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US Elections Dominated By Closed Source. Again.
An anonymous reader writes "Another American election is almost here, and while electronic voting is commonplace, it is still overwhelmingly run by closed source, proprietary systems. It has been shown that many of these systems can be compromised (and because they are closed, there may be holes we simply cannot know about). Plus they are vulnerable to software bugs and are often based on unstable, closed-source operating systems. By the inherent nature of closed software, when systems are (optionally!) certified by registrars, there is no proof that they will behave the same on election day as in tests. The opportunities for fraud, tampering and malfunction are rampant. But nonetheless, there is very little political will for open source voting, let alone simple measures like end-to-end auditable voting systems or more radical approaches like open source governance. Why do we remain in the virtual dark ages, when clearly we have better alternatives readily available?"
Vote Early. Vote Often
http://www.cs.hmc.edu/~geoff/classes/hmc.cs070.200401/votequote.html
Why do we remain in the virtual dark ages, when clearly we have better alternatives readily available? ...there's lots of money and power behind closed source, which leads to corruption and back-room deals. QED.
"Christ what a design! I could eat a handful of iron filings and PUKE a better emergency pump than that!"
I think a big part of it (from the public's perspective, anyway) is a misconception about open source. Many non-technology-oriented people I know think open source automatically makes it less secure, since "anyone can see what makes it tick."
Personally, I think it has to do with money more than anything else (duh.)
Living With a Nerd
Nobody cares whether voting machines are open or closed source. In theory yeah, there may be potential exploits, but there are much easier and more obvious ways to detect fraud and tampering than looking through the source code.
Get over it people. Open source isn't a magical cure-all for anything. Hasn't the failure of widespread Linux adoption vs. Windows proven that?
Who's "we"? The American people aren't choosing to have the current, unverifiable voting systems in place. They simply have no idea of the alternative, and no power to bring it about even if they did. Frankly, I don't think it matters. The American political system is broken. What does it matter how they count the votes, when those votes mean so little?
It can be go tiem now plees?
So here's a question:
Does there currently exist a complete open source voting solution? Something that you could drop in in place of a Diebold or what have you.
It seems like we'd make more headway with local governments if we could say, "Here it is, it's free, it's ready to go, all you have to do is okay it." and I'm not sure if that solution yet exists?
Because those in power don't want transparency to be a two-way street. They want to be able to peek into every aspect of our private lives, ostensibly to seek out some tiniest sliver of evidence that we maybe once upon a time didn't think it was necessarily all that great an idea to disembowel Osama bin Laden and stuff him with pork sausage on live TV. But they don't want us to be able to peek into their private lives, or even the seedier aspects of their public ones, so they take any opportunity to shut us out. The closed-source voting machines are just one facet of a much larger situation.
A great example of the way public officials form a "blue [pinstriped] wall" has just come up in the news again, Anita Hill's accusations of sexual harassment against Clarence Thomas. A right-wing bloc in the all-male Senate of the day tore into every minor aspect of Hill's own sex life to try to discredit her in the eyes of the American public. They protected Thomas partly because he was a Republican but mostly because they knew how they would feel if their own mistresses (or male lovers, for that matter) came to Capitol Hill and aired out their dirty laundry, and how they would want the Congress to deal with those situations.
> Why do we remain in the virtual dark ages, when clearly we have better alternatives readily available?
Because. We are still in the dark ages. We are still ruled by the same tyrants as back then.
Democracy is just an evolved form of Feudalism.
It is a way of enslaving people, yet convoluting and making non-obvious that fact, thus leading the people to believe they are free. It also protects the tyrants from beheading by the people, as the people can not easily figure out who the true rulers are.
Any transparency would be the opposite of them having absolute power and possibly expose the fraud of democracy.
I've still yet to see any open source alternative though. I mean, there are projects, but it seems they haven't actually developed anything to show and say "this could be an alternative, and it's secure!". It's a chicken and the egg, but counties aren't going to throw away their contracted, and expensive voting machines until there's a real alternative that they can actually know will be available next voting cycle. It's a crappy situation, but complaining it hasn't happened yet is not productive. Talk to your Senator, Congressman, etc. Except, of course, if they LIKE unverifiable voting. Then, umm, call your AG or THE National AG.
Closed source outsource YOU !
Yours In Vladivostok,
K. Trout
Let's see: those closed source voting machines will either be biased towards Big Oil (Republicans) or towards Big Entertainment (Democrats). Open source voting machines won't be biased: they'll pick up the winner using the random(3) function (hopefully properly seeded). OR... let's follow the example set forth in Asimov's story Franchise and let Multivac decide and save the costs of elections.
cpghost at Cordula's Web.
Looks like its time to trot out the "voting systems are prone to hacking" stories again... Slashdot stories that were popular in the 2002, 2004, 2006 and now the 2010 US elections...
"Why do we remain in the virtual dark ages, when clearly we have better alternatives readily available?"
Because it helps the incumbents.
You guys that want to learn a bit more, check out the documentary titled: Hacking Democracy.
http://video.google.com/videoplay?docid=7926958774822130737#
Just goes to show that this article couldn't be more spot on!
The I.T. friends of the government don't use open source products or implement open source solutions therefore neither does the government.
YES the White House used Drupal (or whatever they used) for there website but that isn't nearly "as critical" or "as important" as "the integrity of a voting system".
Bureaucracy my friends, bureaucracy.
"Why do we remain in the virtual dark ages, when clearly we have better alternatives readily available?"
Because it would take a politician to change the law. But both parties like the broken system we have now because they each want to game the system for their own advantage. Fair and accurate voting doesn't help the political parties or the candidates, it only help the voters!
-- ssoorrrryy,, dduupplleexx sswwiittcchh oonn.. -Quote found on actual fortune cookie.
I'm curious what crime a person would be charged with if, upon Nov. 2, wide scale uncoordinated sabotage of e-voting machines occurred. Of course those locations would have paper ballots as backups, right?
/this message now monitored for future investigatory reference
what's the big deal. Most of you don't vote anyway.. what does opening the source do? it won't prevent bugs or hacking or cheating (which has nothing to do with the source). There are many things that affect our lives that aren't open. Why voting?
did you forget to take your meds?
If Closed Source:
Con - Companies can secretly build in flaws to exploit trust.
Pro - A chance at security through obscurity (not too much, of course, because exploiters KNOW the code exists, just not what the code says exactly)
Con - Companies can unknowingly build in flaws that can be exploited by those in the know.
If Open Source:
Pro - Everything is known about the code so any potential flaws are widely known and can be fixed.
Con - Fixes can be flawed, too.
Con - No standard will likely be settled upon-- partially because of the nature of the Open Source community and partially because for-profit companies will interfere as much as possible.
If hard-copy votes only:
Con - More human effort required.
Con - Human error expected.
Pro - There's also a LOT more oversight.
~~~
Still, I only vote on paper.
There are generally 2 main points that electronic voting needs - coding available for public scrutiny is one, but in my mind a more important one is a paper audit trail - the vote is recorded electronically, but the voter gets to see a paper record of their vote (they either see but can't touch or carry it to a ballot box) which can be used later for recounts and verification.
I'd rather have a proprietary system with a paper trail than an open system with no paper trail. But really we need to insist, at a minimum, on both.
The reason is simple. Our government would not be able to fix elections if it were more transparent or had adequate auditing.
I am Bennett Haselton! I am Bennett Haselton!
Not enough people stand up and demand it, but even still when that happens they will just run some sort of back room deal and pass it through congress on Christmas eve when there is only like 3 people left in the building.
Oh also legally "protest" means that you don't like it but you'll do it anyways. so if you claim to be protesting, you are basically giving them an A-OK!.
Who rigs elections? incumbents. Who selects how people vote? incumbents. What is the easiest way to rig the election?
"Why do we remain in the virtual dark ages, when clearly we have better alternatives readily available?""
Better for who? The answer ti this will give a hint of why...
I'm still waiting for Obama to post his genome.
McCain posted his, and all the little clones proved that he has 100% pure American genes.
... but coverage of this topic in Slashdot has been consistent across election cycles. Check out these examples from the 2008 campaign:
Fact checking isn't difficult. Here's a list of Slashdot articles about Diebold, if you don't believe me.
Read the EFF's Fair Use FAQ
hack the systems on election day.
Get scoobey doo elected.
go to jail.
Improve the state of affairs?
Plus they are vulnerable to software bugs and are often based on unstable, closed-source operating systems.
Yes the problem with voting machines is the unstable closed-source operating systems, as opposed to the ultra-secure ultra-stable open-source operating systems that fix all of your crappy application programming issues.
New signature idea - TRY LINUX, IT'S MAGIC!!! PROPAGANDA INCLUDED AT NO EXTRA CHARGE!!!
For competing with Protools, wouldn't Ardour be a better choice?
All somebody needs to do is write an iPad app, and polling locations could be fitted with iPads behind the curtain booths. What could possibly go wrong?
Electronic voting machines serve no other purpose than making money for their suppliers. Paper ballots systems have the following advantages:
1) The supervisor needs no technical training - in fact, you could choose anyone among the voters, like juries are chosen.
2) virus free
3) The only way to destroy the information is by burning it.
4) The election can't be rigged electronically
5) Absolute Confidentiality (asumming, of course, that no fingerprints are scanned on the papers)
6) Can be implemented in poor zones with no electricity. Also, blackout-proof.
A comparison between Vegas slot machines and Electronic voting:
http://media3.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/content/graphic/2006/03/16/GR2006031600213.gif
Don't fight for your country, if your country does not fight for you.
No one in government sees it as a problem because there has been no issue involving the units.
If, for instance, There was a call for all Hackers and Tech people to rig the election.
Lets say they were asked to Exploit the system and force a third party like the libertarian party (www.lp.org) to win (They are on most if not all the ballots)
And say it just so happened that the Libertarian party won by a land slide. There would be a call to recount, with out the ability to recount all hell would break loose. Those in charge would be forced to review the whole mess and then we may see some standards arise.
But no one would ever openly call for the rigging of a US election ;)
If the insiders really wanted to systematically exploit the voting system, I don't think they would be dumb enough to rely on MS Access like Diebold did. The project would be a big budget extravaganza, managed by $POPULAR_MGMT_CONSULTING_FIRM. The complexity would be enormous, and there would be some sort of bizarre "national security" black box requirements that would be where all the dirty stuff lived.
Never attribute to malice that which can be just as easily explained by stupidity. Idiots outnumber evildoers by a wide margin.
The voting machine software I have seen looks like somebody drafted a half-baked specification, sent it to the offshore bargain bin and waited to see what they produced. Idiots.
By the inherent nature of closed software, when systems are (optionally!) certified by registrars, there is no proof that they will behave the same on election day as in tests.
Actually there is, for that (optionally, yes) certified software. The distributed software is built from source by the independent testing labs (in what's called a trusted build) and hashes are taken of all the components. The testing lab keeps escrowed copies and the hashes are also available from eac.gov.
Of course, this does assume that the systems have been so certified (optional at the Federal level, but mandated by law in some states/counties) and that the supervisor at the district (county, whatever) level bothers to check.
Open source software is no cure-all either. While the voting systems may include commodity computers, a lot of components (ballot scanners and tabulators, interfaces for disabled voters, etc) will have custom hardware and firmware in them. (And yes, the independent labs review and test this stuff too.)
However, as someone who worked for a testing lab, I can say that the most likely reason that vendors don't want their source made visible to the public at large has nothing to do with competition or potential vote fraud, but with embarrassment at how god-awful some of their code is. But that's true of a lot of proprietary code.
-- Alastair
Why shouldn't the voting system be any less corrupt than the candidates?
My point is it's going to take a lot more than an election to clean house on the hill, and even then it's an uphill battle to keep the country from sliding into a full-fledged military dictatorship, instead of the secret one it already is. For example when a military can get away with firing radioactive weaponry into civilian populations on at least two occasions without so much as a slap on the wrist, they are above the UN, much less their own government, and democracy has long since left the building.
War as we knew it was obsolete
Nothing could beat complete denial
- Emily Haines
i can deal with OCR machines, but you need to vote on paper. this provides a picture of actual voter intent that is harder to lose/ fake/ destroy/ etc. of course you can have fraud in any election, but the difference between electronic and paper is that you need an army of saboteurs and an ongoing conspiracy with paper, and with electronic you just need one guy with the right code for a few milliseconds
additionally: attack vectors. there are dozens of way to cheat on paper voting. there are order of magnitude more ways to cheat on electronic voting
and its about perception, not actual voting irregularities and fraud attempts. i can touch paper, i can see it, feel it, trust it. electronics represents a black box where your vote goes in, elected official sausage comes out the other end, and who knows what happens in between
technophilicity is the problem of believing throwing more technology makes something better no matter what. no: for the sake of transparency, trust and legitimacy, the richest democracy and the poorest democracy should vote the same: on paper
intellectual property law is philosophically incoherent. it is your moral duty to ignore it or sabotage it
With optical scan there is a paper trail so theres less temptation to screw things up.
CowboyNeal 2010, anyone?
They just want something that works. They aren't nerds like you who will read the code for hours to find out a meaningless race condition.
Great opportunity to let your congressmen and women and the President know your feelings on the subject. Lets /. them on this.
If you feel that way, could you explain to me what benefit open source electronic voting actually has?
You can confirm your vote was recorded correctly when you drop it into a box, but how do you know that box doesn't get swapped out? Or that another stuffed box doesn't get set right next to it?
You can confirm that there exists some software in source form that is free of obvious defects and lacks backdoor exploits, but can you confirm that THAT version of software was installed on each and every voting machine, and that the numbers reported by each and every machine were not tampered with after the polls closed? Can you confirm that the compiler itself was not tampered with, or that the dynamic libraries weren't modified, or the OS itself? Can you confirm that a user-mode file system was not installed that intercepts data and modifies it?
I don't see the benefit in knowing it's accurate when you voted if you don't know whether or not it's accurate when it's counted.
I don't see the benefit in knowing it's accurate when you voted if you don't know whether or not it's accurate when it's counted.
It is great to point out problems, but what do you propose we, the people, do?
May I draw your attention to one of the links posted in the original article? The Metagovernment does not require the involvement of politicians. It is a completely separate alternative to current modes of governance: http://metagovernment.org/
what's wrong with paper ballots - ignoring the pathetic wingnut canards about vast flocks of illegal aliens voting, of course. Helluva lot easier to change a number in an unprovable database than stuffing boxes with the requisite tens of thousands of fraudulent ballots.
In short; after a brief (though hardly satisfying) two-year interlude, Idiocracy is returning next month; this time for good.
Apparently the Internet needs a "Let Me Scroll To The Bottom Of The Page For You" service as well. See the talk page for additional primary sources.
The ONLY people who care about "open source" voting systems are liberals who think that everything should be free for everyone because hey the goverment can just pay for it, right? This is no way to run a country, kids.
!VOTE TEA PARTY!
When the Libertarians win a major election, martial law will be instituted and all voting machines and personnel will be quarantined until the source the corruption is found.
If it was open source software running on a micro architecture, it still wouldn't matter. The fact that they are machines is what the problem is. In NY we use a lever system - they are also problematic for the same reason, though at least you can look inside the thing and see what it's doing - and tell when tampering has occurred. With a computer you can NEVER EVER look inside and see what it's running, no matter how clean you think the millions of lines of open source code you looked at last week are.
Please gain some sanity - you can never EVER trust these machines. It's a PHYSICAL impossibility. Wise up.
Pen and paper is the least problematic, most accurate way to do polling. It's even the cheapest - but it's the hardest to tamper with - which is why politicians don't like it. This isn't hard to understand, so let's get with understanding it.
http://www.unfocus.com/
Want sources for irregularities in the 2004 United States election? Have seventy-two of them.
Why do we remain in the virtual dark ages, when clearly we have better alternatives readily available?
Because the government is a bureaucracy with inertia. It takes time and effort to change it's course, and unless there is a perceived critical issue, there is very little drive to change things.
It seems sad to have to say this, but it is going to take some serious criminal hacking and blatant manipulation of an election to get a proper open source election system in place in within the next decade. A scandal will need to occur that gets on the radar of the major news orgs, and then people will get pissed off enough to deluge elected officials' offices with calls and letters. Then, and only then, will you see any real movement to change. Extra haste will be applied if the hacker(s) in question have hazy connections to China.
HA! I just wasted some of your bandwidth with a frivolous sig!
Obviously there's no method for voting on the scales we see where you can guarantee the results are accurate. The benefits of electronic voting are that it can be cheaper and faster with near instant results and no recounts. I also believe that with enough work an electronic system can end up being harder to tamper with than a paper one. I mentioned that in a little more detail elsewhere in this thread.
Legislation could make it a felony to access the information in an unauthorized way
It already does. Go look up the laws that cover hacking. I believe it is worded as 'altering or accessing data without permission'.
HA! I just wasted some of your bandwidth with a frivolous sig!
thank you for bringing up the problem of the blind and the only urdu speaking (rolls eyes). of course if there are problems with using paper ballot they can do something else accommodating. none of which has any value when evaluating the voting system for 98% of people
and yes, we have to know results at 9 pm on election day. anything is a travesty. pffft. i already said ocr was acceptable
you apparently think election night graphics on the news channel is more important than integrity of the process. fuck you, you're dead wrong
intellectual property law is philosophically incoherent. it is your moral duty to ignore it or sabotage it
We may have elected a clown (seriously, a freaking clown), but at least we developed a nice piece of voting system. And yes, using open source software, with certification. Brazil rules :) We could sell if for you guys ;-) (yes, we can sell open source software, even GPL). :-)
Closed Source and Open Source are a bad idea as far as voting is concerned. It takes a process that should be open, transparent and easy to understand and makes it complicated and something that only a programmer can understand.
Electronic voting will probably be on of the biggest internal threats to American Democracy that our generation will need to address.
I am curious. From reading your posts, you seem to be saying that things are wrong and there is nothing we can do about it. So, why are you still here? Why are you even bothering to comment?
It is a little amazing to see the number of replies to this article already, and how many of them ignore the links in the original article.
1. It links to open source voting systems.
2. It links to a better way to audit voting systems
3. It links to open source governance, a way to overcome all the corruption and suppression by politicians (this kicks ass, btw)
Click these links. Read. learn. Then post.
(But of course, you will be the 379th post, so everybody will ignore it.)
Otherwise known as the Golden Rule:
Them what has the gold, makes the rules.
General Relativity: Space-time tells matter where to go; Matter tells space-time what shape to be.
If you don't know this fellow and you're into election politics, you should-- he's the Republican consultant who is adamantly against electronic ballot counters that are connected to telephone/Internet infrastructure, because tests have repeatedly shown that anyone can hack in through the network interface and change the internal ballot counts.
I still remember his solution for vulnerable electronic voting systems: "Hand-counted paper ballots. Paper ballots. Paper. Ballots." They can do it in Britain and many other industrialized nations efficiently and expediently, yet we have this impression that hand-counting ballots will take forever.
"We are Microsoft. You shall be assimilated. Competition is futile."
Cheaper, maybe. The machines and people to inspect them and maintain them are not free. A complicated machine with "software" requires a trained inspector. Paper is pretty simple. Paper ballots do, indeed, grow on trees. "Is the box empty when you started" and "is the counter on the scantron 0" are pretty simple concepts that the normal poll worker can comprehend.
"Faster" isn't necessarily a benefit. Why do we need to know withing five minutes of the polls closing who won? I don't know of any election where the winner takes office as soon as the polls close, or even within a month. Maybe special elections to fill a vacancy, but then, it took time to hold the election and if the office can be vacant for two or three months before the election, it won't matter if it takes a week or two to reach a final count.
By "no recounts" you mean 'no possibility of recounts', which I also do not view as a benefit. "We just found seven voting machines we didn't include in the total." Too bad, the result was certified five minutes after the polls closed and there are no recounts.
I also believe that with enough work an electronic system can end up being harder to tamper with than a paper one.
Perhaps. But OTH the training it requires to detect tampering with a paper system is pretty simple and can be accomplished by most poll workers. Tampering with an electronic system, not so easy. The very fact that it may be harder to do means some people will work harder to do it and figuring out that it happened will be harder, too.
Given that you must continue to maintain a paper-based system anyway (absentee, military), there are few benefits to creating an additional system. Here in Oregon we'd find it very hard to mail an electronic voting machine to every voter, and now that nobody has to go to the polling place to vote you aren't going to easily change us back.
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=mq9WVuKGwOM&feature=related
What is the point of caring? How can an individual affect change? Vote for the other guy? What else is there?
In the original post, there was a decidedly good solution, open source governance (also known as collaborative governance, open democracy, electronic direct democracy, etc.).
Instead of just complaining that democracy is dead, we now have a viable chance to build a new one by side-stepping the whole political process.
It will not be easy, nor will it be instantaneous. It will not be ready for something as huge as the US government for years. But you can help build it right now. Please check out the Metagovernment project and see if you can contribute. Everyone in the world is invited.
Gee, this summary isn't biased or anything. Nope, no sir.
why are we casting ourselves back into the dark ages when the possibilities to avoid same exist everywhere? excellent question. first 'stuff that really matters' we've seen here in a long while.
the corepirate nazi freemason holycost (life, liberty etc...) is increasing by the minute. you call this 'weather'?
continue to add immeasurable amounts of MISinformation, rhetoric & fluff, & there you have IT? that's US? thou shalt not... oh forget it. fake weather (censored?), fake money, fake god(s), what's next? fake ?aliens? ahhaha. seeing as we (have been told that) came from monkeys, the only possible clue we would have to anything being out of order, we would get from the weather. that, & all the other monkeys tipping over/exploding around US.
the search continues; on any search engine
weather+manipulation
bush+cheney+wolfowitz+rumsfeld+wmd+oil+freemason+blair+obama+weather+authors
meanwhile (as it may take a while longer to finish wrecking this place); the corepirate nazi illuminati (remember, (we have been told) we came from monkeys, & 'they' believe they DIDN'T), continues to demand that we learn to live on less/nothing while they continue to consume/waste/destroy immeasurable amounts of stuff/life, & feast on nubile virgins while worshipping themselves (& evile in general (baal to be exact)). they're always hunting that patch of red on almost everyones' neck. if they cannot find yours (greed, fear ego etc...) then you can go starve. that's their (slippery/slimy) 'platform' now. see also: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Antisocial_personality_disorder
never a better time to consult with/trust in our creators. the lights are coming up rapidly all over now. see you there?
greed, fear & ego (in any order) are unprecedented evile's primary weapons. those, along with deception & coercion, helps most of us remain (unwittingly?) dependent on its' life0cidal hired goons' agenda. most of our dwindling resources are being squandered on the 'wars', & continuation of the billionerrors stock markup FraUD/pyramid schemes. nobody ever mentions the real long term costs of those debacles in both life & any notion of prosperity for us, or our children. not to mention the abuse of the consciences of those of us who still have one, & the terminal damage to our atmosphere/planet (see also: manufactured 'weather', hot etc...). see you on the other side of it? the lights are coming up all over now. the fairytail is winding down now. let your conscience be your guide. you can be more helpful than you might have imagined. we now have some choices. meanwhile; don't forget to get a little more oxygen on your brain, & look up in the sky from time to time, starting early in the day. there's lots going on up there.
"The current rate of extinction is around 10 to 100 times the usual background level, and has been elevated above the background level since the Pleistocene. The current extinction rate is more rapid than in any other extinction event in earth history, and 50% of species could be extinct by the end of this century. While the role of humans is unclear in the longer-term extinction pattern, it is clear that factors such as deforestation, habitat destruction, hunting, the introduction of non-native species, pollution and climate change have reduced biodiversity profoundly.' (wiki)
"I think the bottom line is, what kind of a world do you want to leave for your children," Andrew Smith, a professor in the Arizona State University School of Life Sciences, said in a telephone interview. "How impoverished we would be if we lost 25 percent of the world's mammals," said Smith, one of more than 100 co-authors of the report. "Within our lifetime hundreds of species could be lost as a result of our own actions, a frightening sign of what is happening to the ecosystems where they live," added Julia Marton-Lefevre, IUCN director general. "We must now set clear targets for the future to reverse this trend to ensure that our enduring legacy is not
Only one thing to do. Crack into the systems and expose the truth.
http://www.pbs.org/wgbh/pages/frontline/warning/
http://www.sonyclassics.com/insidejob/
Brooksley Born was right.
Fix Congress First.
"Too many chef's in the kitchen spoil the soup. "
This is true in most open source projects. There's the coding-utopia-blinders that Open Source lovers pull over their eyes when they look into "their" code. With huge disdain they look upon anything that doesn't fit into their rosey ideology (much like other religious types). It's standard human behavior though, everyone thinks their own feces doesn't stink. "I can't put my stamp of approval on it, therefore I know it's terrible."
Disclaimer:
Open source has a place. Open Source done right is a very good thing. However, Open Source is !!!!!>>>>>>****seldomly****!!!!! done right.
It has been shown that many of these systems can be compromised (and because they are closed, there may be holes we simply cannot know about). -So open source means no bugs, no security holes, no errors. Plus they are vulnerable to software bugs and are often based on unstable, closed-source operating systems. -So open source OSes are the only ones that are stables. Come on man, the article could be so interesting, but you ruined it with that stupid open source fan shit
I did ask Barney Frank once why we had such a collection of numnuts in some electoral offices. To paraphrase he basically said we have to change the political culture that views these jobs as patronage gigs.
The result is we get some high level officials who are payed decently who owe their jobs to shoulder rubbing, usually with politicians in one of the major parties. Once a chummer, always a chummer, and these voting machine company sales reps can get pretty chummy. So, as one might expect, we have closed-source, broken, unmanageable and insecure voting software for the exact same reasons we have closed-source, broken, unmanageable and insecure software in any business/government environment -- the people who make the decisions when this happens don't want to do their homework, they want to go to Applebies with the guy who's selling the wares, and talk about how they knew each other's wives in high school.
Meanwhile the brain-numbing grunt-work gets done by poorly payed part-timers and volunteers. Typical.
Someone had to do it.
So, closed source is a problem. But there are other problems inherent to electronic voting that I don't think changing the license or opening the source will improve on.
As the summary says, there is no proof that a system behaves the same on voting day as it does on test day. How does open-source fix that? I don't think it does. Do you or me or any general public person get to audit the code on both days, and compare checksums or hashes on the binaries? How do we know that the test day binary wasn't swapped back in before the "after audit" to hide the fact that a malicious binary was running during voting?
If certifying equipment by registrars is optional, how does open-source fix that? I don't think it does. If something is optional, it doesn't matter what the code license is, only that the relevant people choose to exercise that option.
In general, how open-source do you want? Even GPL doesn't require that every citizen gets to see the sources. Only that those receiving the binary do. Who is it that receives the binary distribution such that they are also owed the sources? The registrars? The election officials at every polling place? None of them, because the machines are owned by the state, and only some state official gets to see it?
Even if a government election license states that anyone and everyone gets to see the sources, how can I know that what looks to me like acceptable source code is what is actually running when I cast my ballot?
In terms of tampering, how does open-source prevent that? I don't think it does. It really all comes down to how do we know what is running on that machine during times when we care. If someone can still use a standard file cabinet or hotel refrigerator key to swap compact flash cards back and forth, then it doesn't matter if your or I can parse the alleged source code or not.
I think there's a number of places where things can go wrong, and open source doesn't do much at all to affect most of those potential problems.
i.e. lust for money and sex which is the root of evil. Don't objectify what is within us as deep character flaws and propensities. Jealousy, greed, lust, (and the other 4 vices) can have violent expression, especially when the perpetrator perceives a difference in power and has a reason to believe any act committed would not be easily found out.
All I want is a trustworthy election system that has auditable controls, manual and automated methods of recount, verifiable by the public, and with strict rules for what to do when results are alledged to be suspect. Accountability, transparency of process, and enforcement of applicable laws where criminal action is found is key, regardless of system adopted.
Okay, and one more thing (starting my more opinionated seque).
I want the option to always be able to vote:
E) NONE OF THE ABOVE
If a majority were able to vote NONE OF THE ABOVE, then we the people could have the power to veto the current slate of candidates and force a new election with new candidates. If we don't want to live in a nation governed by the latte white whine party (best populism corporations can buy) or tea party revolutionary pity potty funded by billionaires (Koch bros.) and CEOs, we need to the power to say NO more effectively than any Republican representative in Congress.
Why couldn't we reject all the evil or suspect candidates instead of just the voting for whomever or whatever we hope is the least evil option? The election rules we have now (that 2.1 party system along with with the referendums ginned up by astroturfing corporations) which seems to ensure evil continues in some form or another. What sort of nation will we end up with when elections come down to which candidate sucks less than the other? Any 'third party' candidate is now typically funded deviously by one of the other parties, with the cynical intent to sap votes from one of a passionate subset of the chief opponent's party when it is believed that the margin for election will be close. (This has happened in Ohio and Florida in the last couple of elections.)
Bonus rhetorical arguments (understand there may be a high snark content):
A related problem is how political campaigns are running now versus prior to 1960's. We used to read speeches and transcripts of debates, position & policy papers, etc. and we'd go to "whistle stops" to see and hear a candidate speak in person, and the campaign season was a few months, not 18 months to 4 years. Now we watch TV, listen to radio, read blogs, maybe read a Sunday paper, perhaps some of us try to emulate and argue like some talk show host, while billions are spent on attack ads (TV, radio, web, and newspapers) and specifically designed to elicit fear and loathing in a demoralizing manner, instead of utilizing more honest debate, compare and contrast, logical reasoning regarding benefits and costs and social morals, etc. Each October, we now must endure the unreal Candidate Horror Show each October, with a guaranteed slimey, fear and hate-inducing October Surprise!
Even our flag-waving patriotic US Chamber of Commerce (where Greed is sacred, ordained by God, and globally necessity ) feels there's nothing to question as it funds many of these foul ads using money, not just from big businesses wanting the status quo, but those wishing to encourage outsourcing, outsourcing companies in India, ever eager to take more of our jobs. Our US CoC has ongoing seminars to encourage corporations to do just that while waving the flag, at least for shareholders. How long until Indian and the other workers benefiting from outsourcing by US corporations demand some representation in our electoral college and Congress? Sure, India's CEO's have some big powerful lobbyists and legal firms working hard for them along with CoC, generating enabling legislation and buying the Congressional votes to pass it, but it's not quite the same as being from the proud state of Montana and casting the state's handful of votes in the name of it's citiz
Why not just use paper ballots like many other countries (e.g. Canadian federal elections) do? Paper is cheap, low-tech and very difficult to tamper with - neither an accidental computer bug nor a malicious computer programmer can tamper with the results.
> You can confirm your vote was recorded correctly when you drop it into a box, but how do you know that box doesn't get swapped out? Or that another stuffed box doesn't get set right next to it?
Oh, ghod.
Multiple human beings, from each party, write ballot serial numbers on paper logs and sign them.
Most of the problems with electronic voting come from wanting the machines to to *everything*.
As soon as you make the machines only do the 70% they're *good at*, the other 30% protects you from all the possible screwups.
How do they protect that system against vote-selling?
The best way to do elections is to go to a computer screen and submit your votes. At that point, you get a paper print out showing whom you voted for.
You then take that paper and you put it into a ballot box that is locked.
At that point, if there is any contention, the votes can be challenged and the votes counted as compared to what the electronic system reports.
I still don't see why nobody has done this.
There is practically zero chance of revolution in the U.S. or most any other advanced society any time in the foreseeable future. Citizens constantly see TV shows about how the government can squash them like bugs if they misbehave. Plus they have enough appeasements that all-out revolution seems a little extreme compared to the nebulous concept of maintaining democracy.
So what you are effectively saying is that we are just stuck watching democracy die, right? It is only a matter of time until a Stalin or Hitler comes along and drives us into armageddon or 1984 or whatever other distopia you can imagine.
Now consider the alternative which "sounds good in theory." It is a practical, non-violent, easy way of getting real, participative democracy started in small communities. As it grows, adapts and gradually proves itself, it can demonstrate that it is a viable governance mechanism for larger and larger communities. Eventually, people will find they have the mechanism in place to run entire cities, and then even larger societies.
It might work, it might not. But given the alternative of totalitarian armageddon, doesn't it seem worth giving a try? Doesn't it seem worth actually putting some effort into it? You can at least join the list server and see what happens...
Why is it so difficult to just do a double check?
I mean, hold the elections, and select a couple of machines to check.
Then see if there is anything fishy going on...
One solution would be to have someone hack the machines on election day and then publicly brag about how easy it was with a documented result. Look at how 4chan hacked the Time.com poll to make it spell out a name. If people were getting 31337 votes all across the board, people would take more notice, right?
(Posting this from outside the US)
Because as cynical as I am I have never lost a fundamental hope that somehow, someday humanity will pull itself out of this cultural dark ages we're in, that we are somehow still better than we appear to be, that eventually our greedy self-absorption will wane and be replaced by more altruistic values. Or barring that, if I can somehow help to spark an open revolt, that works too.
"I disapprove of what you say, but I will defend to the death your right to say it." - Evelyn Beatrice Hall, re Voltaire
Congressmen Marblecake, TheGame, and CmdrTaco.
No OS on the planet can protect itself from a user with the admin password. - Yvan256
Why do we remain in the virtual dark ages, when clearly we have better alternatives readily available?
The same reason that VHS outcompeted BETA in the days of video tape (at least on the east coast)... Its all about who does the best job of selling.... in this case to the Government.
So did Ohio, and it has significantly improved the credibility of our elections without taking much extra time.
Although the other reason for the improvement was that we replaced the very partisan Ohio Secretary of State Ken Blackwell with someone who is actually interested in running a good election. For instance, Blackwell denied voter registrations which just so happened to be from neighborhoods that tended to favor the other major party because the wrong kind of paper was used to print the form. He also generally made sure precincts in those neighborhoods got insufficient numbers of voting machines, and did not train poll workers properly in those areas so as to nearly guarantee long lines on election day. In 2004 (the last election he ran), people in the neighborhoods he was suppressing the vote in had to wait 3-5 hours to vote, as opposed to 30 minutes everywhere else.
I am officially gone from
Maybe because a bunch of geeks are still calling it by its geeky "closed source" instead of just "unauditable."
Thought experiment, imagine two polls. In one poll, you ask John Q Public, "Is it ok to use closed source voting machines?" and in another poll, ask "Is is ok to use unauditable voting machines?" Think you'll get the same answers?
The first one that comes to mind kickbacks, someones getting paid for his support...
The second is even more corrupted, a desire to be able to abuse the system and get away with it.
The third is simply bureaucratic inertia. Open Source probably doesn't fit too well with standard procurement procedures.
Maybe there's something else, but those are the only reasons that I can think of right now.
"Why do we remain in the virtual dark ages, when clearly we have better alternatives readily available?"
Quite simply, it's because the people who know how to beat the current system and get into positions of power know that they are not the same people who would get into power under a different, more fair, system.
Only the signature on the "secrecy envelope" (which has your name and address pre-printed on it, along with a place to sign, into which you insert your ballot), which is supposed to be matched against the signature on file for the voter. Of course, if you've sold your vote, you've probably included the signature for free.
This has created the wonderful situation that if the vote checker doesn't like your vote for any reason, they simply claim the signatures don't match and your vote is thrown away without any notice to you at all.
Further, the vote counters can keep your "secrecy envelope" with your ballot so that they can keep track of who voted what way, and you have to trust that they discard the envelope prior to looking at the ballot.
In exchange for these problems, we've given up the need to actually go to a polling place, see your neighbors face to face, prove your identity, and use a fancy electronic box (with or without open source software). I'd say it's a fair exchange. </sarcasm>
Australia has been using paper ballots ever since the states joined together to create this country and it works just fine.
Even allows for easy recounts in disputed (or close) contests (as happened in our recent election)
For the US, just scale up the number of counters in relation to the number of voters.
All this talk about electronic machines, punch cards, scantron machines etc is just stupid.
Paper was used for elections for many years before they invented all this electronic and mechanical crap and it worked just fine.
You're correct, and I don't like mailin/internet voting for precisely this reason.
And the "well, only the people who want to" counter-argument isn't pertinent here, since it's the *system* that's being protected.
But at least, a voter can avoid "might be invalidated" by getting off their fucking ass and voting on election day.
``Why do we remain in the virtual dark ages, when clearly we have better alternatives readily available?''
I can only see one answer to that question: we aren't using anything better because the people who are in a position to make that happen haven't done so.
Apparently, they don't care enough about accountable voting that they have said "Well, the system X that we have isn't good enough, and system Y, which is good enough."
Incompetence or malice, the end result is that voters don't know if their vote has been recorded (much less counted) correctly. I'm surprised that America isn't up in arms about this. Here in the Netherlands, electronic voting went out of the door for that reason. We now vote using paper and pencil.
As an aside, the summary seems to suggest that things would be better if open source software were used instead of closed software. I don't see that. As far as I can see, the issues are largely the same: how do you know that your vote has been recorded correctly, without information that can tie it back to you, and how do you know that the votes are being counted correctly?
With paper ballots filled out by pencil and counted by humans, I understand and can observe every step on the way. With machines and software, this becomes much harder, even if the software is open source.
Please correct me if I got my facts wrong.
Politicians do not want you to vote as per your conscience.
I'd like to buy homeland for our 10 million people. http://twitter.com/mahadiga
I constantly see people decrying that democracy is a sham, but I don't see anyone trying to do anything about it.
Sure, it seems impossible to reform the system, given that the people in control have not the slightest inclination to help you reduce their power.
That's why people who actually want to fix this problem are starting from the ground up. And you are invited to join.
It may be a slow road, and the results may not be perfect. But it beats the alternative of just living under a totalitarian regime, does it not?
Those are your choices:
1. admit that you want to give in to totalitarianism and stop complaining.
2. start working with Metagovernment or one of the many projects linked from there and build real democracy.