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US Voting Machines Standards Open To Public
Online Voting writes "The U.S. Election Assistance Commission has published new voting systems testing and certification standards for 190 days of public comment. For all the critics of electronic voting, this is your opportunity to improve the process. This will be the second version of the federal voting system standards (the first version is the VVSG 05). To learn more about these Voluntary Voting System Standards see this FAQ."
- Printed voting receipt
- All code open source, all architecture fully documented and publicly available
- No person-vote information recorded in database (database lists people as "voted" or "not voted", as soon as person enters a vote it changes to "voted" and won't allow another vote, while a separate database increments a counter for a particular candidate. These two databases are NOT linked together.
- No timestamps to ensure manual matchmaking between people and votes are not possible.
Ah hell. I could come up with lots of other reasonable suggestions, but its not like any of this will ever be implemented.
Has anyone else noticed that more money and time and effort has been spent trying to make and use good, fair, electronic voting machines than it would have taken to just keep using paper ballots and have them counted like usual? Isn't the point to save money and time and make it more efficient? I think another point was to make elections less riggable and more accurate but Diebold killed that dumb idea behind a long time ago lol.
Google's Super Secret Search Algorithm: SELECT @search_results FROM internet WHERE @search_results = 'good'
Too bad neither of the "major" political parties has the country's interests at heart, or we would have real, open standards for the machines themselves, and not just a voluntary fucking testing process.
expandfairuse.org
...When you can simply bombard the numb populace with expensive television advertising, purchase stories in the "news entertainment media," bribe them by appealing to their greedy special interests, and manipulate them through churches and synagogues?
They don't have to hack the voting machines. They've already hacked the voters. Just as Plato predicted they would!
Anti-Globalism
Scantron and a #2 pencil.
It doesn't even need to be modified. Actually, it should be in the guidelines that it is encased in a solid unbreakable enclosure and not have any custom software, the same scantron software they use in high schools.
Maybe a second system to check who has voted and to prevent doubles (not connected to the scantron machine in any way)
No input problems
Very accurate counting
No link between voter and vote
Accurate, tamper proof paper trail (given that votes aren't thrown away, but they should match a electronic tally)
See the problem is when you input on a computer screen it's bound to have errors/crashes hardware defects etc. The computer also serves as a filter, possibly misprinting the paper ballot, or registering the electronic vote incorrectly.
And how does diebold manage to fuck up the machines so badly, they sound like a failed cs11 project, distributed access unencrypted access databases?
Yes, indeed, I heartily agree. I had a good laugh and would mod you funny too. Not meaning to burst the happy bubble, but such foreknowledge has a darker side too.
It's not so "comforting" to know that regardless of which candidate or party Diebold selects, we can all rest assured in foreknowledge that the USA will: continue the genocidal punishment of the Cubans and equally genocidal elimination of the Palestinian people, ignore preventable humanitarian crises in favor of reinforcing corporate hegemony over the commons we all require to exist, continue to spend more on weapons (and selling/giving them to allcomers) than the rest of the world combined, continue to imprison their own people for victimless crimes, and spew gazillions of tonnes and litres of crap into the world environment, continue the American crime wave of ignoring international treaties and any law that doesn't line the pockets of the increasingly corrupt body politic, and pump out endless "reality" entertainment and "instant" food in the modern version of bread and circuses. Yes, sir, we're all really comforted to know these things in advance, we nihilists. It affirms our belief in the inherent inutility of the human species and the worthy demise of a sickness that the rest of the planet's species could well do without.
What's my rant all about, you ask? The votes don't count for SHIT. This tiresome pursuit of technological measures for counting nothing-of-any-value boggles the mind.
Now, please, someone mod me troll or off-topic, because what's important is obviously finding excuses to ignore the elephant in the room by concentrating on molecular analyses of the fecal matter the presumed and unimportant mammal has deposited that makes our burgers and coke smell funny.
Slashdot slogan on the top of the page: Politics for nerds. Your vote matters.
Er, no, it doesn't.
Wouldn't it be better to start with an open standard around the election process for information exchange and the like? This Already Exists and is "recommended" by the US Government. Why only recommended? Surely this exactly the sort of thing that should be enforced as a basic requirement. Its not like the US Government could claim "we can't enforce that standard as vendors might not want to use it" its the US frigging Government legislate is what they do.
So a good start on the standards but it would be good to see compulsion come in.
An Eye for an Eye will make the whole world blind - Gandhi
This is utter silliness. So what if you review the code? So what if there are "open standards"? The code you review can be swapped out on election day any number of ways! I mean, you are all programmers, mostly. How can you possibly fall for this? And there is code on the point of voting, code at the accumulators boxen, running Windows may I add, code at HQ adding up the accumulators' totals. It's the work of a morons's minute to swap out vote totals, or change the code at the point of voting to simply flip the voter's choice undetectably -- printing out a "receipt" that is worthless as record of what actually happened. The code can be changed and then replaced instantly. Or more likely, why bother? Who the hell can tell what code is really running on the box? The problem here is you all have a religious belief that when you ask a computer a question, you'll get an honest answer. But these are dedicated boxen, controlled by humans who are extremely motivated to alter the results. You can't beat them. You can only remove the means. No computers system should ever come near an election.
Canada does (did? sigh) vote using a manual process with real time oversight by suspicious characters from both parties present -- you know, the process we decided was mad in Florida in 2000. Somehow they finish up their elections in hours. Although, really, what the hell is the hurry to finish an election? Why not take a week? Someone REALLY wants to alter those votes. They want it quick, unmonitored, and completely open to tampering, and somehow this is the Only Way To Do It?
This idiocy wouldn't stand if we didn't have Kourictainment for a news media... god.