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Microsoft Will Help Iowa Caucuses Go High-Tech
jfruh writes: Poltical party caucuses are one of the quirkier aspects of American political life: local party members gather in small rooms across the state, discuss their preferences, and send a report of how many delegates for each candidate will attend later county and statewide caucuses to ultimately choose delegates to the national convention. It's also a system with a lot of room for error in reporting, as local precinct leaders have traditionally sent in reports of votes via telephone touch-tone menus and paper mail. In 2016, Microsoft will help both Democrats and Republicans streamline the process in a fashion that will hopefully avoid the embarrassing result from 2012, when Mitt Romney was declared the winner on caucus night only for Rick Santorum to emerge as the true victor when all votes were counted weeks later.
Don't blame me, I voted for Kang!
the preceding comment is my own and in no way reflects the opinion of the Joint Chiefs of Staff
Get out and Hack the Vote?
Time to be reminded how our method of holding national elections is completely broken and inefficient. I wish I could save up all my sleeping time and sleep every fourth year so I don't have to deal with the circus. Just wake me up on voting day and I'll do my duty.
nope. do it anyway.
Iowa is about to get their accounts completely ass fucked by a company that cannot even create a decent stable program with a good interface (well, sorta if they have 20+ years).
Are these people insane? They could probably just hire a web developer or 2 and get the same result.
Government employees in my mind lately are sorta like babies, if you jangle something shiny at them (OHHH MICROSOFT I KNOW THEM) they shit themselves and blurble for it without thinking of anything else. Sorta like how the health care website got all screwed up by oracle.
They need passionate people who care about technology, microsoft only cares about business and the products they make are horrific shit.
As a Canadian that still uses paper ballots when voting, I still can't understand how it takes weeks to count votes in the U.S.A.
Let's see the hackers arrange for Bill Gates to get 100% of the votes; maximum embarrassment all round...
Given who's running, Gates starts to look pretty good.
A large company that isn't paying to buy as many politicians as they can? *chuckle* Let me know how that works out for you.
If hackers arranged who'd become president, Linus would probably have a far better chance than Bill Gates. Only criminals, trolls and idiots would want Gates.
Let's see the hackers arrange for Bill Gates to get 100% of the votes; maximum embarrassment all round...
I keep trying to re-write that joke, substituting for Bill Gates some other famous person who we actually wouldn't prefer to the actual candidates. So far, all I got is Carrot Top and Dick Cheney.
Time to be reminded how our method of holding elections is completely broken and inefficient.
There, fixed that for you.
National, state, local, it's all horseshit all the way down.
Des Moines, Feb. 26, 2016 - Officials from the Federal Election Commission have descended upon the capitol today after a bank of Microsoft-supplied vote tracking machines declared Free Software Foundation President Richard M. Stallman to be the undisputed winner of the 2016 Iowa Caucuses. Stallman, who won a record-breaking 100% of the vote, told journalists that he welcomes the results even though he had not previously declared himself as a candidate for the presidency. Stallman has already issued a statement declaring that if he is elected, "2017 will truly be the Year of the Linux Desktop."
Federal officials have insisted that the voting machines were somehow hacked, potentially by terrorists associated with The SCO Group, a former Unix developer infamous for years of frivolous lawsuits over the ownership of Linux. One official, speaking on condition that his name would not be published, said that The SCO Group had left "footprints" in the code used to hack the machines. "It was the strangest calling card we've ever seen," the official said, "When we looked at the code, half of it was the words "PWNZORED BY SCO" over and over again. Given the patterns we've seen with ISIS and Al-Qaeda, we can assume this is a terrorist group taking responsibility for the attack."
Locals in Iowa, however, believe the results to be legitimate. Several residents told reporters that "The results can't be any more corrupt than they already were" and "At least we won't have to listen to all those conspiracy posts on Slashdot if Hilary loses."
A spokesperson from Microsoft declined to comment on this story, saying "Bill's absolutely livid right now. The machines were supposed to glitch and give him 100% of the vote.. I mean, ensure a fair and accurate balance in making sure every vote counts. Needless to say, we are looking into it."
Or we could, you know, just not announce the winner for at least 24 hours, just to give everything time to come in. Just as accurate, far less wasted tech.
The problem here isn't some counting machine, it's Americans wanting to know right the fuck now about something that doesn't matter RTFN. (Thanks, 24 hour news channels!) Technology won't solve that; it will only mean that people clamp onto that first announced result harder, and after weeks when someone goes "whoops we had a bug" it will cause more consternation.
I am feeling warm and fuzzy already.
I for one look forward to President Clippit (or Clippy as some prefer to call it).
Let's elect our first paperclip president!
How are they going to implement 3D printers to make it even more resistant to catastrophic forces?
The ickiest headline ever.
Because it will be, after this.
The entire point of caucuses is that they be open with and riddled with face-to-face discussions. They are noisy, chaotic,inefficient, anything can happen, and the purest form of democracy. They should not be streamlined, centralized, monitored, or in anyway constrained by anything. Software by its very nature limits how communication can be done. I see this as a bad idea and making caucuses less fun.
putting the 'B' in LGBTQ+
So, alas, does the mold in my refrigerator.
This is a so-called solution that ignores the realities of the political process.
For one, in 2012, Ron Paul won Iowa, not Mitt Romney and not Rick Santorum.
The counted poll the article refers to is a just a straw poll, nothing more--the caucus itself, which happens afterwards, is what controls the selection of delegates. Folks who just voted in the straw poll and left before the caucus started didn't actually participate in caucusing for their candidate.
Sadly, the media reports these polls as if they were election/caucus results, and in 2012 mislead the public into thinking that Ron Paul, who was the winner in Iowa, somehow had no support even though he won Iowa.
Microsoft is now focusing on this irrelevant straw poll that doesn't represent the actual caucus results. But more importantly, even ignoring the fact that this straw poll doesn't actually have any real-world effect other than being useful as a way to mislead the public, listening to the video didn't answer any real questions about how their solution would really help even that process.
For instance, they talk about how the voting data (and they're talking about precinct and district level results for the unimportant straw polls), wouldn't be viewable to people in another political party. Well, if that's the case, how does anyone who participated in the straw poll verify that the totals were reported correctly? If that data is secret, then this is clearly a step in the wrong direction.
Then happens if there is a difference between the Microsoft-reported results and the paper mail reported results? If the mailed results take precedence, (which is ideal), then we're still back where we started--a correction to the straw poll is made weeks later. If the electronic results take precedence, then suddenly Microsoft is in control of the election.
I doubt they've put together a system that can be externally verified even in the presence of skilled bad actors at all levels. (ie, any vote counting system for political elections should be resilient against an attack of, say, all the designers, app store folks, and everyone at Microsoft related to the project working either individually or colluding together to give votes to a favored candidate. With a properly designed system, every single one of those people could be as nefarious as possible and vote rigging would still be detected.)
And..they talk about the "chair" being given credentials to report votes for his precinct/district, as if that has anything at all to do with the credentialing problem. So..how is that done specifically? Is Microsoft psychic? The chair isn't determined until a convention or a precinct begins--it's something that's voted on at the time.
So what happens if a different person is elected chair than the state party expects ahead of time? The vote totals for the straw poll are publicly known. A change of having those vote totals relayed via secure credentials given to a person the state party selects ahead of time (and who may or may not end up being the chair) and who may have a hidden agenda shared by the state party, isn't really a clear improvement over the same person relaying the very same, public information through a less secure channel and more error-prone channel.
In both cases we're completely dependent on there being external verifications of the process and in both cases we're screwed if those verifications don't happen.
So while it sounds all nice and shiny and such, and it will be nice that Microsoft is GPL'ing all the code to do this so that it can be adapted and used in any other project, (yes, I realize that isn't likely to be true--it will have either a proprietary license, or they'll try to pretend it is open-ish somehow), I don't see how it fundamentally solves any serious issue.
This is clearly a false report. Stallman would have stated "2017 will truly be the Year of the GNU/Linux desktop."
General Relativity: Space-time tells matter where to go; Matter tells space-time what shape to be.
Do you realize what a privilege it is to live in an era where you are governed by representative democracy? What is it, uh, 546 people or so (counting Biden) that control 300+ million in the US alone, and the few representing the countless more in the European and Ozland democracies. If you consider scientific belief that humans have been on this earth in their modern form for 200,000 years, the odds of you living in a nation-state as a citizen with voting powers are rather on the order of a smedium-sized lottery win.
Like the people who live right next to the Lake, we don't focking appreciate it most of the time.
Happiness in intelligent people is the rarest thing I know.
Ernest Hemingway
Anyone interested in taking control from the corporations who currently pimp the media darling status-quo candidates should ... MUST learn about caucus and attend. Your voice really counts in caucus states.
(A caucus is not often held in small rooms, though it could be.)
And Iowa went on to be won by Ron Paul who took the majority of delegates in Iowa.
http://www.businessinsider.com/ron-paul-wins-iowa-caucuses-2012-6
Bill Gates was one of the primary pioneers of the notorious Common Core. Based on that record, Microsoft should stay the h#ll out of public government.
That's one way for the democrooks to steal the elections again
Somebody must have heard how they did such a BANG-UP JOB for Ford!!!
(Ford's ditching them because they don't want their customers getting TOO satisfied...)
Why not just reform your Byzantine 18th Century electoral system? It's so corrupt that the two parties involved keep any potential opposition out.. Oh, OK I get it now.
Here's a video from MS which explains the process and the system in more detail: https://www.youtube.com/watch?...
https://www.youtube.com/watch?...
i almost peed in my pants with "the whole system is backed by the security and reliability of microsoft cloud".
oh, well, it's just about a popularity contest for a sock puppet, i guess propietary closed software and hardware will do ...
The government requires 800 pages of red tape for every RFP. So they get maybe 3 real bids for every project (Microsoft, Oracle, SAP) and then the IT guy has to choose which one to get screwed by.
First, he's plain wrong. The Iowa Straw Poll and the Caucuses are two different things - the Straw Poll occurs over a year before the general election, and doesn't choose any convention delegates. TFA is talking about the Iowa Caucuses, which is traditionally the first real event of the primary season - the first event where convention delegates are actually chosen.
Second, he's even wrong about Ron Paul winning the straw poll. Michele Bachmann won, but (to prove my earlier point) she finished sixth in the Iowa caucuses the following January, and dropped out of the race.
F'ing Ron Paul Groupie telling more lies.
That will end up being one guy who codes from his mother's basement. He is also from Latvia.
"So long and thanks for all the fish."
The Iowa caucus process has a caucus vote before the actual caucusing. Sadly, a lot of people go home after the vote but before the caucusing starts. Also sadly, the media lazily reports on and misleads the public into thinking that the initial caucus vote is relevant in the process.
Two things happen, one after the other: First there is a caucus vote. But it's only after that vote that the caucusing itself starts, which selects delegates to go to district and state conventions where the national delegates get selected. It's who those delegates support and who they vote for at the national convention that counts. The caucus vote doesn't make any difference to that process.
Again, the selection of the national delegates, and who they vote for, has *nothing* to do with the caucus votes that are reported on in TFA--those caucus votes are as much of a straw poll as the Iowa straw poll is, and sadly enough many people are taken in by that.
If the caucus-goers vote in that caucus vote that they are supporters of candidate A, but then vote for delegates who are supporters of candidate B, then it's candidate B that they're truly giving support to, (as those delegates will then vote for national delegates who are supporters of candidate B.)
The winner of the Iowa caucus process is the candidate who gets the most delegates supporting them, not the candidate who ended up winning the "caucus vote" poll that was done before caucusing started.
Confusing the two things is conceptually no different than a person telling a telephone pollster that they are voting for candidate A but then later in the ballot box actually voting for candidate B. It is also no different conceptually from the media continuing to report on poll numbers after an election and neglecting to report on the actual election numbers.
Winning means actually getting delegates. You can call winning a poll that has no effect on anything winning if you want, but it's a pointless use of the term.
Articles at the time talking about this:
Time to be reminded how our method of holding national elections is completely broken and inefficient. I wish I could save up all my sleeping time and sleep every fourth year so I don't have to deal with the circus. Just wake me up on voting day and I'll do my duty.
I just don't understand why you guys don't make voting compulsory?
That'll fix all problems.
Don't be apathetic. Procrastinate!
Stallman, who won a record-breaking 100% of the vote
Shouldn't that be 105% of the vote?
Don't be apathetic. Procrastinate!
The parent comment is an excellent piece of analysis, but I want to comment on just one minor side point, which is that mailed-in ballots should be preferred over software-controlled ballots.
For the life of me, I cannot fathom why here, among the slashdot crowd of all places, is paper considered an ideal medium for counting anything. Do we not understand black-box testing? Do we not build in test assertions at every step, so that we can test our machine with another machine? Can we not imagine how horrific it would be that instead of automated tests, we printed out our assertions on a paper form, filled them in by hand, then hand-tallied the results after each build?
Now take all the issues with managing hand-written slips of paper, and magnify that by 2 because now you have to transport them by mail -- put them in an envelope (don't miss any!), put a stamp on it (don't forget!), pick them up and put them on a truck (did you get all of them?), etc., etc. Would you trust your critical data to a transport layer that didn't have guaranteed delivery? I thought not.
Humans stink at repetitive tasks, THAT'S WHY WHY WE INVENTED COMPUTERS. The ultimate repetitive task is counting, so let's use it, not go back to the Stone Age of paper.
"We receive as friendly that which agrees with, we resist with dislike that which opposes us" - Faraday
The perfect ticket - Gates and the ghost of Steve Jobs aka iGhost.
I've been alive as long as the Iowa Caucus has been a thing so I have some insight into this:
- As my grandfather puts it "It isn't about voting for the winner but killing the crazies" where if he was alive today he might change that stance. Seeing someone like Huntsman, a reasonable and very respectable Republican, come in last by the last field of crazies like Santorum and Gingrich is sad. In any event, Iowa and New Hampshire aren't necessarily about picking winners but weeding out the weaker candidates.
- Part of the magic of the Iowa Caucus is that it is so low tech (which is why I am skeptical of Microsoft's efforts). It doesn't take much money or a very large organization to have at least a start at campaign which is just not feasible in super large states. On the other side, someone could step out of the office to get lunch and meet a candidate heading to the same place maybe to campaign or maybe to get a bite to eat. You don't necessarily believe everything they say but actually getting up close and personal to candidates and gauge their response to questions is always interesting.
- The issue mentioned happened with the Republican side where they do a "straightforward" ballot which can be error prone where adding a little tech to the may or may not help. The Democrat use a more formulaic process where it often takes multiple counts to get the result (details on Wikipedia for those who are curious). Personally I find the Democratic process more fun and interesting than just the Republican straight ballot because it feels a lot more like "a process of selection" than "a show up and vote".
And to those that wonder about the entire thing I can only say: With this Constitutional process, it has to start somewhere. I believe that having smaller places "go first" balances out the handful of gigantic states that have sway over outcome. With that in mind using Iowa (Midwest), New Hampshire (North East), Nevada (West), and South Carolina (South East) are a sampling of the US on the whole. It could be argued another set of states would be better where I'd love to see further suggestions on reform but the idea that states like Florida need more influence is kind of wonky.
So 2 cognitive dissonances in 1 headline.
Microsoft will help. That's just a strange phrase to me, not quite an oxymoron, but close. Or maybe it's help like mercury "helped" syphilis.
Microsoft High-Tech. Well, not dissonance, that phrase is just anachronistic. It would be just fine to have said that in 1988.