Overheated Voting Machine Cast Its Own Votes

longacre writes in with the results of a report on voting machines that malfunctioned in NY during the 2010 mid-term elections. "Tests of a number of electronic voting machines that recorded shockingly high numbers of extra votes in the 2010 election show that overheating may have caused upwards of 30 percent of votes in some South Bronx voting precincts to go uncounted. WNYC first reported on the issue in December 2011, when it was found that tens of thousands of votes in the 2010 elections went uncounted because electronic voting machines counted more than one vote in a race. A review by the state Board of Election and the electronic voting machines’ manufacturer ES&S found that these 'over votes,' as they’re called, were due to a machine error. In the report issued by ES&S, when the machine used in the South Bronx overheated, ballots run during a test began coming back with errors."

Comments

Scrap them all

[Fned]

It's clear we're just not ready for electronic voting. Let's stick to paper ballots and re-visit this idea in twenty years or so.

Re:Scrap them all

[TubeSteak]

It's clear that we hired the wrong people to build our electronic voting machines.
Instead of the guys who build ATMs, we should have hired the guys who build slot machines.

Re:Scrap them all

[Anonymous Coward]

No. We should have hired the guys who print money and other secure papers. Paper voting is superior in every way to electronic voting, except possibly price - and shouldn't we be willing to spend what is ultimately a pittance compared to what we spend on everything else to ensure one of the cornerstones of democracy is eroded away?

Re:Scrap them all

[MightyMartian]

Paper voting means a physical verifiable record. As to hanging chads the issue is complex and poorly designed ballots.

As to the speed of counting ballots, so what? You have to wait a few hours, or on tight races, a few days. Sounds like a reasonable sacrifice for not having fucked up elections due to equipment failure.

Re:Scrap them all

[Sique]

Pen-and-Paper-voting is the one system that can be made secure quite simple, and that can be verified by about everyone without actually tampering with voting secrecy.
There are (at least) three conditions which are not easy to align: equality and secrecy of votes.

Equality (each vote counts the same) is only possible if one guarantees that the counting process is open and verifiable.
Secrecy (no one except the voter knows how he voted) is only possible if no one else can watch the actual act of voting.
Integrity (no one can tamper with the vote once the voter cast the vote) is only possible if the votes can be watched without actually knowing the votes.

And here pen-and-paper-voting shines, and no other voting system comes close. Nearly each part of the voting process can be in the open: the ballot box can be opened to the public, controlled by everyone to be completely empty, sealed and be watched all the time by everyone who likes to watch. The breaking of the seal and the counting can (and should) be performed in public, and again everyone who wants to can watch it. The result for the local election office is announced publicly, and publicly written down into the forms and sealed, the votes are put back in the controlledly empty ballot box and sealed again, and the ballot box is then transported (and accompagnied by whoever wants) to the central election office, where the votes according to the sealed forms are tallied and the complete result is announced.
And the actual act of voting can be performed in the voting booth, no one else can watch it, the ballot is folded by the voter, which preserves secrecy and personally put in the ballot box, which preserves integrity. So all three: Intregrity, Equality and Secrecy are preserved.

No electronic or mechanic voting system can come close to this. Each of them has at least one element which should be open closed (for instance counting with a computer is actually a closed process, because it is much faster than anyone can control count, so you have to trust the system to count correctly), or one element which should be closed in the open (the paper record which allows backtracking to the ballot).

tl;dr

Each voting system which performes at least one act of the voting process faster than the human eye can watch it can be tampered with and should not be trusted.

Who, honestly, thinks e-voting is a good idea?

[Baloroth]

Seriously, why the hell are people even trying these things? No permanent record of any kind, little to no public oversight of the process, and of course glitches and the possibility for "glitches" on a massive scale that can completely overturn the entire election process. At least with paper voting, cheating is a) moderately easy to catch and b) moderately difficult on a large scale. Mistakes can be corrected afterwards, by examining the paper trail. An e-voting machine? No trail, and a single alteration the code can allow anyone to change the result in absolutely any way they want, with almost zero possibility of detection, and with a single commands.

They are a terrible idea, and honestly any politician/bureaucrat who pushes them should be regarded with strong suspicion, if not of attempting downright fraud, then of bowing to special interests (i.e. the machine manufacturers). Possibly both. And, even if they are really clean of both the preceeding, then they are technologically stupid and shouldn't be trusted to make decisions about these kinds of things anyways.