Slashdot Mirror
Is Arizona's Internet Voting System Safe Enough?
JMcCloy writes "Kevin Poulsen, senior editor at Wired News, asks readers 'Is internet voting safe?' and has a poll at the end of the article. So far, 32% responding actually think that internet voting is worth it, risks and all. It is scary how easily people can be persuaded to trust a system that is so vulnerable." The system described, used in Arizona in last year's election process, isn't just checking a box and clicking a button, but Poulsen lays out some scenarios by which it could be subverted.
... an Internet poll about the "safety" of Internet polls.
Especially if you are "persuaded to trust" the results and derive some sort of observation from it.
If I ever start a dictatorship, first thing I do, is get everybody voting electronically.
There is a negative correlation between a knowledge of computer security and the desire to introduce Internet voting. The more you have of the first the less you want the second. If crackers can get into the Pentagon computers and when we find the plans of Marine Helicopter One in a Tehran coffee shop, then we should realize that getting into a domestic voting system to alter the results is trivial.
The voting machines are about the same security level as WEP.
For me, the biggest problem with e-voting isn't the level of security you can achieve, it's the amount of damage someone can do once they're 'in'. Sure there's bits of fraud and error here and there with conventional ballots, but to guarantee a result requires a lot of suspicious activity. Right now even the military, DoD, etc... can't seem to keep hackers out all the time. Imagine what a back door to an election would be worth on the black market.
I still refuse to believe that eventually we couldn't make Internet voting more secure than paper ballots.
Your physical security is also an issue.
If you go to a polling station then you can be sure no one will force you to cast your vote on his preferred candidate.
But if you vote from your home via the internet then members of the local mafia can stand behind your back while you're voting and they can force you to vote on the politician who pays them.
How could you fix this "security hole" in the internet voting scheme?
But security isn't the question. The problem is that with secure and anonymous electronic voting there is no outside way to verify that the results reported have anything to do with the votes cast. Whoever controls the system can make it report whatever results they want, and there's no way to tell if they are telling the truth or not. If your first thought is "well, make it open source," think again.
The difference being that the banks (which run both ATMs and online banking sites) don't also control the money supply. If they did (e.g., if they could just create money the way the government does) we'd have a major problem. No matter how secure the process is, once it subsumes enough levels that you have know way of knowing if it's just reporting made-up numbers, you have a problem.
--MarkusQ
The flaw of mail-in voting is it's not secret. Your spouse, priest, employer -- name-power-trip-here -- can make sure you are voting "right". Only the booth secures that it is your own private decision.
Were you watching Minnesota in the last congressional election?
which is the entire point. You could watch it because physical ballot papers had to be found. If you are right that it was fraudulent, and I have no idea, then the fraudsters put themselves at a much greater risk. The ballot papers they added could have their genetic material or chemical contamination or many other signs of tampering. With an e-voting system there will be nothing to tell you that there was fraud and they won't have to wait until afterwards to know whether they need to "just add a few more fraudulent ballots". They'll add just enough to be safe (e.g. avoid a recount; avoid a suspicious miscount etc.).
Try not to think about what you could do to make a safe voting system. Instead think "how could I manipulate an e-voting system". When you think about it, you'll find lots of ways to do it for fun and profit. I recommend that everybody in the USA with the opportunity starts trying to fix ballots to go to third parties (even if you support the Republicrats or Democans). That will get e-voting off the agenda quicker than you can possibly imagine.
=~ s,(.*),<sarcasm>$1</sarcasm>,g if any_point_you_wish();
I am politically active student (Member of the Left Youth of Finland, etc.) in a country that doesn't use two party system and I disagree with all of your points.
I actually have the opposite view. I think the reason electronic voting is being done so poorly is to prevent allowing a true democracy strip the power from the current 2 party system.
Well, I live in a country which has never used electronic voting in electing the parliament. There are currently 14 active political parties in Finland (15 in a few weeks as the Pirate Party recently managed to get enough supporters to register themselves as a party), 8 of which are currently represented in the parliament. (The remaining parties only have representatives at municipal level).
You can't blame the two party system on normal voting being so complicated and electronic voting being the answer or anything. It is political system that has it's merits and flaws but it not only can be but is also very easy to implement even without electronic voting.
While not simple to get right, a effective convenient secure system would make voting too simple. We could actually have more rounds of votes, and eliminate needing just 2 candidates at the beginning of the election.
We have more than two candidates here with still a few rounds of votes. We use this method. Each party has it's own list. Let's say I vote a candidate in the Left Alliance as do 1000 others. The most popular candidate within the left alliance gets 1000 votes, the second most popular within the left alliance gets 500 votes, the third most popular gets 333 votes... After that, candidates from all parties use those numbers to see who gets elected. Again, it has it's flaws but it works quite well.
More issues could be voted on, more laws, quicker correction on corrupt politicans, etc, etc. Those in power have much more interest in preventing trust-able e-voting than not.
Direct democracy is beautiful idea. However... If your problem is that you feel people don't pay enough attention to politics in elections (they don't remember the bad decisions politician have made, etc.) then how do you expect them to pay enough attention that they would have good, well thought out and educated opinion on even more issues?
Also... We aren't talking about electronic voting here. We are talking about internet voting. The kind where violent husband can force his wife to vote for extremist parties because there can not be any precautions to protect from that.