Voting Machine Problem Reports Already Rolling In

Several readers have submitted news of the inevitable problems involved with trying to securely collect information from tens of millions of people on the same day. A video is making the rounds of a touchscreen voting machine registering a vote for Mitt Romney when Barack Obama was selected. A North Carolina newspaper is reporting that votes for Romney are being switched to Obama. Voters are being encouraged to check and double-check that their votes are recorded accurately. In Ohio, some recently-installed election software got a pass from a District Court Judge. In Galveston County, Texas, poll workers didn't start their computer systems early enough to be ready for the opening of the polls, which led to a court order requiring the stations to be open for an extra two hours at night. Yesterday we discussed how people in New Jersey who were displaced by the storm would be allowed to vote via email; not only are some of the emails bouncing, but voters are being directed to request ballots from a county clerk's personal Hotmail account. If only vote machines were as secure as slot machines. Of course, there's still the good, old fashioned analog problems; workers tampering with ballots, voters being told they can vote tomorrow, and people leaving after excessively long wait times.

Comments

Stupid.

[Capt.DrumkenBum]

It is called paper. It works.
Voting machines are a solution to a problem that doesn't exits.
Nothing beats a paper ballot and a #2 pencil.

Re:Stupid.

[Iniamyen]

Maybe you should have mailed this comment to /. instead of posting it then.

Re:Stupid.

[Rockoon]

A paper ballot and a black marker beats the hell out of the paper ballot and the No. 2 pencil.

Re:Stupid.

[RoknrolZombie]

I like this idea. The candidates get bussed from town to town over the course of a couple of weeks. People throw rocks at the candidates that they don't like. Whoever survives the trip, is elected!

Re:Stupid.

[Sponge Bath]

A paper ballot and a black marker beats the hell out of the paper ballot and the No. 2 pencil.

Paper also beats rock. But watch out! Here comes the scissors.

Re:Stupid.

[Anonymous Coward]

That doesn't sound like a defect.

Re:Stupid.

[Goaway]

You don't use a machine, and you don't hire people. You take multiple volunteers who count in public.

Re:Stupid.

[Goaway]

How about the high cost of counting ballots by hand?

What high costs? You volunteer to do it.

And one more time: they are not a safeguard against fraud.

Having multiple volunteer workers from all sides of the political spectrum is.

Re:Stupid.

[Goaway]

Vote count delays?

If done right, it doesn't take more than evening by hand.

Issues with recounts?

What issues?

The ease in which paper votes can be "lost" in transit to the counting facility?

They are to be counted on location, not transported anywhere.

Re:Stupid.

[mark-t]

Speaking as a Canadian here, who has actually worked for Elections Canada in the past three times now, let me clarify just how paper ballots work just fine up here:

Until your scanning machine gets out of alignment

Won't happen. Ballots are counted by hand.

...the people you hired to do hand counts get bribed

As the ballot counts are done in pairs, and even then are subject to being witnessed by the candidates or their representatives, you'd have to bribe one heck of a lot of people... up to and possibly even including the candidates themselves. Ballots with any writing or other identifying marks on them other than the voter's selection, which must be marked as described by the illustrated posters near each voting station, which might distinguish them from other ballots are considered "spoiled" and are not counted.

... or someone loses the ballots on the way to be counted

This is also can't happen, since the ballots are counted right there, almost immediately after the polls close.

The only real danger is if there is some sort of natural disaster which threatens one of the polling stations. I'm not sure what the recourse of EC would be in such a case... possibly a revote for people in that area.

Re:Stupid.

[hawguy]

#2 pencil is conductive. That makes it easy to read it by machine. I suppose you could do the same thing with a camera and a computer though.

Does any modern scanning equipment use electrical conductivity of pencil marks to read forms? I could see maybe back in the 60's when cameras and photo sensors were expensive, but I'd be surprised if anything built in the past 30 years doesn't use optical sensors.

Re:Stupid.

[amRadioHed]

Why is vote count delay even an issue? I know the 24 hour median wants results in prime time, but who cares about that? The president isn't sworn in until late January, let the counters take as long as is needed to do it right.

Re:Stupid.

[realityimpaired]

We use paper ballots in Canada... counters get paid a small stipend (something like $30) to count the ballots, there's scrutineers to make sure they're counting properly, and any party can send a representative to watch the counting. When a ballot is counted, the person reads out loud who the vote is for, and shows it to another person to confirm. Any party can request a recount on the spot, and there's an automatic recount when the two leading candidates are close enough together in votes. Because there's paper ballots, we can keep a physical record of the voting, and in the event that there's a discrepancy or challenge, we can always go back and tally the votes again.

Since each polling station isn't more than 200-300 voters (most voting locations will have 6 or 7 polling stations each), we're still able to have results by the end of the night.

Considering that your current election is costing an estimated $1billion, I think you can afford to use paper ballots.

Re:Stupid.

[compro01]

For legally blind, there's a very large print version of the ballot in the booth. My legally blind grandmother never had any difficulty voting.

For completely blind, there's a braille template.

Re:Stupid.

[vux984]

A problem that doesn't exist? How about the high cost of counting ballots by hand?

Canada does it. Its pretty efficient.

Oh noes you will cry out, America has 10x the population, and it will cost 10x as much, and require 10x as many people.

This is all true. But that 10x cost is divided by 10x the population, making it cost the same per capita.

Another way of looking at it would be to consider that the 50 states each essentially run their own elections, and even the most populous states aren't more populous than Canada.

The point is that Canada manages it just fine, and there is no valid argument that it can't be scaled in the USA.

Paper ballots are counted by elections canada temporary staff, with oversight by full time employees, and members of the party. I've participated in a couple myself.

My observations:

Disputes over spoiled ballots are pretty much a non-issue.

Their are several protocols in place to safegaurd against fraud. Stuffing the ballot box would not be simple at all. Each station has a ballot box linked to a list of voters, and a record of who voted. The votes are counted against the number of voters on the list who voted.

Per the procedures:

At the polling station specified on the voter information card, the poll clerk crosses the voter's name off the voters list. The deputy returning officer hands the voter a folded ballot with the initials of the deputy returning officer on the outside.

(At this point the voter goes behind the voter screen to make their mark.)

The voter then re-folds the ballot so that the deputy returning officer's initials are visible and hands it to the deputy returning officer. The deputy returning officer checks the initials and the number shown on the counterfoil, removes the counterfoil and discards it, and returns the ballot to the voter. The voter, or the deputy returning officer at the voter's request, places the folded ballot in the ballot box. The poll clerk then places a mark in the "Voted" column beside the elector's name on the voters list.

The ballots themselves have counterfeit protections, and are carefully accounted for. As each vote is cast serial numbers are checked. (But not recorded alongside the voter who placed the vote.)

Really you'd have to corrupt a pretty large chunk of the polling staff, then they could simply ignore the votes and write down whatever totals they wanted as long as it added up to the number of people who voted, and certify and transmit the results them. You'd still have to get it past the other parties observers, but they usually don't send enough people to watch everything all the time.*
And then as long as no one called for a recount, no one would ever know.

* Of course they *could* and if fraud were a significant problem, they probably would. In my experience we usually have a couple party affiliated observers in a polling site with 6 or 7 polling stations. The closer the anticipated race the more scrutiny.

 

Re:Stupid.

[Goaway]

The high cost in volunteer time. Just because volunteers are paying those costs, doesn't mean they don't exist. And it isn't a good excuse to take advantage of them.

You can't afford an afternoon every few years to keep your political system running well?

How do you ensure that you have volunteers from "all" sides of the political spectrum instead of just "both" sides?

I don't. That's up to everyone to do for themselves. If you don't volunteer, you have nobody to blame but yourself.

Re:Stupid.

[hawguy]

Actually, most equipment, such as Scantron, etc, does. While it's possible to do it optically, it can be done much faster by using electrical conductivity. That said, when, instead of correctly spotting 100 marks on a multiple choice answer sheet, you only need to do a few points, optical sensors probably make more sense.

All of the Scanners on Scantron's page say they do Optical Mark Recognition and/or Imaging. And they can detect ink or pencil marks.

http://www.scantron.com/scanners/

Do you have an actual reference for equipment that uses electrical conductivity to count marks? As I said, I can certainly believe that early machines did, but not anything built recently. I really don't see how electrical counting could be faster than optical counters -- keeping a good electrical contact with fast moving paper seems a lot harder than bouncing light off the paper.

I found an article confirming that early Scantron machines did use electrical conductivity to count marks:

http://www.todayifoundout.com/index.php/2010/10/why-you-used-to-have-to-use-2-pencils-with-scantron-forms/

The earliest scantron-like machines used electrical conductivity, rather than light, to read forms. Graphite is quite conductive, so the machines simply had a mechanism at each markable area location to make contact with the form and detect if an electrical current is detected across the area. These systems were used as early as the 1930s.

But it didn't say when optical scanning came into use.

That site also has the obligatory XKCD comic:

http://xkcd.com/499/

Re:Stupid.

[BitterOak]

How does a blind person cast a private and secret ballot?

For blind people, there is a sleeve the ballot can be inserted into which has Braille markings with the candidate's names and openings through which the voter can mark the "X". Also an election official can, if the voter wishes, read the names of the candidates while guiding the voters hand down the openings in the sleeve to acquaint the voter with the options. Then the official leaves the area behind the voting screen so the voter can vote in secret. At his/her option, a voter can designate an assistant to help them with voting, who is required to sign a declaration that they will assist the voter in voting the way they intended, and not disclose the candidate whom the voter selected to anyone. A voter, if he/she wishes can have an election official assist with the voting in a similar way, and of course, such officials are sworn to assist correctly.

Re:Stupid.

[CastrTroy]

Actually, votes are counted so fast in Canada, that we had to create a law that says results from the east coast couldn't be broadcast until the polls in the west coast were closed.

E-votes

[Citizen of Earth]

"Those who cast the votes decide nothing. Those who count the votes decide everything." -- Joseph Stalin

Re:E-votes

[Mitreya]

Those who count the votes might decide everything, but they are still accountable to anyone who might be witness to them doing said counting.

That's probably why the electronic machines are being pushed as a replacement.
So that there is no counting that can be witnessed.

Re:What happened to those election monitors?

[Anonymous Coward]

they said it was stupid that we didnt require ids to vote then media ignored them

http://thecable.foreignpolicy.com/posts/2012/11/06/foreign_election_officials_amazed_by_trust_based_us_voting_system

It's not a big problem.

[Beardo the Bearded]

Look guys, it's a few glitches. There are what, 350 million people in the US, half are eligible to vote, so 175 million voters. A couple of thousand counted wrong is tops a few VOTE RECORDED: MITT ROMNEY

Re:It's not a big problem.

[Beardo the Bearded]

The fuck happened there? I swear I ERROR: VOTE ALREADY RECORDED.

Re:How hard is this to do?

[sl3xd]

Harder than an ATM machine? Harder than a nuclear power plant control room? Harder than a 787 Dreamliner fly by wire system?

The key problem: Price.

Your examples can be counted on to be in use pretty much all of the time.

Not so with voting machines, where they sit unused in warehouses for months on end.

As a result, it's hard to justify to "fiscally responsible" election committees that your more expensive device is the best for the job.

One of the easiest things to cheap out on is the touchscreen. The touch sensors on your iOS or Android device are generally top of the line capacitive sensors - and even they have trouble from time to time.

If you go for a cheap resistive touch sensor, you can be pretty screwed. I know my office's HP DeskJet all-in-one has an extremely low-end touch screen - it's best described as "touch the screen, and get anything except what you intended to press.

I'm far more willing to chalk it up to deprecated, cheap-ass touch sensors than I am to call it fraud.

Frankly, we need the guys designing slot machine or video poker to do our voting machines - with the same regulations too (ie. full source code disclosure, full schematics, and so on). I think it's criminal that we require casinos to prove their machines aren't hacked, and require full source code and schematics -- but the same standard doesn’t exist for voting machines.

Yelled at by an old lady; still managed to vote

[Just Some Guy]

I live in a small town outside San Francisco. It seems that two local districts vote in the place I went this morning, so a guy at the door routed voters to table A or table B depending on our street addresses. The problem was that competing teams of little-old-lady election volunteers were engaged in a turf war over who "owned" which voting booths. When I got my ballot from table A, the booths closest to it were occupied and the volunteers directed my wife and I to the ones nearer table B.

You would have thought I had peed all over the table B volunteers' Thanksgiving turkey.

Little Old Lady: Sir? Sir! These are for table B! You're supposed to use the booths over by table A!
Me: Umm, is there a difference?
LOL: Yes! These are for table B! If they're all filled up, table B people won't be able to vote!
Me: Well, table A's booths are all filled up and I'd like to vote, too.
LOL, whining and angry: But these are for table B!

Man. Hell hath no wrath like the elderly women proudly doing their quadrennial duties.

Re:Touchscreen video is a fraud

[Anonymous Coward]

I voted with one of those machines today. It's not a touchscreen, you use a trackball to select the candidate. The guy is obviously trying to make it look like the machine doesn't work by touching the screen and not showing the trackball being moved.

I'm a PA (Pgh) resident and I used the exact same machine today. It did _not_ have a trackball.

ES&S IVotronic

[JumboMessiah]

The machine in the video is an ES&S IVotronic terminal. It's the same terminal I voted on this morning. It directly appears the digitizer is incorrectly calibrated. What the video author doesn't show is the paper tabulator in the lower left corner. It would of clearly showed his vote being tallied incorrectly. Perhaps he was voting Romney and didn't want his cast vote shown, but the paper trail recorder clearly shows your selection in the window. It even shows when you got back and correct a selection. Now, they key is that each candidate field on the screen is independently calibrated and can be re-calibrated in under a minute by any third party.

At minimum, this terminal should of been isolated and inspected for tampering. Hopefully that was the ultimate outcome. I know I would of not left the area until a proper election official arrived.

Re:Online Voting

[Goaway]

"GO vote for Mitt Romney, or we'll break your fucking knee caps," seems to work regardless of the voting method used.

That is why voting is private. You can threaten someone to go vote some way all you want, but you have no way of knowing if they did or not.

That is not the case for remote voting, where you can stand next to them and make sure they vote the way you want.

Re:Online Voting

[Imagix]

Canada solved this too. People must have 4 consecutive hours available to vote. So if the polling stations are open from 7 AM to 8 PM, the employer could require the employee to leave at 4 PM (to allow for 4-8 PM), or arrive at 11 AM (to allow for 7-11 AM).