Kentucky Officials "Changed Votes At Voting Machines"

The indispensible jamie found a report out of Kentucky of exactly the kind of shenanigans that voting-transparency advocates have been warning about: a circuit court judge, a county clerk, and election officials are among eight people indicted for gaming elections in 2002, 2004, and 2006. As described in the indictment (PDF), the election officials divvied up money intended to buy votes and then changed votes on the county's (popular, unverifiable) ES&S touch-screen voting systems, affecting the outcome of elections at the local, state, and federal levels.

Comments

Election Fraud

[stoolpigeon]

We never had it before electronic voting systems. And it is impossible to catch because there is no paper trail.

Re:Election Fraud

[mmontour]

From the article:

, the Election Day scheme, carried out in primary and general elections in at least 2004 and 2006, was accomplished by taking advantage of a "feature" on all DRE (usually touch-screen) voting systems and "voter unfamiliarity with new voting machines."

Essentially, they tricked voters into leaving the 'booth' after pressing the "Vote" button on the ES&S iVotronic. That button, does not actually cast the vote, as one might think (and as these voters were told), but instead, it brings up a review screen of the voter's "ballot."

So this looks like basic social engineering, not exploiting any specific flaws of the electronic machine (other than poor UI design).

Re:Election Fraud

[Anonymous Coward]

a circuit court judge, a county clerk, and election officials are among eight people indicted for gaming elections in 2002, 2004, and 2006

You see, this is why I don't vote;
Those guys are much more qualified to pick a candidate than I am. Why bother?-)

Re:Election Fraud

[ChefInnocent]

Feeling particularly trollish? It doesn't matter what party does the fraud (I say this as someone who voted Democrat in the last election); these people should be tried and hung for treason. This cuts into the very fabric of what our country is suppose to be.

Re:Election Fraud

[titten]

The flaw exploited would be the fact that the voter had no 'receipt' or evidence of what they voted. Had there been such a thing, nobody would leave without it.

Re:Election Fraud

[erroneus]

Perhaps this AC is under the impression that the Slashdot demographic is primarily democratic? I observe that we have quite a mix here and if there is anything disproportionate from the general public, it would be a larger than normal portion of Libertarians and other alternatives.

Democrats and Republicans are both evil in their own ways. They both serve the interests of business and heavy contributors. Their games are very well established and you can't get elected through any of those parties unless you play their games and participate most fully. (Gotta get dirty with them to keep the political career going.)

(What we need is a "judge dread" to clean the system out... the system will not clean itself out.)

Re:Election Fraud

[Anonymous Coward]

...and a receipt would also mean that people in positions of authority could force you to vote a certain way. "Vote for Joe Schmoe and bring me the receipt to prove you did it or you'll lose your job", that type of thing. People could also buy and sell votes, because there would be a a way that the buyer could know for certain whether or not the voter voted the buyer wanted him to (and of course refuse payment until the seller brings proof to the buyer).

Re:Election Fraud

[worthawholebean]

That's not true at all. The U.S. has a long history of various forms of electoral fraud. See for example this book.

Re:Election Fraud

[ChromaticDragon]

While some sort of verification would seem necessary, there is a rather significant problem created if anyone can "leave [with] it".

If you can walk away with proof of "what" you voted, you can prove it to anyone willing to buy your vote. Or to Guido who is threatening to beat up your little ones if you don't vote a specific way.

This is a rather serious problem all the world over. So whatever we do to verify or to authenticate, it cannot involve the voter walking out with the means to show anyone how they voted.

Re:Election Fraud

[CrimsonAvenger]

It doesn't matter what party does the fraud

Quite so.

But it should be pointed out that /. tends to mention the Party of a wrongdoer if the wrongdoer is Republican, and omit it if he's a Democrat.

these people should be tried and hung for treason.

Sorry, treason is explicitly defined in the Constitution. I doubt seriously the definition can be stretched to fit this.

Re:Election Fraud

[stoolpigeon]

Well - I'd agree with you but how many people feel that way about religion and politics? Most of them. So I'd say FOSS/Closed is controversial because there are a number of people on both sides of the issue. Head on over to somewhere like stack overflow and see if you can drum up some controversy - bet you can.

Re:Election Fraud

[MrMarket]

But it should be pointed out that /. tends to mention the Party of a wrongdoer if the wrongdoer is Republican, and omit it if he's a Democrat.

You must be new here. /. is full of Liberation engineers and IT industry protectionists. Neither of which really have a home in the US two party system. You might confuse the trend in the last 8 years of Bush bashing with Democratic leaning, but it was actually just a low tolerance for idiocy. Rest assured, the idiots in the current majority party will also be called out.

Re:Election Fraud

[JasterBobaMereel]

Voting machines can work .... but ....

Press the button on the the screen marked "Obama" the machine prints out your vote...you check it says you have voted for Obama , you put this in the ballot box

What you put in the ballot box is not kept by you ...

It is easily machine readable so is quick to count ...

The voting machine does not need to remember who voted, how many votes etc ...it cannot be gamed

The paper voting slip is as anonymous and as verifiable as the old "place cross here" system ...

Re:Election Fraud

[CrimsonAvenger]

You must be new here. /. is full of Liberation engineers and IT industry protectionists.

Alas, it doesn't really matter what /. is "full of". But it is true that the Party of a Republican in the news tends to be mentioned in the summary, while the Party of a Democrat in the news tends to be quietly ignored in the summary.

Note this case as an example. Nowhere does it mention that the people doing this were Democrats, though it wasn't terribly hard to determine.

Re:Election Fraud

[imamac]

No way. Absolutely not. Secret ballot is vital to our system. It allows people to vote without ANY outside influence. People can vote their minds and not their peer pressures. Secret ballot removes outside influence on votes. There is no other way around that.

Re:Election Fraud

[The FNP]

Actually, it clearly says that WW and CW were the Democrat and Republican election officials for a certain precinct. Meaning that both Democrats and Republicans were in on it.

--The FNP

Re:Election Fraud

[Anonymous Coward]

Vote for Joe Schmoe and bring me the receipt to prove you did it or you'll lose your job", that type of thing.

No, it's not a lottery ticket that you take home. The voter checks the receipt and immediately puts it in a box or something. It is an audit trail that election officials can check against the electronic count.

Re:Election Fraud

[M1rth]

I'd trust this story a whole lot more if Slashdot had quoted the actual newspaper article rather than the frothing partisan political hackblogger's "report."

Re:Election Fraud

[cthulu_mt]

Really...How is the ejection going on all those tax cheats like Rangel?

Re:Election Fraud

[Miseph]

Which I would have expected just from the tactic.

Historically, Democratic election fraud takes the form of ballot stuffing, voter fraud and otherwise directly tampering with the election system. They certainly don't have a lock on it, and there are definitely known cases of Republicans using such tactics (Palm Beach in 2000), but it is the traditional domain of Democrats. In effect, any time you see vote tampering or over-voting, there's probably a Democrat behind it.

Republicans, on the other hand, have generally done a better job of voter intimidation and lock-out. Again, Democrats have been known to send out the police to harass and scare opposition voters the day before an election, or break voter registration procedures such that it takes a lot of work for a ballot to be cast and it is likely to be discredited after the fact anyway, but this is more traditionally associated with Republicans. In effect, any time you see voter intimidation or under-voting, there's probably a Republican behind it.

Of course, down the thread it looks like this was a 50/50 job, so I guess we're both wrong... but mostly you.

Re:Election Fraud

[The FNP]

They could have been caught much sooner if the machines had been using a paper trail. My local machines print out each selection as it is made. Then if at the ballot review screen I change a vote, then it prints that on the paper trail. So if even 10% of the paper trails from a single precinct shows significant and consistent changes at the review screen, that's a huge red flag!

If the machine had a paper trail, the 2002 election could have been the only one that was affected. And the 2004 and 2006 elections would have been unaffected. As it is, it took over three election cycles to catch these guys, ***BECAUSE THERE WAS NO PAPER TRAIL***.

As for the question of how did they catch these guys, there are any number of methods, including, the wrong person talking; or an actually smart and observant voter who was waiting in line and noticed that they were given incorrect instructions and the poll workers seemed to be spending a lot of time in the booths after each voter; or a candidate being asked for bribe money; or a poll worker being approached to join the scam; etc, etc, etc, ad nauseam . . .

So the people who say that the voting machines will always reflect the will of the voter are idiots. I don't think that the machines need to be fully open source, but they need to be certifiably as secure as possible and part of that includes independent penetration testing and a paper trail ***AND PAPER TRAILS SHOULD BE REQUIRED BY FEDERAL LAW***

--The FNP

Re:Election Fraud

[VShael]

But it should be pointed out that /. tends to mention the Party of a wrongdoer if the wrongdoer is Republican, and omit it if he's a Democrat.

Then what's the problem? You can clearly tell the two part, by assuming the corrupt party is a Democrat, unless explicitly stated otherwise.

Sounds like a Republican friendly set up to me, if the assumption of corruption = Dem.

Re:Election Fraud

[fractoid]

Easy: If you don't vote, you have no right to bitch about the people you didn't vote for screwing things up :)

If I don't vote (and I didn't, which in Australia is actually punishable, but so be it - I didn't see a candidate I could conscionably vote for) then no-one can blame me for 'choosing' the candidate who's currently fucking our country. And that's the main purpose of democracy; to say to the common man: "You voted for him so it's your fault that he's making fucktarded decisions", or "You voted against him but most people voted for him, so you're wrong".

Re:Election Fraud

[Anonymous Coward]

No no NO! How dare you bring your facts and your truth into this? Can we please go back to saying it was all Democrats? That was much more comfortable.

Re:Election Fraud

[Shakrai]

While I think what he did was wrong, in the scope of things it's not so bad.

Isn't it amazing how Democrats rationalize corruption in the exact same manner as Republicans?

Re:Election Fraud

[Beardo the Bearded]

All politicians are liars and crooks.

I choose the party that's going to steal for me.

Re:Election Fraud

[Shakrai]

Secret ballot is vital to our system. It allows people to vote without ANY outside influence. People can vote their minds and not their peer pressures. Secret ballot removes outside influence on votes.

That must be why the labor unions want to get rid of them.

Re:Election Fraud

[DragonWriter]

...and a receipt would also mean that people in positions of authority could force you to vote a certain way.

Only if you could keep the reciept. Which would be the wrong way to do things, both for that reason and for the ability to validate the tabulation of the election results, since then detecting errors would requiring getting all the voters to come and turn in their ballots to compare to the tallied results. What you want to do is have the receipt -- or, more accurately, hardcopy ballot -- printed in the booth, have it reveiwed by the voter, and (assuming it is correct -- exception handling is necessary if it is not) the voter places it in a ballot box before leaving the precinct, just like they would a ballot in a non-machine election.

Then, when the automated count is complete, you do a manual tabulation of the hardcopy ballots from random (actually random, not arbitrarily-chosen by officials) selection of precincts, and if there are substantial discrepancies (an objective standard must exist to judge this), a complete recount is done based on the hardcopy ballots.

Re:Election Fraud

[CyberKnet]

This may come as a surprise to you... but if you can put the number into a webpage... so can that person in authority. Whether it's a receipt you keep with the vote readable, or a number you put into a webpage.

Any time that you can verify after you leave the polling place which way your vote was recorded ... so can someone else. And that can lead to very serious consequences. Loss of job, family, the stakes are endless.

All that is required for you to verify your vote is a human-readable paper record that will be kept separate from the electronic record, but doesn't leave the polling place. That way you can verify it after you vote electronically, and if a recount is done, the paper trail box can be unlocked and counted.

Re:Election Fraud

[Shakrai]

And being a few-thousand-dollar tax cheat is nothing compared to being a war profiteering traitor who selectively censored intelligence information from the president and congress to get a war started, a war said president was all too happy to go along with because "that bad guy attacked my dad." (cheney)

Ah, rationalization by pointing out how bad the other guy is. Another time-honored tactic from the Republican/Democratic playbook.

Re:Election Fraud

[DingerX]

You obviously didn't go through the indictment itself, where the party affiliations, when relevant is given. So the Democrat election commissioner is named in paragraph 4, and the Republican judge in paragraph 7. The #1 unfounded assumption a person makes is that the world is the way s/he thinks it is. In short, there's plenty of evidence that what you wrote is false. While the party affiliation of most people indicted is not mentioned (as it does not pertain to their job description), when mentioned, both parties come in.

Re:Election Fraud

[The Spoonman]

It comes right after cherry-picking parts of a comment that seemingly support your case and completely ignoring the ones that don't. Such as the part where he points out that he does not believe Rangel intentionally "cheated" on his taxes since he's the one who brought it out. The comparison was made that Rangel is "evil" because of his actions (or inactions), but evil is a choice. Rangel made a mistake. There's a difference. In a "who is more evil" discussion, which this one is, ultimately...bringing out the evil committed by the opposing side is perfectly acceptable.

Beyond that, it's unrealistic to assume that someone like Rangel even DOES his own taxes. I don't make anywhere near as much as he does and even *I* don't do my own taxes. I get the advice of a tax professional, and if that professional gives me wrong advice, it's difficult for me to know that. All of the recent tax issues faced by public officials have been minor, MINOR, and easily attributable to ignorance rather than malice...as opposed to the actions of those on the other side who are criticizing these mistakes.

Re:Election Fraud

[Zontar The Mindless]

It's funny that you call it a 'frothing partisan political hackblogger'...

My guess is that M1rth took exception to the following paragraph in the blog post (emphasis added):

The fact is, those who know anything about computer security understand that it is the insiders who are, by far, the greatest threat to security on such systems, as even the phony, GOP-operative-created Baker/Carter National Election Reform Commission determined in its final report: "There is no reason to trust insiders in the election industry any more than in other industries."

The blogger does, upon further investigation, seem to have a tendency to... well... froth. However, we should not let this detract from the core issue here: Voting without transparency and verifiability cannot be trusted to return accurate results.

Re:Election Fraud

[hairyfeet]

Yes, but as my boys who will soon be turning 18 and despite my protests have made it damned clear they have no intention of ever voting said to me, when all you are given is the lesser of two evils you are still choosing to side with evil. And sadly I have to agree they have a point. Both the Ds and Rs have gotten so blatantly corrupt you might as well just put "corporate ass kissing corrupt lying scumbag" A or B on the ballot.

When BOTH sides are for big government, more power for the fed, blowing cash like a gambling addict in Vegas, and passing any laws that a corporation buys....err lobbies for, no matter how badly they screw the people(see DMCA, Sonny Bono, current bailouts, two unpopular wars draining cash, pointless weapons systems that enrich defense contractors, etc for examples)

When you have that from BOTH sides, and their greed and blatant corruption is so damned obvious that even my 15 and 16 year old smells the bullshit from a mile away, who the hell ARE you going to vote for? Kodos? Hell, when I turned to my 67 year old mother for backup, who has voted in every election since she was 18, she said "Why bother? After seeing how corrupt they both have become and how Obama lied through his teeth and how McCain didn't mind earmarks as long as they were his, seriously why bother? It's pointless now."

And sadly if we don't get a real third party I think she is right. This last election I was practically holding my nose because the stench of corruption was all over all the choices. I think that is why nobody has pride in America anymore. You might as well grab everything that isn't nailed down for yourself before the entire Ponzi scheme collapses, because no matter which side you pick they are going to screw you and enrich themselves and their rich corporate buddies. Depressing? Yes, but as I sat there trying to think of a logical, legitimate argument for voting I frankly couldn't think of one. The MSM owns the gates of advertising and they are only going to push D or R, and frankly I would not pee on either side if they were on fire right now. The era of having "Trust Busters" like Teddy Roosevelt are apparently over for good and never to return. Just too much greed and whoring by the two sides to ever let anyone with integrity ever make it into a position of power.

Re:Election Fraud

[Gat0r30y]

Yes, he lied under oath. But then again, there was a congressional investigation into whether or not get got a BJ. That is absurd in its own right. Left or Right, what you do with your sex organs in private, with consenting adults shouldn't be the government's business.

The 4 Fascist American Presidents: Wilson, FDR, LBJ, Obama.

I don't think you know what this word means. And your feeble attempt at fear mongering doesn't work particularly well when it is clear that you do not even know what the words you use mean.

Treason

[Just Some Guy]

Elected officials subverted the voice of the people for personal profit. Execute them. I am serious. There needs to be an example made, quickly and decisively.

Re:Treason

[Rogerborg]

Bear in mind that the people who write the laws are the winners of elections. You can see how they might be disinclined to change a system that demonstrably favours them.

Re:Treason

[Kokuyo]

Even though I do not agree with a death sentence, I agree with the acting decisively part. Our countries are there for the people. The people IS the country, so to speak.

And since this directly went behind the backs of the people, treason is the proper definition here. Imagine what shenanigans will happen, if this kind of behaviour is not come down upon hard.

Re:Treason

[bentcd]

Seriously. How is this not treason?

In the context of the U.S., its Founding Fathers were very reluctant to label as treason anything that could be used by a tyrant to strike down on legitimate internal opposition. Therefore, they were left with only two very specific acts that would be considered treason:

Section 3. Treason against the United States, shall consist only in levying War against them, or in adhering to their Enemies, giving them Aid and Comfort. (...)"

"Conspiracy to rig an election" is just not on that list.

Re:Treason

[CrimsonAvenger]

And since this directly went behind the backs of the people, treason is the proper definition here

Article III, Section 3 of the US Constitution:

Treason against the United States, shall consist only in levying war against them, or in adhering to their enemies, giving them aid and comfort.

I trust you can demonstrate how this action fits, since you have declared that "treason is the proper definition"?

Uh, not exactly a voting machine security flaw

[Reality Master 201]

Apparently the people told voters that hitting the "Vote" button would complete their vote, when it actually just brought up a confirmation screen. It was after the voter left that the people charged went and changed the votes, then completed the vote.

So, yeah, that's definite election fraud and those involved should go to jail for a nice long stretch. But the headline leads you to believe this was somehow a voting machine flaw, rather than a social engineering attack based around shitty UI design ("Vote" means vote, not, "Confirm my Choices").

Re:Uh, not exactly a voting machine security flaw

[ControversialMatt]

Which is interesting, because it contradicts the image many of us have of the average end user. Personally I believed that they would be programmed by now to automatically click OK on any popup without reading it.

Re:Uh, not exactly a voting machine security flaw

[Just Some Guy]

Badly designed GUI + social engineering != security flaw.

It most certainly does! We've held MS to that standard for years with such things as "nakedgirl.gif.exe" tricking users into running unknown binaries, and rightfully so. Social engineering alone doesn't indicate a problem, as con men have been around since roughly the beginning of time. Software misfeatures (such as a button labeled "Vote" that doesn't actually cast your vote) that make fraud trivially easy absolutely are vulnerabilities.

Re:Uh, not exactly a voting machine security flaw

[An Onerous Coward]

I think the point your respondents are missing is that -- while the machines are clearly flawed -- the electronic voting machines didn't greatly magnify the officials' ability to corrupt the vote. Had one of them altered hundreds of votes using a USB stick and three minutes of "alone time" with the machines, this story would have a completely different flavor for me.

IOW, Kentucky electoral officials can't hack. What scares me is that this is probably why they got caught; there must have been a dozen people involved. I'm sure the more tech-savvy vote riggers are just getting away with it.

Life inprisonment

[Joebert]

Conviction for tampering with election results should be met with life inprisonment. The scope of things affected by gaming elections warrents nothing less.

Death would be better, but sometimes we get the wrong guy and at least with inprisonment we can let them out of jail and make sure they live well with a fat stack of cash for the rest of their life.

Re:Standards of democracy?

[itschy]

I suspect that in elections from 2000 to 2006, the standards of democracy in the US fell to below what we would consider acceptable in emerging democracies. Where there would be monitoring from outside observers.

Actually, many international Organizations wanted to monitor the US-american elections.
They were not allowed.
Go figure...

Apologize Now

[Doc Ruby]

I want everyone who sneered at me in 2000 and 2004, saying "changing those electronic machine votes would require a conspiracy so vast, with nobody ever leaking, that it's impossible, you're crazy, just get over it" to apologize now.

Not just to me, though I want that now. But also to the entire country, for standing in the way of fixing this basic corruption that destroys democracy that should be ancient history by now.

Apologize. Preferably door to door. But a reply here would start to count.

Re:Hang them.

[tonyreadsnews]

It might be easier if you ask them who paid BEFORE they are swinging from the rope. Unless you plan on hanging them by their ankles.

Must...tell...president...McCain!

[Bushido Hacks]

"Hey! I only mean one of those votes for McCain!"

Re:Standards of democracy?

[CrimsonAvenger]

Not to make this more political than it will be, but do we know what direction those stolen votes went?

Well, it took some googling, but it seems the five involved were Democrats. So it's probably pretty safe to assume the stolen votes were stolen from various Republican candidates and given to various Democrat candidates.

Though why anyone should care about the Party of someone running for the local School Board is beyond me (yes, one of the elections in question was for the local School Board).

Note, by the way, that what happened was good, old-fashioned, vote-buying. With a twist, in that the people actually handed the money to buy votes in the field decided to keep the money and just change a few votes themselves.

Put up or shut up

[Anonymous Coward]

But it is true that the Party of a Republican in the news tends to be mentioned in the summary, while the Party of a Democrat in the news tends to be quietly ignored in the summary.

This makes two times you have said this in this thread. Instead of asserting it for a third why not prove what you claim? Or is this just another Republican "the media is liberal and always against us" whine?

Re:Put up or shut up

[Anonymous Coward]

Or maybe the real story here is about the insecurities and perils of current electronic voting machines - the kind of topic slashdotters are interested in - and party affiliation is incidental because readers are smart enough to understand that system can be rigged by any party or any person.

Re:Standards of democracy?

[ScentCone]

Actually, many international Organizations wanted to monitor the US-american elections

No, many international organizations with an axe to grind thought it would make good political theater to offer to monitor them. When countries like Cuba offer their expertise in running fair, open democracies, that's not really a comment on the US, is it? It's evidence of just how dumb their propoganda machines think everyone else is. When Hugo Chavez mentions his willingness to help, though, we should take him up on it. That will give him something else to think about for a day, besides using violence and prisons to crush his own election rivals. I understand that Iran also offered to help out. It's hard to deny that allowing them to do so would make for great fun.