Video Shows Easy Hacking of E-Voting Machines

Mike writes "The Security Group at the University of California in Santa Barbara has released the video that shows the attacks carried out against the Sequoia voting system. The video shows an attack where a virus-like software spreads across the voting system. The coolest part of the video is the one that shows how the 'brainwashed' voting terminals can use different techniques to change the votes even when a paper audit trail is used. Pretty scary stuff. The video is absolute proof that these types of attacks are indeed feasible and not just a conspiracy theory. Also, the part that shows how the 'tamperproof' seals can be completely bypassed in seconds is very funny (and quite disturbing at the same time)."

Comments

We have a system to protect against this

[Anonymous Coward]

Even though l3wdd00d might get 100% of the votes in the Presidential election, the fact that he is only 16 will be disqualifying.

Re:We have a system to protect against this

[Volante3192]

*sigh* And these ACs are part the people who help decide the fate of the nation? No wonder we're screwed...

Barack had dual citizenship with Kenya (NOT Indonesia) and the US until 21 years old when Kenyan law required him to abandon it. He was born in Hawaii which makes him a natural born citizen.

McCain was born on a naval base which is considered soverign US soil for the purposes of birth, and has been since the 1790s by an act of Congress. (It's true the wording isn't as clear as it could be, but it's clear what the intent is of the bill.)

Both candidates are US citizens and natural born. This is all a non issue, has been, will be. Go find some other misinformation to spread...

Re:We have a system to protect against this

[HungryHobo]

"The 1790 law remained in effect until the Naturalization Act of 1795 superseded it. The 1795 law removed mention of natural born citizen status"

Re:We have a system to protect against this

[Jim Hall]

McCain was born on a naval base which is considered soverign US soil for the purposes of birth, and has been since the 1790s by an act of Congress. (It's true the wording isn't as clear as it could be, but it's clear what the intent is of the bill.)

(This thread is decidedly OT from e-voting.)

As I understand it, the topic of "natural born" is untested, and is certainly not clear here. However, no one is likely to contest John McCain in his candidacy based on his birth, so this is probably moot.

The topic of "natural born" was a topic on the Legal Lad podcast back in March. The key points:

The Fourteenth Amendment provides that, "All persons born or naturalized in the United States, and subject to the jurisdiction thereof, are citizens of the United States and of the State wherein they reside." This gives rise to the notion that there are two kinds of citizens: born and naturalized. So, the question becomes, was John McCain effectively born in the U.S., or did some law make him a citizen, rendering him naturalized?

The reason this is important is that John McCain was born on U.S. military base Coco Solo in the Panama Canal Zone to U.S. parents. Does that make him a "natural born Citizen?"

First, it is important to note that John McCain is definitely a "Citizen" of the United States. [...]

Proponents of McCain's eligibility argue that McCain must be a natural born citizen because he was born a citizen by virtue of his parents being citizens and the birth occurring on a military base. [...] Opponents of McCain's eligibility would point to the dichotomy between being born a citizen, and being declared a citizen. If, under the language of the Fourteenth Amendment and Immigration and Naturalization Act of 1952, a person is "declared" to be a citizen, then the person was not a citizen at the moment of birth. The law "declared" him to be a citizen, and so the person was naturalized, not naturally born. [...] Last, current State Department policy reads: "Despite widespread popular belief, U.S. military installations abroad and U.S. diplomatic or consular facilities are not part of the United States within the meaning of the 14th Amendment. [...]

In the end, a group challenging McCain on this ground might face a backlash. McCain was a prisoner of war, and was born outside the physical boundaries of the U.S. only because the government ordered his parents there. He does not seem to be the problem that the original framers envisioned: a foreigner without current allegiance to the newly-founded United States. McCain, a longtime senator, does not seem to really fit this problem.

Re:We have a system to protect against this

[CheeseTroll]

I agree that it's doubtful the original framers would have had such a strict interpretation. Technically speaking, none of them had been born in the "United States", but rather the British colonies.

Re:We have a system to protect against this

[R2.0]

"He was born in Hawaii which makes him a natural born citizen."

It is not his dual citizenship that people question but whether or not he was ACTUALLY born on Hawaiian soil. This would have been a non issue were it not for the fact that the Obama campaign has not let anyone but FactCheck.org see the actual certificate, and the "bootleg" scanned copy that the bloggers came up with was odd looking to those familiar with Hawaiian birth certs.

Be that as it may, FactCheck.org is pretty reputable, so if they say theyve seen the cert and it's legit, I believe them. I'm just a bit baffled why Obama and the Dems let it get as far as it did.

Re:We have a system to protect against this

[sheldon]

It is not his dual citizenship that people question but whether or not he was ACTUALLY born on Hawaiian soil.

You're a fruitcake.

Re:We have a system to protect against this

[R2.0]

Did you even READ the rest of what I said (all of a few more lines). I BELIEVE he was born in Hawaii; what I don't get is why the campaign didn't get on it sooner.

Think about what would have happened if the McCain campaign had let the rumors about Trig's parentage fester for *months*, only responding with "you're a fruitcake": it would have fed rumors that Palin had something to hide. But that's effectively what the Obama campaign did - called everyone who asked the question a right wing nutjob and a racist (or at least that's what their proxies did) instead of just handing out copies of the damned certificate and saying "Here - now lets move on, shall we?"

Re:We have a system to protect against this

[mazarin5]

"The 1790 law remained in effect until the Naturalization Act of 1795 superseded it. The 1795 law removed mention of natural born citizen status"

So he just barely got in then?

Re:We have a system to protect against this

[flitty]

No, it's more like, Say, Al Fraken Calling McCain one of the Final Five Cylons for months and months and months. Why should McCain be forced to show his personal records that he, in fact, is NOT a Toaster masquerading about as the second in command on a battlestar. The claim is false on it's face. It's such a stupid claim that only "nutjobs" and chamalla extract users would believe such an audacious claim. Nobody was pounding down G.W. Bush's or Regan's Door to ask for their birth certificates, right?

We are talking about Col. Tigh, right?

Re:We have a system to protect against this

[rahvin112]

The original framers never conceived of a US millitary base off US soil. We were a neutral nation until WWII and we really should move back to being a neutral nation again.

Re:We have a system to protect against this

[R2.0]

Yes but, as the Obama campaign is fond of pointing out, he is Not Like Other Candidates. He claims foreign policy experience based on his childhood traveling out of the country. Well, his mother was out of the country when she was married and for the first few months of her pregnancy - that is the official Obama bio. Also, it was NOT common practice for pregnant women to fly back then, and airlines didn't keep records of infants in arms either. So there is a LEGITIMATE question to be asked if he was actually born on US soil, which is a requirement for him to be a "native born" citizen. He could have answered it in a heartbeat; why didn't he?

The same question WAS asked of McCain, and the laws in force at the time support his status, and the circumstances of his birth are well documented in civilian and military records.

I mean, fer chrissake, I needed to produce a birth certificate to qualify for a driver's license when I was 16, and it needed to be officially stamped. Are you saying that Obama should be exempt from showing documentation of his constitutional qualifications to be the President of the US?

Re:We have a system to protect against this

[shaitand]

I have never heard that interpretation of citizenship before. My understanding was that anyone born in the U.S. or any child with a U.S. Citizen as a parent was a natural born citizen because they were born with the right to US citizenship even though in the case of flings in a foreign nation that citizenship might not be RECOGNIZED until later.

Those who aren't born of this country and come here and are granted citizenship are naturalized citizens.

Re:We have a system to protect against this

[nedlohs]

Given that the amendment happened 80 years after the United States came into existence it would seem unlikely that none of them had been born in he United States.

The framers of the original Constitution, sure. But they obviously had no interpretation in mind of something that didn't exist.

Re:We have a system to protect against this

[CheeseTroll]

Sure, for that amendment, but the requirements for becoming President are more generally stated in Section 1 of Article 2 of the U.S. Constitution itself:

* be a natural born citizen of the united States
* be at least 35 years old
* have lived in the U.S. for at least 14 years

My only point is that the original framers could not have had a super-strict interpretation of what it meant to be born in the "US", or there wouldn't be a president until 1811, which would be a little awkward.

Re:We have a system to protect against this

[CheeseTroll]

While the scale of our involvement has certainly ramped up since WWII, the US was *hardly* a neutral nation before that, except for brief "America First" periods. Just look at this list for a long list of worldwide involvement since the very beginning.

Re:Quicktime?

[Anonymous Coward]

no way. Those are Creative Types(tm). They use Macs.

Early vote makes your vote count (better chance)

[InsaneProcessor]

That is why I always early vote. It is on paper where I vote and that stands a better chance of getting counted correctly.

Re:Quicktime?

[psergiu]

Just be thankful it's not streaming RealVideo or WM11 :)

Re:Early vote makes your vote count (better chance

[pxlmusic]

good call. i was reading about the early voting the other day -- i think i'll be doing that.

Re:Quicktime?

[Anonymous Coward]

Don't worry, it's slashdotted already.

Slashdot effect

[Bruiser80]

don't have to worry about it any more - the site has been effectively slashdotted :-)

Re:Slashdot effect

[elwinc]

Can someone who actually saw the video please mirror it on youtube or something, and post a link? The site is slashdotted. Thank you!

Hey, what's wrong with my spell checker? It doesn't know either youtube or slashdotted!?

Re:Slashdot effect

[Windows_NT]

The requested URL (%5C) was not found. If you feel like it, mail the url, and where ya came from to help@slashdot.org.

Re:Slashdot effect

[Anonymous Coward]

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=SWDEZqqqBHE (part I)
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=moEsgdzZ19c (part II)

Theatre

[adpsimpson]

The interesting thing here is that I would expect one of two things. Either physical security should be taken seriously, in which case a 'tamperproof' seal should be just that (not hard to design) or an assumption be made (not unreasonably) that physical attack against the machines is unlikely and easily preventable.

A supposedly tamper-proof seal which can be circumvented shows either a cynical disregard for physical safety (ie "we know it's a threat, so we'll put in a seal to make people think we've taken it seriously") or another TSA-style "theatre" solution (ie "we don't think it's a threat, but we'll let people believe that it is, and that we've done something about it").

Both of these interpretations are disturbing. However Hanlon's Razor ("Never ascribe to malice that which is adequately explained by stupidity") may of course apply.

Re:Theatre

[InsaneProcessor]

A company I used to work for would specially format media so that it could not be tampered with. The format itself would prevent a virus from entering the computer because of special windows driver and the format itself was done on special hardware (firmware or software alone could not provide the format). This ensures security. One would think that the USB drive would also be formatted special to prevent attacks. Some companies just fall short when maximizing security.

Re:Theatre

[debatem1]

This runs headlong into the most fundamental rule of information security: that anybody can write a cipher that they're too stupid to break. Depending on a special format and hardware to protect your data only works until somebody cares enough to give your format a good poking, or scrapes together the cash to clone your hardware. In the case of voting machines, that'll happen almost immediately.

Re:Theatre

[Serenissima]

I don't think it's just stupidity. "You get what you pay for" is part of it as well. A private contractor needs to make a profit and it costs money to make things secure. If no one buys your voting computer because it's too expensive, you lose. So, you need to dumb it down - when you dumb it down, the security becomes crappier.

I'm sure most of us here can come up with a dozen ways of making voting machines far more secure. How about proprietary connectors so that any Joe Schmoe can't sidle up and stick in a USB drive with a virus on it? How about welding (or some other way of sealing) the computer enclosure so that no one, not even the operators sitting at the desk in front it, can open it? How about not using freaking Windows? If you don't want a virus to spread, invest some money and write a completely new proprietary operating system from scratch that no one has ever seen before. That would make any virus or malware completely ineffective.

But that would also cost a LOT of money. So, while stupidity is definitely a factor, I think profit margins are really the root cause. Although, I could go as far as saying that the drive to cut costs is one of the leading causes of stupid decisions - so, I guess stupidity and cost cutting are fairly related.

Re:Theatre

[Domint]

I'm sure most of us here can come up with a dozen ways of making voting machines far more secure.

No one is arguing that point, but even if we follow all of your costly (both time and $$) security suggestions, they're all thrown out when one of your developers writes a stealth backdoor into the stupid thing. Nothing can be 100% secure, it's all about the trade offs - you make it as hard as economically possible to deter would-be attackers. But unfortunately if someone wants in, they'll get in - and in the case of vote tampering, there's a significant number of people who do.

Everything is hackable

[COMON$]

The real question is, is this more difficult to spoof than the current paper method? Anyone can fake a paper ballot, it is a small subset who can carry out these electronic attacks, although the consequences of this smaller subset's maliciousness could be worse.

Re:Everything is hackable

[NotBornYesterday]

But faking large numbers of paper ballots at many sites is a large undertaking, and harder to hide without a big (read: hard to keep secret) conspiracy. Faking electronics ballots could be done by a smaller number of people, but on a larger and less detectable scale.

Re:Everything is hackable

[SatanicPuppy]

This exploit depends on the use of USB keys in the setup process, so it's more a matter of screwing with those keys. Judging by my experience, that would be pretty trivial. The running exploit could be recognized by a competent poll worker, but again, that's not all that likely.

The whole electronic voting thing is hugely flawed. They're building the machines on an extremely hackable (windows) base, rather than a custom firmware. The design does not take into account real security concerns.

While anyone can fake a paper ballot, it would be extremely difficult to fake enough ballots to make a difference. This is not the case with electronic voting. Paper is a much more secure system.

Re:Everything is hackable

[Windows_NT]

I agree. Paper should be the standard. If you have a sealed box, and everyone puts their ballots in that box, and then the ballots are counted in front of 20 people (civilian!) I bet the chance of being able to spork an election would be pretty slim.

Re:Everything is hackable

[TheRaven64]

The running exploit could be recognized by a competent poll worker

And this highlights the flaw in electronic voting. The more complex the polling system, the more skill required to ensure fairness. In a paper ballot, anyone can act as an overseer and be confident that the votes were not tampered with while they are watching. With an electronic system that drops to, what, 10%? 1%? 0.1%? And with such a small percentage capable of ensuring election fairness, do you really have a democracy anymore?

Re:Everything is hackable

[SpiderClan]

The question then becomes:

How much more expensive is it to hire 20 civilians per voting district than it is to install those machines? Is anybody willing to pay for it? Are the people who would make that decision the same ones who would be most likely to have the ability to tamper with E-Voting machines?

I guess the question becomes three questions.

Re:Everything is hackable

[homer_ca]

You don't need to hire 20 citizens as observers. Most campaigns and political parties would be happy to send a volunteer or staffer as an observer of a hand count. It may not add up to 20 at every precinct, but checks and balances should be maintained as long as you have enough opposing campaigns and parties there.
The bigger problem is that pollworkers have a very long day, and a hand count at closing time piles on even more work. When you include all the down-ticket races like State Reps, ballot measures, and judges, it ends up being a huge numbers of races to count.

Re:Everything is hackable

[mshannon78660]

That's why you use optical scan - gets the counts done quickly on election night, but if there is any question, you can hand-recount the paper ballots. It's a system that worked well in many precincts across the country (including central Texas, where I live) until the e-voting madate came down from congress. Lines got a lot longer after they introduced the machines, too - fewer machines than there had been stations to mark paper ballots, and it took people longer to actually vote.

Re:Everything is hackable

[UnknowingFool]

True, but in the last Presidential election it decided by a relatively small number of voters in key states. Since the electoral system is all or nothing by state, a small change in number in certain states could affect an outcome.
Kerry lost by 35 electoral votes. In 3 states:

New Mexico (6K votes, 5 electoral)
Iowa (10K votes , 7 electoral)
Nevada (20K, 5 electoral)

Now this swing of 40K votes would have made Kerry 1 electoral vote short of the Presidency and would not have changed the outcome. But it shows that relatively small tampering could affect an election.

Re:Everything is hackable

[riceboy50]

Haha, it's lose and Miami-Dade.

Re:Everything is hackable

[rickb928]

"The whole electronic voting thing is hugely flawed. They're building the machines on an extremely hackable (windows) base, rather than a custom firmware. The design does not take into account real security concerns."

Bingo!

At the least, any secure voting system would include custom software in the poll machines, management servers, tabulators, etc. Let the output be carted off to windows machines to make nice pretty spreadsheets, fine. But all else would have to be custom. And probably best done in fimware, at least in PROMS.

Yes, this would make maintenance and udpates difficult. So it would have to be written 'right' the first time. Wow. Concept. Special-purpose software written correctly. This is something many manufacturing industries have done in the past. Maybe time to hire up some assembler programmers to come out of retirement and git 'er done?

I bet some would do it pro bono. This is important, and more important than money.

Won't happen though. We're in love with COTS.

Re:Everything is hackable

[NotBornYesterday]

But it shows that relatively small tampering could affect an election.

Absolutely. Ballot box stuffing, whether electronic or physical, is only as good as the planning that goes into it, and does not necessarily need to be huge (millions vs. thousands) to be effective. I am sure that each campaign is aware of where they are strong and where they are weak, and therefore where a little "help" would be most useful.

However, I see the brilliance of electronic fakery like this: If I stuff 10k fake votes into a precinct, the exit polls will be off significantly, a statistical analysis would show that its returns are out of line with the other precincts, and perhaps it will be scrutinized. If I can electronically stuff a handful of ballots into most/all precincts, I can do so with much less chance of being noticed.

Re:Everything is hackable

[liveloveworkplay]

Of course there is democracy! Oversight is not indicative of democracy, transparency *is*. Make it possible to look up _your_own_ voting history and ability to hide wrong-doing gets tougher. That alone wont do it of course. The fact that few people "can" verify results is short sighted and misses the point. The systems being used - and the way we are going about putting them in place IS THE REAL PROBLEM. Open the democracy. Nationalize the VOTING SYSTEM. Make it STANDARD. Similar, but better, than automobile driving.(imagine if you had to get in on the left in some cars but the right on others...) Now... if you want me to go into why *this* has not happened, I can.. but its a long story of corporate fiefdoms and multi-level government power struggles.

Re:Everything is hackable

[shaitand]

'Most campaigns and political parties'

Why on earth would anyone trust the people who are rigging the elections in the first place?

Re:Everything is hackable

[shaitand]

'Make it possible to look up _your_own_ voting history'

Unless everyone looks up their own votes, tabulates the results together, and compares them to the election totals that means nothing.

Re:Everything is hackable

[homer_ca]

Maybe because campaigns and parties compete against *each other*? Not all campaigns and races fall cleanly on partisan lines, e.g. ballot measures and local races. When you get that many people in a room and count openly, the conspiracy to steal just one precinct gets unwieldy, to say the least.

Re:Everything is hackable

[shaitand]

'Let the output be carted off to windows machines to make nice pretty spreadsheets, fine. But all else would have to be custom.'

That is the most ridiculous thing I've heard yet. Custom means full of ripe to be discovered bugs. It's security through obscurity and it has been proven that security through obscurity does NOT work.

Windows is a poor choice because its riddled with holes and it can't be trimmed down appropriately. Build on a solid *nix like Linux or BSD that has stood the test of time and can be trimmed down to minimal services that are needed to run the machine.

The actual voting software should be simplicity itself. A 5 hour veteran of quick basic could write it.

'And probably best done in fimware, at least in PROMS.'

Any rom media will do. I recommend hardware supported DRM and signed CD-R's to allow for easy updating.

The final machine should print out a paper ballot. It should be simple and human readable, it should also be numbered with a simple numeric code. A receipt should also print out with just the code and not the vote.

The voter then slips this into a slot and watches on a big publically visible screen showing the incremented tally, the vote number, and who was voted for. If there is a problem they can notify someone immediately and watch an equally visible process in which the vote is corrected.

There are a number of people voting at any one moment, so an outsider watching the screen could not determine which of them voted for who but the voter knows their number and knows their vote was counted. Nobody but the voter knows their vote number so the voter is anonymous. After the vote disappears from the machine only the election officials will be able to see vote numbers so it would be difficult to buy votes and verify the purchase on any scale.

Re:Everything is hackable

[rickb928]

Custom code - I meant probably assembler, if not embedded-system code.

No OS, well, actually the OS is integral. So no Windows underpinnings. No antivirus, of course, unless someone wrote a virus for it. And of course, loaded in PROM means attacking it with a virus means recompiling it and reloading the PROMS. Nontrivial.

You dismiss custom code as 'full of ripe to be discovered bugs'. You really need to get out more. The embedded systems model I have in mind is more like what runs your microwave, your digitally-enhanced stove, your car's transmission, countless other devices. Not buggy by nature, from experience. When was the last time your microwave hung and needed a cold boot? I'm sure it's happened, but it's a lot rarer than the big-screen displays in Vegas showing BSODs instead of the announcements.

And how, pray tell, would you compromise the code in your microwave? Contemplate that...

A voting machine needs to be virtually impenetrable. Make the attackers bring desoldering equipment. Publish the code. And the MD5. People like you and me could read the MD5 off the bottom of the screen and compare it with the number written down from the elections website. We could know the code was not overly hacked up.

And of course the code is in PROM, so inserting a USB key to extract the results, AFTER commanding the on-display report and *writing down* the results first, doesn't give you method to infect the PROM. You wouldn't have the circuitry necessary to write the PROM.

You're still thinking inside the big OS box. No OS. Purpose-built. I think Brazil uses something like that, but more complex and uses an OS I would rather dispense with. But their system is also more rigorously examined. Worth a look.

Re:Everything is hackable

[shaitand]

'Maybe because campaigns and parties compete against *each other*?'

You actually believe that nonsense? I didn't realize there were still people naive enough to believe that it mattered which of the candidates you vote for.

Re:Everything is hackable

[shaitand]

'The embedded systems model I have in mind is more like what runs your microwave, your digitally-enhanced stove, your car's transmission, countless other devices.'

And my DVD player, etc. Yes, all buggy and DEFINITELY not secure.

'Publish the code.'

That doesn't do any good if there is no way to patch the code.

Even if your voting machine were unhackable, you could hack the results on the usb key or alter them at the system that tallies the votes. Refer to the post you just responded to for a system which is transparent enough that it can't be compromised.

Re:Everything is hackable

[homer_ca]

It doesn't matter what you or I or the average voter believes. I guarantee you the volunteer precinct captain who goes to observe isn't "in on the conspiracy" to look the other way when poll workers miscount votes in one precinct. Counting votes in open view of the public is an inherent check and balance. With that many eyeballs in the room, you'll either need to train a shitload of people in sleight of hand or pay off 20 times that many people to be in on the conspiracy.

I know the D and R parties divvy up the spoils between each other, but the mechanism of said divvying has more to do with gerrymandering and media management.

Re:Everything is hackable

[rickb928]

Oh yeah - writing down the results and THEN letting them go to the USB key would be best.

A printer would be just too good. I'm not sure I like the receipt idea, but I wouldn't oppose it. Imagine being able to look up your vote on the post-election website, and see that it was counted. And how it was counted. Intriguing.

Of course, my concept doesn't permit you to load new software. So it has to be right. Don't use your DVD player as a model. Use the microwave. Or any old calculator. Those have been pretty much bug-free for decades now, with the exception of course. So we test.

This is precisely where the FOSS movement can deliver the most benefit. Define the hardware and software, expose it to testing and challenges, monitor performance. Better in every way than trying to work with COTS and hardware that has too much code already embedded in it. Imagine using off-the-shelf tablets for machines, or anything manufactured in China.

Woops. Serious problem. It's the 'not knowing' part that makes that so impossibly unacceptable.

Just can't.

Re:Everything is hackable

[shaitand]

'Imagine being able to look up your vote on the post-election website, and see that it was counted. And how it was counted.'

That would break the system. The idea is that the voter can see the vote register on a large publicly visible display along with an incrementing running total. Maybe the last 5 or 10 show, just enough that the voter will be able to confirm his vote before it disappears. Once it disappears the system only stores the vote and not the number associated with it, or only stores the number for a short period of time in case the voter noticed a problem.

There is no black box voodoo, any member of the public can stand and watch the tally from the start to the finish of the election on the big screen (and snap pictures, etc) and can make sure the official numbers reported match. Any individual can watch their own vote be added and see that it is added correctly right then.

The system is fully transparent, at no point does anyone need to trust the voting machine, the storage cards, the election staff, or the tally system.

One thing I would add is that the voter should be allowed and required to put their receipt into a shredder on their way out. Even someone videotaping the public display board couldn't go back and confirm how they voted. That way no votes could be sold.

paper trail fails?

[sckeener]

ok...I haven't watched the vids because I am at work, but how can a paper trail fail? I mean if I get a receipt that I am going to then put into a voting box, I should be able to check it to make sure I voted for the people I said I was going to vote for...if it is wrong, I should be able to change my vote and print another receipt.

Re:paper trail fails?

[caffeinemessiah]

ok...I haven't watched the vids because I am at work, but how can a paper trail fail?

If there's nothing obviously wrong with the machines, it might never get looked at, especially in larger counties.

Re:paper trail fails?

[SatanicPuppy]

It doesn't per se. It relies partly on the voter not checking the paper ballot. If they don't void it, it slips through normally. If they do check it, it fixes the ballot, and acts normal.

Otherwise it tries to convince the voter they're done without actually returning the smart card. When they walk away, it voids the ballot, and pops up the "fled voter" screen. The poll worker comes up, uses the admin "submit" toggle to submit the changed vote, and takes back the card. Most places I've been, the poll workers depend on you returning the card, so that wouldn't work.

To me the most compelling piece was how easily the system was compromised. Even if it only screws with a percentage of the votes, that could be huge.

Re:paper trail fails?

[LWATCDR]

Take a look at the problems in Palm Beach county again. They lost over 3000 votes.

I swear that they do this just to get attention. Oh and before anybody makes any remarks about Florida or the south let me clue you.
Very few people in Palm Beach county are from Florida or the south. It is New York south.
It looks like this is going to a close election. Which means that the looser will without a doubt claim that they didn't and that somebody lost votes or rigged a machine.
At this point I hope that it isn't close no matter who wins. Well since I am not fond of any of the candidates at this time.

Re:paper trail fails?

[pushing-robot]

Tampered machines would most likely be set up in the other party's best districts: If the fraud isn't discovered, your party gains a lot of votes. If the fraud is discovered, the district's votes would be discarded or held in legal limbo.

Heads I win, tails you lose.

Re:paper trail fails?

[TheLostSamurai]

Oh and before anybody makes any remarks about Florida or the south let me clue you.
Very few people in Palm Beach county are from Florida or the south. It is New York south.

And this is exactly the problem. All of the dumbest people from other parts of the country go there to screw up elections and die.

Slashdot links to a 100MB QuickTime movie...

[mamer-retrogamer]

... hosted on an .edu server?

This can't end well.

I'm downloading now, will convert to mpeg4, and post a torrent to mininova (if the server doesn't melt before the download completes).

Re:Slashdot links to a 100MB QuickTime movie...

[TheRaven64]

Do .edu servers typically have low bandwidth? I have a .ac.uk machine which has a GigE connection in the back which is connected to a 34Gb/s upstream link. Bandwidth really isn't an issue for most educational establishments. And why would you convert it to MPEG-4? MPEG-4 has been the default format for Quicktime for several years (MPEG-4 AVC is now for video, I believe, and MPEG-4 AAC still is for audio), and the Quicktime container format is one of the official MPEG-4 standard containers.

Re:Slashdot links to a 100MB QuickTime movie...

[Anonymous Coward]

... hosted on an .edu server?

This can't end well.

It seems to be on youtube:
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=SWDEZqqqBHE (part I)
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=moEsgdzZ19c (part II)

Re:Slashdot links to a 100MB QuickTime movie...

[Anonymous Coward]

MPEG-4 files are ISO Base Media files. ISO Base Media files are exactly the same as Apple QuickTime MOV files, notwithstanding MOV files might have superfluous but entirely innocuous atoms.

Apple also uses H.264 and AAC as default output formats, which means not only is the container file the same, so too are the codecs likely the same. I can't tell for sure, because it's Slashdotted.

Me thinks most of the people who can't playback the file are using Windows, where "MPEG-4" means whatever Microsoft says, and not what the specification says. MPEG-4 support in FOSS land is actually quite robust these days.

(I have paid copies of most of the 14496 series.)

Re:Slashdot links to a 100MB QuickTime movie...

[DigitAl56K]

Me thinks most of the people who can't playback the file are using Windows, where "MPEG-4" means whatever Microsoft says, and not what the specification says. MPEG-4 support in FOSS land is actually quite robust these days.

That's BS. Most people on Windows can't play the file because prior to QuickTime 7 (IIRC) .mov files were not containing H.264 and AAC, and H.264 and AAC decoders do not come free with Windows. Even if they did, there are very few file splitters that can handle all varieties of the .mov container and their contents correctly - I know because I have to deal with this problem frequently. Windows users do not like installing QuickTime because it is bloated, it's been bundled with iTunes and other crap in the past, and it doesn't even talk to the Windows DirectShow media system (at least older versions that I've used) so many file types won't play with it. It's UI does not conform to the conventions expected by Windows users and last time I used it Apple were charging you just to be able to watch full screen.

Don't put this problem on Windows or Windows users. If you want to publish video for the web try publishing to a format that isn't a total PITA to work with outside of Apple's platform and applications. MPEG1, MPEG2, DivX, Xvid, are all good candidates that will work on any OS.

Re:Slashdot links to a 100MB QuickTime movie...

[maxume]

I don't have the bandwidth to play the video, but I copied the url into VLC (on Windows) and it eventually decoded the first frame.

Not really that big a deal. Sure, it doesn't participate in directshow, but it is easy enough to play back quicktime stuff, on lots of platforms (ffmpeg doesn't always have the latest and greatest codecs, but they do a pretty good job of keeping up) .

Re:Slashdot links to a 100MB QuickTime movie...

[DigitAl56K]

VLC is a package with dozens of unlicensed codecs/IP. Tell me some legit software, other than QuickTime, that will play a QuickTime 7 file for free.

Both links timeout

[Taibhsear]

Slashdotted already? Anyone have an alternate link?

Re:Both links timeout

[lowtek77]

You know there is some student; just like the rest of us, that is frantically wondering why cs.ucsb.edu will no longer load and wondering how he will complete his homework at the last second before class.

Re:Both links timeout

[cleatsupkeep]

You know there is some student; just like the rest of us, that is frantically wondering why cs.ucsb.edu will no longer load and wondering how he will complete his homework at the last second before class.

It's 8:30 in the morning on a CS server. Do you think any CS students are awake at 8:30 AM? I didn't even KNOW there was an 8:30 AM.

Re:Both links timeout

[m50d]

Sure there will be, I used to stay up that late fairly often.

Re:Quicktime?

[jellomizer]

Except for the fact the cheapest and easiest to use tools are on the Mac (iMovie) and save as quicktime. Why bother using open standards if you want to get your point across, if it will take you 2 weeks to get up and running, especially if you haven't done so before.

Re:Early vote makes your vote count (better chance

[R2.0]

"That is why I always early vote. It is on paper where I vote and that stands a better chance of getting counted correctly."

Don't be so smug. Early voting gives those who would deny your vote more time to tamper.

Let's say you mail in your ballot 2 weeks ahead of time. They are collected and sorted by precinct, and then held until election day to be opened.

Just sitting there.

And then someone drops some of the ballots from certain precincts in the shredder - you know, the ones that vote overwhelmingly for one party? Not enough to cause a lot of suspicion, but enough to make a difference in a tight race. Now, not only is your vote gone, you don't even know it - the tampering happened before election day. AND, even if it is discovered early enough, they won't know exactly WHO got screwed, so you won't get another shot.

E-voting makes it easy for small numbers of people to tamper on a large scale. That doesn't mean that good old fashioned vote rigging has disappeared. Spam hasn't eliminated junk mail, has it?

Re:Early vote makes your vote count (better chance

[Hyppy]

Even if your 1 vote is counted correctly, a compromised voting machine farm can render it negligible in terms of effect.

It shows the power of paper trails

[Anonymous Coward]

Nah, it shows you how good those paper voter verified paper trails are!

In scenario 2, the careful voter, the voter checks the screen, then checks the printout, then notices the printout is incorrect and gets the vote voided and recast.
But if he was a careful voter he'd raise a stink about how the screen was correct, and people would notice that the machines record the printout differently than the screen shows. There would be investigations, accusations and stuff. It would be videod.

Likewise the careless voter, the machine doesn't know is the voter is careful or careless, so it only takes a few careful voters to screw up the attack no matter how many careless voters there are, who don't double check the paper trail.

Scenario 3 & 4 are so obscure as to be worthless (requiring the voter vote but then leave and nobody noticing the machine doing stuff).

What this video really shows IS JUST HOW DAMN DIFFICULT IT IS TO FOOL THE PAPER AUDIT TRAIL.

Re:It shows the power of paper trails

[SatanicPuppy]

They all depend on the voter being careless, and the poll workers being poorly trained. That's a pretty good bet...I wouldn't say it's not feasible, though I agree, it would be caught with a competent staff, and the paper trail was still accurate, assuming 3 & 4 didn't pass unnoticed.

Re:It shows the power of paper trails

[Anonymous Coward]

It doesn't matter what the screen and printout say, only what is recorded on the card. The reason is that manual recounts are not done. Even 'random' checking is done in some states by looking at the summary printouts on boxes of votes and checking that they add up to the numbers for the polling location (ie adding the computer summaries for each computer and seeing that it matches the sum for the polling location). The votes are not actually even counted during a random recount.

At least that's how it works in Virginia, from somebody who actually went to observe the process / sham. It doesn't matter what is 'supposed' to be done during a counting only what actually is done. And when people can get away with just adding up the summary numbers and then goofing off for two days instead of actually counting them, they are going to do the former.

Re:It shows the power of paper trails

[Dr. Hellno]

Scenario 2 is undoubtedly a little sketchy. But if, in a tight race, the machine changes every hundredth ballot that way, it could make a difference, and would probably not be noticed.

Re:Early vote makes your vote count (better chance

[Amouth]

if it wasn't for the whole.. not wanting to tie the vote to the person.. i would suggest moveing the election schedual around and put the ballat as a page on IRS tax forms.. it has to be filled out to file them.

the IRS takes it's job seriously.. if you pay taxes you vote..

but then people seem to want each vote to count but also don't want any names attached to the votes..

Solid proof eh...

[Bullfish]

where were these guys two elections ago? The horses have long left the barn. The hacks in place now are likely protected by the DMCA.

Re:Solid proof eh...

[Steauengeglase]

I was wondering the same thing. BTW, isn't circumventing the security on a voting machine constitute several federal felony offenses?

Re:Solid proof eh...

[JetScootr]

They were trying to get the gov't to ensure the machines were secure. This story is the result of a long,long fight against the manufacturers of the crappy voting machines; all of the worst problems of "IP" have been demonstrated.

Re:Quicktime?

[DurendalMac]

Why? If Quicktime gets the job done quickly and easily, why the hell does it matter? Why does everything have to be based on open standards, especially when it's something as simple as a web video? Quit your whining. What is important to you is NOT important to everyone else. Come to grips with that already.

God I hate FOSS fanboys. FOSS is all well and good, but don't expect everyone to use it exclusively. I've seen fanboys of all stripes, but nothing can match a FOSS zealot.

The Uncounted

[Underfoot]

Haven't watched this, but was told about it:
http://www.uncountedthemovie.com/

I am disillusioned enough with the voting system after the last two elections that I couldn't bring myself to watch it. The state of our "vote" only depresses me.

BTW - Is anyone really surprised by TFV? We knew about these vulnerabilities for years.

Re:The Uncounted

[Gat0r30y]

I have seen it - it was very good. I strongly recommend you watch it. Certainly it will not help your disillusionment, but it is satisfying none the less.

Three elections ago for DMCA

[querist]

It was three elections ago - the DMCA was Clinton's doing, not Bush's.

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/DMCA

I find it somewhat amusing that the captcha in a thread about vote hacking is "certify".

Coralized Download Link

[Crazy Man on Fire]

Here's the goods:

Full 100mb version: http://www.cs.ucsb.edu.nyud.net/~seclab/projects/voting/ucsb_evoting_attack_dl.mov
Compressed 10mb version: http://www.cs.ucsb.edu.nyud.net/~seclab/projects/voting/ucsb_evoting_attack_dl_small.3gp

Posting to YouTube after download finishes...

Re:Early vote makes your vote count (better chance

[pxlmusic]

because people also don't want to be profiled for their electoral choices.

for all we know, we already are. in general, it is my understanding that many political activists are already being watched.

furthermore, i'm all for revoking a lot of these churches' tax exempt status. like Carlin said, "If these churches are so interested in politics; let them pay the same price of admission as everyone else."

DOWNLOAD MIRROR

[SirBitBucket]

Here is a mirror of the big file: http://porksteak.com/ucsb_evoting_attack_dl.mov Will leave up as long as possible.

Re:Early vote makes your vote count (better chance

[pxlmusic]

this.

i like the idea of early voting, paper trails, etc., but you make a good point.

i live in a predominately republican state (georgia) and despite a little interference from the 23-percenters that would interfere to get mccain eleceted, they might vote the other way this time.

Wootube link

[neokushan]

Uploaded the low-quality version to youtube, here's the link:

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=SzYUkXG7Occ

(Currently processing, it'll be done soon).

Re:Wootube link

[tijmentiming]

it's unavailable at this moment...

Re:Wootube link

[neokushan]

It's still processing. Don't blame me, blame google for being slow.

Re:Wootube link

[JCSoRocks]

Both halves of the video are up now.

Re:Wootube link

[tyler.lee]

still unavailable...

Re:Wootube link

[dominious]

This video has been removed due to terms of use violation.

Re:Wootube link

[neokushan]

Oh balls, sorry guys, I tried. Shame google didn't inform me of this or even tell me what terms I violated...

Re:Quicktime?

[Abreu]

Open standards are important in this case for the simple reason that they ensure that the message will be seen by the largest audience possible.

Re:Quicktime?

[TheRaven64]

What do you mean by 'Quicktime'? The Quicktime .mov container format exported by recent versions of Quicktime is an open standard (part of MPEG-4 now). What's in this container depends on the user, but the defaults are MPEG-4 (often now AVC) for video and MPEG-4 AAC for audio. These are all open standards, although if you're in a part of the world with a broken legal system they might be patented.

Re:Gore and Kerry Lost,. Get over it.

[hobbit]

If you're content for the future of elections to be like the past, I suggest you just cut to the chase and move to a dictatorship.

Re:Quicktime?

[JCSoRocks]

blawr, I hate quicktime. Unless a video *has* to be ridiculously high quality why bother to host it yourself anyway? Just put it on youtube... then you don't have to pay for the bandwidth... or you know, get slashdotted. (Yes, I know she/he's at a university but her/his tuition is footing the bill).

takedown

[nsheppar]

DMCA takedown in 5, 4, 3, 2, 1 ....

Re:Early vote makes your vote count (better chance

[Abreu]

In my opinion, for a modern democracy to work the vote must be mandatory, secret and universal.

This way, no one can pinpoint who voted for whom, thus avoiding temptations of vote buying (at least some of them).

It's already on youtube

[Anonymous Coward]

Part I:
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=SWDEZqqqBHE

Part II:
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=moEsgdzZ19c

Re:It's already on youtube

[Crazy Man on Fire]

I guess my karma whoring is done for now

Re:It's already on youtube

[Atario]

Length of part I = 9:11. Nice touch.

Torrent here:

[mamer-retrogamer]

ucsb evoting attack

End to End voting now

[linzeal]

We need verifiable results, so why aren't we demanding End to End voting systems from our governments?

This is all nice and good, but

[ubrgeek]

(And granted I can't get to the article so it may discuss this) so what? This has been proven. There have been a dozen stories on this. What are they doing about sharing the information with policy makers? It's great that we read this and become angry. But we don't create the laws*. Are they trying to use the school's considerable clout to get in front of the state Legislature? Congress? If not, then it's a neat hack and that's it.

* And I don't want to hear, "Well we elect the people who do." I've written to my Congressperson each time one of these stories comes up and I get a form letter back. I have no clout. UCSB does.

Open Source

[epistemiclife]

I think that any voting software should be open source. If we're to trust our votes to machines, then the software running them should be in an open box, not a black one. Perhaps then we wouldn't have to read about the security holes; we could find point them out ourselves.

Re:Open Source

[cdrguru]

The process is far more important than the software. I don't care what the software is if the machines are secured properly. If the machines are not secured properly the software can be replaced, exchanged, modified or even the hardware can be tampered with.

Most of the difficulties being described are process problems, not problems with the software. If each machine had four armed National Guardsmen around it instead of some tamper seal we could be assured there would be little opportunity for tampering.

Re:Open Source

[epistemiclife]

I understand that, and I agree. But I still think that the software should be open source for the reasons that I mentioned. With something as significant as voting, there should be complete transparency.

Re:Quicktime?

[Bill, Shooter of Bul]

Why? At least real video can be read with the open source helix viewer. WM11 obviously doesn't work as well on macs as quicktime does on windows, so I guess for that reason its better. But their both proprietary.

Solution

[KGIII]

Until they get this shit fixed, vote on paper. Even if it is an absentee ballot.

Re:Early vote makes your vote count (better chance

[anw]

I find this comment slightly surreal, and honestly believe only an American could have written it.

Democracy is not a commodity that you can have even though your neighbour doesn't. It is more like peace, or sanitation : everyone has it or no-one has it.

To respond to a demonstration that your democratic system has a very serious problem by saying 'Hey, I reckon I got my vote counted' is, well, bizzare.

software or government?

[Anonymous Coward]

Open sourcing voting machines makes sense, but... can't we take it one step further? Why not open source the whole government?

Re:QUICKTIME?

[Dog-Cow]

Please kill yourself. And kill your parents as punishment for inflicting you on the rest of us.

Host on youtube? Surely you jest.

[markdowling]

At least hosting yourself you have some control over any DMCA notices. Look at how the Scientologists have gone after critical youtube videos recently.

Re:Host on youtube? Surely you jest.

[moortak]

Yes, but you have the chance to react before your content is removed rather than after.

It's a shame

[S7urm]

that we can't figure out a more relevant form of voting to appeal to a larger contingent of the American populace, maybe more people, more easily accessing voting methods, would allow for a more viable collaboration of opinion in regards to the election of our National officials. But I digress, the super delegate and the Electoral College make my point m00t.

youtube Links

[nFriedly]

Youtube links for videos:

Part 1: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=SWDEZqqqBHE

Part 2: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=moEsgdzZ19c

Re:Quicktime?

[jellomizer]

I wasn't debating the value of open standards. The point is the easiest available tools didn't use them. Open Standards are a good thing. But if the apps that use them are either opressivly expensive, or free and difficult to use they will not use them. They are trying to get a point across not start a broadcast company. As for easiest and cheapest it is quite simple. Many college students already have Mac, with iMovie. They got the Mac for other uses but it came with it so they will use it, being that the software tool is easier to use then most other video editing software so it took less time. Now if Apple incorporated iMovie to save as an open standard by default all the better. But surprise they are pushing their own standard (which has many open standards in it btw)

If you think a price at the register level you are taking a very basic view of economics. Time and Inventory have a cost as well. Even if you are doing free work at a college. Every hour you spend working on this project One less hour you have to study for a test, or to go out to a party, or a convenient section of your schedule open for a date. Taking an extra half a day trying to get an Open Standards complaint tool to work may not be worth it. Vs. Just using a widely use non standards complaint tool and get it done in a couple of hours leaving the rest of the day to do more interesting things.

Expensive and Cost don't always equal money.

Re:Early vote makes your vote count (better chance

[tlhIngan]

"That is why I always early vote. It is on paper where I vote and that stands a better chance of getting counted correctly."

Don't be so smug. Early voting gives those who would deny your vote more time to tamper.

Let's say you mail in your ballot 2 weeks ahead of time. They are collected and sorted by precinct, and then held until election day to be opened.

Just sitting there.

And then someone drops some of the ballots from certain precincts in the shredder - you know, the ones that vote overwhelmingly for one party? Not enough to cause a lot of suspicion, but enough to make a difference in a tight race. Now, not only is your vote gone, you don't even know it - the tampering happened before election day. AND, even if it is discovered early enough, they won't know exactly WHO got screwed, so you won't get another shot.

E-voting makes it easy for small numbers of people to tamper on a large scale. That doesn't mean that good old fashioned vote rigging has disappeared. Spam hasn't eliminated junk mail, has it?

I thought early votes were treated like absentee votes. I.e., they're not even counted at all. Once the vote is closed, and the vote tallys are computed, only if the amount of absentee and early votes exceed the lead do they bother counting those votes?

(After all, if there were 500 absentee/early votes, and the guy won by 1,000 votes, those absentee votes don't really count for much. The only thing they can be used for is determining if a recount is needed because the margin of the lead ends up lower than the possible counting error...).

Or are early votes counted, but not absentee ballots?

Re:Early vote makes your vote count (better chance

[somersault]

it is my understanding that many political activists are already being watched

Isn't the technical term actually 'terrorists'? I'm not even sure whether I'm kidding anymore.

Re:Early vote makes your vote count (better chance

[stmfreak]

While I understand the need for secrecy due to corruption sending brute squads to people who voted for the wrong candidate... secrecy also conveniently allows for corruption of the vote since there is no way to audit a vote back to an individual who can say, "no, I didn't vote for that person." It also allows for multiple votes from a single participant since you cannot analyze votes and determine if the sources are unique or duplicated.

I believe this makes democracy a bit impossible in the long run.

Personally, I prefer voting to be public, open and auditable. If we get to the point that dictators are shooting people with the wrong opinion, it would be good to know... it might actually reinstate proper support for the second amendment.

Re:Early vote makes your vote count (better chance

[R2.0]

I believe you are generally correct, but some jurisdictions have bought into early/mail voting in a big way. For instance, I believe Oregon (or was it Washington?) has pushed it so hard that 50% of the votes are by mail.

Re:Quicktime?

[Anonymous Coward]

If this is a video pertaining to hacking why would you blame not releasing in another format on it being technically harder. They are hackers. I am sure they could find a way to do it pretty quickly. It's not like there aren't any conversion tools out there. I know people don't care but when someone is on a Windows machine that doesn't have quicktime, or a Linux machine they get marginalized. Sure if this was about an art expo or something I can understand but this is about hacking. One would expect a better choice in codec. Not being an open source pundit here, i'd settle for something that works across all 3 platforms, open or not (Would be nice to get REAL QT support).

And for the record WMV works decently under Linux, not the best but decently.

Re:Quicktime?

[Anonymous Coward]

Lines of output from my media player when playing ucsb_evoting_attack_dl.mov:

Selected video codec: [ffh264] vfm: ffmpeg (FFmpeg H.264)
Selected audio codec: [faad] afm: faad (FAAD AAC (MPEG-2/MPEG-4 Audio) decoder)

Just like what you said. (I've seen H.264 called AVC1 in some of the media files I've made and it uses the same video codec for playback)

In any case, I can play it just fine.

Can't say anything about the container. If it really bugged me, I would strip it out of the Quicktime MOV container and stuff it in a MKV or perhaps (I'm not sure about this one, I would think so) a MP4. (Yeah, there are likely other options, these are just what I know I can do without any extra trouble right now)
But it doesn't, so I won't.

This shouldn't be so disturbing...

[Kensai7]

I mean... only a fool would believe that the electronic voting systems are tamper-free, even with all the added physical security measures.

It's more important that an elections official is aware of the possibility of these hacked firmwares and then takes the necessary actions to submit their code to experts to evaluate the validity of the vote casting.

POST-evaluating the e-vote machines (the electronic equivalent of recounting!) is as important as the voting itself. If someone has hacked the system we can always know at a later time.

Re:Early vote makes your vote count (better chance

[Amouth]

thats the way i feel.. it shouldn't be reqired to be secret who someone votes for - do i recommend makeing it easy for people to seach for people who voted for X? no.. but to look at person A and say he voted for X is fine..

if nothing i was just thinking using the IRS tax forms for people as the ballot.. say the last page is the ballot - it isn't tied to the tax form but you must submit it completed with your taxes - IRS looks if form is filled out they take it and throw it in the box - then they proccess your tax filings.. if it isn't filled out they send it back to you.. if you failed to file they come after you like normal.. and it means you didn't vote..

they take all the ballots from the box and count the votes.. the only way it can be tied to you is the person who takes the ballot from the forms and puts it in the box.. they would know.. and if they decided to mark the ballot then it would be followable..

but in reality it seems better than the crap we have now aka dead people voteing - people voteing multiple times..

the IRS is already equiped to handel alot more information from every single person - this would be a trivial ammount.. ontop of that thoughs who pay taxes - though who actualy support the government get to have a say in what happens.

i started paying taxes at 14.. i couldn't vote for 4 years.. that is taxation without repersentation.. i paid taxes and had no say in them when i feel i should have.. and on the flip side thoughs who don't pay have no repersentation.

should we allow people from other nations who don't support our community to have a say in how it is run? (take that how you will)

people need to grow spines and realize they need to stand up for what they belive - not.. lets hide everything.. point fingers - and say someone else will fix it

I just dont understand why they are networked?

[FireStormZ]

Any system, I mean any systems is open to fraud. The term 'Ballot box stuffing' pretty clearly indicates even a paper system is not 100% safe but at least, for the most part, wide scale fraud is pretty damn hard when you would have to run around from precinct to precinct stuffing boxes with the names of the recently dead (or what have you).

Electronic stand alone systems with removable media (CD's flash drives, ..., ... what have you) and ones that print a small receipt into a lock box (for multiple audit streams) is as safe and efficent as anything else...

Re:Early vote makes your vote count (better chance

[Anonymous Coward]

Voting must be designed to be transparent rather than auditable. In a proper democratic election, you can observe the whole process if you want. The only bit you can't observe is when other people actually mark their ballots, but that doesn't create a corruption opportunity, because you can observe the ballot being issued to the voter and the voter putting the ballot into the ballot box. Whatever the voter did with the ballot, it is still just one ballot and will be counted publicly.

Voting systems where you can't observe one or more of the following steps are corruptible and should not be used in a democratic election: Issuing the ballot to the voter, collecting the ballot (punched cards are collected inside the voting machine: not observable), keeping the votes until the counting starts and finally counting the votes. With electronic voting systems, you can't observe any of these steps. Even paper audit trails don't solve the problem: The audit trail must remain secret during voting, so it stays in the machine, which means you can't observe it continuously until the votes are counted.

A piece of paper per voter and a couple of hours for counting votes in public: Is that really too much to ask when you elect the most powerful person in the world?

Re:Early vote makes your vote count (better chance

[Amouth]

i fully agree.. but that would count as a vote - which means you can show that everyone had their say - and certian people didn't talk twice+

Re:Early vote makes your vote count (better chance

[acklenx]

I'm going to opt for the Starship Troopers plan. Voting is not mandatory, and most taxpayers aren't even allowed to vote... until they demonstrate that they have some concern for the greater good of the society in which they would choose to cast their vote. Secrecy is fine, but I'm not certain it's required (though surely beneficial). and no, I've never seen the movie

Here's 1 million reasons not to vote (too) early

[Nymz]

In California, Giuliani and Edwards both dropped out less than a week before the primary election date, and Romney dropped out the 7th. Many Californians cast their absentee ballots a month in advance of the election date. After all votes were counted there were over a million votes (out of about 9 million total) for candidates that weren't even running.

I'm not claiming this single state could have altered the final nominees of Obama and McCain, but I am making a point about why one might not want to vote (too) early.

Re:Quicktime?

[hairyfeet]

I have to agree,what braintrust thought .mov would be a great format for this? What the hell is wrong with .avi,or if you HAVE to go all "web 2.0" .flv? At least those of us on Windows can avoid a quicktime infection with K-Lite which will also take care of REAL and any other nasty codec you come across. Or if you just want to avoid Quicktime without the extras you can use QuickTime Alt. But using a nice bog standard .avi or .mpg would have been better IMHO. But as always this is my 02c,YMMV

Re:Gore and Kerry Lost,. Get over it.

[Fantastic Lad]

The Florida Panhandle scheme was dirty and wrong.

But the claim that voting machines were the result of the "Democrat Political Machine" seems far fetched in the extreme. When I looked into the history, it appears that their implementation was a long and complex process, aided in significant ways by many Republicans, and more importantly, built and programmed by companies with staunch Republican allegiances. So. . , what are you basing your assertion on?

-FL

Why is e-voting necessary?

[Anonymous Coward]

Before I even read all the comments, may somebody please explain to me WHY it is necessary to e-vote in the first place, regardless of the system????

I keep finding articles explaining how e-voting should be made better, but not even one explaining WHY a country which is still voting on paper only should ever bother to pass to e-voting. I mean, even in the best ideal case, pretending there are no tampering issues, e-voting requires much more competence from the booth staff to make it work. Whereas any bozo who went to primary school and can find his way to the booth CAN count ballots, add them up or check that the sum was correct.

To alter paper-voting elections enough to make a difference you must have many more people who make a mess (by malice or incompetence it doesn't really matter) than to obtain the same result with e-voting, isn't it?

If so, what the F**K does a country really gains with e-voting which justifies the effort and makes it worthwhile to ignore all the tampering issues?

Re:Why is e-voting necessary?

[Anonymous Coward]

I'm the anonymous coward who posted the first "why is e-voting necessary" question (but why doesn't my post show when I reload the page??)

In the US we have a collection of folks called "TV News". They rely on delivery of titilating information to collect ratings upon which their advertising revenue is based. Without this, they have no function and many many people will be out on the street looking for work.

I already knew this, but wanted somebody from US to say it. So the summary is that the most powerful (=most dangerous for the rest of the planet) country in the world must vote in what is an insecure manner only because TV stations stockholders needs to maximize their dividends.

You better get used to the idea that the US needs something where real results are available immediately... there would be riots in the streets this year if the evening of the election Obama was announced as the winner and then a week later, after counting the votes for real, McCain was announced as the actual winner

then don't announce anything in the first evening, not even exit polls. Period. It doesn't damage democracy in any way, does it now? It should be a no-brainer for mature adults: "this better be done right the first time, so if it takes a week to do it right, so be it, because it absolutely doesn't matter. It's not like there's an election every 14 days, right?"

Idiot-proofing and tamper-proofing elections

[Anonymous Coward]

Idiot-proofing and tamper-proofing elections is not rocket science.

What are the facts?

1) GUIs have a lot of code, and are thus easier to crash and and easier to hack.

2) Elections are one of the most intensely competitive and expensive processes in this country. They determine who gets power.

3) There is a lot of incentive to try and sway elections. Politicians who know their motives are the purest rationalize deception by saying, "If you don't win, you can't institute your policies."

What's the problem?

1) Idiots mis-vote because they claim to be unable to understand the ballot.

2) Tampering with paper ballots or electronic tallies.

The solution:

1) Use the rich, informative GUI interface to assist idiots in selecting the candidates they wish to vote for.

2) At the end of the vote, they can press a button and get a receipt that links them to a serial number on a ballot, if they wish.

2) Have the computer on which the GUI is running generate both a machine-readable and human-readable paper ballot. The machine code should be easily decipherable by a human.

3) Run the paper ballot through a ballot scanner. The ballot scanner internally maintains and also sends an electronic tally of votes to a central location.

4) The ballot scanner nor the central collection location have any GUI. The code on the ballot machines and the central collector would be certified, like flight software is certified (see DO-178B).

This way, you have both an electronic tally and a paper trail. In case of dispute, both would exist.

Re:Quicktime?

[zappepcs]

One of the things that rubs me wrong about F/OSS or rather complaints against it is that people assume that it takes a long time to learn how to use it, or it doesn't work well or as good as product xyz.

The plain simple truth of the matter, and I have empirical evidence, is that ANY application takes time to learn how to use it well or even at all in the matter of some of the more complex applications.

For all the fanboism over MS Office, I'm willing to bet that less than 10% of the users of that suite know how to use more than 50% of the features. Most people that I've known barely know how to type well, never mind know what setting margins or complex header/footer arrangements are for. Too many people use Excel as a database and Access as a spreadsheet. The point being that what they think they know about one application is just as easy to learn about another application and easier than learning all the features of the application that they know.

Now, I do get the point that you are saying it was probably the easiest for them to use as they got it free when they purchased a Mac. Point taken. Still no need to diss other means of editing video if all you mean is 'that was probably the easiest and cheapest option for that particular group at that particular time' ... The idea that F/OSS is difficult or incomplete is both outdated and luddite-ish. In the face of how established applications and suites are used, it makes NO sense to say F/OSS alternatives are not as good or that they are not better than those established applications.

Now, I'll do what I do with all the people I run into who ask about comptuers:

Try http://www.desktop-video-guide.com/top-5-free-video-editing-software-review.html or search on Google for free video editing software.

From the link:

Conclusion:
Microsoft Movie Maker for Windows users, and Apple iMovie for MAC users are probably the two easiest to use free video editing software programs available. Both of the products will allow you to do what you want to do with your videos. However, trying out the others, you may find that you are able to add more effects and such to your videos as well. Of all the available programs out there, these are the top five free video editing software programs available.

Also from the link:

Of course, most free software does not include the same level or quality of support that you would expect to find with software that you purchase.

Read that as 12 minutes on hold at $3.49 per minute if you want phone support, where as with F/OSS the level of support on the Internet is huge! I always managed to find someone that has posted about whatever problem I've had.

Yes, I like F/OSS, and for a reason. It has real value. Supporting it requires donations AND fighting against luddite reasoning in the greater computing community. That is not to say that I think you should not use any tool at your disposal when you require a tool. I have no problem with using something that came installed on your system rather than go install something new if you have a job to get done and it will work. I use an editor I paid for, but when needed I'll edit with vi or whatever is on the system if that is what makes the most sense for that task.

(end rant)

Why is e-voting necessary?

[cdrguru]

In the US we have a collection of folks called "TV News". They rely on delivery of titilating information to collect ratings upon which their advertising revenue is based. Without this, they have no function and many many people will be out on the street looking for work.

A significant source of information is elections. Everyone in the US wants to know who won because the elections (local, state and national) are referred to as a "horserace" and everyone wants to know the results of the "race". Races have winners, after all and the results are known immediately. This is the conditioning of the US voter and has been that was for well over 100 years.

So the TV News reports on election results. These results have to be timely and interesting. Titilating would be better, but that only happens in the run-up to the election. On election night it is all about the winner. There has to be a winner and it has to be announced before people go to bed. Otherwise, the TV News would be no more relevent than the newspaper where they can read about the winner the next morning. So in order to get the advertising revenue, there must be a winner announced before everyone goes to bed. The deadline there is pretty much midnight on the East Coast.

This means the West Coast has 2 or 3 hours to report the results of their election. Since most of the population is in the Eastern and Central time zones, they have five or six hours for their results which often works out even with more primitive voting machines. It has served well since the first TV News reporting of election results in 1960.

What happens if the West Coast doesn't report in time? The TV News folks are well aware of the time issue and use exit polling and surveys to fill in the gaps so there can be results no matter how long it really takes. This means they are reporting on a guess rather than an established fact. This led to the CBS News reporting of Gore as the winner in 2000 around midnight. Within a couple of hours they had corrected it, but many people went to bed knowing "their horse" (Gore) had won the "race". Obviously, they were stunned when they found out that the election had been stolen from their man. It could be nothing else because CBS News announced the winner before they went to bed.

If the US were to move to a system like other countries where real results were announced a couple of weeks after the election you would find the TV News still reporting results the night of the election. It would be based on exit polls and surveys. Sometimes it would be correct and sometimes the election would be "stolen" because the other candidate would have won. It would be this way because without the announcement of the winner the TV News has no relevance and would have no ad revenue.

You better get used to the idea that the US needs something where real results are available immediately. My guess is that there would be riots in the streets this year if the evening of the election Obama was announced as the winner and then a week later, after counting the votes for real, McCain was announced as the actual winner. Do you think that would be fun? I seriously doubt the the state government (esp. the police forces) think it would be.

So how can we make it work? And work quick enough so the TV News has reality to report rather than just some made up fantasy?

Re:Early vote makes your vote count (better chance

[Abreu]

You can choose "none of the above" by voiding the ballot: just cross out all of the candidates

That way, you still fulfilled your civic obligation of voting, while expressing your discontent with the existing options.

Re:Early vote makes your vote count (better chance

[maxume]

Yes, in an election where there are 50,000 votes that are not counted correctly, making sure your vote is properly counted goes a long ways towards making sure that your vote is counted properly.

Re:Quicktime?

[jebrew]

More to the point, if you're expecting large amounts of traffic, wouldn't you want to offer it up on YouTube or in a torrent form?

Really Funny

[Windows_NT]

Just watch .. All the old machines will be printing "George Bush" on the 2009 Election Ballot

Re:Quicktime?

[DurendalMac]

Oh really? How many people have DivX codecs already on their computers as opposed to Windows Media or Quicktime? How many people already have Ogg Theora codecs installed? Your argument falls apart completely when you realize that a lot of open codecs are not preinstalled on systems. Grandma doesn't give a damn about how open your codec is. She cares about being able to watch something without having to download and install more crap.

Can I demand a paper ballot?

[flattop100]

I've been googling, but coming up short. What are my rights as a registered voter? Can I walk into a polling station and demand a paper ballot instead of an electronic vote?

Re:Can I demand a paper ballot?

[UnknowingFool]

That really depends on your state, county, etc. Every state and county should have a registrar or voting official of some sort. Look at their website and/or contact them if you have any questions. In some cases, the answer may be no.

Re:Early vote makes your vote count (better chance

[oggiejnr]

The main reason for moving to a secret ballot is to reduce the effects of vote buying due to it begin (theoretically) unable to confirm (although there are discussions as to why this is not perfect). It would arguably be worse for democracy for your employer to make it known that anyone who does not vote for his preferred candidate will be fired.

Re:Early vote makes your vote count (better chance

[R2.0]

I wrote a paper on that form of teh franchise years ago. The only problem is that it requires and ongoing, large scale war to provide enough veterans to keep the franchise from devolving to an oligarchy. It wouldn't work today because the percentage of veterans in society is quite small compared with the population. And you can't really try to include other "equivalent" service, because whoever chooses what constitutes an equivalent has a lot of power. Look at the exemption that orthodox Jews get from the compulsory military service in Israel.

Does anyone really WANT e-voting?

[wcrowe]

I simply do not understand the purpose of electronic voting machines. Is it to ease the counting process? Speed up the returns? Provide more accuracy? All these things sound fine if you can trust the machines. But since we can't, how can it ease the counting process when we have to recruit clerks and stewards to do meticulous recounts? What good is it to speed up the returns when recounts force us to wait for days or even weeks before we can be sure of the outcome? What good is accuracy if people don't trust the results anyway? Give me a plain, simple paper ballot any day.
   

Re:Does anyone really WANT e-voting?

[JimFive]

E-voting, of course, was a knee-jerk response to the problems Florida had with punch card ballots. Instead of fixing the system appropriately by requiring that any system demonstrate an acceptable error rate using random auditing, government went full bore into electronic voting because computers are cool.

Even paper ballots are subject to problems. Ballot stuffing can be carried out in two ways. One, stuff a few ballots for your preferred candidate into several strategic locations. Even though the number of ballots does not equal the number of voters you either must discard the entire box or accept the invalid ballots because you can't tell the difference. Either way is a win for the stuffer (assuming his candidate was going to lose that precinct without stuffing). Alternatively, stuff a lot of ballots into the box. In this case you pretty much force the staff to invalidate the entire box because the fake votes outnumber the real votes. The primary way to secure against this is individually numbered ballots where the ballot numbers in the box must match the ballot numbers recorded by the officials. The hack for this is just to make sure that your stuffed numbers match the numbers being used in the precinct. This takes 2 people and assumes that ballot numbers are sequential (they are in my experience). My precinct uses scantron so the way they deal with this is to watch the box to make sure that you only submit one ballot, but if you are using a pure paper system it should be possible for one or a few people to stuff the box, keeping in mind that even if they catch you putting them in, once they're in the box the entire box is contaminated.

--
JimFive

Re:Does anyone really WANT e-voting?

[ravster]

You seem to be barking up the wrong tree here.

1 - We can trust the machines; we just need good machines.
2 - Recounts are only done because there are doubts.

You shouldn't blame the whole e-voting system/idea just because the implementation is done wrong.

Re:Early vote makes your vote count (better chance

[R2.0]

"I find this comment slightly surreal, and honestly believe only an American could have written it.

Democracy is not a commodity that you can have even though your neighbour doesn't. It is more like peace, or sanitation : everyone has it or no-one has it.

To respond to a demonstration that your democratic system has a very serious problem by saying 'Hey, I reckon I got my vote counted' is, well, bizzare."

Or perhaps, when faced with a situation he can do little about, he is doing what he can. Your reaction seems a uniquely European one, in it's automatic assumption that the writer is greedy and cares for nothing but himself, i.e. a typical American.

I'll repeat what I said above - don't be so smug. Scratch the surface of ANY "democratic country, and you'll find a lot of un-democratic practices under the surface. Democracy is like beauty - everyone thinks they have more than they really do, and everyone has at least a little ugly in them.

Re:Early vote makes your vote count (better chance

[flagweb]

That is why I always early vote. It is on paper where I vote and that stands a better chance of getting counted correctly.

In my district, (the company formerly known as) Diebold still "counts" the paper ballots. According to BlackBox.org, there easy ways to tamper with these machines as well.

For the /. Comunity being a Paid Election Support Worker would be a way to get personally involved in safeguarding against this type of hacking. According to previous BlackBox.org posts, all voting maching contracts come with an Election Day Support Contract. Diebold etc. are required to hire on site technicians for each polling station. These techs are to setup the machines, ensure that they are not tampered with, trouble shoot any voting/printing snafus and take down the machines after polls close. Bb.org feels these jobs are the "front line" for ensuring fair elections. These jobs are hiring in your area right now! P.S. You might want to leave MOST of your experience OFF of your resume, since this is a very low paying temp job, and most everyone here would be considered vastly over qualified.

Re:Quicktime?

[m50d]

Why? Both of those are a lot easier to play.

Re:Quicktime?

[jlarocco]

Your argument falls apart completely when you realize that there's no reason they can't host the videos in multiple formats.

Love the font on the scroll

[PunditGuy]

The following attack takes place between 9 a.m. and 10 a.m.

Re:Early vote makes your vote count (better chance

[destiney]

Your "Atheism" is misspelled.

Re:Early vote makes your vote count (better chance

[Le Marteau]

I work as an "Election Judge" every election (they used to call them "Poll Workers". Each year the county hires hundreds of average people, gives them a couple hours of training, and they are the ones who set up the machines, check for ID's, handle the list of registered voters, etc.

Me, I'm a "Machine Judge." I get to the polling area in the morning of the election, the machines are already there, unassemblede. I check the seals, and set up the machines, activate the machines for the voters during the day, get the results out of it at night, take the results to a central location.

Low paying? Not where I live. I get $250.00 for the couple hours training and working on election day at one precinct, which is not bad.

It's well looking into. Take a paid vacation day, get $250 over that, and be the one who protects the democratic process (at least at the precinct you are at).

They need geeks who are computer literate. You should see some of the geezers try to set up those voting machines. It's sad.

If the Lottery can do it....

[shliddle]

I've always wondered... Various state lotteries have little machines all around being run by people with minimal education and training. How is it possible we can't produce a secure machine to handle our votes?

AD 2012, vote has begun...

[Mingco]

...and that's how we got Cowboy Neal for President!

Re:Early vote makes your vote count (better chance

[fishbowl]

>I thought early votes were treated like absentee votes.

Depends on locale.

In mine, there is a distinction between "early" and "provisional" ballots.

Early ballots are always counted, and encouraged by the Recorder's office for logistical and economic reasons. Provisional ballots are used, such as when a voter shows up at the wrong polling place. These are counted only when the total number of provisional ballots would make a difference on some ballot question.

If there are 3,977 provisional ballots, and the closest question on the ballot has already won by 277,591 votes, the provisional ballots aren't counted. Do you disagree with this policy?

Re:Early vote makes your vote count (better chance

[Beryllium Sphere(tm)]

VoteHere had a solution to that, which was a tracking barcode on the ballot which a voter could use to check whether her ballot got scanned at the counting station. Cryptographic High Magic kept the ballot from being linked back to the voter, barring extensive collusion or some edge cases(*). This was field tested in one small county in Washington State, where it met with a lawsuit because state law does not permit any unique marking on a ballot at all and specifies "absolute" secrecy. King County, the big county that includes Seattle, decided against going with that system.

(*) The system limited the information you could get from someone's tracking code to "it's somewhere in the hundred ballots of batch N". Fine, except if processing is broken down by precinct, and if the precinct has only a few dozen people in it (common in Washington), and if only a fraction of those vote absentee, then the vote won't be lost in a batch of 100.

Re:Early vote makes your vote count (better chance

[amorsen]

Demonstrating their concern for the greater good of the society by going out to kill people, you mean. I would find it more reasonable that people who had been through such a thing would be too psychologically harmed to be trusted with the vote.

Re:Early vote makes your vote count (better chance

[noidentity]

That is why I always early vote. It is on paper where I vote and that stands a better chance of getting counted correctly.

How does this help when they'll be tampering with all the other votes cast at the normal time? Your vote being counted won't make a difference, but all votes being counted correctly will.

Re:Early vote makes your vote count (better chance

[Mr. Slippery]

I'm going to opt for the Starship Troopers plan. Voting is not mandatory, and most taxpayers aren't even allowed to vote... until they demonstrate that they have some concern for the greater good of the society in which they would choose to cast their vote.

Restricting the franchise to those who've served in the military, a la Starship Troopers, is fine - just provided that government elected by the military has no authority over the rest of us.

Giving the vote to every subject to the government's rule is democracy. Giving the vote only to those who have chosen to serve the government is dictatorship.

Then do it!

[Badbone]

Instead of arguing about how many stack overflows can dance on the head of a pin, instead of creating videos, actually hack these machines!

Imagine across the land, hundreds, even thousands of geeks tamper with these machines. Imagine Homer Simpson winning his sixth state in a row on election night. That would be an effective way to demonstrate these systems vulnerabilities, or at least, a hell of a lot better way than posting on Slashdot.

The average voter doesnt know or care about these issues. But if fraud were perpetrated on a scale so large it couldnt be covered up, they would.

Re:Citizenship of a wanna be president

[shaitand]

Now find one with coverage of Obama voting for telecom immunity.

Re:Early vote makes your vote count (better chance

[shaitand]

'That is why I always early vote. It is on paper where I vote and that stands a better chance of getting counted correctly.'

You actually believe votes matter in U.S. elections? How quaint.

Re:Early vote makes your vote count (better chance

[shaitand]

'furthermore, i'm all for revoking a lot of these churches' tax exempt status.'

How are you going to do that? Congress has no authority to make a law with regard to churches. Its the whole freedom of religion thing, it cuts both ways.

Re:Early vote makes your vote count (better chance

[shaitand]

'In my opinion, for a modern democracy to work the vote must be mandatory, secret and universal.'

Absolutely not. Not voting is a vote in itself. I refuse to cooperate in the corrupt rigged election process for canned candidates that do not represent anything that could be construed as a choice even without election rigging.

Not voting is a form of protest. It's the 'if you don't vote you have no right to complain' morons who make sure that protest is ignored. The truth is that if you help to perpetuate the current corrupt, flawed, and unworkable system then YOU have no right to complain about the results.

Re:Early vote makes your vote count (better chance

[pxlmusic]

that's not my point, really.

it's just that some of these churches seem keen on getting involved in politics. and for those that do, they should lose their tax exempt status.

that's all i'm saying. i know they don't all do it, but some do.

Re:Early vote makes your vote count (better chance

[Abreu]

Giving the vote to every subject to the government's rule is democracy. Giving the vote only to those who have chosen to serve the government is dictatorship.

Actually, by Aristotle's definition, a state where only a subset of the population can vote is either an aristocracy or an oligarchy.

Re:Early vote makes your vote count (better chance

[Abreu]

It can be both mandatory and secret by this simple way:

-

Months before the election, you go to the voter registry and get your voter card issued/reissued. This card has your picture, your signature and your thumbprint and is hard enough to counterfeit for it to be considered a valid id by banks and the like. This card is also a proof that you are in the national voters registry.

On election day, you show up at your assigned voting location, which is in a closed public area (usually a school or a public library).

Here, before they allow you in, they check your thumbs (see below for the reason) and your voter registration card is verified against the list of voters of your district. This list comes in a "book" form where they have a copy of your voting card, including the picture.

Once he/she finds you in the list (and checks the picture to see that it is indeed you), an election official crosses out your name from the list and allows you proceed to the next step.

At the next desk, you are given a paper ballot for each election happening that day (president, state governors, local and federal deputies, etc)

With these, you step into a booth where thereâ(TM)s a number of black crayons. You use these to cross out the symbol of the party you are voting for on each ballot (or write in another name if you are so inclined).

You leave the booth with your ballots folded twice and drop them into the designated transparent boxes.

And finally, your thumb is painted with an enzymatic liquid that makes the skin in your thumb go red-black in about 30 seconds (the color fades away 3-5 days later).

Then you can go home, feeling happy about fulfilling your civic duty.

note: Each one of these steps is verified by a representatives of each political party, national and sometimes international observers.

-

What country is this, you may ask, with such a sensible electoral system? Why your third-world neighbors here in Mexico!

While I will admit that its not perfect and we still get voting irregularities (system works great in the cities, less great in the rural areas), I am sure it beats a lot of systems used in the US.

Re:Quicktime?

[QuestionsNotAnswers]

I always managed to find someone that has posted about whatever problem I've had.

The ability to use a search engine to find exactly what you need amongst all the junk is a rare skill that you have, and that most people don't.

Re:Early vote makes your vote count (better chance

[shaitand]

'The main reason for moving to a secret ballot'

The main reason for moving to a secret ballot is to reduce the risk of reprocussions based upon your vote. Be they from your employer, the guy who paid for your vote, a political party, or government, or the cia, insert other parties who would do this at the drop of a hat here.

It really doesn't matter though. If you can't trust the government to conduct a fair election then it doesn't matter if the ballot is secret. And with our corrupt government the elections are about as blatant a farce as the former elections for Saddam.

Re:Early vote makes your vote count (better chance

[shaitand]

In other words, it's pretty easy to gain access to the voting machines.

Re:Conspiracy theory

[shaitand]

'So when these machines actually do get hacked on election day, and verifiable albeit anonymous fraud occurs, perhaps those with the power will declare the election results null, and retain power. It would be much the same as if the elections had been suspended.'

Yeah, cuz you know that happened immediately the last time it was proven that there was fraud *cough* ohio *cough*

Re:Early vote makes your vote count (better chance

[Dr. Hellno]

you seem to have missed the general consensus that if mandatory voting were to be adopted, "None of the above" would of course be an option. In this way participation is encouraged, but no one is actually required to endorse the republicats or the democrans.

Re:Gore and Kerry Lost,. Get over it.

[Dr. Hellno]

Your current president was not elected to his first term. Maybe he would have been, ultimately, but he wasn't. It is ABSOLUTELY AMAZING that Americans didn't make a bigger deal out of that. Maybe if you'd dwelled a little longer in the past, your country wouldn't have elected the man to a second term.

Re:Quicktime?

[jellomizer]

Oh they are hackers they should be able to master photoshop in no time... Um Hackers are not much smarter then the rest of the world they only think they are. Their goal was to find flaws in E-Voting, that being said it doesn't make them video experts or even Linux experts or ever care about open standards. I found a flaw in the design of Exit 1 for 87 north, It doesn't mean I am a great street designer, I just found a flaw in the design and pointed it out.

Re:Early vote makes your vote count (better chance

[shaitand]

Which is still separate and distinct than refusing to participate in our present government as a form of protest.

I am not merely protesting the R's and the D's. At this point I am protesting the system itself.

Re:Quicktime?

[jellomizer]

Or I could just click on the iMovie icon and get to work.

Having used Open Source Software for decades and still do. F/OSS software tends to miss the final polish. All the pieces are there except they may not be assembled. I am not talking about eyecandy, I am talking about actually make it a well polished applications. Apples current success hasn't been on more features. But the features that are in work very well without hassle. F/OSS is still in an add feature mindset. Just look at Big Fat Firefox (Firefox was originally designed to be a quick and light web-browser and has turned into a big honking netscape again)
Oh they are exceptions they are always exceptions, but for the most part F/OSS tends to drop the torch before the finish line. And its over zealous crowd sees this and makes excuses for it. Hey I much rather have the flexibility to risk running that filter that will blow up X then not have it at all. Or Hey except for an easy way to configure this graphical application lets make the user modify this config file. Conveniently places in the /etc directory needing root access. Well if you need normal user access well just make a new hidden file place it in. And hope you know the format for the configurations are.

There is Value in F/OSS but it doesn't always trump non F/OSS systems values. Going to google to find video editing software means you will be sifting threw thousands of OSS projects that are tring to make it big but their App can't even install yet. Your link while may be helpful, for someone doing it on their own will not have this link available.

Re:Early vote makes your vote count (better chance

[Le Marteau]

Yeah, the machines are delivered the day before election day to the polling places (firehalls, schools, etc) by moving companies. Election Judges swear oaths enforceable under rule of law. Moving companies or anyone else who happens to wander in to where the machines have been left, well, no (but you don't have to swear an oath to be found guilty of tampering with election materials, of course).

That's pretty much SOP around the country.

Re:Quicktime?

[Cormophyte]

P.S. We're not rebels, we're just smarter than you. Not because you use a PC, but because trolls are dumb. Starve, bitch! For I will not feed you :)

Re:Early vote makes your vote count (better chance

[shaitand]

'Yeah, the machines are delivered the day before election day to the polling places (firehalls, schools, etc) by moving companies. Election Judges swear oaths enforceable under rule of law. Moving companies or anyone else who happens to wander in to where the machines have been left, well, no (but you don't have to swear an oath to be found guilty of tampering with election materials, of course).'

Sounds like gun laws. Those who are doing criminal acts don't especially care how many laws there are against what they are doing. Especially when the guy they are rigging the election for has the power to pardon.

Re:Early vote makes your vote count (better chance

[FearForWings]

Ignoring the movie (hardly Heinlein cannon), I seem to recall in the book that the vast majority of "veterans" prior to the human-bug war were little more than janitors and laborers in hazardous environments. A possible modern analog would be having the Army Corp of Engineers be responsible for 99% of all national infrastructure and disaster rebuilding. In turn all the majority of veterans did was build/repair roads. This of course assumes nationalizing all non-private construction is "a good thing".

Publisize votes...

[gaspacho_soup85]

I've always thought that an e-voting system should also provide a public database of all votes - showing SSN/vote. This way anyone will have the ability to check if their vote was tampered with, while still largely maintaining their anonymity (as identifying information for SSNs aren't usually easily available).

Re:IRS?

[JimFive]

My ballot in a small midwestern city is going to have:
1 Presidential Race
1 US Senate Race
1 US House Race

1 State Senate Race
1 State House Race
1 Secretary of State Race
1 State Attorney Race
6 State University School Board Races
X State Judges races

2 City Commissioner races
2 Local School board races
Y Other local officials (Register of Deeds, County Sherrif)

Z State and local proposals.

Why (and how) would the IRS be able to coordinate this for every jurisdiction under US Control?
--
JimFive

Re:Heinlein

[JimFive]

The only problem is that it requires and ongoing, large scale war to provide enough veterans to keep the franchise from devolving to an oligarchy. It wouldn't work today because the percentage of veterans in society is quite small compared with the population.

Not quite, there is no requirement that the government service be strictly military service. It happens that the protagonist ended up in the Infantry, but the diplomatic corps (read, state department) is also government service. The biggest barrier to entry was the application process where applicants were actively discouraged from applying. However, if someone persisted through the application process they were guaranteed a role. Not the role they necessarily want, but some role. After a tour of duty of some number of years, barring special circumstances, a person was able to retire from service and be a citizen.

I prefer a different form of democracy espoused in a different Heinlein story. Voting in favor of a thing commits you to working on that thing. If you vote to go to war and that vote passes you report to the recruiting center the next day and are given your assignment. Heinlein only gives the war example, but I think it could be expanded to include other large-scale projects that commit the nation to a direction.
--
JimFive

Re:IRS?

[Amouth]

they can handel the tax code for the diffrent areas this is a small taks compared to the diffrent local taxes within the state..

if by IRS you thought i ment just the feds.. i ment both the fed and state.. each would handel their own parts of the election ballot..

Re:IRS?

[JimFive]

As it is now, each school district has (can have) their own ballot. The state Department of Treasury probably can't handle that either. And if you go lower than that you have the problem of communities without income taxes and you end up back where we are now: Each district handles its own voting and the numbers get accumulated up the chain.
--
JimFive

Re:Heinlein

[R2.0]

You remind me a bit of a coworker that proposed a Selective Service model for Congress - if you vote, your name gets entered into the pool of people who are eligible, and selection means compulsory service. It would solve the problem of lifetime politicians as well as discouraging people who won't risk the responsibility from voting.

Re:IRS?

[Amouth]

i still think it wouldn't be that hard to shift the resources we have now for voteing and cover the work.

could it happen over night? no.. government doesn't work that fast..

could we do it in a year.. i think so if people supported it - and while not perfect i do think it would be better than what we have now..

everyone should be required to vote.. even if it is a "none of the above"

Re:Citizenship of a wanna be president

[Danse]

Like this?

http://news.cnet.com/8301-10784_3-9982898-7.html

or this?

http://government.zdnet.com/?p=3885

That's just from the first page of my first search.

Re:Citizenship of a wanna be president

[shaitand]

Sorry, I thought the discussion was about the major media outlets. Buried on a Tech news site that probably gets less traffic than Slashdot itself wasn't what I had in mind.

Re:Early vote makes your vote count (better chance

[shaitand]

'it's just that some of these churches seem keen on getting involved in politics. and for those that do, they should lose their tax exempt status.'

I hate the involvement of churches and religion in government as much as anyone I promise. But the answer is not to fail to respect the right to practice religion without fear of prosecution. Even if part of your religion requires you to attempt to control secular matters. Tax exemption of churches isn't a privilege. The IRS seriously violates constitutional law with regard to churches already.

That said, there is something of an answer. The answer is to make it a criminal offense for a politician to listen to churches. Let churches tell their congregation what they will or encourage them to vote how they will. Politicians on the other hand should be held to a strict separation from religious lobbying and from voting based upon a religious principle. The second would be hard to prove but would at least make politicians watch their step.

Re:Early vote makes your vote count (better chance

[riverat1]

Here in Oregon they mail you your ballot about 2 weeks before election day and you can fill it out and turn it in at your leisure as long as it's returned by 8:00 PM on election day. It works for me.

Re:Early vote makes your vote count (better chance

[riverat1]

In Oregon 100% of voting is by mail. We get the ballots in the mail a couple of weeks before election day and can fill them out and mail them in. They have to be at the elections office by 8:00 on election day, postmarks don't count. I usually turn them in at the county elections office since it's only 6 blocks from my home.

In Washington there is a lot of vote by mail but I don't think it's 100% yet.

Re:Early vote makes your vote count (better chance

[R2.0]

An honest question - doesn't the scenario I proposed bother you? This is old school, low tech vote fraud - it's the same as ballot boxes disappearing in African elections. I'm not saying it's happening in Oregon per se, but there's so great a potential.

Re:Early vote makes your vote count (better chance

[riverat1]

Well, I see your point but there's always some risk no matter what system you use and ultimately much depends on the integrity of the people involved. The checks and balances in place should certainly detect missing or too many ballots and they also record a chain of custody. Observers from the public are allowed to watch all steps of the process (in my county they've had as many as 50 observers at once). In my 36 years of voting in the state (vote by mail since 1998) I don't recall any issues around that kind of election fraud and this being Oregon I'm confident it would have come up if it had happened to any degree. The ballots are processed day they are received at the elections office. They compare the signature on the outer envelope to the signature on the digitized image of voter registration card and if it's OK they tally it and add the unmarked inner envelope to the pile of ballots to be counted. Later they remove the ballots from the inner envelope and stack them so they're ready to be run through the scanner (they may still hand count in the 3 counties with less than 2,000 population). They don't actually count the votes until after 8:00 pm on election day. The thing I worry about most is an authoritarian family forcing all members of the family to mark their ballot a certain way but I've never heard of that happening either. I do wish they would do audits of a statistical random sample of the votes to validate the election but that costs money the state or county is not willing to spend in the absence of evidence it's necessary.

Personally I usually hand deliver my ballot on election day or the day before (you should see the lines of cars dropping off ballots for big elections) not because I distrust the process but because I like the luxury of taking my time to research and ponder the races and ballot measures and I kind of like doing that anyway. What can I say?

Re:Quicktime?

[DurendalMac]

Why should they? If one format covers 99% of the market, why bother with that 1% when that 1% could just as easily watch it if they wanted to?

Re:Quicktime?

[jlarocco]

I didn't say they "should". I said they *can* post in multiple formats if they want to. That is, of course, assuming they want to make the video conveniently available to as many people as possible.

Also, you're wrong, it's not always possible for that 1% to watch the videos.

The Republicans want it.

[natoochtoniket]

e-voting was pushed through in 2000, with a Republican controlled house, a Republican controlled Senate, and a Republican president, immediately after a manual recount of paper ballots was thwarted by a desperate appeal to the Republican majority of the Supreme Court.

They needed a better way to rig elections, with less chance of getting caught. They came up with paperless computerized voting. With a paperless system, there could be no annoying recounts. With computerized voting, the whole system could be rigged by the programmers, so there was no chance of anyone getting caught doing anything illegal at a polling place or a county election office.

The only people who don't want that is, of course, everybody else.