Slashdot Mirror
Secrecy of Voting Machines Ballots At Risk
JimBobJoe writes "On Monday, Cnet published the findings I made as an Ohio poll worker regarding a major oversight in my state's election's system: Using a combination of public records, plus the voting machine paper trails, you can figure out how people voted. Though most agree that voting machine paper trails are a necessity, they can cause privacy problems which aren't easily mitigated. 'It's an especially pointed concern in Ohio, a traditional swing state in presidential elections that awarded George Bush a narrow victory over John Kerry three years ago. Ohio law permits anyone to walk into a county election office and obtain two crucial documents: a list of voters in the order they voted, and a time-stamped list of the actual votes. "We simply take the two pieces of paper together, merge them, and then we have which voter voted and in which way," said James Moyer, a longtime privacy activist and poll worker who lives in Columbus, Ohio.'"
It's not a matter of how proud you are of who you voted for. It's a matter of being able to vote for someone without the threat of intimidation or reprisal. It's not the matter of feeling a little tension when you're the only guy voting Democrat. It's more the matter voting your way on matters of gay marriage, slavery, and abortion in places there are people who would be openly hostile to your views. For the most part I believe that the developed world is much more civil than that. But, history dictates that sometimes the tide turns the other way.
New! Device Legs: These legs will help your poor OEM installed product escape any hamfistedness it may encounter. Ava
Though most agree that voting machine paper trails are a necessity, they can cause privacy problems which aren't easily mitigated.
Umm... Just don't store the list of who voted in any particular order.
We don't need to record voters for the purpose of matching them against their votes, we only need it to stop people from voting more than once.
I'd even go further - Mail every registered voter a bearer-coupon redeemable for one vote, then let them use those in total anonmity. That not only avoids the problem of guaranteeing anonymity, it solves a few other problems as well (for example, you could grant people the right to a proxy vote on your behalf simply by giving them your coupon).
I am not quite as worried about someone knowing how I voted as I am about someone ''changing''/''deleting'' how I voted. I'd say rather than worry about this people should focus more on improving the security of the machines for the upcoming presidential election.
It's the interesting thing about paper voting in the UK currently. It's not perfectly secure, but because it's paper, it's actually very difficult to manipulate a vote (for example) without putting in a lot of very boring effort to do so. It's also one of the problems with electronic voting, in that vote manipulation, if possible, can be scaled much more easily.
In the 1980s (and probably subsequently) it was normal practice for Special Branch to inspect the ballot papers of those who voted for parties which were considered potentially subversive (Communists, BNP, National Front.) They could then match those voting papers to the voters (by dint of the fact that the voter's name was written on a list next to the voting paper number) and keep a handy database of undesirables.
IMHO optical mark/sense is currently the best voting technology around. When coupled with a machine to assist disabled people mark theirs, I don't think it can easily be improved upon. It's been working for many years and doesn't have any of the problems of hanging chad or unclear voting that have plagued punch cards and the like in past years.
What you describe is what happens here in my area of Michigan as well.
50,000 votes is the absurd example; here's another
A voting precinct has 1000 voters. At fine minutes to closing time 500 have voted. A timestamp precludes a corrupt precinct boss from entering a couple hundred votes for his chosen candidate in the final minutes, or at least provides evidence that the polling place became very efficient right at the end there.
Then, you stand at the booth, mull over your unknown, least-hated, or no-competition candidates. It's actually quite rare that people walk away from the voting booths in the exact same order that they went into them.
This is exactly what's happening in Ohio but I contend the accuracy is still high. Remember, the "opening" time stamp is printed when the poll worker opens the machine for the next voting session. It so happens that the ES&S machines have a cartridge that the poll worker inserts in the front of the machine which makes it ready for voting so typically that opening time stamp is printed before the voter even stands at the machine.
Once that happens, it doesn't matter how long the voter takes to mull over their choices, thanks to the closing time stamp, which is printed once the voter presses the "vote" button. (If there were only an opening time stamp, then yes, the time it takes for the voter to vote would muck up the accuracy.)
If voter #10 took half an hour to vote then the timestamps will indicate that and you know to look for the next voters on the other machines which weren't monopolized by the slow voter.
For that matter why should anyone have access to the records of who voted at all?
The reason that data is public is because it's useful for politicians and their campaigns. For instance, if only 20% of registered voters show up to vote for the odd-year city council races, then the data of which 20% show up is invaluable. The city council candidates only need to send out campaign materials to those voters who reliably vote at those elections and can ignore people who only show up for the presidential elections.
Another example is that the poll workers (at least here in Ohio) maintain several lists of voters who voted during the day (it's a slight pain in the ass actually because someone has to be assigned to the boring job of checking off on two or three lists who came in to vote.)
Those lists are posted periodically during the day...I want to say the first one is posted at 11am.
So at 11am, a list of all the registered voters in the precinct is posted, with check marks next to the names of the voters who voted.
During the presidential election, people working for the campaigns come down and look at the lists. If they know that John Smith is a registered Republican voter (party registration is another public record) and they see he hasn't voted by 11am, they might give him a call to make sure he comes by. If he hasn't voted by 4pm (which I believe is the posting of the last list) then they might send someone over to his house because they know he is an older gentlemen who has voted consistently Republican for decades now and his vote will be invaluable.
I find those voter lists postings a terrible pain, particularly because they're an obligation of the poll workers but their purpose is to help the candidates themselves, not the integrity of the voting process itself.
what is wrong with the system used in the UK?
you walk in, give your name and address (or polling card, if you remember to bring it), you name is crossed off the list of voters for that ward/constituency/region, you get handed your ballot paper(s), walk into a booth - and *using a pen* make an 'X' on the candidate who you want.
the votes are counted by hand (normally it is council workers, bank tellers and post office workers who do the count as they are fast and accurate) - the candidates are allowed to watch the count, and if the result is very close can demand as many recounts as needed to identify the winner.
what advantage is there to voting machines? What do they bring to the democratic process above pen and paper?
echo $SIGNATURE
"Once the two documents are merged, it's easy enough to say that the first voter who signed in is very likely going to be responsible for the first vote cast, and so on."
The authors of TFA have never seen people take longer to vote than others? You know, the ones who are standing in their booth when you walk in and still standing there reading the names on the first page, when you leave? Or the person who comes in with small children and spends half an hour juggling them as she marks the ballot. And then there's the small crowd of folk who have signed in, standing with ballots in hands, waiting for a booth to come free, and the ones who have time to spare let the ones in a hurry go ahead of them.
It's not a FIFO buffer in this precinct.
I'd go one further and have the ballots marked by machines in ALL cases.
Otherwise what happens if somebody half-fills an oval, or fills in one heavily and one lightly? The validation machine might pass the ballot, and upon later recounts there could be issues.
I'd have the paper audit trail be computer-generated, so that all ballots are valid. Then have the paper ballot be inspected by the voter, and put into a ballot box for counting. Voters wouldn't write on the paper (ideally I'd have the ballots coated so that pencils/pens wouldn't work so that somebody doesn't see a mistake and try to "fix" it. If a ballot is bad just toss it in the trash and create another. Completely manual ballots would only be stocked for mechanical problems.
If you have hand-filled ballots then you'll have dozens if not hundreds of invalid ballots in every election. That means court disputes any time the vote gets that close. The whole problem in Florida was that the voting system allowed for invalid ballots to be turned in.
A machine-generated paper ballot has all the advantages of both computer-generated and paper ballots. Why not use them? They wouldn't even be expensive to generate - you just need a PC, some software, a laser or thermal-transfer printer, and some paper that is coated to prevent writing on...