County, PA we had a local house race that went to a full hand recount last year. (Chester County bucked the trend in Pennsylvania and installed optical-scan machines, where a recount is possible.) The original count had the Republican winning the PA house seat by 19 votes, and after a recount Barbara McIlvaine Smith (D-PA 156th) unseated the Republican by 23 votes, which switched control the PA house (by 1 vote) for the first time in around a dozen years to the Democrats.

Were the richest country.

[WindBourne]

Now we are very much a debtor country and getting poorer quickly. The very wealthy have been moving their money (and companies) out of America, because the Dollar is dropping against everything except the chinese yuan where it is fixed against our dollar.

well...

[WeeBit]

It might not protect our privacy down the road. But how do they plan to protect the public from corrupted voting booths, and politicians? No paper trial means no proof. So in some ways the Bill would be a blessing. I just hope it doesn't turn into a curse years down the road. Paper trails can be abused too.

Both sides have problems

[Calpse]

The whole point of keeping a paper trail is to prevent some hacker from messing with the vote, correct? Well I doubt it is much harder to mess with a paper vote either. Shredding machine, fireplace, there are plenty of ways to get rid of paper votes. And then there are people who go down the street getting votes from people who normally wouldn't go vote only to throw all the votes in the trash can except for the ones that they want. There wouldn't have been recounts in the elections before electronic voting if paper votes where failsafe. Neither option is totally safe. I say we pick one a beef up whatever defenses we can get on it instead of having two easily altered methods.

Re:Both sides have problems

[Anonymous Coward]

The whole point of keeping a paper trail is to prevent some hacker from messing with the vote, correct? Well I doubt it is much harder to mess with a paper vote either. However hard or easy it is to mess with paper votes or electronic votes, it's harder to mess with both paper votes and electronic votes, surely?

Shredding machine, fireplace, there are plenty of ways to get rid of paper votes. Which would be illegal and would be noticed because 1) the numbers of the counted votes would be different from the number of cast votes and 2) paper results and electronic results would mismatch, so everybody would know that something's wrong.

And then there are people who go down the street getting votes from people who normally wouldn't go vote only to throw all the votes in the trash can except for the ones that they want. What? Do you even know what voting is?

No difference between Democrats and Republicans?

[greg_barton]

I read this idea often on slashdot: There's no real difference between Democrats and Republicans.

So I ask those who say this: Would this legislation have come to be in the House under the Republicans? (Answer: it didn't) Yes, it was a bipartisan compromise, but we all know that the compromise wouldn't be possible with the Republicans in charge.

Voting really isn't the issue...

[LynnwoodRooster]

It's registration that's the problem. You want clean elections? Start by cleaning the registration lists, and implementing sane laws to keep them clean. Motor Voter is a farce; registration drives are rife with corruption (ACORN just got busted in Pierce County of Washington for 1748 fake registrations).

Start with cleaning up who can vote first, then worry about the vote itself. The vast majority of elections fraud so far has been cases of fraudulent registrations, not vote tampering. People voting who should not have been allowed to vote. Using multiple registrations to cast multiple votes. Creating fake registrations to cast ballots as desired.

Clean the voter rolls first, then work on how the ballots are cast. Or else all is just window dressing...

Re:Voting really isn't the issue...

[Anonymous Coward]

Ah, thank you for your comment Mr. Rooster...

By making your comment, and also referencing ACORN, you have proven that you are an ardent Republican and Bush supporter who wishes to disenfranchise low to moderate income and/or minority Democratic supporters.

Similar Republican efforts such as yours were recently documented on PBS, in which they were described as illegal and unconstitutional.

I am a victim of such illegal disenfranchisement. After I temporarily went out of state to attend school our local Republican tax assessor removed me from the voter rolls a month before the election. When I tried to reregister before the election they sent back the registration as incomplete even though it was fully complete.

These types of people, such as yourself, are VERY happy with the current electronic voting system.

You are, however, partially correct. The more important issue is illegal voter registration disenfranchisement by Republicans. Voter disenfranchisement due to manipulated electronic voting by Republicans, however, is also a very real possibility since they are in control of elections in many states.

Posted AC to prevent retribution by local Republican gendarmes.

Re:Voting really isn't the issue...

[LynnwoodRooster]

Read and learn: http://opinionjournal.com/diary/?id=110010400 - if a 97% FAKE rate isn't enough to make you question the motives of ACORN, you're a lot more partisan than you think I could ever be...

Re:But... but... but....

[goldspider]

Perhaps now we can at least dispel the myth here on Slashdot that Democrats will fix our elections processes. People here can't seem to bring themselves to admit that Democrats have as much to gain from a flawed system as any other establishment politician.

I have an idea!

[Derek Loev]

Just run it through Slashdot's Poll. It will totally not be rigged if CowboyNeal wins.

Re:No difference between Democrats and Republicans

[Anonymous Coward]

Yes, the democrats were all for open-ness and fairness when they passed the DMCA.

Re:But... but... but....

[doom]

Oh you're one of those eh? "The Democrats do it too!"... so it's fine when the Republicans do it!

By the way, did you notice this story?. This is all about the brand new Secretary of State in California, Debra Bowen, giving the DRE manufacturers hell. There was no hope of getting these problems looked at under her Republican predecessor, Bruce McPherson... he loved DREs for some strange reason...

Re:But... but... but....

[geminidomino]

Oh you're one of those eh? "The Democrats do it too!"... so it's fine when the Republicans do it!

Where did he say that? He said that the democrats have as much to gain from the flaws as any other politician (which includes the republicans) with the strong implication that we can't trust EITHER group to fix the problems.

Seems you fail to see the point

[Anonymous Coward]

Sure you can trow away paper trails, but the nice thing is, that could be noticed a lot easier. If someone would vote, a "random" number would be assigned to the vote. This number could be printed on the register, and a copy of the number could be given to the voter. Now the voter can see his vote was registered for the right candidate and he can even check (maybe even online) if his vote (number) is part of the result. Of course, this would only be really important if something seems to be wrong (like for instance if the number of electronic votes don't match the paper trail votes)

Re:Seems you fail to see the point

[BigMike1020]

Now the voter can see his vote was registered for the right candidate

I don't think so! Again, that's the whole point of a blind ballot. Nobody, NOBODY, can link who you voted for back to you. The system is in place to protect you. Imagine if your Repub. boss fired you because you voted Dem.

Re:But... but... but....

[the not-troll]

Well, as seen from the other side of the Atlantic, you've only got a choice between far right wing and very far right wing, so it doesn't really matter.

Not that we have it any better: Every system where you have only two big parties is just as bad as a one party system. It's only advantage is that the people are kept docile because, after all, you could vote for the other ones, can't you? And if you don't like them, you can just vote for... the first again.

Thus, they will become the same (that is, far right): It's just like you've got two royal families instead of one which always feud each other for the throne, but neither having more interest in the people than they'd have if they were the only one, except to make sure that they stay in power (which you have to ensure in an one party system, too).

Of course, there is a simple solution to that dilemma, but it is "unamerican".

VVPAT Oxymoron

[mrosgood]

I don't have a dog in the HR 811 fight. Having argued both sides, I've been ambivalent. (I've even given some money to the good folks at verifiedvoting.org. You should too.)

I can, however, state with absolute certainty that the voter verified paper audit trail (VVPAT) is a placebo and is worse than wrong. The VVPAT is the toilet paper roll attached to the computerized voting machine. Here's why:

1) most voters don't verify their votes

2) there's no reason to believe the votes printed and the votes recorded are the same

3) because these machines are crap, there's no way to meaningfully audit them

I'm an election integrity activist in King Co WA. I attended the "audit" of our Diebold AccuVote TSx machines after the Nov 2006 general election. 21 of the sealed toilet paper cannisters were pulled from the pile of some 400. 3 county-wide races were chosen to recount.

Humans manually recounted the paper trail. One reads, another records.

When the VVPAT wasn't readable, due to rip, jamming, smudge, or whatever, the entire paper trail is REPRINTED from the memory card. So it wasn't clear to me what was being "audited".

This happened 3 times. Meaning 10% of the VVPATs were spoiled.

After the Cuyahoga County OH election meltdown in 2006, an outfit named ESI did a post-mortem. They reported the same failure rate, plus a lot more of other failures.

Advocates for HR 811 make the very valid point that some jurisdictions will use touchscreens without paper trails in 2008. I get that. But the solution isn't to throw good money after bad money, to go through the charade of election integrity. The correct answer is to switch back to paper ballots tabulated on precinct-based optical scanners. It's the best available solution (today).

Any way, back to HR 811. Voters Unite has a great summary of its history and why it's such a bad idea: More Harm Than Good.

Re:Are you saying voters are hallucinatory...?

[OldHawk777]

"Voters (at least in the United States) largely" vote, "just because that candidate talks favorably of their imaginary friend."

In the USA, I thought it was illegal to allow hallucinatory delusional psychotics to vote in national, state, and local elections.

However, it is perfectly legal and USA Constitutional required to allow US Citizens with any form of silly beliefs in mythology to vote as their mythological delusional beliefs mentally and emotionally pervert them.

The spin-sway myth factor introduced (like booze in a bar/election) by politicians, televangelist, and corporatist should not be allowed, because then we could have a democracy entrusted to humanity the way !GOD! (think about it "!*") intended.

IOW: "Ignorance of the LAW... :: Ignorance of the TREASON" no excuse, but (in the USA) stupidity has always been forgivable no matter the consequences to US Cogent Citizens sacrificed in the lions' den.

Christian, Jew, Islamic... TREASON will always be TREASON. Honorable USA Citizens always believe mythology/religion in government is the ultimate evil on earth (history proves ... no change) bent on the destruction of humanity. I guess, you can say and prove historically that mythology/religion in government (Zeus, Jupiter, Ra, ... Christian, Aryan, Jew, Islamic...) is the result of sociopaths in government seeking an environment that provides them the greatest power over humanity and allows torture, murder, suicide, genocide ... to be tools of their days.

Is Bush a TREASONOUS sociopath? I don't know, but I would like to see a psychological-profile done on all politicians forevermore, nevermore crazy folks in government, then in the rational (non-dogmatic) general public of a nation is best for US, EU, UN ....

I pray (I do not expect a miracle) that the next USA election is closely monitored by international foundations/organizations for DEMOCRACY!

!HAVEFUN!

Curtainless booths = less privacy

[LowlyWorm]

Our jurisdiction adopted electronic voting. Apparently the election commission felt we need help to vote. Someone stands behind you in case you need help with the newfangled voting devices. I am not opposed to help if we need it but I am nostalgic for the good old days when I could go in a booth without concern over others helping me vote. I don't think they unduly influence my vote but I think it is a step in the wrong direction.

Why are there political parties?

[Calpse]

I hardly think it matters whether the government or president is one party or another. Especially recently it seems like Republicans are siding with Democrats and vise versa. I think that there should be NO political parties at all and politicians should just say what they believe and stick by it. It was what George Washington intended and I don't really see how political parties help us. All we get is a bunch of sheep going, "I'm a Democrat!" or" I'm a Republican!" And that's how they vote, never mind who the candidate or what the subject is. But then again, sheep don't really want to take the trouble to think about who or what they are voting for. That's the lazy American society for you.

Wait...

[Copperfield]

Wait, people actually think their votes count for something? I stopped voting years ago because, to paraphrase Carlin, after staying at home masturbating on election day, at least I have a little something to show for it.

Global Cogent Campaign for DEMOCRACY! End Tyranny!

[OldHawk777]

I will start posting (as anonymously as possible for someone like me) mugshot photos with a politicians, corporatist, televangelist ... last name.png in as many internet public places as possible and including the simple caption "USA TRAITOR". I will leave it up to US Citizens to know/investigate why.

Any USA Congressperson or Senator voting or corporatist, lobbyist, general ... against or President/VP vetoing "the bill banning paperless voting machines and requiring a voter-verified paper record for every vote in the country" will have their "name.png" mugshot plastered across the internet globally to make sure Yahoo, Google ... search-engines find their many mug-shots. Any creative Yahoo, Google ... search-engines/website filters will be an expensive minor annoyance to "Free-Speech" and creative methods for continuing to present the "TRAITOR" mugshots.

All reasonable (excludes mythology/religion) folks internationally should help US Citizens identify USA traitors to democracy and humanity. Creating, posting, and reposting "USA TRAITOR" mugshots will help.

ALSO, politicians and others beating the dead-horse mythology/religion and/or pseudo-patriot drum can expect the same "TRAITOR" mug-shots.

Mythology/religious beliefs and practices are fully protected by The USA Constitution, and I fully support and defend mythology/religious freedoms for all US Folks. The Separation of mythology/religion from Government is fully protected by The USA Constitution, and I fully support and defend US Citizens freedoms from mythology/religious tyranny in Government. Any US Citizens seeking compromise are Traitors to DEMOCRACY The USA Constitution, US Citizens and Culture.

IOW: Personal OKay and Public NoWay mythology/religion!

Treason needs to carry an old-law sentences of death for death, life for subversion, and disenfranchisement from democratic processes and services for anyone leading mythology/religious processes and services. No human can ever serve two masters on earth; Therefor, you can serve The People/Humanity, or you can serve any God/s of any mythology/religion, but never can anyone serve both without evil consequences for everyone.

The USA Constitution and all humanity's right to Free-Speech can be supported by keeping the internet open+accessible to all people globally.

I hereby reserve to all non-partisan pro-democracy foundations/groups... the property copyright to the "USA TRAITOR" caption on all graphic files depicting a human face. Laugh if you want, I will always consider Treason against and/or Murder of humans equivalent evils for US Citizens. This still leave open "CHINA TRAITOR", "RUSSIA TRAITOR", "EU TRAITOR" ... to humanity and human rights/freedoms.

Re:No difference between Democrats and Republicans

[Anonymous Coward]

Looking up the dates... the DMCA was passed in 1998, by a republican congress.

Re:Were the richest country.

[Corporate Troll]

Ehm, the Yuan hasn't been pegged to the dollar for 2 years.

Re:But... but... but....

[goldspider]

Oh you're one of those eh? "The Democrats do it too!"... so it's fine when the Republicans do it!

Of course, that's not what I said, but I suppose that strawman is easier to knock down.

You techies...

[Anonymous Coward]

You techies will never, ever understand that the vast majority of election fraud that takes place in the United States is extremely low-tech. It is as simple as a judge of elections signing the poll book for voters who did not actually come to vote, and then voting on the machine in their stead. And yes, Virginia, these votes are cast to a one for Democrats.

Fine. Use more advanced voting machines. Paper trails, whatever you want. They will still be able to cheat this way, and they will.

(I speak from personal experience, before one of you clowns accuses me making something up.)

Re:No difference between Democrats and Republicans

[smellsofbikes]

But there *isn't* any difference between D and R: they're both human.
By which I mean, it depends on how you define 'differences' - and when.
Americans, by and large, seem to understand that power corrupts, and reflect that by looking at who is in charge and regarding them as corrupt -- which, by and large, is pretty accurate. As such, right now, most of us are looking at the Republicans and saying that things are just appalling. When Democrats have a firm grip on all three branches of the government and are committing excesses , we'll be appalled at them. I happen to believe that this is the most appalling group of politicians in the White House since Harding, or maybe even earlier, but I believe it's a matter of degree, that if a bunch of Democrats were running things when there was a national emergency and everyone put on the government-can-do-no-wrong-protecting-us blinkers, that they'd do a bunch of foul and terrifying things in a somewhat different direction. I doubt they'd go anywhere nearly as far as the current Administration has gone, for a number of reasons, but they'd still be appalling. At the end of the day, anyone who is running things and has insufficient oversight will misuse the granted powers. (I believe that the 'insufficient oversight' is the important angle, by the way, but that's not really relevant to this discussion.)

Re:But... but... but....

[doom]

He said "strawman"! He wins.

And in case anyone cares, I cited an actual case where the Democrat is doing a much better job than the Republian was. So much for the "there's no difference" argument...

Well, kind of

[WindBourne]

The moneys are not divided equally. In the end, the basket is supposedly mostly dollars (though they are not willing to say what percentages), and the chines gov has it fixed against that. IOW, it has a bit of flexibility in case the dollar collapses (which is the goal). In the end, the chinese gov. is still deciding how to change the money, and it is designed to make exports DIRT cheap and imports very expensive.

Re:Well, kind of

[Corporate Troll]

I'm not denying that the Chinese government is setting the exchange rate and that this exchange rate favours exports. You just can't say that it's pegged to the dollar anymore. It's nitpicking, but we're on slashdot, so I'm supposed to nitpick ;-) The big currencies are US dollar, the euro, the Japanese yen and the South Korean, but the percentages are indeed unknown. I doubt however that they'd take the US Dollar for 50% or more, because then there would only be one "major currency". Of course, from here on it's just guessing...

Re:Well, kind of

[WindBourne]

Nah, it is still a legitimate grip. If they really have it pegged to a basket, it should be possible to calculate it somewhat close. If you play with the convertor, you will see that from -2 to -1y, the dollar was little changed. Only in the last year has it dropped. And yet, the USD is pretty constantly dropping vs. the eur and the won (due to our growing deficit). They is little doubt that its dropping due to political pressures and less to the basket.