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Study: New Jersey e-Vote Experiment After Sandy a Disaster
TMB writes Al Jazeera reports on a Rutgers study about e-voting in New Jersey after Superstorm Sandy, and it is damning. It concludes that the middle of a natural disaster is the last time to try switching to a new voting method, especially one rife with such problems as e-voting. The table of contents includes such section headings as "Internet voting is not safe, should not be made legal, and should never be incorporated into emergency measures."
for organization executives, policy approvals, and stockholder proxy votes have been conducted without incident so far.
A handful of problem cases are to be expected amidst this flood.
I would doubt that the relative incidence of rigging paper-ballot elections is smaller.
Where are we going and why are we in a handbasket?
Captain Obvious Fucks You RIGHT in the ASS again.
So basicly New Jersey fucked up implementation, because they made everything possible that could go wrong, go wrong, then complain about it going wrong, and blamed the idea for their gross incompetence....
yep.
Christie's quarantine has an asymptomatic nurse who tested negative for Ebola confined outside a Newark hospital in an unheated tent. She had to fight with them about letting her keep her iphone. Can she e-vote from inside the tent or will they take her absentee ballot?
Why does the summary link to an Al Jazeera article discussing domestic matters, especially when Al Jazeera themselves are just reporting on work that Rutgers did? Surely, NYTimes, WaPo and others are reporting on this as well, and would be more authoritative.
That fat bastard got reelected because that storm came at just the right time to make people feel sorry for him that week. Bush would have gotten a nice lift from Katrina too, if he hadn't totally blown it off.
Christie did everything right after the hurricane by working with FEMA. Blanco and Nagin did everything wrong by keeping FEMA out.
No he got reelected because the Democrats weren't interested in trying to oust him. The candidate they put up was a crony who demanded her turn at higher office and this was the only chance she would ever be allowed to run.
And what democrat would have been able to beat him? No one wanted to run against him because he was already very popular and chances of winning were slim.
"First they came for the slanderers and i said nothing."
The Internet is good for a lot of things; but don't try to pound nails with it.
I'm sure eVoting can be made to work in the long run. OTOH, yeah, springing it on people in the middle of a disaster is probably not such a hot idea. Duh!
For all intensive purposes, "whom" is no longer a word. That begs the question, "who cares"?
Millions? Maybe you meant thousands? Maybe on second thought, hundreds or at least dozens? Well, American Idol anyway. Hmm maybe American Idol was by SMS, not internet.
There is the IBM proxy, so that's one. I bet we could find two or three more. It might be safe to say "a few".
And if there's a discrepancy, then what? Ignore the e-vote or ignore the traditional results?
It's the same issue with e-voting with a paper-trail - what happens when the paper trail and the e-vote results don't match?
Ken
Just look at the top three posts from Brad Friedman's blog (Brad is the foremost blogger on the topic of electronic voting and fair elections in the US):
http://www.bradblog.com/
Here are the three headlines as of right now:
and last but not least:
If your state has e-voting, your elections are a farce. You might as well not vote. There is overwhelming evidence that e-voting has already flipped major elections in the United States, which means e-voting machines that are currently being used, that have absolutely no paper verification, have nullified your rights as a citizen.
You are welcome on my lawn.
Christy won NJ *twice* without any significant support from the unions.
That no Democrat was able to mount a reasonable challenge to him is very telling in a state like NJ. Dems have 'installed' some real questionable Gov. In the past (Corzine & the 'Machiavellian' candidate whose name escapes me at the moment), that no one of that caliber could be found in NJ to take on Christy is amazing to me...
Ken
Here's something that can be used to replace traditional mail-in absentee ballots, which are themselves not-exactly-secure:
The election authority publishes its public key widely, such as in local newspapers and on the back of voter-registration cards.
For each voter wishing to vote absentee:
The election authority generates a one-time pad for the voter as well as a public and private key for that voter good for just the election.
The election authority encrypts the voter's private key with the one-time pad, signs it with the election authority's private key, then prints out the result. It sends this information to the voter. It then destroys all copies of the voter's private key including those that are encrypted.
Separately, the election authority signs the one-time pad, prints out the results, and delivers it to the voter. It then destroys all remaining copies of the one-time pad.
Finally, the election authority mails out paper ballots in the traditional way, along with the "precinct/ballot style number" which has been encrypted with the voter's public key so only the voter can decrypt it. This "precinct/ballot style number" is printed on all ballots that have the identical list of candidates. This is so the voter can check that he got the right ballot.
The channels used to send the information to the voter should not have overlapping security vulnerabilities if possible. For example, mail can be intercepted, so at least one of these items should be delivered by a non-mail courier who delivers the item directly to the voter or delivered electronically.
For very-remote voters such as soldiers deployed overseas, astronauts, etc. the voting materials will probably, out of necessity, be sent to the voter in electronic form, with all documents electronically signed by the voting authority. This can be an option for other voters as well.
The voter can choose to mail in the paper ballot "as usual" if he wants to, making all of the work above pointless with respect to that voter.
Or, if he wants to use technology, the voter can scan in all of the voting materials into a computer along with a copy of the widely-published public key of the voting authority. His computer will authenticate and/or decrypt the one-time pad, the encrypted "precinct/ballot style number" that came with the ballot, and the voter's private key. It will also verify the "precinct/ballot style number" printed on the ballot matches the encrypted version.
The computer will then assist the voter in filling out the ballot. For this part of the voting task, no Internet access is required. The voter could even boot his computer using a "voting boot CD" provided by any number of "competing" voter-integrity-oriented public-interest groups.
Finally, the computer will offer to print out the ballot for the person to mail in. The voter can of course inspect the ballot prior to mailing it in.
It will also offer two choices for electronic voting: ..." only in a much more compact form like "P5341,1,3,3,4,0,2,...". Whatever the result, the computer will encrypt it with the voting authority's public key, append a random "salt", then sign the whole thing with the voter's private key.
The voter can scan either the computer-printed ballot or a hand-filled-out ballot or ask the computer to generate a much-shorter "e-ballot" which contains the vote but not the graphic-image of the ballot. This e-ballot will be a summary, something like "precinct/ballot style 5341, race 1: choice 1 of 3, race 2: choice 3 of 4, race 3: abstain of 2,
The voter can "cast his ballot" by returning a printout of the signed, encrypted ballot, faxing it in, emailing it in, having it delivered by courier, or submitting it over the Internet. Note that a "printout" of a "scanned-in" ballot will be quite lengthy, assuming it is printed out in an ascii-type format similar to those used for email attachments.
The voting authority will use a dedicated computer to authenticate the signatures of r
Knowledge is how to play a game, intelligence is how to win, wisdom is knowing what game to play.
Blanco and Nagin did everything wrong by keeping FEMA out.
It still amazes me the amount of people that don't realize that FEMA aid has to be requested by the state government.
Feature, not a bug.
Just like everything about e-"voting".
On the news a few elections back I saw that Texas (home of NASA and at one time the voting-residence of at least one astronaut) allows astronauts to vote electronically from space. It was news because Texas passed a special law to make it possible for astronauts to vote without having to send paper ballots to the ISS and get them back in time to be counted.
It may or may not use TCP/IP, but it is remote voting. I'm not sure if it's encrypted or not and if it is, I'm not sure if the voting authority has enough information to determine who cast which ballot.
Knowledge is how to play a game, intelligence is how to win, wisdom is knowing what game to play.
Let me leave a part of the remarks of Senator Ron Wyden (D), Oregon here:
In vote by mail, you sign your ballot. This is checked against a database of your legal registration by people trained to recognize signatures. The County Clerk will call you up if there is any discrepancy (sometimes people just change the way they sign, sometimes it happens due to strokes). So there is no possibility of voter fraud either.
Beat? Maybe not, but a libertarian/right leaning Democrat could have certainly put up a strong challenge. I worked on one's primary campaign (Carl Bergmanson) but the Democratic party cockblocked us at every turn. Refused to allow us to speak at county party meetings, fought (and won) to knock us off the ballot, they were determined to put Buono up for slaughter.
Has anyone managed to explain why e-voting always fails when the same technology can be used to run a network of online banking and ATM services, backed up with face-to-face tellers (yes they still exist!) to serve those who don't have online access?
I haven't heard that banks are losing tons of money because it is all online and a lot more convenient for me than it was last century. Yes there are crooks but they are quickly detected and dealt with.
If these systems can keep track of trillions of dollars of transactions with an open-ended commitment to each customer surely a single vote per customer constraint should be no problem.
Electronic voting doesn't work only because we don't want to make it work.
My main bitch with online voting was/is vote-buying. This *could* be mostly solved by having it so that you can change your vote right up to closing time. That way, even if you sold your vote and voted in front of the vote-buyer, you could always go and change your vote later. Dispels any significant incentive to even try that rort.
We first need to get an e-voting system in place that is trustworthy (and hence open/auditable).
Either not realizing it, or being willfully ignorant of it because it doesn't fit in with the "it's W's fault" narrative.
McGreevey. He installed his own lover as homeland security adviser and got away with it because no one wanted to be a bigot who criticized the "gay American".
Gamingmuseum.com: Give your 3D accelerator a rest.
Here in Minnesota, the paper ballots are the official votes. If the election is close (or somebody has good reason to suspect manipulation), they bring out the paper ballots and count them. That way, we get fast tabulation (although it can be off by a thousand or two for a state election), and can do recounts at our leisure.
"When you have eliminated the unacceptable, whatever is left, however improbable, must be the truthiness" - Holmes
There is a simple solution to many voting issues: paper and pen. Print paper ballots and hand out pens. Each party / candidate is listed with a circle next to the name. Mark that circle in any which way to give that person your vote. Then fold the ballot and stuff it into an envelope that can be sealed (simplest would be lick and stick). Put that envelope into a sealed ballot box. Voting stations can be placed in any building that is large enough to accommodate the expected turnout. The public, as long as not obstructing the voting process, can witness the sealing of the ballot box, submission of ballots, the transport to the counting place, and the ballot counting itself. Pen and paper obviously provides a paper trail, it is easy to recount any votes, and the best is that pen and paper is low tech!! No power needed, no Internet access required, and thus very easy to administer as long as there is a means to get to the polling station. This is how elections are held in many European states and there are no significant problems. With public oversight stuffing the ballot box beforehand or during transport can be prevented. Witnesses can keep count on how many envelopes were dropped into the ballot box and how many are taken out at the counting place. Once the election results are official and the ballots are no longer needed they can be recycled. Yes, e-voting is potentially cheaper and the tabulation of results is faster, but I rather have elections cost more and have results take longer to obtain in exchange for fair and secure voting. The rush to instant results is solely based on the need of the media, especially TV, who have nothing to talk about until results are coming in.