NYU Study: America's Voting Machines Are Rapidly Aging Out

Presto Vivace passes on a link to a report at the Brennan Center for Justice at NYU's law school which says that many of the vote-counting machines set to be used in the 2016 U.S. general election will be past their prime by the time of the election, if not long before. From the report: Technology has changed dramatically in the last decade, but America's voting machines are rapidly aging out. In 2016, for example, 43 states will use electronic voting machines that are at least 10 years old, perilously close to the end of most systems' expected lifespan. Old voting equipment increases the risk of failures and crashes — which can lead to long lines and lost votes on Election Day — and problems only get worse the longer we wait.

Comments

The first voter will take time

[houghi]

The first person at each machine at the next election will take some time, because he will be asked to update to Windows 10 first.

Aging Out

[doconnor]

In Canada our voting systems have a design lifespan of one day, because they are made out of paper and cardboard. Still a lot more secure and reliable then the US system.

Re:Aging Out

[overshoot]

The trouble with your old systems is that they don't reliably get the right results.

risk of failures and crashes

[fustakrakich]

And let's not forget fraud...The black boxes are not trustworthy. I find it hard to believe that some of these crackpots are actually winning the vote. We need to go back to paper. It's easier to verify and very low maintenance.

Re:risk of failures and crashes

[afidel]

Or do what Ohio did after the 2004 election disaster, go to scantron style ballots. Everyone has used them, they can easily be retallied by industry standard equipment or by hand and the error rate is low. As far as reliability, schools with almost zero budget manage to keep them working through much higher workloads then a few elections a year so the equipment is obviously robust enough and the likelyhood that it will become outdated is zero.

Re:Here's one suggestion.

[rickb928]

Let's not try to automate voting beyond OCR scanners until we can secure it. We can't now. No. We cannot.

Thanks.

Re:Mobile banking?

[Anonymous Coward]

Here are some differences between ballot counting and banking transactions:

1. Votes are supposed to be anonymous so voters can not normally confirm their transactions are posted accurately. There are various complex schemes to provide voter verification but none of them IMHO are especially simple or transparent. Banking transactions are traceable and verifiable.
2. Voters are not supposed to provide proof of how they voted presumably as a deterrence to voter buying.
3. Votes are not transferable among individuals. Mail ballots typically require signatures which is while forgeable are a long accepted legal authentication method. Banking transactions typically use transferable passwords.
4. Erroneous or fraudulent banking transactions can be reversed or corrected relatively easily with the costs born by the banks as business overhead. Major irregularities in elections are typically settled by court cases where the outcome may bear little relationship to the actual votes.

Re:Mobile banking?

[Anonymous Coward]

What's racist is the intentions of those who demand the photo ID, as their own admissions show that they know that the possession of such ID is unbalanced, and they refuse to address the problem as evidenced by their refusal to make the provision of that ID a state mandate.

That's all they have to do. Make it a burden on the state, and they can satisfy everyone. But no, we get pretend measures like alleged "free" ID that the citizen still needs to document, and they may even need to travel far outside of their area to get one.

But hey, feel free to put the ID measure online, I won't mind being able to send the state a request for ID and an agent show up and find out what it will take to satisfy them.

Home delivery is fine.

Vote by Mail

[michael_cain]

Related is the voting revolution happening in the western US -- vote by mail, with scanned paper ballots. Colorado, Oregon, and Washington already send a mail-in ballot to every registered voter. Arizona and California are clearly heading in that direction. Once those "big five" western states have adopted, the smaller ones -- some of which already have permanent no-excuse absentee ballots -- are likely to follow along. I admit to being biased; I love that my polling place is my kitchen table.

One of the interesting things I've noticed is when I raise the subject with friends, the ones who are opposed almost always grew up east of the Mississippi, and are terrified that large-scale fraud will occur. There's a PhD dissertation for a sociologist or political scientist in there somewhere.

I know why

[HotNeedleOfInquiry]

I worked designing ballot reading machines back in the late 80's. I enjoyed the work and we made some great equipment. Then the "hanging chad" incident came along and the Federal Elections Commission issued strict certification standards for ballot counting equipment. Once my company certified the machines that they sold, they ended all R&D and new product development. It was not possible to make incremental improvements without a massive retest and recertification, and the company (correctly) surmised that the certification costs would limit the playing field to the existing players. So, no incentive to build better machines.

Scantron sheets

[acoustix]

My voting precincts use scantron sheets for all elections. Simple, anonymous, secure. I mark my ballot, walk to the scantron machine and enter my ballot. If there's a problem with my ballot there's an error message. If the sheet is destroyed by the scanner I can fill out another sheet.

Why is this so hard for everyone else? I don't want online voting. It complicates a very easy task.

Re:Mobile banking?

[JaredOfEuropa]

Auditable, anonymous, and transparent to / understandable by to a layman. A paper ballot system has the advnatgae that pretty much everyone can understand how it works, what the conditions for a fair vote are, and if those conditions are met at least in their local area. It is very hard to do any large-scale rigging in a properly conducted ballot, and people understand why it is so. You may be able to implement electronic voting that offers audits as well as anonymity, mathematically proven, and well-secured, but only a few people in this world will have the knowledge to actually verify the system, and it may be impossible for them to do so nationwide, before and on the day of voting. It's important that people know they can trust the outcome.