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ES&S To Buy Diebold, Blackbox Voting To Sue
Gottesser writes "Long-time election rights activist Bev Harris (she had an HBO special a while back where she hired Hari Hursti to hack an optical scan voting machine) just sent this out: 'Diebold/Premier Election Systems is being purchased by Election Systems & Software (ES&S). According to a Black Box Voting source within the companies, there will be a conference call among key people at the companies within the next couple hours. An ES&S/Diebold-Premier acquisition would consolidate most US voting under one privately held manufacturer. And it's not just the concealed vote-counting; these companies now also produce polling place check-in software (electronic pollbooks), voter registration software, and vote-by-mail authentication software.' Our voting system is heading toward a server-centric model with our vote being delivered to us by computers under lock and key far away from public oversight. Here's ES&S's press release. Wikipedia's got something on the ongoing string of ES&S controversies as well."
Our voting system is heading toward a server-centric model with our vote being delivered to us by computers under lock and key far away from public oversight.
Didn't we want to be just like all the other democratic countries? The private sector delivers, and now we're bitching about it. Voters -- 'ya just can't please them.
#fuckbeta #iamslashdot #dicemustdie
So now not only Ohio, but the whole U.S. will be delivered to the Republicans.
Rule the world.
Adding up to more power to a bigger company? Or... I guess I am just stupid, maybe I should RTFA. But still trying to get this damned podbox to boot. *curses @ self for stepping back into the world of /.*
I do know that the more competition to this sort of the thing, the better, though. And the better the documentation, word for word, every dash & dot in the right place, brings us closer to better/clearer/more realistic results.
----Yet another off-topic rant brought to you by the creators of BRANDO: the thirst quencher----
... We need open source software so that the voting process is transparent. I'll stick to any location I can find that still uses paper ballots otherwise. I also seem to remember these machines being trivially easy to tinker with.
Conscience is the inner voice which warns us that someone may be looking.
This should force the FEC to outright ban electronic voting. I guess my .sig is getting old by now.
Make sure everyone's vote counts: Verified Voting
Vote publicly? A public record can be checked by the voter. Verify that their vote was cast accordingly.
Are the only way to be sure, otherwise the voter cannot verify that what they choose is what got entered into the system. Even if it's an electronic system that prints out a receipt that you can then visually check and deposit would be fine (although personally I prefer the low tech ballot + make an X, it's simple, it's easy to assist blind people, and it's _trivial_ to check, if you have scrutineers from more than one party you're pretty safe (who watches the watchers? the watchers watch themselves because they want to make sure they aren't cheating). This system works for most of the world (including the US until recently). This love with high tech voting is quite scary I think (I especially love the argument that electronic voting is faster when you consider the court cases that have been needed t decide various elections).
All the ingredients necessary and sufficient to engineer an election result undetectably and without pesky statistical red flags. George Orwell himself couldn't have designed a more riggable system.
Say goodbye to democracy.
I can see the fnords!
I no longer think it would be impossible to implement decently. Google Tech Talk has an interesting 1.5h video about the subject and Schneier also has a small blog post, hinting that there could well be some self-enforcing algorithms that let us confirm the system is secure even if we don't know all the details to test it.
Where's the oversight? When Microsoft looks at a company, Government starts sticking their noses in. I don't get it.
It's NOT me! It's the meds! I'm on 1000mg of Fukitol.
Is there Open Source software around to replace their product? I know I've seen enough developers on here discussing how easy of a problem it is to solve. What about a backing company who is able and ready to sell a complete package using it (hardware, support, training, etc.), who can be liable and responsible if anything goes wrong? With the low quality crap these Diebold people keep bringing out, you'd think there would be 100 other companies in line to take their place.
So we're not even going to bother pretending we have fair and balanced elections now?
On the one hand. that's terrible. These people should all be shot for treason.
On the other... Yeah elections should go smoother since theres no confusion with a standard 'this is the only way' system.
Man... our country is so fucked... gonna be 10 years before the majority notices too. And another 50 to even think about fixing it.
Sucks to be US!
No one trusts their technology, yet not only are the machines still in place, they have exported them to Ireland, England, France, India and other countries.
Sweet, now the political parties will only have ONE company they need to bribe donate to for all of their voting needs. At least that'll curb a bit of the government spending. That, or they'll just give themselves bigger bonuses. I'm sure they'll take the interest of the public to heart first though :P.
Planet Zebeth - Metroid with a twist
"ES&S To Buy Diebold, Blackbox Voting To Sue"
Actually ES&S is only buying Diebold's e-voting business, not the whole company
http://online.wsj.com/article/SB125199401359883707.html
optical scan, personally I never understood the motivation for touch screen voting other than gee whiz technology.
When they proposed touchscreen voting to replace punchcards in palm beach county, it cost $20 million while optical scan cost 2 million.
When voters demanded a paper record for recounts it turned out to be cheaper to implement optical scan than to equip
touchscreens with printers.
Sure voters may undervote but at least its their own damn fault and not because of some computer error or dirty tricks.
I'm writing software for an FDA-approved device. The requirements are quite stringent and everything gets looked at very closely. From everything I've heard these voting machines would not pass such an inspection. It's a bit of a pain but it does lead to more reliable and trustworthy devices. These requirements and the approval process already exist, seems like a good place to start.
It's time to re-read "The Stainless Steel Rat for President".
Oliver's law of assumed responsibility: If you're seen fixing it, you will be blamed for breaking it.
A letter than we can send our congressperson explaining why electronic voting without oversight and a paper trail is a dangerous thing?
I'm not inherently lazy, but I suspect something very concise and precise exists, better than I would create myself by trolling this thread. Thank you.
You stereotypers are all the same...
Washington DC
October 1, 2009
In a stunning display of bipartanship today, Congress saved the taxpayers several million dollars by suspending all future elections. Proponents of the bill point out that most people didn't even bother to vote last time, and that of those who did, polls show the overwhelming majority of them held strong opinions about issues they didn't even begin to understand.
"It was a ridiculous waste of the taxpayer's money," said Sam Rickenbaugh of the GAO. "We'd spend millions, billions even on holding elections, and the voters who even bothered to show up were the same mouth-breathing idiots who get roped into jury duty. It was a pathetic display, embarrassing even."
Democrats and Republicans have agreed to share power across the aisle, and points of contention will now be decided based on who can gather the largest contributions for their side.
"Now this is Democracy," posts John Ringerton of My Country Right Or Wrong.com. "You got an opinion, you can put your money where your mouth is like God intended."
He put his boots up on the table and made a face. "The sig," he smirked. "You can waste your life in search of the sig."
So, you have evidence that Democrats, as a group, are any less concerned about the inherent dangers of all-electronic voting systems than the population as a whole?
I'm a Democrat. I voted for Obama. I'm glad he's President. (Or rather, I'm glad McCain isn't President; not quite the same thing, but it's what we've got.) And now that we have a Democrat in the White House, I think it is exactly as important that we have a trustworthy election process as it was when had a Republican. I don't want anyone rigging elections, in favor of any candidate of any party.
No matter how bad things get, as long as we have honest elections, we have a chance to fix them. If we lose that ... forget it, it's over. Democrat, Republican, black, white, whatever: if the people in charge have the means to ensure they stay in charge regardless of the will of the people, they will use that power, and we are permanently screwed.
In short, AC, don't assume everyone else shares your level of asshole cynicism. There are a lot of us who still care about the future of our country.
The correlation between ignorance of statistics and using "correlation is not causation" as an argument is close to 1.
the most technophilic countries and the poorest should all vote the same way: paper
whatever convenience is gained with mechanical and electronic voting is lost by casting doubt over the legitimacy of the voting process. technologically souped up voting processes renders democratically elected governments open to criticism of illegitimacy, regardless of being just rumors or the truth. more technology in the equation creates dark areas, attack vectors, unnecessary complexity for such a simple process as recording and counting votes (too laborious? use OCR). its also more expensive
so you are basically paying a lot more money for a little more convenience and a giant dollup of doubt in the mind of the public about the legitimacy of their own government. which leads to social instability
yes, you can tamper with paper votes, but its hard and you need a mob of conspirators
mechanical voting increases the number of attack vectors an order of magnitude and decreases the number of people you need to make a dent in the vote, and its harder to trace your tampering
take that further, and electronic voting is a manipulator's dream: one guy with 300 milliseconds of access to a database can do more damage than an army of paper ballot tamperers/ stuffers/ truck drivers, and he can do it in such a statistically invisible way as to make his tampering forensically invisible. public servants are full of integrity and with such high salaries none could ever be paid to look the other way, right, right? and with electronic voting, you need only corrupt one or two obscure key guys, not an army of polling station workers as with paper. a conspiracy of two or three might be airtight with electronic tampering, but a conspiracy of dozens and hundreds with paper/ mechanical is what... more airtight?
as for attack vectors, with electronic voting, take your pick: there are millions where with paper voting there are only hundreds. those tasked with guarding the integrity of the electronic voting process can easily be routed around with the right creative hacker thinking up the right attack vector no one imagined but him. sure, yeah, no one is for hire to do that for a few million and then disappear to rio for the rest of his life, right? oh, and of course, there aren't giant gobs of money floating around politics that often winds up with shady power brokers, right?
electronic voting and mechanical voting must die, for sake of the integrity of our governments, upon which the entire stability of our societies rest. using anything besides paper is insane
intellectual property law is philosophically incoherent. it is your moral duty to ignore it or sabotage it
New word to describe countries where democratic elections were replaced by corporate owned and operated "electiongames".
It makes you wonder if democracy is really going down on the toilet right in front of our eyes - and what will our children, grandchildren say when they learn that we just let it happen.
Will we be seen any better than the common people who let the holocaust, slavery, etc. happen right under their watch?
You can be an asshole cynic and care.
Let me demonstrate:
Your vote doesn't matter - it's all rigged. Fuck you sheep who refuse to take up arms and revolt to save this country.
ES&S is not known to be ran by a corrupt republican. So, the election will simply go to the top bidder.
I prefer the "u" in honour as it seems to be missing these days.
The "hanging chads" were what made the news, but it was districts with electronic counting and/or voting equipment that should be blamed for the 2000 debacle. Why didn't we hear about the county in Florida that reported -16,000 votes for Gore, or the county that reported a vote tally at something like 125% of total registered voters?
No matter how bad things get, as long as we have honest elections, we have a chance to fix them. If we lose that ... forget it, it's over. Democrat, Republican, black, white, whatever: if the people in charge have the means to ensure they stay in charge regardless of the will of the people, they will use that power, and we are permanently screwed.
I hate to break it to you but they already have the means to remain in charge regardless of the will of the people. What good does an honest election do you when the politicians get to decide who their voters are instead of the other way around?
In short, AC, don't assume everyone else shares your level of asshole cynicism.
What's wrong with cynicism towards the political parties? They are all a bunch of lying hypocrites. You just feel good about yourself because the guy you regard as evil happened to lose. That doesn't change the fact that the two major parties are both propping up a system that undermines our representative republic and that the major difference between the two of them is which freedoms you'll lose when they are in charge.
I want peace on earth and goodwill toward man.
We are the United States Government! We don't do that sort of thing.
Um, where does it say blackboxvoting.org is suing?
I've been an Elections Inspector in New York State for the last five years. Every time one of these stories crop up I wrote a detailed summary of the procedures and technology we use. In spite of these procedures including the retention of paper ballots I still can't convince the tinfoil hat crowd that our elections aren't being decided by a shadowy cabal working out of the Diebold offices. I've about given up on trying to convince them otherwise.
There are legitimate concerns surrounding so-called DRE (direct electronic record) systems but why those concerns have morphed into people being suspicious of other technology is beyond me. Some days it seems that nothing will satisfy this crowd short of a system where everybody raises their hand.
I'm glad Florida switched away from a DRE system. Don't be surprised when people crop up and start fretting that the optical scan system is pwned though.
I want peace on earth and goodwill toward man.
We are the United States Government! We don't do that sort of thing.
Actually Black Box did show how the Optical Scan system could be pwned! Access to the cards that hold the counts, even for a couple of minutes, could result in the election being rigged!
The only good part, is you still have the ballots. Reset the counting machines, use a card that is good, and the election results will actually (more or less) reflect the votes. I say more or less because the ballots are still filled in by Sheeple, and some of them, even after years of doing it, cannot fill out the ballot correctly!
Which is why those cards are stored behind numbered seals. Next you'll say that the seals aren't perfect.
I want peace on earth and goodwill toward man.
We are the United States Government! We don't do that sort of thing.
http://openvoting.org/
Aside from having a working system, they are working with government officials around the country to get them to try to use the system.
http://openvoting.org/our_solution
So, you have evidence that Democrats, as a group, are any less concerned about the inherent dangers of all-electronic voting systems than the population as a whole?
You're damn right I do... Rush Limbaugh said it on the radio!
Fuck you sheep who refuse to take up arms and revolt to save this country.
That's hilarious, considering that the extent of your action is to post to slashdot, and maybe complain a bit amongst friends ;) I mean, it's /possible/ you're going to be out there with whatever guns you've acquired, facing down a tank... but it's not very likely.
And now that we have a Democrat in the White House, I think it is exactly as important that we have a trustworthy election process as it was when had a Republican. I don't want anyone rigging elections, in favor of any candidate of any party.
That puts you and I squarely in the minority. I'm not an R or D, but much more towards the [fiscal, not social] conservative end, for what it's worth. The problem is our friends who vote for either party can't see past partisan issues to fix the ones that are actually important, like voting process integrity.
These voting systems are all built on microsoft access database applications.
There isn't even a presumption of security on these machines. They are designed to be able to steal elections.
They're using their grammar skills there.
Anyone who respects the process of democratic elections knows that the US presidential election results of 2004 were fraudulent as a direct result of criminal misconduct and secrecy on the part of the elections board of the state of Ohio (and possibly other states). Despite these facts and the untimely death of Mike Connell, to boot, no charges have been filed.
One can certainly be cynical in light of the evidence of misconduct and the constant delay or outright miscarriage of justice. Even the US presidential elections of 2000 appeared fraudulent because of the intercession of the Supreme Court in the electoral process of the state of Florida. We invest a lot in the pretense of democratic freedom, of course, but our political process demonstrates a tact as subtle as the Prime Minister of Italy. That is, none.
When you break it down to its core, on this issue, the tactics of fraud and election-rigging allowed a fraudulent regime to appoint and have confirmed by the elected Senate their own choice for Chief Justice of the Supreme Court of the United States. Whether or not he is truly qualified and capable, we also know this same Senate is incapable of addressing an issue that 80% of the country can decide quite easily.
The disconnect between politicians and the public are such that one could scarcely believe changing the president to Obama, or anyone for the next 30 years or so, will correct the miscarriage of justice, even if some Attorney General had the lot of them frog-marched to prison. The politicians responsible for upholding the law did not move to impeach or censure the executive even one time, much less succeed in passing the measure. Politicians actually come up with excuses to ignore factual reports of criminal incidents - in the process of 'protecting their jobs' ("No comment") they hew the party line into a new shape, based on focus groups, and then repeat that. It's all partisan propaganda and turf-war now, but 90% of them still get re-elected every two years. Citizens end up 'fighting' over things they really have no conflicts of interest with...the elected incumbent simply has political baggage and financing to carry for their next campaign. That's it! In a very, very stupid way, and through a very, very stupid interpretation of the 14th Amendment, we are following a process based on fraud rather than the process outlined in our Constitution.
In short, don't assume everyone cynical doesn't care about the future of our country. We have yet to define a vector where the US government functions as a representative democracy in the 21st century. We might think about Constitutional Amendments to reign in the process of electing these stooges instead of relying on Obama to fix everything.
it does NOT MATTER that you feel you have inside info that the voting system is 'trustable'.
widespread, we (the people) don't trust it anymore. too many reports of bad things happening in the last few elections.
even if those are all made-up (and we know they are not); we need to have trust, first and foremost.
yes, sometimes you have to sell a car (or trade it in) just so you can know you'll not be stranded on the side of the road. we have a used car, now, so to speak; and we just don't trust it anymore.
paper (canada uses that!) is trustable.
open source is trustable.
the lying bastards who 'pledge all they can do' to ensure one candidate gets in; is NOT trustable! it does not matter if YOU, some elections guy, think its trustable. the rest of us lost that faith years ago.
to restore it, we need to go to low-tech methods. high tech is not always the answer. in this case, its the anti-answer.
--
"It is now safe to switch off your computer."
Why is this even an issue? The people do NOT decide who becomes president...the electorial college does. All of these problems that the press is trying to make everyone think are major issues mean absolutely jack. Kill the EC and put the vote on the American people where it should be and THEN we can bitch and moan about the HOW of the voting process.
unless they are moving state lines, gerrymandering does not seem relevant to presidential elections...
The democrat candidate will always be 2% left of center, while the republican candidate will always be 2% right of center. Looking back at all the elections since probably carter/reagan I really don't think it has mattered much who's been in office.
and if you couldn't tell by the above, RON PAUL.
He's not scared of tanks, he's a mage!
What about voters who have no eyes?
I consider it completely unimportant who in the party will vote, or how; but what is extraordinarily important is thisâ"who will count the votes, and how. - J. Stalin
#2 pencil
names next ovals
intellectual property law is philosophically incoherent. it is your moral duty to ignore it or sabotage it
Honestly do you think your going to sell more copies of your software if you patent it? Most likely outcome is that someone else will have beat you to it - your patent will be rejected and if you go ahead and sell anyway you would at that point have knowingly infringed.
If it were me I would forget all the legal nonsense and release the damn thing.
If you go looking for trouble you will find it. God knows we can't breath anymore without infringing on someone elses nonsensical patent. Every time I do a search I wish I hadn't.
Let's say your procedure is flawless and the cards are secure from the moment you get them... Who did you buy the cards from?
One major problem I see with elections now is that everyone demands to know the vote the night of the election, broadcast on national networks.
The push away from paper ballots, I think, is partially due to the All-American love of instant gratification: "I want to know who won NOW!" If we could all wait until the next morning or, dare I say it, the next afternoon or evening, to find out about the election then there would be more time for vote counters which would allow better methods of verifying the vote count.
I really don't know how to get the media to put on less pressure, however, and any legal remedies would border on unconstitutional restrictions of the press. Any ideas?
It's not illegal to be a monopoly. It's only illegal to act like one.
-T
It's voting, the less tech the better. I don't need to alt-tab into a solitaire game, just vote.
Get your Unix fortune now!
Agreed, the system has to be 100% simple, and 100% secure, because this crap is really getting old.
You verify citizenship/identity/eligibility: a few bad egg republicans fudge things, a few good republicans make mistakes: and all of the democrats are up in arms for discrimination and intimidation.
You don't verify citizenship/identity/eligibility: both parties pack the polls with illegals and identity thieves. The republicans complain about ACORN.
You make it possible to securely verify citizenship/identity/eligibility: freedom goes out the window and at that point: what's the point of elections?-> all power now rests with the people who issue the "drivers licenses."
We can of course improve this debate by offering a 1 billion dollar bounty to the company which can produce an elections scheme that is so good: we could pass an ammendment to the constitution mandating it's use to participate in the election.
Then again: if the 18th ammenment is any indication: that isn't necessarily a great litmus test of a good system.
Now we just need to trust you.
If I were inclined to steal an election, I'd skip the difficult, expensive business of owning the voting process, and simply bribe the guy who declares the result to say that I won.
Just saying.
If you were blocking sigs, you wouldn't have to read this.
And you're not helping by not giving him the benefit of the doubt.
Your cynicism regarding his likelihood of success/hypocrisy gains you nothing, but costs him everything.
In reality: if it wasn't you consoling your resignation -> it would be someone else, but when I'm done changing that: I'll need every optimist I can get. It would do me a great service if you would keep your chin up in the mean time and quit mocking the young and indignant.
Also: it really chafe's my ass(and this drives my buddy Rupert crazy as well) how I'm constantly out here in the trenches fighting for your cause, and none of you libertarians and 3rd party types can ever read between the lines and figure it out: We're on the same side you idiots! One of you actually threw an egg at Arnold!
We give the music industry the rope to hang themselves with: we're corrupt. We keep the communists at bay: we're regressive. Sure, you know: we've had to make some tough calls along the way, but I'd appreciate a little bit of savy on why the whole 9/11 thing/WMD thing was necessary to get the job done!
It's a thankless job helping you people, I tell you what! When Nicholas Cage spilled the beans on the book of secrets I thought the gig was up for sure!
We thought Vietnam was going to buy all of you a good nights sleep for another 50 years, but NOOOO!
Who'd have thought those fucking commy reds would have regrouped so fucking fast?! I hope all of you will someday appreciate the sacrifices made by great men like John Wilkes Booth, and Marilyn Monroe.(Marilyn was actually his middle name.)
In Comradery,
-Karl Rove
Commander-in-Chief
War Hero of the Second Revolutionary War
What and sacrifice your plausible deniability?
I don't think you have any clue how to play this game, Noob!
Kevin - Let's at least be fair here. Getting a hold of the ballot box (the card from a voting machine is the same thing) has been the way votes have been (link goes to famous picture of Lyndon Johnson with Precinct 13 ballot box) rigged for years.
I don't care how you vote, what matters is that the process delivers a paper, human readable ballot in addition to the electronic count. This allows for a recount, and provides some assurance that the voter's vote was correct (at least on paper).
-- $G
widespread, we (the people) don't trust it anymore.
No, widespread a handful of educated computer literate people who follow politics don't trust it anymore. The majority of the voting population doesn't know enough about voting technology to care.
paper (canada uses that!) is trustable.
Pretty sure I said our system retains the paper ballots. I hope we never have to use them but they are there if needed. Why do I hope we never have to use them? Because paper ballots wind up being entirely too subjective if they have to be counted by hand. One campaign will claim that a ballot with "Lizard people" and a vote for their candidate should be counted -- then will next claim that a similarly screwed up vote for the other guy should be discarded.
I'm glad the paper ballots are there so we can audit the optical scan machines but I really hope we never have to rely on them to decide a close election. There's a reason why the election official's creed is "Lord, let it be a landslide"
I want peace on earth and goodwill toward man.
We are the United States Government! We don't do that sort of thing.
What's your point? Only 1/3 of our Government and 1/2 of the part we get to vote for has corrupted the process? That's reassuring.....
I want peace on earth and goodwill toward man.
We are the United States Government! We don't do that sort of thing.
Sure, a constitutional amendment that requires a 2/3 vote by the SAME FUCKERS that are reaping the gains from the corrupt status quo?
The problem is not with open vs. closed source - it's the source in general. We need to write our voting software in hard logical languages that are provable (e.x. LISP/SCHEME) in order to ensure correct functionality. Even then, nothing prevents against hardware failure. Paper will always be the safer alternative, but if we must vote digitally, let's at least mathematically verify the software we are using actually does what we believe it should be doing.
Why are hanging chads even an issue?
THe fact that the chad is even so fara s hanging is proof that the voter intended to vote that way.
The Electoral College is a firewall between states. You can have MASSIVE FRAUD in Chicago where an additional 10 million votes are added to a candidates total, but those 10 million votes won't sway the whole election because Illinois only has N Electoral College votes.
The EC has a reason, and electronic voting minus the EC will allow an even easier route to steal not just the presidential election, but all of congress as well.
Getting rid of the EC isn't as important (in fact is probably a very bad idea) as being able to validate the vote after the fact.
Wait, you don't want to use bleeding edge technology to solve a problem that could be solved by 70 year old technology? And you call yourself a geek! I guess this means you wouldn't endorse my voting system: A fully 3D, virtual reality MMPORG voting system where everyone signs in at once, moves their character to the camp of their chosen candidate and then the two sides do battle until a winner is declared. Sure it's massive overkill and would require billions just to get off the ground, but think of how cool it would be! ;-)
My sci-fi novel, Ghost Thief, is now available from Amazon.com.
>>>I've been an Elections Inspector in New York State for the last five years...
The last time I saw an Elections Inspector was on television while he appeared before the Florida Supreme Court. He walked into the room, confident that he knew all the answers, and would be able to explain why the Miami-Dade punchcard election machines were "guaranteed to produce accurate results" (his words).
He left the room visibly shaking, because the judges slowly-but-methodically tore apart his assumptions, presumptions, and outright false beliefs ("So you BELIEVE the machines are accurate. But how do you know?" "Uhhhh...I just do." "This report from the manufacturer states there's a 0.1% error rate, with upto 1% error rate when the machines are filled with chads. Isn't it possible the machines were full which led to uncounted votes?" "Uhhh.... I. Don't know.").
Ultimately they revealed that he knew nothing about the voting machines, and could not prove they were accurate. They then dismissed his testimony as worthless. He walked into the room presuming he knew his job. He walked out with the realization he doesn't.
"I disapprove of what you say, but I will defend to the death your right to say it." - historian Evelyn Beatrice Hall
Actually the grandparent poster has a point. When I lived and voted in Maryland, the previously-scanned ballots were just sitting in a cardboard box. It would have been rather easy for an election worker to say, "Hmmm... this guy voted for Joe Smith. I'm going to run the card through the machine a few more times," after I had left the building.
The GP is also correct when he says the existence of the paper ballots allows for a recount if foulplay is suspected. The same is not true for touchscreens.
"I disapprove of what you say, but I will defend to the death your right to say it." - historian Evelyn Beatrice Hall
In my experience with paper ballot elections, everything is supposed to be under lock and key both before and after the election and the counting is done in a room with restricted access.
The difference is not the security. The difference is whether the raw data can be gone through again if one wins enough court fights. Of course, there are plenty of recorded stories of destroyed/missing ballot boxes and precincts that have returned more paper ballots than there are registered voters. It's almost as if there is no perfect system that allows for a secret ballot.
You have to come up with some sort of criteria as to what represents the intent of the voter. The local newspaper published samples of a few ballots in the recent Minnesota Senate race, to show how ambiguous these can be. (We voted by filling out ovals on paper ballots that were initially machine-counted - having the ballots retained meant we could do an effective recount as mandated by state law.)
The exact rules are, apparently, not normally set down beforehand. This means that they have to be made up when there's already partisan bickering. It's conceivable that one side's voters tend to be sloppier. The side that's behind by a hair might see an advantage in counting more ballots, in hopes of creeping over the line by chance. Both sides are likely to know the geographical concentrations of potentially ambiguous ballots.
With punch cards, it's obvious that a missing chad is a vote, and an untouched one isn't. How disturbed does a chad have to be to count as a vote? Moreover, if two chads have been disturbed in one election, how much disturbance does there have to be to invalidate a vote? We had similar questions with ovals.
"When you have eliminated the unacceptable, whatever is left, however improbable, must be the truthiness" - Holmes
It was an example, dipshit.
And if people DID revolt in large numbers, the government wouldn't be using tanks to stop them.
If they were dumb enough to try that, they'd splinter the military. You'd have supporters of the revolution in the military,
Our votes don't change anything except the faces. The puppetmasters of those faces are not elected and do not care.
You really want to change things? Stop being a consumer of anything of corporate origin. Get your food, clothes and entertainment from your neighbors. Go off grid.
Drop out, turn on and tune out!
No incumbents, not no where, not no how.
Vote them out every term.
I'm under the impression that requirements exist, aren't stringent enough, are being ignored left and right, and the public isn't even allowed to know that they don't pass (read: haven't been tested). Our own government is either sufficiently incompetent to give away our elections, or sufficiently corrupt to sell them.
It's a farce, and I'm not laughing.
I won't join Slashcott. OTOH, If Beta goes live, I just won't be back until it's fixed. Sorry Dice.
More than that. State assemblies, etc, are often gerrymandered as well. (Yes, the Democrat and Republican parties care - just not as much.)
I won't join Slashcott. OTOH, If Beta goes live, I just won't be back until it's fixed. Sorry Dice.
Fret that the optical scan system is pwned? It's already happened: http://hotair.com/archives/2008/11/07/minnesota-recount-getting-around-the-safeguards/, though I suppose it depends on your definition of 'pwned'.
The good thing about the optical scan system, is that it does make election fraud visible, even if the folks in MN were too polite to put folks in jail for it.
Good guess. You have been at this for a while. ;)
If seals can be made, duplicate seals can be made (and sometimes are, allegedly). Seals only increase the difficulty of messing with the hardware. If tampering occurs in spite of seals, it is most likely an inside job (but not necessarily). Given enough time and access, many seals can be forged that pass casual examination. Most seals will only be given casual examination anyway.
(Granted, I live on the West Coast, nowhere near New York. I have no clue what kind of seals you use, how easy they are to create or forge, etc. Potential insider duplication of seals remains a fundamental problem that must be addressed, though.)
I won't join Slashcott. OTOH, If Beta goes live, I just won't be back until it's fixed. Sorry Dice.
The GP is also correct when he says the existence of the paper ballots allows for a recount if foulplay is suspected. The same is not true for touchscreens.
In a word:VVPAT. (now mandatory in many states)
I won't join Slashcott. OTOH, If Beta goes live, I just won't be back until it's fixed. Sorry Dice.
*sigh*: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/VVPAT
I won't join Slashcott. OTOH, If Beta goes live, I just won't be back until it's fixed. Sorry Dice.
The majority of the voting population doesn't know enough about voting technology to care.
Close. The majority of the voting population doesn't know enough about voting to care. Subtle difference, but important. Voters should be wary of new voting technology and techniques by default. They shouldn't need to know enough about the technology to be wary. History of vote manipulating techniques should really be taught in our schools. It's more interesting and useful that most of the junk rammed down our throats.
Pretty sure I said our system retains the paper ballots. I hope we never have to use them but they are there if needed.
What?!? Never use them?
I'm glad the paper ballots are there so we can audit the optical scan machines
"Can audit"? "Can"? I hope this is a grammatical faux pas. You should audit every election. Full audits are rarely necessary, but several randomly chosen precincts should be audited each and every election. It needs to be made clear that there is risk of getting caught perpetrating fraud. (I'll leave alone the important definition of "random" for the moment.)
I won't join Slashcott. OTOH, If Beta goes live, I just won't be back until it's fixed. Sorry Dice.
It's Harri Hursti, not Hari Hursti.
Hello?
The Robinson Voting Method gives INSTANT results, no need to count anything, everybody present when the final vote is cast can immediately see which candidate won.
This is hardly rocket science. How have we reached the stage where people can't even think of the most SIMPLE solution to the problem of voting fraud?
Ballots should NEVER be taken away from the polling station to be 'counted' (to be tampered with en route, more like). WHO set up this ridiculous system? The scum who gave you the scam of 'democracy' where you vote once every four or five years, for a PARTY, not a POLICY.
Why can't we, the people, vote every WEEK for POLICIES? (For those for who this is 'too much trouble', spare me your moans, that's your problem, just don't stop those of us who DO want to vote every week, from doing so.)
Hello? Anybody there?
Robinson Voting Method?
http://paul-robinson.us/index.php?blog=5&title=the_robinson_method_a_really_simple_way_&more=1&c=1&tb=1&pb=1
Why are we even discussing using little bits of PAPER which are then taken away by god knows who, stored god knows where, tampered with, new ballots added (after all, a ballot is just a cross in a box), when we could be using tokens in clear plastic boxes, which are revealed at the end of the ballot, in front of hundreds of people, the entire voting day can be recorded by anybody who wants to set up a camcorder, and the result is known INSTANTLY as soon as the final vote is cast? No tampering is possible, nobody can cheat the system, we can all see the results with no ludicrous delays for counting, etc. no need for recounts, etc.
I've been an Elections Inspector in New York State for the last five years. Every time one of these stories crop up I wrote a detailed summary of the procedures and technology we use. In spite of these procedures including the retention of paper ballots I still can't convince the tinfoil hat crowd that our elections aren't being decided by a shadowy cabal working out of the Diebold offices. I've about given up on trying to convince them otherwise.
It's a matter of where shadowy cabals may exists. Personally, I see Diebold as dangerously incompetent. The fact that it's possible for Diebold to have rigged elections is disturbing. (incompetence is sometimes just a ruse.)
There are legitimate concerns surrounding so-called DRE (direct electronic record) systems but why those concerns have morphed into people being suspicious of other technology is beyond me.
I need to be able to understand and see how fraud is being prevented at every step. If I can imagine fraud, the step where it may take place must be done in public view. Why all the rabid debate concerning electronic systems? It's because the first generation was so badly bungled. Most voting systems should be given this level of concern, but rarely are. (Note: it's usually far easier to address such issues with lower tech solutions.)
Some days it seems that nothing will satisfy this crowd short of a system where everybody raises their hand.
I'm with you here. Unfortunate, but true.
I'm glad Florida switched away from a DRE system. Don't be surprised when people crop up and start fretting that the optical scan system is pwned though.
Sometimes, it is.
The problem isn't the technology, so much as how clueless the voters, personnel, and officials are (or tend to be). If there was a sufficient level of "cluefulness" (if you will), I don't think electronic elections would have happened without VVPAT.
(Belligerent clueless officials (not you), look a lot like corrupt officials. We see these a lot. Which are they? Clueless or corrupt?)
I won't join Slashcott. OTOH, If Beta goes live, I just won't be back until it's fixed. Sorry Dice.
You are right. It just does not matter if a Democrat or Republican wins. Both parties are controlled by Globalist. Obama is not the one writing the legislation. He does not know what is in the bills any more than Bush did or Congress does. The Globalist use the two party system to divide and conquer us, while both parties slowly take away our rights, and property. Republican Party: Red Oppressive Government controlled by International Bankers. (TARP) Democratic Party: Blue Oppressive Government controlled by International Bankers. (BAILOUT) Libertarian Party: Constitutional based Government for the People. (END THE FEDERAL RESERVE) There is no technical difference between TARP and the Bailout. The only difference is the political party and president behind it. The General responsible for implementing torture under Bush was promoted over Afghanistan by Obama. The elections have been rigged at least since 2004 and most likely before that. Do you really believe that Bush was elected for a second term? There was too much controversy surrounding that election.
Just because a printed receipt says, "You voted for George Washington" doesn't mean the vote was recorded internally. In fact the vote could just as easily be recorded for John Adams instead. And yes you do have the receipts to count, but that only happens if there's a suspicion. If there's only a few misrecorded votes per machine, that may not be enough to notice but it is enough to change a national election.
"I disapprove of what you say, but I will defend to the death your right to say it." - historian Evelyn Beatrice Hall
That depends entirely on local law. Some jurisdictions have mandatory random audits. Others require a recount for any close elections. Granted, most places don't have sufficient controls in place. Note that your argument also applies historically to paper based elections. (It's just easier to mess-up/forge an electronic election.)
I won't join Slashcott. OTOH, If Beta goes live, I just won't be back until it's fixed. Sorry Dice.