Slashdot Mirror
"Secure Elections Act" Coming Up For Vote
Irvu writes "The US House of Representatives is considering HR. 5036, the 'Emergency Assistance for Secure Elections Act of 2008,' as introduced by Representative Rush Holt. The bill is scheduled for a floor vote later today. It would provide for emergency paper ballots, money for the addition of voter verifiable paper ballots to existing systems, and post-election audits. Crucially, the change to paper is opt-in, making it possible for local jurisdictions to govern their own choices. Here are two summaries of the bill. It was reported out of committee with strong bipartisan support. As of this morning the White house has opposed the bill but not threatened a veto, and some previously supportive Republicans have now changed their tune. Calls may be made to your house rep (click on 'Find your representative'). Here's a sample support letter."
It's got to be a trap... the end result is a fair election. Where's the tinfoil hat!?
If the public would just take the leaders their given instead of trying to choose their own, then maybe we'd get somewhere!
What, trampled under foot is a place, isn't it?
In all seriousness now, wouldn't it just be easier to call up Diebold on November 4 and ask them who won? Think of all the time and money we'd save.
Every year during my review, I just pray the words "slashdot.org" aren't mentioned.
Yes, that is crucial. Because in the jurisdictions that are running rigged elections, that don't want to leave evidence of their rigging, or are just getting bribed by crappy non-verifiable voting machine vendors to buy the crap, despite how it fails any reasonable quality test, those jurisdictions don't have to change anything.
A good bill would require opt-out, and only subject to some accountability, like a judge's decision that there are extenuating circumstances, or a (paper trail) vote by the people in the jurisdiction.
I mean, who else but a crooked politicial or a salesperson for a crooked or broken machine could possibly have a reason to opt out, when it's all paid for by the Feds (you and me)? What kind of priorities put anything above the integrity and respectability of our most essential link to democracy, the counting of our votes?
--
make install -not war
The president whose election tallies were never counted, in the closest election we've had in more than a century, doesn't want verifiable voting. I wonder why.
:(
Tin foil hats won't cover this one.
StoneCypher is Full of BS
This showed up a little bit late. The bill failed to pass 239-178 with 14 not voting. While this is a 55% vote in favor, it required a 2/3 supermajority to pass due to a motion to suspend the rules.
It seems the cat's already out of the bag...
Oops
"It is nice to know that the computer understands the problem. But I would like to understand it too." --Eugene Wigner
Let's get one thing straight: Rep. Holt is anti-voting technology. If it were up to the Representative, we would have absolutely zero voting electronics. Why is a community like Slashdot supporting such a thing? We are supposed to be the people supporting technology.
Why do we want paper ballots? Are they really more secure? Absolutely not!! How easy is it to throw ballots in a river or forge them? A six-year old can do it for God's sake! In contrast, how many people can really hack an election? How hard is it? (well, minus Diebold and Sequoia machines).
The problem is that we need to secure the technology. We need transparent processes to verify that our democratic process works. We should not be supporting any law that restricts technology. We should be the ones embracing it, making it work correctly.
In general it's not a bad bill. I'm not sure I agree with the conclusion that throwing paper at the problems will fix everything and the fact that it allows jurisdictions to opt-in is a very big step, I just hope people do paper ballots right not just paper for paper's sake.
It's a little scary seeing the pretty wide authority given to a single federal agency with not a lot of regulation. Eligibility isn't particularly clearly defined. I think in general retrofitting DRE's with VVPAT, particularly in time for November, has a huge potential for causing more harm than good. It's nice to see we've stopped the fairly phony "verified vs. verifiable" debate. My reading says anyone who by state law has to count emergency paper ballots as provisional is ineligible for that portion. For all the requirements there are for the audit section, I'd like to see some in there for handling paper ballots. How about teaching people about ballot design, chain of custody...?
I think it's great that we're expressing the need for research. I'm interested on NIST's input on how feasible this is and more interested on what the actual dollar figures end up at.
It is pointless to consider "paper" ballots in any real way. Any election that takes longer than about 12 hours is going to be "called on account of time" by the news services. They will announce a winner, based on exit polling, other polling, the way the wind is blowing and the entrails of a calf. But by God they are going to release the name of the winner before everyone goes to bed.
Look at 2000 - Gore was announced as the winner by CBS. Then, later, that announcement was retracted but there are people that believe today that Gore won the election fair and square. Too bad they couldn't reproduced the winning after two months of selective recounts and rule changes. Can the US survive another announced winner later proven to be false? I don't think so.
If the news services can't be silenced, we cannot rely on recounts or anything else that takes days to count properly. The authoritative answer has to be presented the evening of the election, probably by midnight Eastern Time or there will be all hell to pay. And by "authoritative" I do not be absolutely correct, just accepted by the majority of the population. This is what we had until 2000. It is something we will never have again if the news services preempt the process and announce a winner in advance of ballot counting again.
Is this really an appropriate fashion to present such content, via full endorsement and support by ./?
Slashdot: Playing Favorites Since 1997
so are you saying that this bill is actually an attempt to make elections MORE HONEST? Let's stick to the rules, guys: if you name the bill the "Secure Elections Act", I expect it to be an Orwellian attempt to deliver all state control to the shadowy members of the PNAC.
How depressing that my country is experiencing 3rd world style voting problems 200 year after establishing democracy. Citizens having trust in elections is the fundamental backbone to a democracy. I'm further amazed that voters aren't outraged and up in arms over this. This should be THE most important platform issue in our current presidential elections.
Check out this article and you'll get really get upset about some electronic voting machines in use.
http://www.bradblog.com/?p=4066
Wow, just look at those results! It was essentially a party roll call.
Notice that "Dr. No" also voted against it. Ron Paul is NOT going to base his vote on trying to improve or preserve election cheating.
That says to me that there's an issue with the Federal Government exceeding its constitutional authority by meddling in the states' election procedures (which ARE the (states' business), there's some "devil in the details" that makes it do the opposite of what it claims, or it's a feel-good-do-nothing bill that would raid the treasury and derail any REAL fix.
The last thing I want to see is more "election reform" that either makes the elections less accurate or gets enjoined and killed by the courts for a legitimate reason while REAL reform is headed off.
(Elections aren't about "fair". They're about heading off violence by predicting its results, well enough that the losers understand that violence won't reverse the loss. So it's very important that the election is both honest and visibly so.)
Hopefully things will slide a little further toward the "D" side next year, and we just might see bills like this made into law.
If any of my conjectures above is correct that's an outcome to be avoided.
Bantam Dominique roosters crow a four-note song. Once you've heard it as "Happy BIRTHday" you can't NOT hear it that way
Ironic questions aside.. in 30 years, the only people still maintaining illusions about the truth behind the 2000 and 2004 elections will be the lingering remnants of the once significant horde who were easily swayed by an overweight radio personality.
The loophole in this bill is that it is allows states to slap printers onto the election machines and claim that they have paper trails. Unfortunately that doesn't really solve the core problem.
I discussed this over email with some people at TrueVoteMD and their opinion was that, at least for Maryland, that didn't matter since our voting machines don't even have ports for printers. It still kinda scared me though.
One thing I don't see mentioned here is the issue of some kind of proof you are who you say you are before you vote. In my opinion thats as much an issue as counting correctly, but it seems to be ignored. Why?
You know, I am not the person always gung-ho about open source technology, but I do believe that open source software and hardware is the only way to have electronic voting work. It's the only way to get enough peer-review so that all sides and all parties can be assured it would be tamper-proof. Any private entity is the exact opposite, since they have no requirement, and often the exact opposite incentive to make it tamper-proof, so therefore the devices are more likely to "deliver" the votes the company wants to deliver, all in the argument that "it's more secure" because they say it is. Has anyone ever brought this up in slashdot? It really is worth it's own article. P.S. Paper can be manipulated, too.
However, amazingly enough my Congresscritter, Howard "Berman the Ermine" Berman (D-MAFIAA) was an aye vote. He was also a co-sponsor. He takes some ridiculous stances for his Big Media patrons, but when I'm ready to tell him to go Cheney himself, he does something like this.
Knowledge is power. Knowledge shared is power multiplied.
Is the vote a right or a duty?, this is where in IMO you should start. If you consider it a right, then you've already lost, irrespective of technology. Voting is a duty and failing to do so should result in penalties.
~ Artificial Intelligence is better than none! ~
Go back to punch ballots. Require chads to be removed by the voter for the selections to be valid. ITs really that simple.
Technology in th evoting process only makes it easier to hack.
Maybe, USA could have a clue reading The brazilian Election Supreme Court migrates 430 THOUSAND voting machines to GNU Linux Good luck.
Maybe other countries could follow: The brazilian Election Supreme Court migrates 430 THOUSAND voting machines to GNU / Linux Good luck.
3.5 mil democrats, 49.1% Obama, 48.2% Clinton. 2.2 mil Republicans, 70% McCain, 20% Huckster.