New Jersey Residents Displaced By Storm Can Vote By Email

First time accepted submitter danbuter writes "In probably the most poorly thought-out reaction to allowing people displaced by Hurricane Sandy in New Jersey [to take part in the 2012 presidential election], residents will be allowed to vote by email. Of course, this will be completely secure and work perfectly!" Writes user Beryllium Sphere: "There's no mention of any protocol that might possibly make this acceptable. Perhaps the worst thing that could happen would be if it appears to work OK and gains acceptance." I know someone they should consult first.

Comments

I didn't know

[mwvdlee]

I didn't know New Jersey had over 5 billion residents.
Or atleast that's my estimate of the amount of votes they'll be recieving.

Re:I didn't know

[Intrepid imaginaut]

I think the Swiss have been using online voting for a while now: http://www.cbsnews.com/2100-202_162-645615.html

Re:I didn't know

[K. S. Kyosuke]

Yes, but they are Swiss. They make perfect watches, have an insane amount of automatic rifles in homes while not thinking twice about not committing crimes with those rifles while eating their famed chocolate, and are otherwise generally badass. Take that, New Jersey! Still think it could work there?

Re:I didn't know

[Hentes]

And that has nothing to do with email voting.

Re:I didn't know

[Albanach]

There was a project sponsored by GNU to develop software that would permit online voting securely. Obviously this would be hugely useful if it were secure and freely available. http://www.gnu.org/software/free/

Production stopped in 2002.

Here's what they had to say, "From my experience of designing and developing GNU.FREE over the past three years it has become clear that creating an Internet Voting system sufficiently secure, reliable and anonymous is extremely difficult, if not impossible. As Bruce Schneier points out "a secure Internet voting system is theoretically possible, but it would be the first secure networked application ever created in the history of computers.""

Of course, it's possible the Swiss know something about secure software development that Schneier doesn't. Or perhaps they're just happy to accept the risks.

Re:I didn't know

[Anonymous Coward]

And that has nothing to do with email voting.

Yes, you're right. It has absolutely everything to do with sanity, trust and integrity, three things that clearly Swiss law favor over American law.

Those also happen to be three things that are also required to at least try and keep a voting system intact, which is why the decision to allow voting by email in the US has got to be one of the most batshit insane ideas I've ever hear...oh who the fuck am I kidding. Like a goddamn thing is going to change no matter which puppet Lobbyists decide to shove their fist deep into.

Fuck it. Vote away.

Re:I didn't know

[Anonymous Coward]

Those also happen to be three things that are also required to at least try and keep a voting system intact, which is why the decision to allow voting by email in the US has got to be one of the most batshit insane ideas I've ever hear...oh who the fuck am I kidding. Like a goddamn thing is going to change no matter which puppet Lobbyists decide to shove their fist deep into.

Fuck it. Vote away.

I live in NJ. I'm not concerned with this resulting in "extra votes" (we all know that's going to happen here anyway). I want to know how we can make sure all the votes (or at least legitimate votes) get counted. It's very easy to delete an email or toss a fax.

captcha: erasable

Re:I didn't know

[Derek Pomery]

Even if an online voting system could be implemented in perfect security, I'm still bothered by the fact that the voting booth is supposed to be influence free.

If you go vote, people pressuring you have to stay like 50 metres away from the polling place.

There is no such protection in online voting. A church could put the computer, oh, right in front of the altar and have the congregation line up. Heck. There's a lot of concern about buying votes (personally I'm thinking if you think someone will stay bought for $100 against their conscience, eh, welcome to try). But that whole situation changes with online voting. Again, can have people vote right at their workstation for a bonus in the next paycheck.

I'm sure there'd be proposals of laws against it, but, enforcement is still an issue. Esp since pressure can be as simple as peer pressure.

BTW, on the buying votes front, supposedly each campaign is spending over $1000 per undecided voter in swing states, w/ actual impact of the ads being very hard to measure. Amusing.

Reminds me of all the concern about rich people being able to self-fund campaigns. Should ask Meg Whitman how that worked out for her.

Re:I didn't know

[__aaltlg1547]

Yes, but they are Swiss. They make perfect watches, have an insane amount of automatic rifles in homes while not thinking twice about not committing crimes with those rifles while eating their famed chocolate, and are otherwise generally badass. Take that, New Jersey! Still think it could work there?

Of course they don't commit crimes with the rifles. They already have all the criminals' money.

Re:I didn't know

[Voyager529]

I live in New York. President Obama is going to get our electoral votes no matter which lever I pull in the booth, so if someone wants to pay me $100 to flip a particular switch, I'll gladly accept their money and pull whichever lever they ask of me - it boils down to literally whether I want $100 or not.

As for pressure on a poll in a church, I'd assume that any non-personal venue that is stated to be a place where votes can be submitted fall under the 100-foot rule, enforcement could be incentive-based - you get 10% of the fine if you submit a photo of a designated polling place where there are Obama/Romney signs. Now if you're voting on your personal iPhone in Times Square, well then I'd assume it'd be your own damn fault for flipping the virtual lever there.

Finally, there are four basic ways for politicians to receive money to run their campaigns:
1.) lots of people with a little money pay for it.
2.) small numbers of people with a lot of money pay for it.
3.) the person running pays their own way.
4.) the government pays for everyone's campaign.

No matter who pays for a campaign, people will complain:
1.) Anyone who's going to put money towards a campaign is not going to put it towards a candidate they're not already voting for. It basically becomes an informal poll, plus it then turns campaigns into "we need your vote AND your money!". Begging for my vote is already painful enough, the amount of $100-or-less donations it'd require for a candidate to earn enough to run a useful campaign for anything larger than MAYBE a House representative is so high that if you've seen a commercial for them, they've likely already won, and then you have the kind of people who would give money to a politician buying them.
2.) We call these small numbers of people either "The One Percent", "Corporations", "Billionaires", "Billionaires in the One Percent who own Corporations", or some loose variant of that. Effectively, it only becomes feasible to participate in government if you've already got the money to avoid any legislation you don't like anyway.
3.) If a person can afford a campaign out of their own checking account, they're clearly both independently wealthy and bored enough to want a part time job behind a desk pushing paper, and are willing to gamble tens of millions of their own dollars to do it. On the bright side, they don't have much of anyone to answer to, so you won't find megacorps pulling strings to get their votes. Conversely, whatever megacorps they own or have significant ties to will likely be favored, as will bills that facilitate them keeping their own money.
4.) Having the government give a set limit to every candidate seems like the fairest system, but even that has significant drawbacks. If the government gives, say, $100,000 to every aspiring senator, I'd be an 'aspiring senator' and run a bum campaign just to get my hands on the money. How do you filter that? Limit to five candidates? Who chooses them? The political parties? Which three minor parties get candidates? Would it not then be jockeying for the grants that is where the race is fought? Do you make the losing candidates pay the money back? Well then you won't have any candidates who don't have $100,000 in the bank running for office, and if they have that kind of cash to blow, then could already fit in category #3 and not waste taxpayer dollars in the process. Meanwhile, you then have the existing representatives deciding whether the amount goes up or down each year, and then there's reverse manipulation of that. ABC wants the Red candidate to win, his TV spots cost $100, while the Blue candidate has to cough up $5,000 for the same spot. NBC wants the Blue candidate, and the reverse is also true. Oh, they have to charge market value and prove it? Okay...ABC gives the Red candidate the best ad slot during Dancing with the Stars, while the Blue candidate can only get the Tuesday 1:33AM ad spot.

Honestly, I've wondered if Slashdot has the right idea - everyone is a part of the voting process, each hav

Re:I didn't know

[Anonymous Coward]

I just had a image of Snooki with an MP5. No, I don't think it would work in New Jersey.

Re:I didn't know

[Anonymous Coward]

OF course, just give us as many automatic rifles and watch!

Re:I didn't know

[neonKow]

Seems to me that extra votes are the same as erasing or not counting legitimate votes.

Re:I didn't know

[uncqual]

Every "extra vote" cancels a large portion of someone's legitimate vote. So, it's important to worry about both.

Re:I didn't know

[Anonymous Coward]

"This must be 100% perfect or we don't use it at all." No project that was perfectly faithful to that has ever shipped.

Build it so it's good. Considerably better than what we've got. Minimize the vectors you'd have to be concerned with. Watch those closely, and use it.

Re:I didn't know

[h5inz]

There is also an electronic voting system in Estonia that uses ID cards (a smart card) for secure authentication. There is also a short summary about the secrecy scheme of the voting process in the document referenced below.
http://www.vvk.ee/public/dok/Internet_Voting_in_Estonia.pdf

Re:I didn't know

[subanark]

The dangers of being pressured to vote in a certain way in public place over the internet is the same danger that absentee (vote my mail) is currently. Furthermore I can request to change my absentee status by simply entering my drivers license/State ID online. If I don't receive my ballot, or I don't want it mailed I can print one out from their website. The only real advantage this has in preventing voter fraud over a purely electronic system is the cost a hacker would have to make to falsify individual ballots vs electronic ballots.

Re:I didn't know

[Guppy06]

There is no such protection in online voting.

This problem is not unique to online voting; it's also an argument against allowing voting by mail.

Re:I didn't know

[Anonymous Coward]

#4 The media is controlled by the FCC, which in turn is appointed main control by POTUS.
The answer here is to go back to the FCC (mission creep internet anyone?!) and make them appointed by the PUBLIC not POTUS, then make them re-instate their original mission statement. At that point you would have real news again (or for the first time.)

I'm glad your thinking but you didn't bother to address the original topic.
I got you covered on that one, fuck electronics in our elections 100%. fuck it's all bs until it's gone. I've told you HOW.
http://politics.slashdot.org/comments.pl?sid=3229617&op=Reply&threshold=-1&commentsort=0&mode=thread&pid=41873993
http://politics.slashdot.org/comments.pl?sid=3229617&op=Reply&threshold=-1&commentsort=0&mode=thread&pid=41873797
http://politics.slashdot.org/comments.pl?sid=3229617&op=Reply&threshold=-1&commentsort=0&mode=thread&pid=41873873
http://politics.slashdot.org/comments.pl?sid=3229617&op=Reply&threshold=-1&commentsort=0&mode=thread&pid=41873947
http://politics.slashdot.org/comments.pl?sid=3229617&op=Reply&threshold=1&commentsort=0&mode=thread&pid=41873679

Re:I didn't know

[Derek Pomery]

Agreed. Not a fan of that either.

I just feel that online voting expands the problem and simplifies the abuse.

Re:I didn't know

[cold fjord]

There is no such protection in online voting. A church could put the computer, oh, right in front of the altar and have the congregation line up.

There is no need to conjure a theoretical example when the real example of unions and "card check" exists, and is being repeatedly litigated.

The National Labor Relations Board’s attack on the secret ballot

. . . The National Labor Relations Act established the secret ballot election as the preferred method for determining employee free choice. Although the act has been interpreted to permit voluntary recognition by card check . . .

. . . An employer does not have to acquiesce to a union’s demand (or its employees’ request) for recognition based on a card check; the employer can demand a secret ballot election. Similarly, if an employer voluntarily recognizes a union based on a showing of majority support by cards, its employees are given 45 days to demand a secret ballot election challenging the union’s majority claim.

Unions prefer card check, however, for two main reasons. First, card check is less costly. Second, unions are more successful at securing an employee’s signature on a card than they are in earning the employee’s vote when it is cast in secret. The reasons are not hard to find. A card check subjects an employee’s vote to the scrutiny of third parties, peer pressure from fellow employees, and even coercion. Unions collect cards over time, often in secret and without the knowledge of the employer, and open workplace debate on the issue of unionization. A secret ballot election takes place after a campaign participated in by the union, the employees and the employer; it reflects employee sentiment, educated by the campaign’s debate, at one point in time.

Re:I didn't know

[Albanach]

There is also an electronic voting system in Estonia that uses ID cards

I think we can learn a lesson from operating systems here. The danger of attack tends to be somewhat proportional to the size and value of the target. In the past, the vast majority of attacks were limited to Windows, because it ran on the vast majority of computers and the potential gains were greatest. Today that is no longer the case, with Linux, OSX and phone operating systems all being attacked, together with attacks of niche systems that control manufacturing processes.

I'd imagine that while there could be real gains by controlling any country's election, an electronic voting scheme in a major western country such as Germany, the UK or the USA would be subject to attacks much greater in number and more sophisticated in design.

A public key system based around smartcards is probably a prerequisite to secure voting. Unfortunately, that alone doesn't make it secure.

Could a virus replace the program and silently change votes prior to submission? What if the private keys were somehow exposed? What if Anonymous or a hostile nation ran a massive DDOS on polling day?

Just to emphasize the danger - the country you mentioned, Estonia - was subject to a massive DDOS five years ago.

Those are just the start of the potential problems.

Re:I didn't know

[Mateorabi]

Yeah, I laughed at a WP article about someone convicted of vote buying. The end of the article had a quote from one of the vote sellers saying he just voted how he wanted anyway and pocketed the cash. Another "sold" his vote to both sides.

FYI, even the inside of the booth is not safe. At least in MD if you are "unable" to vote alone you can bring almost ANYONE into the booth with you by both signing an affidavit that they aren't your boss nor a candidate for office. And poll workers can't question it. Of course for a vote buyer to use this as confirmation is WAY more inefficient and ineffective as your church example and leaves a paper trail. Now on an individual basis, with an over-controlling spouse, say.....

This is also the reason why giving people "receipts" to "prove" their electronic vote was counted is moronic. (Show me your receipt for my favored candidate and get X$, not lose your job, etc.)

Re:I didn't know

[Derek Pomery]

I agree the same problem exists with absentee ballots, which are also excessively used and encourged, I think.

Getting an absentee ballot though is still a multistep process over a period of time. Not something you can just buttonhole someone in front of a computer to do. It seems to me online voting simplifies and expands something that is already a problem.

Especially if it became the defacto way to vote, so you couldn't even excuse yourself with "I just prefer to vote on election day in the polling booth"

Re:I didn't know

[akboss]

Hey if it will help I will vote by email in NJ all the way from Texas. Yeah this was a well thought out idea.

Re:I didn't know

[zippthorne]

Where do the swiss grow their cocoa beans?

Re:I didn't know

[Yvanhoe]

The Swiss system relies on a trusted third party, something that secure network applications try to avoid.

It works in Switzerland because they have put a trutable government in place and learned to trust it instead of wondering if it should not just be gone at each election.

Re:I didn't know

[cfulmer]

I can guarantee that the Swiss planned out their system in more than 2 days.

Re:I didn't know

[LordLimecat]

Im gonna guess its nothing quite as stupid as non-PGP'd email coming from throw-away email accounts.

Re:I didn't know

[LordLimecat]

I'll gladly accept their money and pull whichever lever they ask of me - it boils down to literally whether I want $100 or not.

The idea that your vote doesnt count if your candidate doesnt win is stupid, and undermines the system. Part of the point of a democracy is to have you involved (consent of the governed), and part is that if there enough of you who dont like the system you will eventually cause change.

Next time you feel like railing against the government, consider that you are part of the problem.

Re:I didn't know

[h5inz]

A DDOS Attack

The DDOS attack method is the most primitive attack method besides a hammer. It cannot be considered a serious threat if things are done right. It could merely be a discomfort and a publicity stunt - that was also the case in the above mentioned DDOS attacks five years ago. One banks web page (a front end) wasn't available for a couple of hours, and maybe something else as well, but the core functionalities were intact.

A virus Affecting votes Inside the Servers

The servers receiving the votes should be at least duplicated (guessing here) so that the virus would have to have infected them all to affect the results without anybody noticing.

Over all I agree with you that no system is 100% safe of course.

Re:I didn't know

[gl4ss]

online voting allows selling of votes reliably - and consequently also for vote extortion reliably.

that's all there is to it - it must be buried.

Re:I didn't know

[Albanach]

Remember, the outcome of tomorrow's election could be determined by a few tens of thousands of votes if you get the correct counties in the correct states.

It would have taken less than 60,000 votes to change the 2004 election from Bush to Kerry.

269 votes would have been enough for Al Gore.

Less than 10,000 votes separated Carter from Ford.

The DDOS doesn't need to be against the servers recording the votes. Simply try and target Comcast/Verizon/AT&T in a handful Republican/Democrat counties in swing states and you could change the result of the election.

While the Estonian DDOS only lasted a few hours, the bulk of votes are cast over the few hours after work and before polls close. A carefully planned and narrowly targeted DDOS could potentially achieve that - at a time of day when it might be too late for voters to change their plans and vote in person.

Re:I didn't know

[samkass]

You seem to misunderstand what NJ has proposed. Registered voters can request such a ballot, and those voters can return those validated ballots via email. No one who is not registered already or who did not request the ballots can vote, and each requested ballot can only be returned once. The risk, which is that someone will steal another's vote, is vastly lower than the risk someone will be unable to vote due to being displaced. (In other words, this act is likely to increase the accuracy of the voting process, dramatically so in affected areas.)

Re:I didn't know

[Voyager529]

The idea that your vote doesnt count if your candidate doesnt win is stupid, and undermines the system.

Agreed.

Part of the point of a democracy is to have you involved (consent of the governed)

With you here, too.

and part is that if there enough of you who dont like the system you will eventually cause change.

...And this is where we start to peel apart. If we did a pure popular vote system, I'd be with you here, too. But the fact of the matter is that New York's 29 electoral votes have gone to the democratic candidate with a nearly 60% majority each time, and there's nothing regarding President Obama's recent actions (he's still quite popular around here), or Mitt Romney's overall package, that would lead me to believe that the people here in New York are going to surprise anyone this election. Now if President Obama prevented FEMA from doing any work in Queens, Staten Island, or Lower Manhattan in the aftermath of Hurricane Sandy, or ignored the situation wholesale as hundreds of thousands of people still don't have heat or power and mass transit still isn't working and getting gasoline is now an evening's project, or took a piss on Ground Zero...THEN there might be a snowball's chance in hell that those electoral votes aren't his. As it stands right now though, Neither presidential candidate is making an attempt to campaign in my state because they know what I know - voting for anyone except President Obama in New York State is either a matter of principle or a fool's errand, depending on your point of view. Indeed, I'll be at the polls after work, casting my vote as is my civic duty. However, we're not a swing state, and President Obama didn't shoot himself in the foot over these past two weeks. I wouldn't bet a counterfeit wooden nickel in favor of Mitt Romney or a third party candidate taking New York. It's not a matter of "If my candidate doesn't win then it's pointless to vote". It's a matter of "there are 538 votes that ultimately decide the president, 29 of them are from my state, and those 29 votes are all but guaranteed not to contribute to another candidate winning, regardless of where my personal vote goes."

Next time you feel like railing against the government, consider that you are part of the problem.

Guess again, and take a look at the final numbers of the New York State popular vote. Until hundreds of thousands of other people change their mind (or move from New York to Texas), it's a single band-aid in a war zone.

Crap

[Anonymous Coward]

New Jersey has 14 electoral votes. Now Obama will have to win both Florida and Ohio if he wants to win this election.

Official Directive

[Robadob]

This seems to be the official thing about it because there's some stuff going around twitter that it's a lie. http://nj.gov/state/elections/2012-results/directive-email-voting.pdf

Ron Paul...

[Anonymous Coward]

Might actually win.

Easier To Amend The Constitution

[Anonymous Coward]

It would be easier to amend the constitution to change the date of the election than to set up a secure method of voting by email.

Re:Easier To Amend The Constitution

[Anonymous Coward]

Amendment not required as Congress sets the date of the election.

It's just absentee voting

[Azathfeld]

You can't just send an email with your vote in it. They're allowing scanned copies of absentee ballots. It's no less secure than absentee voting in general; they'll check the names against the voter rolls just like they do when you vote in person.

Re:It's just absentee voting

[mysidia]

they'll check the names against the voter rolls just like they do when you vote in person.

Unfortunately, the list of names on the voter roles is public.

Will they be smart enough to check that for every ballot received by mail, there was actually an application for a ballot by that person?

Re:It's just absentee voting

[Anonymous Coward]

All voters in Oregon vote by mail. Each ballot is submitted with a signature on the outside envelope. That signature is matched against the voting rolls before the ballot is counted. The ballot is in a secrecy envelope so the person opening it during the counting process doesn't know whose vote it is.

There are several problems with the process described here that make it different. The first is that an electronic signature can be a scanned copy obtained from a different document. The second, raised elsewhere, is that the ballot is not secret. The third is that someone could electronically modify the ballot during and stage of the process. This seems to be relying on a form of "security by obscurity". For a small number of ballots that is probably sufficient. But if you get a large number of ballots it will be an inviting target for someone trying to alter the outcome of the election.

Re:It's just absentee voting

[wvmarle]

So that'd require those displaced people to have an absentee ballot already - how does that work? Even if they happened to have applied for it, not likely that this is with the stuff they took with them when fleeing their homes.

Also I wonder in general if there is any emergency plan thought out for just this situation. Elections happen often enough and the US is big enough to sooner or later have one seriously disturbed by some major natural disaster somewhere in the country - could be a hurricane, could also be say an earth quake or even a volcanic eruption.

Somehow it seems like a poorly thought out idea indeed. Why not just require thos ballots to be mailed in? I've heard before that in other elections it also may take days or weeks for the final result to come in due to absentee ballots mainly from overseas military personnel that are stuck in the mail.

Re:It's just absentee voting

[Anonymous Coward]

In Texas, yes. An Abscentee Ballot must be in lock-step with the requests for the same or it's rejected.

Now...as we know these days, NJ is what they called a "Rotten Borough" in Black Adder. This just simply is owning that it's a Rotten Borough...

Re:It's just absentee voting

[Anonymous Coward]

New Jersey's email voters can be confident of as secret a vote as voters already get in Colorado, because only election officials will know who they are. (Look it up, folks, and cry.)

And, of course, they'll have as much reason to be confident their votes were counted as residents of any state that uses slot machine (er, electronic) voting.

It doesn't really matter, anyway. When you want to buy an election, the Supreme Court has provided the way.

Re:It's just absentee voting

[mtrachtenberg]

New Jersey's email voters can be confident of as secret a vote as voters already get in Colorado, because only election officials will know who they are. (Look it up, folks, and cry: http://yro.slashdot.org/story/12/09/22/1419211/federal-judge-says-no-right-to-secret-ballot-oks-barcoded-ballots)

And, of course, they'll have as much reason to be confident their votes were counted as residents of any state that uses slot machine (er, electronic) voting.

It doesn't really matter, anyway. When you want to buy an election, the Supreme Court has provided the way.

Re:It's just absentee voting

[truesaer]

If you clicked on the link, it says exactly how it will work. You email them an absentee application, they email back a ballot, you return the ballot. The only difference is that this is not snail mail (and some states already do this for overseas and/or military voters, so it obviously works well enough without the massive fraud people like to predict).

Re:It's just absentee voting

[Jeremy Erwin]

A rotten borough with no poll tax and five million voters? It's hardly New Romney or Old Sarum.

Re:It's just absentee voting

[TapeCutter]

Will they be smart enough to check that for every ballot received by mail, there was actually an application for a ballot by that person?

People all over the planet have been voting by snail mail throughout the 20th century, do you (and the mods) really think that your the first person "smart" enough to ask that question? Could it be that others have put more thought into running the election than you have put into your post?

Re:It's just absentee voting

[Hognoxious]

the voter roles

Are you saying elections are nothing but theatre?

Re:It's just absentee voting

[helix2301]

Well I agree absentee ballots are not right if you not around to vote you do not get a say. But under the circumstantial situation it's nice there giving people chance to vote. I just hope people do not abuse it.

Re:It's just absentee voting

[mysidia]

Are you saying elections are nothing but theatre?

Not really, but I see how that could be possible.

What, with a good number of Obama-friendly precincts recording over 150% of registered voters voting....

Validity

[Anonymous Coward]

Hey if it helps a democrat win in New Jersey, it's a sound policy.

Lol! don't expect a victory on

[metaforest]

Election Night.

*starts making popcorn.

So it's much worse...

[thrill12]

..as they ask for a "waiver of secrecy": they actually *realize* that the e-mail voting will need the removal of one of they key things in a democratic election: the secrecy of voting. Now an actual record of the vote is transmitted in the clear (when using e-mail) and if anyone coerced said voter they will have undisputable proof what that person voted. I gues the OSCE will write this down in their report...

Re:So it's much worse...

[Anonymous Coward]

For what it's worth, absentee ballots can already be returned by fax, and the same waiver of secrecy applies.

Re:So it's much worse...

[Anonymous Coward]

Parent wasn't talking about *fax*, but e-mail. There is a big distinction.

Re:So it's much worse...

[Gandir]

If it was only that it will remove, how about that you can be forced to wote at a specific canditate? There is a reason why you are not allowed to have another person with you in the voteing booth.

Re:So it's much worse...

[sribe]

..as they ask for a "waiver of secrecy": they actually *realize* that the e-mail voting will need the removal of one of they key things in a democratic election: the secrecy of voting.

Since when is secrecy of voting key to a democracy? This democracy, for one example, was founded without it...

Re:So it's much worse...

[Sabriel]

It's not the key, it's a key. Defense in depth, etcetera.

Also, if by "this democracy" you are referring to the United States: the names of many of the signers of the American Declaration of Independence were initially kept secret, for fear of British reprisals.

Re:So it's much worse...

[sribe]

It's not the key, it's a key. Defense in depth, etcetera.

I agree that providing people with the option for secret voting is good; but I disagree that it is bad to allow a potentially non-secret method to those who prefer it.

Also, if by "this democracy" you are referring to the United States: the names of many of the signers of the American Declaration of Independence were initially kept secret, for fear of British reprisals.

I am indeed referring to the US, where *after* the establishment of the republic, most votes were town-hall style public votes. (The initial anonymity of the signers of the declaration is not at all relevant.)

Re:So it's much worse...

[plover]

Allowing non-secret voting creates the conditions under which coercion can take place.

How do we know Tony Soprano hasn't threatened everyone in the neighborhood to vote for his candidate? Let's say one of Tony's associates is at the polling place, "observing" the election as his right. If he is watching you vote, he can be sure you voted his way. If you have the "choice" of a secret ballot or a non-secret ballot, he could tell you up front "don't be choosing the secret ballot, I need to see your vote. Or else."

If the voter is not given the choice of non-secrecy, that vote can't be subverted. In a secret ballot, the voter can always make their own free-will choice. And only through enforcing ballot secrecy can the election judges be certain that the vote was impartial.

Re:So it's much worse...

[TubeSteak]

Since when is secrecy of voting key to a democracy? This democracy, for one example, was founded without it...

Others have explained why secrecy is important, but I thought I'd touch on the second part of your statement.

1. It is hard, if not impossible, to secretly declare independence.
2. The founding fathers were all prepared to be hung for treason against the crown.

In the theme of my second point, you can dig up numerous stories of businesses and public figures that have received backlash for publicly supporting a candidate, a political party, or a politically charged policy idea.
Which is why secrecy is crucial to the voting process: It prevents individual voters from (metaphorically) being hung for treason.

Re:So it's much worse...

[Sarten-X]

Not really a big distinction. Fax lines can be tapped just as easily as email. What's important is that somewhere in the voting process, an official will see the person's name (or phone number) and could see how they voted, too. For election purposes, that means the ballot isn't secret, so the waiver is necessary.

Similarly, in posting your comment, you agreed to waive the exclusivity of your right to copy your comment, so Slashdot (and its parent company) can function. Don't like giving up your rights? Go somewhere else to post your comment, go to a physical polling location, or mail in your ballot as you would if this email allowance weren't made.

Oh noes, it's by e-mail...

[Anonymous Coward]

Just like mortgage refinance/etc, places that used to accept faxed forms now accept scanned and e-mail forms. With your signature, just like if you had faxed it, or mailed it, etc.

It's like letting people use gas pedals for acceleration instead of buggy whips

Re:Oh noes, it's by e-mail...

[mellon]

No, it's like letting people control the throttle in their car by reaching down into the footwell and tugging on the cable, rather than using a gas pedal.

The next day....

[Lumpy]

It is amazing! New Jersey had 100% voter turnout and that ALL voted for Romney! It is awesome to see that this state in the face of disaster can turn out a voting percentage that no other state has EVER turned out!

Pundits point at this as an effect of how the TV show Jersey Shore has given NJ residents that the new president will pass a law to get it taken off the air and the cast exiled.

Re:The next day....

[scottbomb]

The discrepencies so far have been in favor of Obama. I've seen two distinct stories about voting machines registering Obama when people tried to vote for Romney. Poll workers blame it on "bad calibration". How the hell does that happen? I can write program in about 10 minutes for something as simple as "choose A or B".

I don't trust electronic voting of any kind. As long as a loosly-knit crew like Anonymous can hack the DOD, I prefer paper ballots whether it be in person or by US Mail.

Re:The next day....

[VanessaE]

Surely they are referring to the calibration of the touch surface relative to the display screen. I've seen this being done on video slot machines for example. When in calibration mode, the machine asks the tech to touch a few specific spots on the screen, notes where the tech appeared to actually touch at, and adjusts a few variables in the math it uses so that future users' inputs will register correctly. I've done the same myself on a touch pad for an old computer once or twice.

In other words, any surface that sends discrete position information to the computer has the potential to need such calibration.

All of that said, there's absolutely no excuse for allowing a machine to continue operating if it is registering votes other than those being requested (not that I mind a few extra votes for Obama over rMoney, but that's a different matter).

Re:The next day....

[Anonymous Coward]

The electronic voting machines used touch screens, which were the part that became misaligned. The area for selecting each candidate moved down a bit from where it was supposed to be resulting in Obama's being partway over Romney's button while Romney's was partway below his button. Using touch screens for voting seems a bit stupid to me, but since they already used them it's no surprise that this happened and is unlikely to be the result of favoring one candidate or the other. I've encountered similar touch screens at stores and ATMs. (though most of the ATMs went back to using regular buttons)

Re:The next day....

[Shadowmist]

The discrepencies so far have been in favor of Obama. I've seen two distinct stories about voting machines registering Obama when people tried to vote for Romney. Poll workers blame it on "bad calibration". How the hell does that happen? I can write program in about 10 minutes for something as simple as "choose A or B".

I don't trust electronic voting of any kind. As long as a loosly-knit crew like Anonymous can hack the DOD, I prefer paper ballots whether it be in person or by US Mail.

You ever use a kiosk? Touchscreens can and DO go out of calibration which means that the virtual pointer does no match the position your finger touches on the screen. In my line of work, fixing touchscreen calibrations on Wal-Mart, Sams Club and Rite Aid photo kiosks are a common call.

Re:The next day....

[__aaltlg1547]

It's only available as an option for displaced voters and they'll identify those by location (e.g. the Jersey shore.). Obama has about an 11% advantage in New Jersey, so I think his NJ electors are safe. The House and Senate seats look pretty safe too. I guess it could affect some local races.

Re:The next day....

[Lumpy]

I would trust them IF the politicians out there had any balls at all and DEMAND that the source code be 100% open. That way they can hire a 3rd party to compile the source code and test, then seal the units. But Diebold refuses to release the source code because they are hiding something.

If the company that makes the machine will not release the source code, you must assume they are crooked and hiding something.

Re:The next day....

[cold fjord]

It is amazing! New Jersey had 100% voter turnout and that ALL voted for Romney!

Your post isn't clear, which is it you oppose - dirty elections or Obama losing?

Re:The next day....

[Anonymous Coward]

"ThinkProgress"?

You may as well direct people to "ThinkLess".

Seriously, those guys are Democratic Underground and DailyKOS put together with a better logo.

This has been in place...

[bmo]

... already. They are merely letting people be treated like overseas military.

FTFA

"Officials say electronic voting is also an option for emergency workers. The option is already open to New Jersey voters overseas and in the military."

It's not like someone just came up with an idea yesterday.

--
BMO

Re:This has been in place...

[StormyWeather]

So how do they reconcile if someone emails a ballot twice from two email addresses? I can see how it's a bit less likely to be fudged if the email was sent from a .mil address because those would be verified email addresses. I'm not so much against it as I'm interested in seeing that it's accurate, and people don't feel disenfranchised by fake votes.

Re:This has been in place...

[fustakrakich]

Getting all the ballots out and back (ok, they have until the 19th for that part) in such a short time could be an issue. Phone lines and the tubes could get clogged with all the traffic.

Re:This has been in place...

[bmo]

>So how do they reconcile if someone emails a ballot twice from two email addresses?

I would think there would be some sort of cryptographic signature embedded in the emailed ballot, so they only get that one ballot back and not a hundred copies.

--
BMO

Re:This has been in place...

[TheGavster]

The "From" field of an SMTP transaction isn't authenticated, it's just something that the sender supplies. It works the same way, and has the same reliability as the return address area of a snail mail envelope. Yes, the mail carrier (or SMTP server) could check it against the mailbox it is collected from, but practically that doesn't happen (and in fact for email, as it may have been relayed through intermediate servers, there's situations where the @ clause of the from field wouldn't match the RDNS of the connection). You can send mail that appears to be from your boss, a .mil address, even "marvin@olympus.mars" if you want.

The way I read this was that what they were allowing was to obtain an absentee ballot by email (fill out a web form and they email you a generated PDF); the mechanism for returning the ballot wasn't clear (I assumed that you'd snail mail it back like a normal absentee ballot, but I could be wrong).

Re:This has been in place...

[mellon]

How would that work? Suppose I get a ballot, and scan it, and that scan gets out. The "cryptographic signature" will be on every copy of the scan. How will they know which one is mine? I think in this case, if what you suggest were true, my vote would either not be counted, or would be swamped by all the hacked copies. Either way, I lose.

Cryptography isn't a magic want that you can wave over a security problem to make it go away. It's a useful tool, but this is a _really_ hard problem, and what's been proposed here is not in any way secure.

Re:This has been in place...

[squiggleslash]

Probably the same way they reconcile it if they get snailed mailed two ballots for the same person.

Look, it's not hard people. This is vote-by-mail with the "Mailbox to Voter Office" part of the process replaced with "scan and fax or email from home to Voter Office." There is no way to commit fraud that wasn't already possible.

Re:This has been in place...

[bmo]

>what's been proposed here is not in any way secure.

The article doesn't even get into any security at all. It's just an announcement and I'll bet the reporter didn't even bother to ask.

Come on, man.

You wanna find out? How about you go call up the NJ Board of Elections.

--
BMO

Re:This has been in place...

[mellon]

Why on earth would I do that? I already know that there is no crypto technology that could be associated with a scanned ballot that would actually be secure against the attack I just described. That was my point.

Not so shocking as it seems

[yelvington]

Absentee voting already works this way pretty much everywhere in the United States:

First, you have to already be registered, so the notion that nonexistent people are suddenly able to vote is nonsense.

Second, you must file a request to get the absentee ballot. In most states you do not have to show any form of ID to do so, but your name is checked against the registration records before any ballot is provided.

Third, you fill out the ballot form, sign it, and mail it in. Note that the signature means your ballot is not really "secret."

Fourth, the forms are checked against the registration rolls again when they are counted, and signatures also may be checked (usually a sampling are spot-checked). In many places, absentee votes are counted AFTER the live votes and they may even be skipped if the number of absentee votes would not change the outcome of the election. If a voter has voted at his or her precinct, and an absentee ballot from the "same" voter shows up, that's an obvious case of fraud and the ballot is set aside.

There is no reason to imagine that email makes this any less secure than the snail mail system.

Re:Not so shocking as it seems

[metaforest]

No it is not if the process for handling postal voting is well established for the majority of voters in a district. (Or in my case the whole county) But during a FEMA disaster and an increased need.... there's plenty of room for grubby paws... and I think that is the concern.

Re:Not so shocking as it seems

[Entrope]

There are a number of good reasons to believe that email voting is less secure than snail mail. Among them: it is easier to change, forge or destroy electronic records than physical ones; there fewer legal protections for email than postal mail; and there is much less experience with email voting, so mistakes are easier to make and fraud is easier to commit.

Re:Not so shocking as it seems

[Aserrann]

I voted absentee this year, and unless my state (New Hampshire) is the odd one out (always possible), you have the process wrong.
I filled out a ballot, which had no identifying marks on it at all. No signature, name, or anything like that.
Then, that was sealed inside an envelope with a statement I had to sign saying that I myself completed the ballot, and it was the only ballot I filled out.
That envelope was then put inside another envelope that could be dropped in the mail or handed in at the town office.
Once the envelopes were stripped out, there was no way to tell who had filled in the ballot.

Re:Not so shocking as it seems

[ThurstonMoore]

Please read a few of the stories from this Google search, absentee voting is not a fool proof as you think.
https://www.google.com/search?q=lincoln+co+wv+absentee+voting+fraud&ie=utf-8&oe=utf-8&aq=t&rls=org.mozilla:en-US:official&client=firefox-a

Re:Not so shocking as it seems

[Mr. Slippery]

Third, you fill out the ballot form, sign it, and mail it in. Note that the signature means your ballot is not really "secret."

You sign the *envelope*. Or at least you do here in Baltimore County, Maryland.

I'm public about how I vote, so I haven't checked on the process, but it would be simple to have Alice verify the signature and then cross it and my address out with a big black magic marker, and then hand the enveloped over to Bob, who opens it and processes my -- now anonymous -- ballot. Of course Alice and Bob could collude to find out how I vote; but Alice could stick a camera in the voting booth over at the school, too. This is pretty low on my list of concerns.

Re:Not so shocking as it seems

[Anonymous Coward]

You have to sign the ballot? Include me out. Around here they check your name against the electoral roll, give you the ballot papers and an envelope. You go and fill in the ballot (in private) take it back, put it in the unmarked envelope and put it in the box. There is no need or justification for identifying the elector just because it is a postal vote.

Plan old absentee mail in voting.

[nedlohs]

How is this any different from postal votes? Who cares if it's sent via email or via the post.

I guess email is more easily intercepted and the contents changed, but standard post isn't immune form that either.

Re:Plan old absentee mail in voting.

[demonlapin]

Intercepting and tampering with an email with an attached image is a lot easier than intercepting and tampering with a physical ballot in the possession of the US Mail. Something placed inside a physical envelope and handed off to a postal worker enjoys enormous protection under US law; email does not.

Re:Plan old absentee mail in voting.

[mellon]

Also, in order to sign a ballot you have to physically handle it, which means your fingerprints will be all over it. And you have to sign it with a physical pen. A suspect ballot should yield a lot of information to a forensic analysis.

Re:Plan old absentee mail in voting.

[squiggleslash]

There are always edge cases, but I can see ways in which postal votes would be less accurate, and emailed votes would be more accurate.

Mail in the US is normally left in householder's unsecured mailboxes for a mailman to pick up during the day and put into the postal system. Checking the mailboxes of homes displaying "Vote {My candidate's opponent}" signs and "disappearing" the easily identified mailed votes before the mailman gets there is certainly a practical concept. You wouldn't get all the votes that way, but you'd get enough to make a difference.

Can the same be done with email? Yes, kinda, but these days there's an expectation that your email is not going to go through, and quite honestly if you don't get an acknowledgement that your ballot was delivered in a reasonable period of time, then you're going to investigate. And acknowledgements themselves are going to be suspected by the more paranoid users who will follow up with phone calls and other contact methods. If someone gets an "acknowledgement", and then calls the polling office and finds it's forged, then - whoops!

Now, you're talking tampering, but actually tampering a scan is relatively hard to do in a way that cannot be detected. Moreover, it takes time, time that would make it uneconomical for most entities to do it. If a rogue sysadmin at Google's GMail department seriously wants to f-ck with emailed ballots, they could easily drop a few thousand with a "misconfiguring" of their MTA, but it would get progressively harder to do in a way that detects votes against their favored candidate, and it would get impossibly hard to do without an army of photoshop experts to intercept, modify, and send, a few thousand ballots (enough to make a difference.)

Also bear that in mind - that the fraud would have to be from someone at Google, Yahoo, Hotmail, or AOL, to stand a serious chance of swaying the vote. A sysadmin at an ISP with a few thousand users or less is highly unlikely to be able to intercept enough votes to make any difference. For all of the faults of "big corporations", few would be in a position to secretly sway an election in this way without a whistleblower calling it, few would have employees in situations where they could sway an election without their employer finding out about it and firing them, and few would actually risk everything in order to change whether tweedledum or tweedledee actually wins.

Given the time constraints with this, I don't see any legitimate reason to criticise NJ on this. If they'd given notice last year they were going to do it, or if they weren't requiring scans of presumably unique paper documents sent to each address, then yeah, there'd be a heavy probably of mass fraud that wouldn't otherwise exist, but I just don't see it here, and Slashdot should probably tone down their hysterical summary on this.

Why even bother

[rjejr]

Unless people live in Ohio or Florida why even bother to vote, much less set up new ways to vote? NJ and CT haven't voted republican since 1988, NY since 1984, anybody think it's going to be any different this year?

Re:Why even bother

[Anonymous Coward]

There are non-Presidential elections on the ballot, even in New Jersey.

Re:Why even bother

[Shadowmist]

There are non-Presidential elections on the ballot, even in New Jersey.

There are also ballot initiatives in particular, Proposition 1 which is something that sorely needs to pass for the future of higher education in the state.

If the USA was a true democracy

[tp1024]

If the USA was a true democracy, it would defer the vote until after the clean-up, to ensure a free, fair and equal vote. (Which it doesn't have in the best of years.) But seeing that the USA is very far from being a true democracy and the current situation is deemed to be beneficial by both canidates(*), this is unlikely to happen.

(*)Obama hoping to be seen in a favorable light in response to the hurricane and Romney fearing to be seen in an even worse light with every passing day.

Re:If the USA was a true democracy

[Guppy06]

If the USA was a true democracy, it would defer the vote until after the clean-up,

"For the duration of the crisis?" Who gets to decide when it's over, the Senate or Caesar?

Democracy cannot be considered a luxury that one can "put off" when times are bad. Rather, the government needs to double down and make sure polling places and post offices are secure and accessible, no less so than food, water and shelter.

Re:If the USA was a true democracy

[Anonymous Coward]

You are mistaken, The USA is not a true democracy, it is a Republic.

Re:If the USA was a true democracy

[TheGavster]

While the impact of the storm seems large, it is a fairly small proportion of the country (the most densely populated part, granted) which is affected. And I would ask, is there any part that is more impaired than the normal state of the late 18th-century citizens who voted the first time?

Re:If the USA was a true democracy

[Anonymous Coward]

The US has turned the law into a scholastic exercise. The US Supreme Court ruled some years back that the Florida vote recount was not allowed because Florida couldn't finish the full recount by the Constitutionally determined date. Same here, I'm certain the SCOTUS would gleefully disenfranchise the whole East Coast (with a 5-4 vote) rather than violate the election date mandate of the Supereme Court.

Re:If the USA was a true democracy

[Anonymous Coward]

The UK didn't hold any elections during WWII. In 1940 Winston Churchill became Prime Minister and united the parliament behind a single non-partisan position prosecuting the war against Germany. There was no support for any other position because Hitler had demonstrated (by repeatedly breaking promises not to further expand) that no outcome except war was possible. Holding an election would have needlessly diverted resources needed for the war effort. In 1945, with the war's outcome settled the UK held a fresh election and Churchill's party lost overwhelmingly.

Re:If the USA was a true democracy

[Svartalf]

Ah, but we're not a Democracy. Democracy is MOB RULE.

We're a Democratically Elected Republic- and you should learn the distinction and learn it well.

Re:If the USA was a true democracy

[sribe]

You are mistaken, The USA is not a true democracy, it is a Republic.

It is a democratic republic. If you're going to be pedantic, at least try to be correct.

Re:If the USA was a true democracy

[tp1024]

How about: When those displaced have had an opportunity to find semi-permanent shelter and the number of people without power has dropped significantly below 100,000? Last I heard, there are still 2,500,000 of those around.

Re:If the USA was a true democracy

[tp1024]

So was the Democratic Republic of Germany ... also known as Eastern Germany.

Re:If the USA was a true democracy

[Anonymous Coward]

I used to tell people that we are not a democracy but instead a republic. At some point the definition of democracy was changed to make a democracy and a republic synonymous.

Re:If the USA was a true democracy

[sribe]

The US has turned the law into a scholastic exercise. The US Supreme Court ruled some years back that the Florida vote recount was not allowed because Florida couldn't finish the full recount by the Constitutionally determined date.

Florida did not try for a full recount. Had they done so, they would have finished in time--in fact they would have finished before that matter went to the Supreme Court. Instead they tried a bald cheat, only recounting counties that heavily supported the candidate favored by the Florida state Supreme Court. In fact, they tried it twice, despite being slapped down by the US Supreme Court--so they had two chances to do a full recount, and passed up the second one knowing that the plan for a targeted recount had already been rejected.

Why exactly should they have been given a 3rd chance to perform a full recount? (Especially considering that the full recount would have been no more fair. The margin between the candidates was orders of magnitude below the margin of error for Florida's incredibly stupid ballot system, so a full recount would have been not one bit more fair than a coin toss.)

Before you argue this, remember that there were *two* decisions issued by SCOTUS on that case. One was 9-0, one was split 5-4 along conservative/liberal lines. If you understand the decisions and the split, fine, fire away. If you (like every person so far I've heard whine about SCOTUS "stealing" the election) don't know what I'm talking about, then shut the fuck up until you do.

Re:If the USA was a true democracy

[Anonymous Coward]

If the USA was a true democracy, it would defer the vote until after the clean-up,

"For the duration of the crisis?" Who gets to decide when it's over, the Senate or Caesar?

Democracy cannot be considered a luxury that one can "put off" when times are bad. Rather, the government needs to double down and make sure polling places and post offices are secure and accessible, no less so than food, water and shelter.

Use your head. January 20th is over 2 months away. As hard as everyone is working to restore some semblance of order, I seriously doubt it's going to take quite that long to get electricity back up and running well enough to have a voting day a month from now when voters in the northeast aren't scrounging in dumpsters for food or standing in line for hours for gas. Yeah, might just be a slight impact on voter turnout with that shit going on. Go fucking figure.

And it's not like Obama needs any "prep" time if he wins, he's already doing the damn job. And Romney won't even be debriefed until he takes the position, so there's only so much prep he can do if he wins.

Re:If the USA was a true democracy

[Anonymous Coward]

Florida did not try for a full recount. Had they done so, they would have finished in time--in fact they would have finished before that matter went to the Supreme Court. Instead they tried a bald cheat, only recounting counties that heavily supported the candidate favored by the Florida state Supreme Court.

I fully agree that the Florida Supreme Court was playing games, but so was SCOTUS. The "they would have finished in time" should have played no role in the decisions.

Same way here in NJ. Instead of panicking and risking the fairness of the election with half-baked voting schemes, they should have taken a common-sense breather as proposed by the GGP post.

Re:If the USA was a true democracy

[Livius]

A plutocracy is neither.

Re:If the USA was a true democracy

[Guppy06]

get electricity back up and running

The system for national elections in the United States was established before there were any railroads, let alone electricity. New Jerseyites have been voting in regular elections over two centuries before anybody gave a damn about cell phone reception.

Use your head. January 20th is over 2 months away.

Use yours and ask yourself why there are weeks-long gaps between the day of the election and the sitting of the electors, between the sitting of the electors and the beginning of the new Congress, and the beginning of the new Congress and the beginning of the presidential term. The system was designed around a complete lack of anything a modern person would call "infrastructure."

No priority can be greater for a republican government than protecting the democratic process and, through it, the state's own legitimacy. Without that, the state can't legitimately act to get anything "up and running" again.

Re:If the USA was a true democracy

[Guppy06]

Who gets to define "displaced," "semi-permanent," and "significantly?" Who does the counting? And who enforces this rule if it isn't observed?

Re:If the USA was a true democracy

[Guppy06]

In 1940 Winston Churchill became Prime Minister and united the parliament behind a single non-partisan position prosecuting the war against Germany. There was no support for any other position

Then they're a bunch of monarchical pussies. The people of the State of New Jersey participated in the national election of 1862, when Lee's army was just across the river in Pennsylvania.

Re:If the USA was a true democracy

[ToasterMonkey]

Ah, but we're not a Democracy. Democracy is MOB RULE.

We're a Democratically Elected Republic- and you should learn the distinction and learn it well.

You're implying that a distinction between the two is "MOB RULE" while the electoral college process is "MOB RULE". Ask a democrat in Texas if it ain't so! That's also a state where electors have no legal requirements to vote as pledged, they just do.

One distinction is a state _could_ ignore the popular will of its constituents. "NOT MOB RULE" to paraphrase you. They don't, do they? Could you give practical examples of a need to do so?
You can write it in scary caps all you want, it doesn't change the fact that it's what we have today, it follows the principles of democracy.

Another is states are granted electors based on the size of their congressional delegation. Meaning for one thing that regardless of the number of constituents, they get two electors for their two senators. This weights your vote a bit state-by-state, but hardly makes it undemocratic.

FYI to readers - this dreck boils down to state rights issues and silly wordplay to [dis]associate our form of government with the names of political parties. The United States of America is a representative democracy AND a republic. The electoral college is a compromise between the will of the people and the will of the states.

It's probably a good thing, but not for the bat-shit insane reasons like "it protects your liberty."
Be wary of arguments for state power that put you vs. federal government. It's like your cable company running whining ads "blah blah wont reach an agreement with us so in a few weeks so you will lose these channels" trying to pull you into THEIR problem. States have senators to represent them. They are HALF of congress.

Re:If the USA was a true democracy

[Anonymous Coward]

A lot of democracies don't have a set election date, they have a maximum amount of time in office per election. There are upsides and downsides, but mostly you don't actually keep going until the absolute max (whoever is in charge of calling the election tries to time it so that they'll win).

Not to mention you have quite a bit of time between the scheduled election day and the actual handover of power.

Re:If the USA was a true democracy

[Your.Master]

The distance between 1940 and 1945 is five years (and 1940 was wartime, undermining the GP's point, though it was earlier wartime). The UK has a maximum term of 5 years before an election (it does not fix the election date like the US does), which I think is the GP's point -- they delayed it because they don't require exact election dates. That said, the war continuing was easier to predict than hurricane Sandy.

There's nothing magical about 4 years vs. 5 years, so "monarchical pussies" doesn't really fit.

Re:If the USA was a true democracy

[Guppy06]

The distance between 1940 and 1945 is five years

And it also encompasses 3 separate US federal elections.

The UK has a maximum term of 5 years before an election

The US has elected a new Congress every other year since 1788, period.

That said, the war continuing was easier to predict than hurricane Sandy.

"There's a war on" is a far easier statement to make than saying what the state of the war will be, at any place, on a given date. Parent is inferring that British Parliament deferred elections because "someone, somewhere" might get bombed on an election day. In contrast, the United States still voted in 1814, while the White House still smouldered.

There's nothing magical about 4 years vs. 5 years, so "monarchical pussies" doesn't really fit.

It meant that the King's Parliament need not subject itself to the consent of the governed while prosecuting a bloody, costly and potentially unpopular war. Churchill's Conservatives apparently couldn't stomach the possibility of the kind of political backlash Lincoln's Republicans endured in 1862.

Re:If the USA was a true democracy

[Guppy06]

Not to mention you have quite a bit of time between the scheduled election day and the actual handover of power.

The schedule was designed for 18th century standards of transportation and communication, which is exactly why the loss of 20th and 21st century utilities and services should not be viewed as an obstacle.

Re:If the USA was a true democracy

[greg1104]

A Plutocracy? That's a government run by Disney, right? A lot of recent events suddenly make more sense if that's what we have in the US.

Re:If the USA was a true democracy

[cold fjord]

"For the duration of the crisis?" Who gets to decide when it's over, the Senate or Caesar?

And just as importantly, which "crisis?" I remember reading various people urging President Clinton to not step down, as if that was a possibility, at the end of his term following the 2000 elections and the disputes following it.

"President for life" is not a title that goes well with democracy.

Re:If the USA was a true democracy

[Cro Magnon]

Meh! If I'm going to be ruled by a cartoon dog, I'd rather live in a Goofycracy.

Fake cover for Republican voter fraud

[Anonymous Coward]

" I've seen two distinct stories about voting machines registering Obama when people tried to vote for Romney"

Yeh, the usual trick Republicans do of accusing the other guy of their crimes.

We have statistical tools that show voter fraud, those tools work EQUALLY WELL for Democrat as Republican fraud.
When applied to the primaries they showed the Republican primaries were rigged to make Romney win by vote flipping. Making a few sham counter claims and hoping that will cover for voter fraud won't work this time.

http://www.themoneyparty.org/main/wp-content/uploads/2012/10/Republican-Primary-Election-Results-Amazing-Statistical-Anomalies_V2.0.pdf

If you can get the Republicans out of control of Congress, you can finally eliminate these vote rigging machines and go back to a proper paper count system. Those paper votes didn't show the signs of widespread vote rigging, and where the system flagged fraud in the paper vote, fraud was found and confirmed.

Re:Fake cover for Republican voter fraud

[Anonymous Coward]

Got proof of that? I'd guess not since you're posting as anon coward.

Lots of actual evidence of cheating including the NAACP running a polling station in Houston for Obama and someone getting caught voting twice.

All you've got? Statistical Anomailes?

PLEASE. Grow the fuck up.

Re:Fake cover for Republican voter fraud

[mellon]

The NAACP story looks manufactured. It's only about twelve hours old. It will be interesting to see what, if anything, is reported about it once it's been properly investigated. I suspect that there will be no followups on the several dozen right-wing blogs that are currently the _only_ source for this story.

Re:Fake cover for Republican voter fraud

[ThurstonMoore]

Got proof of that? I'd guess not since you're posting as anon coward.

This is stupid, I'm posting under my username but I'm still anonymous. I see people post this shit all the time, do you not realize that most likely the person's username is not their real name?

Re:Fake cover for Republican voter fraud

[Anonymous Coward]

I modded you Troll only because Freak wasn't an option.

Re:Fake cover for Republican voter fraud

[mellon]

So, apparently what was left out was that it was a really hot day, and they were handing out water to people who'd been standing in line for hours. And some jackass decided to make the incredible claim that these people, who had been standing in line for hours, were being asked to sell their vote in exchange for the water. If they cared so little about who they were voting for, why did they stand in line in the hot sun for hours to vote?

The real scandal here is that someone would have to stand in line for hours to vote. What is up with that?

Who'd have thought Obama could be twice as bad

[raymorris]

Yep. What makes the fanbois seem so silly is that both Bush amd Obama are indefensible by any objective measure. By many measures, Obama is twice as bad as even Bush was. For example, Obama more than doubled the budget deficit. Hopefully Romney will be better, he could hardly be worse than Obama or Bush. These last two were horrible by any measurement not specifocally chosen to try to make them look good. Clinton, Bush 1, Reagan, all much better than Obama or Bush 2.

Re:Who'd have thought Obama could be twice as bad

[mellon]

Bush didn't count the war effort in the budget deficit, so when Obama updated the numbers to reflect reality, the hit showed up on his balance sheet. Similarly, Bush presided over the economy that created the need for deficit spending, but that shows up on Obama's balance sheet. You don't blame the CEO you hire to fix a failing company for the failures of his or her predecessor, even if it takes a while to turn the beast around.

Re:Who'd have thought Obama could be twice as bad

[meglon]

For example, Obama more than doubled the budget deficit.

It's too bad more people don't have a basic grasp of reality. The day Obama took office, the deficit was projected at over a trillion dollars for that year... a deficit on a budget put forward by: Bush.

Lets get to the heart of the matter though. Bush kept his budget deficits low (if you consider half a trillion low) by keeping both wars and homeland security entirely off budget. There's a minimum 300 billion a year that wasn't applied to the deficit as it should have been. I know, fucking idiot republicans believe all the bullshit their told, but reality is reality.

In addition to that, Obama's budget last year added in the interest on the national debt, something that hadn't been done. There's another 250 billion that was going directly to the national debt that wasn't in Bush's budgets (to be fair, it wasn't in anyone's budgets until Obama put it in there... which is why Clinton had budget surpluses, yet the national debt still went up).

Obama's deficit now contains Bush's wars, homeland security spending, and the interest on the national debt. If those numbers were added to Bush's "budgets," his deficits would have run 650 billion to over a trillion EVERY SINGLE YEAR.

Now lets talk about where else our debt came from. The day Bush Jr entered office, the 10 year projected SURPLUS was ~5.3 trillion. The national debt at that time was ~5.7 trillion. So, did republicans step up and make the "hard" choice of leaving in place policy that was projected to pay off almost the entire national debt in 10 years? Fuck no, they're too big of fucking hypocrites, and completely incapable of governing EVERY time they get into power. Those fucks voted in a tax cut that sent massive mounts of your grand children's money to the wealthiest people in this country.

Add in two wars put directly onto the credit card, the drug medicare/medicaid give away of taxpayer money to pharmaceutical companies, and you have MASSIVE DEBT SPENDING that anyone other than a totally fucked in the head conservative ideologue could spot from another galaxy.

...and the worthless republican fucks want to blame Obama for everything. Take a quarter, and go buy a fucking clue... you need one, desperately.

Re:Who'd have thought Obama could be twice as bad

[Anonymous Coward]

Woah, chill out. You have some great points but your anger and bad attitude make you sound like a partisan tool. If you're trying to whip up some good old fashioned partisan anger, I understand but it makes you a jerk. If you are actually trying to be convincing, you ought to leave out the insults.

I think you have this wrong, concerning the Obama budget/deficit. Congress is in charge of spending and raising money in the US gov't not the president. You can't really blame Obama for having a deadlocked congress. As for the deficit, it's funny to see you bend over backwards to defend "Obama's" spending, and at the same time try to tear into Bush who spent less. Even when you incorporate the items mentioned in your post, we are still overspending by a greater margin with Obama (again, it is his congress that is responsible for this, not him directly).

I bet you will vote tomorrow - some advise for you: as fun as it can be to throw insults around on the net, please do not to swear at your fellow citizens in person!

Yeah right

[p51d007]

2 things.... Oh, I"m sure there won't be any voter fraud from: billsmith@hotmail.com billsmith@gmail.com billsmith@yahoo.com etc.... Second, say a bunch of people in the housing projects, don't have email, or, some of the elderly who still don't have internet or email.

Re:Yeah right

[Overzeetop]

One vote, one person. That's why they have lists of registered voters and they check you off after you have voted. Whether you email your scanned ballot or fax it in seems to be a trivial part of the process.

the voteing systems have cheap touch screens

[Joe_Dragon]

the voteing systems have cheap and old touch screens.

Also in voteing it not as easy as "choose A or B". in some races.

And a delay of voting...

[Anonymous Coward]

...would not work why exactly?

Seriously, not like these guys are going anywhere, or the voters for that matter. January 20th is a long way off, and we've had a lot of things cancelled and rescheduled due to it.

No, the storm may not have directly impacted most of the country, but it certainly impacted a good portion of the voting community.

Re:And a delay of voting...

[RightwingNutjob]

Because the US constitution says the vote happens on Nov 6. You start making exceptions for hurricanes, do you extend those to nasty thunderstorms, or a little bit of snow on the ground, or below freezing temperatures, or global warming in general? Some things you just have to be a stickler for.

Re:And a delay of voting...

[Anonymous Coward]

No, the constitution says Congress gets to decide:

The Congress may determine the Time of chusing [sic] the Electors, and the Day on which they shall give their Votes; which Day shall be the same throughout the United States.

Note that the 'same day' is for the electors to vote, not for the choosing of the electors.

Re:And a delay of voting...

[Anonymous Coward]

Because the US constitution says the vote happens on Nov 6.

Not quite. The constitutions says "the Congress may determine the Time of chusing the Electors, and the Day on which they shall give their Votes; which Day shall be the same throughout the United States." Which means the congress can change the date at any time.

Actually, the state legislature could fix the problem too: "Each State shall appoint, in such Manner as the Legislature thereof may direct, a Number of Electors". The state Legislature could just do away with the election and appoint the electors directly. That is the way it was originally carried out.

Re:And a delay of voting...

[Anonymous Coward]

"Because the US constitution says the vote happens on Nov 6."

Bzzzt. Wrong. Thanks for playing. Congress sets the date of elections.

obama has a health care plan Romney filp flops on

[Joe_Dragon]

obama has a health care plan Romney flip flops on it.

The gop was 1st with the mandatory health care idea. To get rid of pre existing conditions. But now that obama has is name on that plan based off the romneycare plan. It has to go along with all the sick kids that will get kicked out if it is Repealed and the ER will not cover all there needs.

Scientific proof

[Anonymous Coward]

Proof to a level where the probability of error is so low it's SMALLER THE 0 IN A DOUBLE PRECISION FLOAT.

So yeh, not just 'balance of probability' proof, not just 'beyond reasonable doubt proof', it's a MATHEMATICAL CERTAINTY proof.

Not only that, where they were caught they fessed up and adjusted the vote:
http://www.youtube.com/watch?feature=player_embedded&v=whWVCxunvNU

And if that wasn't enough, even video evidence of the teleprompter showing the vote at the RND was a fake
http://www.youtube.com/watch?feature=player_embedded&v=77W5OKStO5s

So welcome to the new reality, where every little Republican (and it is Republicans who own ES&S/Diebold, and Romney's family trust who've bought Hart Intervic) voter fraud will be clearly identified by statistical means, and every trick recorded by people with video cameras.

Re:Scientific proof

[Jeremy Erwin]

perhaps you meant "smaller than epsilon". Or are you suggesting that the system has a " negative fault capacity"?

Estonia

[ryzvonusef]

Apparently Estonians vote online too:

http://techcrunch.com/2012/09/24/report-america-ranks-behind-estonia-in-internet-freedom-heres-why/

http://www.cnn.com/2011/11/08/tech/web/online-voting/index.html

[Canada], Sweden, Latvia and Switzerland are among the countries that have tested Internet voting.

But when it comes to national elections, Estonia is the clear leader.

The tiny Baltic nation (its population of 1.3 million is roughly the size of San Diego) has allowed online voting for all of its citizens since 2007. In this year's election, nearly one in four votes was cast online, according to its elections commission.

Note that they have a national ID card, reasoning that it's better to have *one* government controlled database that they can control and monitor, rather than to have a zillion databases that are unconnected and contain various levels of information.

Re:Estonia

[ryzvonusef]

PS: A link to their National ID card management website: http://www.id.ee/

Re:Estonia

[plover]

The reporter is obviously confused about the meaning of 'freedom'. The real problems with online voting have less to do with the technology and more to do with the integrity of the process.

Even if an online system worked perfectly, how do you know that when Joe cast his vote that Frank wasn't standing behind him with a gun in one hand and $100 in the other? You don't.

Now, that's a problem with absentee ballots as well, you might say, and you would be right. But the effective difference is the difficulty of scaling fraud up in the physical world as opposed to scaling up fraud in an online world. I might be a rich gangster and hire 10 thugs to influence 10 votes. But as a crooked employer, I could monitor the voting of thousands of employees, and I'd know exactly who is on the short list to be promoted.

Preventing coercion requires the act of moving a voter into a secluded voting booth, with a truly secret ballot.

Re:Estonia

[ryzvonusef]

But as a crooked employer, I could monitor the voting of thousands of employees, and I'd know exactly who is on the short list to be promoted.

I am confused, if they are doing it from home, how will your employer abuse your right?

Re:Estonia

[davester666]

Why does Frank need $100 in the other hand if he has a gun in the first one?

Re:Estonia

[linnumees]

You can always vote again. If your employer forces you to vote for him, you can go home and change your vote. If your employer takes away your ID card, you can take your passport and go vote on the election day.

Estonia has a smardcard-based ID card that can be used for authentication and digital signatures (two different keys). Technically the vote is encrypted with the public key of the current election, signed with the ID card and sent to a central server. Later, the double votes are removed according to the list of people who voted on the election day, votes are separated from the signed container, moved to a physically different machine, decrypted and counted.

See http://www.vvk.ee/voting-methods-in-estonia/engindex/reports-about-internet-voting-in-estonia/ for details.

Re:Estonia

[greg1104]

The presumed first step is that employers require their employees vote while at work. Easy enough to do even with indirect threats right now, when so many people are un- and under-employed. Didn't vote at work? Not gonna look good on your next performance report...

Re:Estonia

[TapeCutter]

I don't think (in this case) Frank has enough time to organise a gun and $100 for a significant number of Joe's. Beside Joe could simply lie to Frank and tell him he has already voted by email.

Re:Estonia

[TapeCutter]

The presumed first step is that employers require their employees vote while at work.

Agreed, the ideal is a secret ballot, but circumstances are currently less than ideal. If voting by email were the norm I'm sure some employers would try to bluntly coerce their employees, however I don't think they would succeed on a significant scale without getting caught. Also not all coercive employers are going to bend the vote in the same direction.

The obvious risks in this temporary measure is back-end fraud and man in the middle, again the lack of notice gives Dr. Evil very little time to organise a hijack and not get caught. The level of social dysfunction where roving gangs routinely bully old ladies into voting for them does not happen overnight, it would take decades to achieve.

Re:Estonia

[TapeCutter]

You need both the carrot and the stick, if all you have is the stick then the donkey will eventually kick you in the head.

Re:Estonia

[plover]

Half the people will vote from their web browsers at work, more if the boss makes an announcement: "Hey, take a few minutes after lunch and be sure to log on and vote today."

Our company machines give us a warning every time we sign in: "This machine may be monitored at any time, and all activity may be logged. Don't assume anything you do on company equipment is private." I know that not only do they have such monitoring and logging capability, but it extends to https: surfing as well. It would be a small matter of log correlation to determine which employees voted in a way that agrees with the boss.

Would they? At my place of employment, I expect that while my management probably sees issues differently than I do, they do pride themselves on their ethical practices. I do trust they would not do something as blatantly illegal as attempt to improperly coerce people to vote for a certain candidate. However, where my wife works, let's just say that if if her boss thought he could get away with strong arming them all into voting some way so he could get his taxes cut, he'd set up a voting PC and have everyone gather around to watch each other vote.

Re:Estonia

[Anonymous Coward]

I don't know about how it works for you, but around here you can absentee vote or postal vote but each requires you to to a polling place and present yourself as a real person without anyone holding a gun to your head. They then give you your ballot papers and you make your selections in private and then lodge your secret ballot. When the ballots are counted, scrutineers from the various parties are present. These are the three steps necessary for fair democratic voting. You will note that none of them are present with e-mail voting.

Re:Estonia

[Hognoxious]

Also not all coercive employers are going to bend the vote in the same direction.

ROFLMAO.

Re:Estonia

[ryzvonusef]

Ah, fair point, but according to this pdf a poster posted in a comment in this thread, you can apparently re-vote:

http://www.vvk.ee/public/dok/Internet_Voting_in_Estonia.pdf

Relevant portion:

Voters' free expression cannot be wholly guaranteed in case of Internet voting, therefore, i-voter has the right to replace his/her i-vote with:
  another i-vote -> only the last vote counts
  a paper ballot -> i-vote is cancelled

Basically it's a matter of correctly planned checks and balances (a matter, as a student of accountancy, I have been hammered with A LOT).

And frankly, the very fact this point is being brought up makes me very depressed about America. I mean, as a 3rd worlder, I understand that *my* rights are worth shit, but why are *you* guys so worried this might be abused?

I thought with you with your first world status, your rights would be iron-clad, is it so common to leave loop holes *this* obvious, that you are immediately worry about it being abused? Where is your confidence that things will be taken care of and properly planned? I can understand *us* being herded like chattel to the voting booth, but why is difficult for *you* to say to your employer, NO?

Frankly, if things are so bad, then you have bigger problems then just some fake votes.

Re:Estonia

[greg1104]

Yes, Americans have much bigger problems than fake voting now. The party in power doesn't even need to win the election with votes; they can just declare whatever opposition they're most worried about terrorists to remove them. If your ability to be free citizen can be taken from you without trial, whether you can vote or not is really irrelevant. And that's where we are now in the USA.

Re:Estonia

[Anonymous Coward]

That would probably be a felony and I don't see employees at such a company keeping quiet for long.

This isn't really that complicated

[Anonymous Coward]

The thing that makes online voting hard is that people want it to be:
1. Convenient
2. Secure, Accurate, and reliable
3. Anonymous

If you take away #3, then it's pretty easy. (And #3 is already gone if you are using email!).
Since email isn't typically authenticated, a way to make sure nobody is sending in fake emails works like this:
1. You email your vote.
2. The government sends you a confirmation flyer or something with your vote printed.
Then everyone will know their vote was counted properly, and can complain if they get a flyer saying they voted differently than they really did (or received a flyer when they didn't vote at all).
If they want to be even more sure, then they can have an audit after the election where everyone has to come in in person and show their ID and confirm their vote. (When things are stable again). If a significant number of people have different results than they remember, then you have a recount.

Re:This isn't really that complicated

[Anonymous Coward]

The thing that makes online voting hard is that people want it to be:

never ever a security risk in the media spotlight
non important for almost 4 year cycles not discussed for 3.9 % of that time , but then when people say they are timing the courts, claiming that the timing is in fact the weapon of destroying the constitution, is now outlawed by the courts as conspiracy theory

pointless
cracked

FUCK VOTING, it's DONE
stick a fork in it.
don't consent
maybe after the collapse, after all these scumbag pieces of shit are gone, we can fix it.
or maybe they will just stay in charge and kill us

Re:This isn't really that complicated

[Anonymous Coward]

what if what's on the flyer isn't what you put there, there is no recourse!?
since when is there ever a fucking recount, they cost too much!?

It's a fuckin pipe dream and you know it. There's never been a national election recount on a large scale EVER.
it's localized and on bullshit scale that don't matter in the bigger picture. WAR, MONETARY SYSTEM, US CONSTITUTION

I won't deny there hasn't been some recounts, but never when it matters. And even then the COURTS STOLE IT! Now we have the "Just-US system"
A recount is also after the fact, people assume power, they become belligerent, they pass laws and do hell of fucking damage, then use local LEO like guard dogs, and are transformed into untouchable officials who are now 10,000 times harder to get the fuck out and have LEO to sick on your fucking asses.

They are adept at choreographing protest into a domestic terrorist event. ANd that fucking BULLSHIT

Even when a recount happens WHEN HAS IT EVER IN THE HISTORY OF THE US has redacted the legislation that some shit fake fuck put in?
When were the laws rolled back EVER?!

In case you didn't notice we are OVER REGULATED TO DEATH.

how about unique random tokens

[Anonymous Coward]

Voter mails: "My name is X and I want to vote"
Government replies: "Dear Mr.X your token is 72951413 you may proceed"
Voter mails: "I want to vote Ron Paul, my token is 72951413"
Votes are counted and a list of all tokens with respective votes is published

Voters can then report when votes were rigged

Re:how about unique random tokens

[Anonymous Coward]

Voter mails: "I want to vote Ron Paul, my token is 72951415"
another voter mails: My number us 72951413 you bastard, your into my ISP's var/mail with midnight commander again aren't you you commie fag?

2 or more tokens are nullified and no vote counts.

1 attacker gets away with a Denial Of Service
1 voter gets their vote stolen

Oh and did you see the fake number I added in?

It isn't the token that's the failure, it's the electronics soldered to the fucking BOARD.

Oblig: What can possibly go wrong?

[guspasho]

Just remember, penile extension ads are votes for Romney, and free credit ads are also votes for Romney.

Re:Oblig: What can possibly go wrong?

[BlueStrat]

Just remember, penile extension ads are votes for Romney, and free credit ads are also votes for Romney.

LOL!

So I guess that defaults the "Nigerian prince" and "please confirm your bank login details" ads to votes for BHO?

At least we can be sure the Classmates.com emails aren't a vote for Obama, LOL.

Strat

Re:Oblig: What can possibly go wrong?

[guspasho]

No way, those are all also votes for Romney!

No worse than paper mail ballots

[goodmanj]

Let me play devil's advocate here. While we all know that email is insecure, as a practical matter the security holes in this are roughly equal to vote-by-mail. Not that that's a good thing, but this doesn't introduce many new problems. The NJ elections directive recognizes this, and treats displaced voters as "overseas" for the purpose of election rules.

Summary of the procedure:
* Your voter registration is already on fiile.
* You email a request for your ballot
* The elections agency marks your ballot number in the registry, sends you a ballot with a unique ID, along with a waiver of secrecy.
* You fill out the ballot and the waiver, and send them back.

Can we spam the election with billions of votes? No. Well, you can send the emails, but they won't have the right ID numbers so they won't be counted.
Can we hijack individuals' votes by voting for them, or by changing their vote via a man-in-the-middle attack? Yes, but you can do this by paper mail too, and it's a one-vote-at-a-time thing.
Do we lose the secrecy of the ballot booth? Yes, but that's lost in vote-by-mail too, and voters choose whether they'd rather submit a non-secret ballot, or trudge through miles of floodwaters to cast their vote in person.

The practical question you've got to ask yourself is not "could someone be disenfranchised by this?" but "will more people be disenfranchised by doing this than by *not* doing it?"

In short, adding "e-" to a technology doesn't miraculously make it evil or cool. And in this case, the security holes are roughly equal to a system already in common use. As a mandatory universal voting system, email voting would be an abhorrent violation of civil rights. As a short-term, *optional* response to a major emergency, it's worth considering.

Re:No worse than paper mail ballots

[Anonymous Coward]

I'd imagine it is MUCH harder to do the mail fraud middle man thing than the email thing. The email thing you can probably get away with stealing for all your neighbors votes.

Re:No worse than paper mail ballots

[Anonymous Coward]

I'm surprised that postal votes are not secret. There's no reason for that.

In Australia if you do a postal vote, you're given 2 envelopes. you put your vote inside the first unmarked envelope. Then you fill out all your voting details on the other envelope, and put the first envelope inside.

When they receive, your vote. The details on the outer envelope are checked. Once they are happy that it's a valid vote, the unmarked envelope is thrown into the pile of other postal votes.

Simple, low tech solution...

The vote was held on time in the Civil War

[Overzeetop]

I don't think a hurricane counts, in comparison.

They're gonna have a heck of a time

[Anonymous Coward]

They're gonna have a heck of a time tracking down 133t Hax0r, and getting him sworn in to office.

This works ONE WAY...

[Anonymous Coward]

This works ONE WAY
By giving up transparency
Where TRANSPARENCY = "the fact your vote and opinion is secret so people don't put a bullet in your head for your opinion"

If you give up your transparency, validation CAN occur. (I didn't say WILL)

e.g.

Did he vote for Measure M?
um...

Was it a yes?
umm..Yes.

Yes what? Did he vote Yes on M?
Yes

okay validated.

The entire process should take MORE time than transparent voting because of the validation process.
Then again, with paper ballots maintaining an unbroken chain of custody is what takes more time.

I know my example is retarded up there, but this FEEDBACK loop example of error checking could be applied to anything, EVEN RADIO. like even, Vote on the radio with your voice...

Unless your an astronaut off planet!!!, there is no legit reason to GIVE UP TRANSPARENCY, not even with a national disaster.
Each day the sun rises and you could vote outside in the SUN on PAPER.

AGAIN, I remind those "short memory, apathetic minded", "who cares if they track me" people out there.
The transparency is there for a BIG REASON.
Where TRANSPARENCY = "the fact your vote and opinion is secret so people don't put a bullet in your head for your opinion"

This has historic precedence (although maybe not in books or law books), ... are you voting for Generaisimo? no? BANG your dead.
Death has a way of not making it into the books.

But you go ahead an put your misguided support behind this insanity. I didn't even get into the UNSOLVABLE problems with software, hardware, and firmware

Why This is a Good Idea

[PhamNguyen]

This measure is no less secure or private than other forms of absentee voting, and is necessary given the constitutional right to vote. On privacy, email is no worse than regular mail or fax, from the point of view of the government knowing who you voted for. On people voting for other people, there is no barrier to (A) voting for another registered voter in person or (B) registering to vote under fake name. (B) could be solved by voter ID laws but I've read many claims that this happens very rarely anyway. Also, people criticizing this measure should say which alternative they propose. Only allowing absentee votes by mail/fax?

Compared to the Current Insecure System

[Anonymous Coward]

Its no worse than the current system where we know the Republicans are committing voter fraud.

Bart Simpson will win New Jersey

[Anonymous Coward]

Write-in Ballots via email

Beh, it's only Noo Joizy

[Hognoxious]

Who gives a fuck, they always vote for the other lot anyway.

Email vote?

[Cute and Cuddly]

Do you think that if I take all the mud from the laptop, get elecricity and internet working I'll be able to cast my vote that will be meaningless anyway because both candidates (Which try to appear different) will please the corporations rather than the electorate?

Why not just go all the way...

[CanadianMacFan]

and allow voting by Twitter or Facebook likes.

Votes must also be sent by conventional mail

[harryjohnston]

While affected voters can send their vote by fax or email, they must *also* send the paper ballot by conventional mail. The fax/email votes and the conventional mail votes will be reconciled after the election, and the results are not final until this has been done.

See https://freedom-to-tinker.com/blog/felten/new-jersey-voting-in-the-aftermath-of-hurricane-sandy/

If Romney Wins Jersey

[Anonymous Coward]

If Romney wins New Jersey, we will all know that he cheated and stuffed the email ballots.

Problem with e-voting and geeks

[Pecisk]

One name: paranoia.

My expierence tells me that there is posibility to have "good enough" system for voting trough eletronic means - if elections are organised trough centralised means and trust. Problem is, it won't be "good enough" for geeks. And we have trust problem here, as both Dems and Reps lawyers already sharpening pencils for possible legal fallouts if vote will be very close.

It's nothing to do with tools and systems. It's everything to do with humans. If there will be a trust, e-voting will be good enough to have it as good *alternative*. Paper ballot still should be mandatory as primary method.