"Unsecured Memory Card" Prompts Election Fraud Investigation In Georgia (ajc.com)

McGruber writes: On Tuesday, there was an election in Dekalb County, Georgia. An area of the county known as LaVista Hills voted on a referendum on whether they should incorporate into a brand-new city or whether they should remain an unincorporated part of the county. The referendum failed by a mere 136 votes, less than 1 percent of all votes cast. The second in command at DeKalb County's office of elections is now alleging there were very serious irregularities regarding the LaVista Hills cityhood vote. Piazza says voters were turned away at their polling places, voter material wasn't properly secured, and that "there was a memory card that collects citizen votes loose in the office." Piazza's allegations have prompted Georgia Secretary of State Brian Kemp and the Georgia Bureau of Investigation to open an investigation. Local Atlanta television stations are reporting that Piazza first reported the irregularities to his boss in Dekalb County and that she responded by putting him on leave. One TV station is also broadcasting footage of state investigators removing election equipment from Dekalb County offices. (Those reports are not yet posted on their websites.)

Comments

Obviously...

[Anonymous Coward]

The answer is more voter ID laws and closing DMV offices in poorer/blacker areas.

Re:Obviously...

[dywolf]

mentioning what GA has actually done isnt trolling.
unless youre a conservative threatened by facts.

Re:Obviously...

[Anonymous Coward]

Know the players. I'm a Dekalb county resident, but not in Lavista hills area.
Dekalb county is a majority black county (whites = 36%). It is one of the most diverse in the nation.
The government is almost all black people and regularly votes democratic. The white people tend to be liberal as well. Their US congressman is Hank Johnson, a Buddist. The infamous Cynthia McKinney was from here.
It is one of the easiest places there is to cast a vote in normal elections with numerous polling places and long periods of early voting.

The Lavista Hills election was about a bunch of white people wanting to form their own a city in a Dekalb county, but have the county continue to provide all services while the city grabs off a bunch of commercial areas and their tax revenue.
It's been a bitter fight.
if there is any voting fraud by the existing power structure, which I highly doubt, then it would be black people committing the fraud.
On the other hand, this is a government that has had some serious corruption in recent times.

Re:Obviously...

[sabbede]

Or you could look at the region's demographics and party preferences before pulling insults out of your ass http://www.myajc.com/local-gov...

Re:Obviously...

[dywolf]

Alabama just got caught, mostly cause they tried to do it one fell swoop.
GA's been doing it for years, slowly and incrementally.

Re:Obviously...

[dywolf]

your mod fu is weak.

all of posting is done in order to get a reaction of some sort.
the specific post at hand was inciteful, but also insightful and related to the discussion.

the ruling is overturned.

revolutionary technology

[beckett]

canada has pencils and paper they use for voting. when the voting is done, the ballot boxes stay in the room, and designated counters stay there with observers until the count is complete. we got our election results within 4 hours of the last poll closing in our last federal election. the scrutiny, traceability, and physical counts of paper ballots makes it difficult to do the type of election tampering described in the article. There is no need for electronic voting machines.

Re:revolutionary technology

[Anonymous Coward]

That makes too much sense. It would never work here in the US.

Re:revolutionary technology

[Derekloffin]

Won't someone please think of the trees!

Re:revolutionary technology

[beckett]

trees are farmed. won't someone please think of the carrots too?

Re:revolutionary technology

[rmdingler]

We had pencils and punch cards once, when democracy was hanging by a chad.

Re:revolutionary technology

[i.r.id10t]

Or how about just plain revolution? No, not 1776 or 1860... How about 1946? http://jpfo.org/filegen-a-m/at...

Re:revolutionary technology

[Schmorgluck]

And as of today we haven't found any other technology that preserves both the integrity of the ballot and the secrecy of the vote (when implemented properly). With numeric voting, you can have one or the other, not both, as far as I know.

Numeric voting can still be useful when it comes to votes from representatives in parliaments (because secrecy is not a concern, so you can focus on integrity), but as far as citizens' votes go, I'm not aware of any algorithm that would cover both imperatives.

Re: revolutionary technology

[ememisya]

We must be as cool as Canadians down here in Blacksburg, VA :)

Re:revolutionary technology

[Harlequin80]

I agree completely. Aus uses paper ballots and has mandatory voting so while the relative workload is higher than the US.

The other thing that I couldn't find with google is how elections are managed in the US. In Australia Federal level elections are handled by the Australian Electoral Commission and then State and below levels are handled by the "State" Electoral Commission. They all seem to run the exact same processes. But when I read about the US elections it seems like every state, town and council has a completely different system even in the same election.

 

Re:revolutionary technology

[Nethemas the Great]

If it'd help, I'd be willing to supply "certified" #2 voting pencils for $10 each.

Re:revolutionary technology

[ottawanker]

To be fair, we also only vote for one candidate, and don't have any ballot measures.

Re:revolutionary technology

[TWX]

We had pencils and punch cards once, when democracy was hanging by a chad.

That kind of voting was not based on marking a piece of paper with a writing implement. That kind of voting was based on pushing a mechanical button that had to make a physical change in the paper medium over which it was placed. That system was unsound because it required maintenance of equipment and was subject to the abuse that the average person could put on a mechanical device.

I do not have a problem with electronic-tabulated voting so long as the medium on which the voter casts the vote is human-readable and human-markable. That pretty much means optical scan, a technology that has been used for a couple of decades now. Optical scan means that the results can be tabulated as the voting occurs and be known as polls close, but in contests where there is a need to recount it's still possible for humans auditing the individual ballots to read the ballots with their eyes, without any special equipment at all.

Either way, human-tabulated from the outset or computer-tabulated and capable of being human-tabulated or human-audited, the process needs to allow for tabulation without any special equipment whatsoever.

Re:revolutionary technology

[rmdingler]

Any system that leaves a physical trail, paper or otherwise, allows for the luxury of a physical recount if voting tabulations are in question.

FWIW, that means results are being reviewed by potentially flawed and subjective humans. Yes. Results are much easier to adulterate en masse if compromised at the electronic compilation level.

No. Human reviews of elections are not beyond reproach... the hanging chad was often an interpretation.

Re:revolutionary technology

[riverat1]

There really are no "Federal" elections in the US. In the elections for President/Vice President the individual states hold elections for electors to the Electoral College and those electors actually vote for the person who will be President. The number of electors each state has is equal the the number of Congressional seats they have (based on population) plus two for the two Senators. In all but two states it's winner take all and the electors will be those who stood for the state's winner. In Maine and Nebraska the winner in each congressional district will get an elector for them and the two electors for the Senators will go to the state's overall winner.

So the Federal Government makes some general rules for elections (such as no discrimination based on race, religion, etc.) but the states are the ones who make the detailed rules for their state. The actual elections are mostly run at the county (or parish) level. Here in Oregon it's the County Clerks who are responsible. So in general it's the county's Clerk or Director of Elections, taking into account the Federal and State rules, who determines exactly how the ballots are produced and processed leading to some variety even within a state.

Re:revolutionary technology

[PopeRatzo]

You want depressing? Here is the current GOP frontrunner in his own words:

My own personal theory is that Joseph built the pyramids to store grain. Now all the archeologists think that they were made for the pharaohs’ graves. But, you know, it would have to be something awfully big if you stop and think about it. And I don’t think it’d just disappear over the course of time to store that much grain. And when you look at the way that the pyramids are made, with many chambers that are hermetically sealed, they’d have to be that way for various reasons. And various of scientists have said, ‘well, you know there were alien beings that came down and they have special knowledge and that’s how-’ you know, it doesn’t require an alien being when God is with you.

Yes, Dr Carson, it's "the scientists" who are saying there were ancient aliens that built the pyramids, you ignoramus.

What good is having fraud-free elections when there are only frauds running for office? And don't get me started on Hillary. I'd rather see candidates picked at random from the phone book than what we're going to get next November.

Re:revolutionary technology

[Mashiki]

Right we only vote for one candidate, but we do have ballot measures. They're common in municipal politics, sometimes provincial politics too.

Re:revolutionary technology

[Harlequin80]

That isn't terribly different to most other places. For example in Australia you vote for the person who is in your electorate, they then go on to become a member of the House of Representatives, the US House, and each State has a certain number of Senators (12 each for the States and 2 each for the territories). The big difference is we don't vote on a president, the party with the most seats in the House of Reps chooses who the Prime Minister will be so there is no equivalent to the Electoral College.

So when you come to vote for who you want to be in the House of Representatives / Congress that is what I would call a Federal election. I just find it surprising that it is run at a county level rather than run at a Federal level. I would have thought that you would want exactly the same methodology, ballot papers, scrutineering etc right across the country.

Re:revolutionary technology

[peragrin]

Canada has 30 million people. Equal to one large state.

Re: revolutionary technology

[Anonymous Coward]

What? We're not that smart. People just do whatever, then smart people manipulate it to get the advantage they need, then it becomes part of the system because everybody assumes it's the way it is for a reason, and trying to change it is like pulling teeth UNLESS you're trying to change it to something of equal or greater inefficiency or injustice. And that's how things get worse.

Re:revolutionary technology

[dbIII]

There is no need for electronic voting machines.

Of course there is - it provides a place to work for ex-cons not permitted to work on Automated Teller Machines (Diebold) and hypothetically makes electoral fraud a lot easier for those very closely connected to such a company (Diebold make no secret of which Party they want to win).
Going back over a century there are plenty of nasty little games around elections designed to get advantage - these machines are just the current bit of sleazyness.

Re:revolutionary technology

[Anonymous Coward]

Then why don't you participate in the democratic primaries/caucuses and vote for Bernie? The general election is a sham. The only elections that matter are party elections. Once the candidates have been nominated it's a predictable forgone conclusion.

Re:revolutionary technology

[beckett]

>Canada has 30 million people

More than that, but pencils were fine.

Dekalb County, GA in TFA only has 691,893 people, equal to a small city, and you guys need a computer to count that?

Re:revolutionary technology

[dbIII]

Don't knock it - it worked as designed so provided enough uncertainty to give you Baby Bush instead of Gore.
Paper and pencil results in less uncertainty so makes it less possible to argue against "undesirable" results.

Such a fuckup that was an international laughing stock was not corrected because the winner gained benefit from the fuckup. Having a professional independent body run things, such as the US does when supervising other countries elections on behalf of the UN, would be far better for the country than each state governor skewing things as much as can be gotten away with to help their side win.
The irony is the man behind the "chads" scam has the gall to nominate for President, but since tollbooth guy and bankrupt four times guy are running from his own party I've got no idea what standards or total lack thereof are supposed to apply.

Re:revolutionary technology

[PopeRatzo]

Then why don't you participate in the democratic primaries/caucuses and vote for Bernie?

Oh I will. I've already sent him money. But the powers that be will never let him be the nominee.

Re:revolutionary technology

[dbIII]

The actual elections are mostly run at the county (or parish) level

Which has clearly become completely unworkable. There's so many stupid barriers to entry and general fucking about which prevents citizens from doing their duty of voting and mostly relegates the process to the people who love to play political games. For example, nobody should be turned away due to lack of resources, that's a sign of the sort of election the UN wouldn't call fair if it was in an emerging nation. Fuckups like the "hanging chad", the many problems with Diebold machines and a long, long list are a sign that the system has been gamed to the point where those running it are not capable of doing so. It's a situation where you can use volunteers FFS - so how the fuck do you run out of people to run it and have voters queuing for hours, even when only a tiny portion of the citizens even bother to get off their arse to do their duty and vote?

Re:revolutionary technology

[dryeo]

Your point? The polling system scales very well and would work even better in a country such as the States with 10x the population density as a polling place is more likely to be close by.

Re:revolutionary technology

[Hotawa Hawk-eye]

Direct human-markability isn't necessary IMO. Let the human make selections on a touch screen. Let the computer print out a ballot with both human readable text and a machine readable barcode (QR code perhaps; that would allow many smart phones to check a ballot.) Scan the barcodes as the ballots enter the ballot box. In the event of a recount the election officials would read the human readable text and that would be the official count.

The computer doesn't need to be anything special; a machine from Best Buy (costing a few hundred bucks) would be sufficient (overkill, really) for the display needs. A printer for a cash register probably would be sufficient to write the ballots. An iPhone or Android phone and a simple wooden box could serve for the logging system and the ballot box in a pinch.

Re:revolutionary technology

[davester666]

How much does the vendor charge to encrypt the connection to the main databases using ROT-26?

Re:revolutionary technology

[ArchieBunker]

The ADA would sue because pencil and paper discriminates against people without arms.

Re:revolutionary technology

[unixisc]

Dekalb county is half of Atlanta, the rest of it being in Fulton County

Re:revolutionary technology

[TWX]

Apparently you've never seen how computers in the field are treated, or had to account for the volume use of computers.

Their software issues (ie, fraud) aside, Diebold makes voting machines in much the same way as they make ATMs. These computers as public kiosks have to take whatever abuse is foisted on them by an indifferent or even hostile public. These machines need to just work when they're pulled from mothballs and plugged in to house power by the barely-trained pensioners that usually crew the polling locations, without needing much in the way of maintenance before they ever leave storage.

Your consumer-grade PC is not going to make for a good voting platform. The lowest-end computer that might be up to the task would be a ruggedized laptop like a Panasonic Toughbook, something that meets one of the MIL or specs or IP specs greater than 43. It has to be able to handle being kicked, knocked over, dropped down a short flight of stairs, being moved outside in the rain, being accidentally sprayed by irrigation sprinklers, being used or handled or stored in dusty or sandy environments, etc.

To your point about a cell-phone readable ballot, that does not because no one will review their ballots. You're looking at Florida all over again. Besides, if you use a paper ballot you can still have an election even if the power is out, even if people are filling in ballots in the dark by flashlight or candle.

Voting is too important to hand-over to machines entirely.

Re:revolutionary technology

[dryeo]

Another advantage of our system, Federal, Provincial and Municipal elections are kept separate. In the States, elections are overwhelming, with offices from President down to dogcatcher on the ballet therefore almost guaranteeing that the average person won't be able to make informed choices for all offices and encouraging the same party apparatuses on all levels of government with people just ticking D or R for everything.
In Canada, often the Provincial parties are quite distinct from the Federal parties, which also allows new parties to start out at the Provincial level, and at least around here, the municipal elections don't really even have parties, at least in the traditional big party sense.

Re:revolutionary technology

[fgouget]

Apparently you've never seen how computers in the field are treated, or had to account for the volume use of computers.

More importantly regular computers are way too complex for the task at hand, making it even more impossible to verify they are not hacked (either at the hardware or software level).

Besides, if you use a paper ballot you can still have an election even if the power is out, even if people are filling in ballots in the dark by flashlight or candle.

Or you could hold your elections during the day instead of in the dead of the night ;-)

Voting is too important to hand-over to machines entirely.

Absolutely.

Re:revolutionary technology

[fgouget]

Any system that leaves a physical trail, paper or otherwise, allows for the luxury of a physical recount if voting tabulations are in question.

Recounts are useless: by the time they are performed the ballots have been taken out of view of the voters for so long that there's no way to tell if they are still the same as those that once were in the ballot box. Counting must happen in the polling station, by voter volunteers, as soon as the election is closed.

This is also why any electronic voting system is bad: it purports to make manually counting the votes something that's optional so that when you do want to do it there is no one to do so when the polling station closes.

Re:revolutionary technology

[Mashiki]

Province? Probably Canadian.

And in your case the national election would not piggy-back on a municipal ballot measure. They only have to count one thing. Which is really easy to do in a transparent and non-corrupt manner. Provincial referendums would also be one-off votes.

Ontario. Not national elections, but provincial elections yes. I think it was 2009 or around there, when we had a municipal vote, municipal ballot options and a provincial election at the same time in my area here in the SWON. Though that only led to two separate ballot cards, and I could finish in under 5 minutes. Ontario does use electronic tabulation for our voting here, but you still vote on a plain chunk of paper.

Re:revolutionary technology

[rtb61]

The whole voting process needs to be reviewed in the US. Elections should be a major social event, everything done manually, lots of people at the polling stations, with representatives from all politicians running. There should be charity booths with sausages sizzles https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/..., girl scout cookie sales http://www.girlscouts.org/prog... and other charity events. The polling stations should be open throughout the day and promoting the social nature of elections.

There is only one reason to use electronic voting or vote counting and that is to cheat, nothing more than that.

Re:revolutionary technology

[Darinbob]

No way! I'm in the phone book. And I refuse to serve if picked randomly.

Re:revolutionary technology

[jaseuk]

Dunno how things are done in the US, but ballot boxes are sealed here (with actual lead / hard to change seals). The boxes are then couriered (with several different people accompanying the box) to a central location. There are various different registers that show who has attended the vote, what papers have been used. ie. Double Entry. with different people responsible for each register. Usually with a completely separate observer overseeing the ballot box.

At the count all the politicians and representatives can watch the boxes opened and counted. The teams responsible for counting boxes will not know ahead of time which box(es) they are counting. There are careful initial checks to count the papers, to ensure they tally with the registers. There are usually teams of about 8-9 people per box, with an overseer. The room is sealed / guarded. Politicians and representatives can ask for a recount. It is done then and there.

Any deviation from an X in one box on the voting paper, is carefully considered by a team of very senior well trained staff, with a very comprehensive manual to consider all the various ways that a vote can be considered valid or spoiled.

It would take an amazing level of conspiracy and corruption to rig a count in the UK. There are no volunteers, these people are usually paid (and paid well enough) for their role in the ballot and count. Consequences for interfering with the vote in any way are harsh and will include criminal charges as well as most likely loss of employment (staff typically are Local Government staff).

All these protocols would expose fraud or deception quite easily. It'd be simpler to put a gun to people on the way in to the count and tell them who to vote for and check they do this, than to actually create a convincing scenario where the count itself is corrupted.

I know techies often think traditional paper counts are more open to abuse, absolutely no way. If you've ever been at a count or worked with the people at the polling stations you would understand. The only problem is that a vote is expensive with all the oversight and double checking.

Jason

Re:revolutionary technology

[ArsenneLupin]

All these protocols would expose fraud or deception quite easily. It'd be simpler to put a gun to people on the way in to the count and tell them who to vote for and check they do this, than to actually create a convincing scenario where the count itself is corrupted.

Actually, that would be another weakness. There should be no way for a voter to prove how he voted. Ban smartphones at the polling station to prevent "stemfies". Make sure there are strict rules in place to make ballots which are too "artistic" invalid (... to prevent people marking their ballots by making each cross a different color, or other such nonsense...)

Re:revolutionary technology

[fgouget]

Dunno how things are done in the US, but ballot boxes are sealed here (with actual lead / hard to change seals). The boxes are then couriered (with several different people accompanying the box) to a central location. There are various different registers that show who has attended the vote, what papers have been used. ie. Double Entry. with different people responsible for each register. Usually with a completely separate observer overseeing the ballot box.

Lead is not hard to find and if security keys can be replicated from a photograph then a standard seal should not be much of a challenge. Who picks the people accompanying the box to the central location? Can the person picking them be trusted? Is a single team carrying a significant fraction of the ballot boxes? And if they constantly have people supervising the ballot boxes, how can they forget them at the polling station? And recounts don't always happen immediately (at least in the US) so the issue is not just transport, it's also storage. Who picked the storage area? Who has access to it? Is a team posted 24/24 to verify nobody enters that room? Who picked that team?

The room is sealed / guarded.

The room is sealed? Why? Do they want to prevent the general population from overseeing the counting?

It would take an amazing level of conspiracy and corruption to rig a count in the UK.

From what you've said I'd say on the contrary that all the conditions are met for tampering.

There are no volunteers, these people are usually paid (and paid well enough) for their role in the ballot and count.

Who picks these people?

Consequences for interfering with the vote in any way are harsh and will include criminal charges as well as most likely loss of employment (staff typically are Local Government staff).

The consequences for murder are even harsher. And yet that has never prevented them.

If you've ever been at a count or worked with the people at the polling stations you would understand.

I've been at a count many times but here it happens right at the polling station, as soon as voting is closed so that the ballot box never goes out of the voters control. The counting is done by teams of four voters who volunteered at the polling station during the election, in the open. The count also happens in the presence of party representatives of course and any one who wants to oversee it (which I've done many times too). If you wanted you could arrive in the morning (done that too, was first to vote), see the ballot box being prepared, see that the box is empty (it's transparent), gets locked with two padlocks using different keys, handed out to separate persons, and stay all day until the results are announced after the count. In other words anyone can control everything from the start to the end.

I totally agree that paper voting can be much more secure and reliable than electronic voting. And even with the flaws of the process you described it probably is (mass tampering would be harder for one). But 'paper' is not a magic bullet. It still has to be done right.

Re:revolutionary technology

[dave420]

And it scales, so that's not a problem - just get more people to help with the counting. It would still save money and be less prone to fraud.

Side note: do you also chime in with "but the US is so biiiig!" when the shitty state of US internet is mentioned? Gotta have those excuses ;)

Re:revolutionary technology

[sabbede]

The US has 10x the population of Canada. Mightn't that be a factor in what systems are feasible?

Re: revolutionary technology

[MarkH]

All UK elections are paper based too. Although latency to result can be up to 8 hours after polls close depending on closeness

Re: revolutionary technology

[rickb928]

Shhh...

Re:revolutionary technology

[T.E.D.]

My own personal theory is that Joseph built the pyramids to store grain. Now all the archeologists think that they were made for the pharaohs’ graves. But, you know, it would have to be something awfully big if you stop and think about it. And I don’t think it’d just disappear over the course of time to store that much grain. And when you look at the way that the pyramids are made, with many chambers that are hermetically sealed, they’d have to be that way for various reasons. And various of scientists have said, ‘well, you know there were alien beings that came down and they have special knowledge and that’s how-’ you know, it doesn’t require an alien being when God is with you

Yes, Dr Carson, it's "the scientists" who are saying there were ancient aliens that built the pyramids, you ignoramus.

There goes that old canard about brain surgery requiring intelligence.

Re:revolutionary technology

[quetwo]

I actually like how a majority of the polling stations are setup in Michigan.

User gets a paper ballot. They either need to fill in the bubble or complete a line to vote for somebody. When they are finished, they feed the paper ballot through an electronic reader that places them in a locked box.

When the election is closed they count the paper ballots in the open. If the number they count matches the electronic number then the vote is certified and the precinct is reported. If it doesn't, then they have to recount. If there is still a discrepancy then the county clerk gets involved.

During this last election this week, the results took about 30 minutes to post after the polls closed. One of the larger elections in recent history (November 2008) they took about two hours to post.

Re:revolutionary technology

[Coren22]

For the early voting? Yeah, Maryland uses paper for early voting as it is mailed in, but the actual voting on poll day is done on touch screen computers which store their data on what looks like RFID cards, but likely is more complicated than that.

Re:revolutionary technology

[pnutjam]

The ones in my US polling station are payed as well, by the parties. There is usually one from each party.

Re:revolutionary technology

[pnutjam]

Yes, this is one of the things our wise founding fathers screwed up. The constitution gives the responsibility for holding elections to the states. The states usually hand it off to the counties. This results in a terrible patchwork of voting methods and rights.
In some places you need a picture ID, in some places felons can't vote, in some places you have to pass a test that the proctor will not allow any black person to pass (wait, we got rid of that one).
Several of our states were under review by the federal courts to insure they didn't do stuff to disenfranchise their poor or non-white voters. Most of them have aged out of that system and don't seem to have learned anything from the experience.

Re:revolutionary technology

[pnutjam]

Yes, election days should be standardized and it should be a holiday. There's no reason for off cycle elections like the one last week. They are just set up that way to disenfranchise voters.

Re:revolutionary technology

[Altus]

Its like someone who got their entire understanding of history from a mix of the bible and the manual to Civ II

Re:revolutionary technology

[dywolf]

Crossing every finger and toe for Bernie in the primaries.
Even changed my registration from I to D so can vote in the Primaries this time.
That said, Hillary is the fallback option.

She says the right things, but so did Bill. and the New Democrats (Obama included) are ultimately still only slightly less conservative than conservatives, and just as married to Wall Street. They're only truly different when it comes to social issues (and even there, tending to lag behind the rest of the world), and frankly, I'll take what I can get until we see a return to true Liberalism. And there is the off chance she may actually carry through and match a few actions to the words she's said to get elected, slim as it may be.

Re:revolutionary technology

[dywolf]

in some ways the true parliamentary/PM system is superior to the Presidential.

Re:revolutionary technology

[dywolf]

they use computers cause you don't have to pay them

Re:revolutionary technology

[david_thornley]

Around here, we use optical scan. I fill out my ballot, and it's fed to the scanner, which drops it into the ballot box. The box is sealed and stored, except that spot audits are conducted in random precincts. The sealed boxes are kept in a secure place. All processing of the paper ballots is done with party representatives on site.

It would be possible to replace the boxes, but if the paper ballots were significantly off the machine totals that would raise suspicion, and that would cause an investigation.

It fundamentally depends on enough people being willing to work towards a fair election, but that's true of all voting systems. If the system is sufficiently corrupt, the elections will be rigged, no matter what the mechanics.

Re:revolutionary technology

[david_thornley]

Voting around here is generally 6 AM to 8 PM to give as many people as possible the opportunity. (I normally vote on the way to work.) This is November, which is more than a month past the Fall equinox. We're at about 45 degrees North. There is not sufficient daylight to cover 14 hours of voting. We'd have to hold the elections in the Summer.

Re:revolutionary technology

[mattventura]

But that has a major weakness: someone could modify the computer to display the correct vote on the screen, print the correct vote for the human-readable part of the printout, but make the QR code correspond to the other candidate. The better way to do that would be to have it print a scantron-like form, so that the exact the machine-readable section is also human-readable.

Re:revolutionary technology

[RockDoctor]

There are no volunteers, these people are usually paid (and paid well enough) for their role in the ballot and count.

Just to clarify - the large majority of the personnel involved in the counting in the UK are not full-time election officials. Typically they are clerical staff of the local council, and are paid overtime for the (normally out of hours) work involved, and allowed time off in lieu (if a recount goes on to 7 in the morning).

Some nations - e.g. Scotland - just don't bother with the overnight count. Counting is done in office hours the next day, by the normal clerical staff.

Re:revolutionary technology

[fgouget]

Voting around here is generally 6 AM to 8 PM to give as many people as possible the opportunity. (I normally vote on the way to work.) This is November,

Eh eh. True, you always hold your elections in November (and on a Tuesday even!), here they can happen at any time of the year, but always on a Sunday so people are available.

Re:revolutionary technology

[fgouget]

The box is sealed and stored, except that spot audits are conducted in random precincts.

If Joe random voter cannot overview the selection of the precincts to audit, you have no guarantee do you have that they are really random.

It fundamentally depends on enough people being willing to work towards a fair election, but that's true of all voting systems. If the system is sufficiently corrupt, the elections will be rigged, no matter what the mechanics.

It also depends on transparency. Without it there is nothing to keep the few people involved with the actual counting in line.

Re:revolutionary technology

[david_thornley]

I don't know what the procedure is to ask for a manual recount, or if there is one.

The people who do the actual counting are supervised by representatives from the major parties. This should suffice for the precinct counts. As far as the overall total goes, it's the sum of the precinct votes, and that's transparent.

Re:revolutionary technology

[fgouget]

The people who do the actual counting are supervised by representatives from the major parties. This should suffice for the precinct counts.

There is still no valid reason to prevent regular voters from watching the recount. So why prevent it?

As far as the overall total goes, it's the sum of the precinct votes, and that's transparent.

As for the overall total it is indeed public which makes it trivially easy to handle, which is why one never talks about it. Not having to deal with the secrecy and anonymity issues enables use of all sorts of computers or schemes without drawbacks.

Re:revolutionary technology

[beckett]

The US has 10x the population of Canada. Mightn't that be a factor in what systems are feasible?

Dekalb County, GA in TFA only has 691,893 people. And you guys need a computer to count that?

Re:revolutionary technology

[metrix007]

It's also a backwards way of doing things. That isn't something to laud.

We have the technology for secure votes, and have had it for some time. A technological solution, properly implemented, only has pros over the old pen and paper method, and very, very, very, like less than 5 cons.

That's dependent on it being properly implement though, with strong PKI, which no one has bothered to do.

Seriously. Posts like yours depress me. It's sad to see people stay in the past instead of pushing for better solutions.

Re:revolutionary technology

[sabbede]

No, but it sure would be handy for counting 130-220 million votes.

Bitcoin

[PPH]

Chain of trust. Every vote is represented as a transaction in a block chain*. So it won't matter if copies of the storage media are floating around. If the chain doesn't trace back to an original (authenticated) state, it must be fake. I'm not a crypto, Bitcoin wizard. But I'm sure some smart people can work out the details.

*Not necessarily _the_ Bitcoin blockchain. But one created along the same principles by election authorities.

Re:Bitcoin

[ShanghaiBill]

*Not necessarily _the_ Bitcoin blockchain. But one created along the same principles by election authorities.

The Economist magazine has a cover story this week on blockchain technology and how it can be used to create a trusted transaction between untrusting people. Some banks are already using blockchains to clear transactions in seconds that used to take days.

Re:Bitcoin

[cheater512]

Yep so each vote is stored with a hash that includes the vote plus every vote before it. Hence why it's called a block 'chain'.

If you were given a print out of the hash your vote generated it would prove that your vote was still present in the chain at the end, it would not reveal any information about previous or future votes nor your identity.

Re:Bitcoin

[Anubis IV]

There are all sorts of problems with that idea. Just off the top of my head as a non-expert, however, the key issues are that:
1) Bitcoin is pseudonymous (i.e. people are identifiable by their keys), not anonymous, so votes can be traced.

2) Key creation (i.e. pseudonym creation) is decentralized in bitcoin, but that doesn't work with voting, since we need a way to ensure one vote per voter, which isn't possible when people can create multiple identities for themselves whenever they want.

3) If we allow the government (or some other central authority) to be in charge of issuing keys (or we're required to register our key with them before it can be used for voting), we'll have handed them the ability to track every vote we make, since they'll know which key corresponds to which citizen (after all, they either issued it to or were told it by that citizen), and, as per #1, they'll know which votes correspond to which keys.

The only way to completely secure voting is to ensure that there is NO link between a voter and their vote. That means absolutely no identifying information tied to a vote. Paper ballots approximate such a system imperfectly, but they do it well enough that no one seems to mind. Unfortunately, those requirements are at odds with the need to create a digital paper trail when doing electronic voting.

In the end, it's a massive mess. Until someone figures something out, paper should keep being used.

Re:Bitcoin

[Anubis IV]

Exactly. What people seem to forget is that each bitcoin transaction is tied to identifiable information, since they contain public keys of the sender, the receiver, and the amount being transferred.

Moreover, as you pointed out, there's nothing stopping anyone from creating additional sets of keys since key creation is decentralized and isn't linked to anything in the real world, meaning that they'd be capable of voting more than once. And even if we assume that we can get past that issue by creating a magic way of keeping keys separate from real-world identities while limiting each person to one set of keys, a regular person would then be responsible for protecting and holding onto their own private key. That becomes problematic when they inevitably lose their key, since we'd have no way to verify their loss, meaning that scammers could claim they lost their keys in order to gain extra votes.

No, bitcoin is better left as a currency. It's entirely the wrong sort of thing to use for voting.

Re:Bitcoin

[ShanghaiBill]

how did you get a "wallet" or account number to serve as being able to cast a vote and not vote more than once?

The fact that you voted would not be secret, nor is it secret now (at least in the USA). Only how you voted is secret. You could use a private key to verify that the vote recorded was how you actually voted.

whoever gave you that knows who you are and can link that data to determine your vote.

Not in a properly designed blockchain system.

Re:Bitcoin

[PPH]

Moreover, as you pointed out, there's nothing stopping anyone from creating additional sets of keys since key creation is decentralized and isn't linked to anything in the real world,

This is where the key generation would have to include the voter registration authority. Some sort of one way hash to anomymize a voter's actual identity. But based on some physical identification* such that repeated applications for new keys would reveal that the same applicant was asking for multiples. Yes, this could be due to them losing their key. But it would be trivially easy to inspect the voting chain for mutiple entries based on the unique ID hash.

*Inevitably, this won't work. Because any attempt to require an ID will be met by the hobo brigade. Who may not actually intend to commit voter fraud. But they just can't remember which name they are using today after their latest drinking binge.

Re:Bitcoin

[ShanghaiBill]

And someone else could coerce you to prove you voted how they wanted you to.

Almost no election fraud involves coercing votes one individual at a time. You are focused on the mouse in the room rather than the elephant.

A secret ballot needs to be anonymous to all, including the person who made the ballot once they have left the poling place.

You have have a totally secret election, or you can have a verifiable election. But you can't have both.

Re:Bitcoin

[hankwang]

"Almost no election fraud involves coercing votes one individual at a time."

Maybe that's because elections are set up to make coersion very difficult. It doesn't necessarily stay so once you offer the technical capability.

Re:Bitcoin

[Troed]

... which makes no sense. You cannot have a secure blockchains unless you have a lot of processing power verifying it - and no one will invest in processing power unless there's an incentive for doing so. That incentive, for the most secure blockchain that exists (processing power surpassing _all_ computers in the top 500 super computing list) is called "bitcoin".

Banks cooperating on a blockchain is equivalent to them agreeing on using the same database.

Or in geek terms: If you want to solve the Byzantine Generals' problem you need a blockchain with incentives. If you do not want to solve the Byzantine Generals' problem you can just as well use MySQL.

Re:Bitcoin

[fgouget]

The fact that you voted would not be secret, nor is it secret now (at least in the USA). Only how you voted is secret. You could use a private key to verify that the vote recorded was how you actually voted.

Please explain how you would use a private key to hide your vote from everyone except the people who need to actually count your vote. Also explain what would then prevent them from publicly disclosing how you voted.

Ethics reform passed

[Gim Tom]

One more reason that the ethics reform initiative passed by greater than a 90% margin. It seems to be sorely needed

Re:Ethics reform passed

[sunderland56]

One more reason that the ethics reform initiative passed by greater than a 90% margin.

One reason it passed was that the ethics reform vote wasn't tabulated by voting machines.

Re:Ethics reform passed

[Gim Tom]

Unfortunately it was. That's how I voted for it. On one of the infamous Diebold touch screen machines from the early 2000's. Even with those machines it becomes a bit too obvious when the margin is over 90%.

Don't get me started on the voting machines since I fought them as hard as possible when they were introduced in a panic after the "hanging chad" fiasco in 2000. I retired in 2007 after 10+ years as a Network Engineer and the Security Officer for an agency in this state and thought they were a dumb idea then and I think time has shown that to be a correct assessment.

Re:Georgia?

[Anubis IV]

Understandably, it wasn't immediately clear from the headline, but certainly by the time you got to "LaVista Hills" in the second sentence you should have had a sense that it wasn't the Eastern European "Georgia" that was being discussed, and by the time you hit "Atlanta" (i.e. major city, site of the 1996 Olympics, home to the busiest airport in the world (as measured by passenger count) for 15 consecutive years) in the summary it should have been obvious that they were discussing the United States.

Update: Piazza took memory card & copied info

[McGruber]

There's more information about the scandal on the AJC's (easily circumvented) paywalled site: MyAJC:Voting irregularities alleged in LaVista Hills election

The article includes a key detail not mentioned in the slashdot summary:

Leonard Piazza, the second in command in DeKalb’s elections office, said there were serious problems regarding the LaVista vote.....Piazza said he took the memory card and copied information from DeKalb’s voting tabulation server so that he could try and prove tampering. But those actions aren’t allowed, and he has been placed on paid leave.

If only GA had a voter ID law to prevent fraud....

[dywolf]

If only GA had a voter ID law to prevent fraud....

oh.
wait.

Re:If only GA had a voter ID law to prevent fraud.

[PopeRatzo]

Yes. Require all voting machines to have valid ID.

Stop illegal voting machines: BUILD THE WALL.

Enough of the voting machines.

[aXis100]

Many countries around the world have proven that paper and pencil voting is reliable, traceable, and scalable. Even in countries with mandatory voting where the turnout density is higher than the US.

In Australia, most public schools & town halls become voting centers for the day, so most people don't have to travel far and the numbers are manageable. A small army of trained electoral commission recruits control the process, and do the counts at the end of the day. The results are in that evening, which is plenty fast enough.

Paper voting has several distinct advantages:
1) It has a visible and tangible chain of trust, and can be directly inspected by the lay-person.
2) It directly involves people in the democratic process, not machines
3) A lot of the money required to run the election goes to individuals, not corporations.

Re:Dekalb has more problems than this

[Nidi62]

The previous DeKalb County CEO (DeKalb is the only county in GA that has a CEO, and to me it seems like a ridiculous title for a government official) was recently convicted of perjury and corruption (indicted on 14 felony counts including theft and extortion) and sentenced to 18 months in prison. He also managed to run the county into the ground and had a massively wasteful and bloated county administration.

Re:Only if DNC loses

[riverat1]

Everyone know there is no such thing as election fraud, that is why we don't need voter ID laws. I've been told that countless times. That is unless the DNC looses the election, then it is obviously fraud even if no evidence can be found.

Voter fraud is practically nonexistent, especially in person fraud at the polls which is the only thing Voter ID laws would prevent. (Voter fraud is fraud done by an individual voter). Election fraud which is what the story is about is fraud perpetrated by people running the elections. What would Voter ID laws do to prevent that?

Re:Only if DNC loses

[sexconker]

Successful voter fraud hasn't been measured. (Hint, when it's successful you don't know that it happened.)
"Vote early, vote often."

Re:If only GA had a voter ID law to prevent fraud.

[Ol Olsoc]

If only GA had a voter ID law to prevent fraud....

oh. wait.

I know. Do these kooks have any ideas that actually work?

Re:Georgia?

[Anonymous Coward]

There is always going to be at least one. One person to complain that the country wasn't listed, one person to complain if measurements are in imperial instead of metric, one person to complain if the US is referred to as America, one person to complain that they don't know what this acronym means, and of course there will be at least one person to complain if the headline is a question.

Its like talking to a room full of 14 year olds. Nothing to really add to the conversation, just incessant whining.

Captcha: tedious How apropos.

Re:Only if DNC loses

[riverat1]

Why don't you give it a try and see how successful you can be?

Re:If only GA had a voter ID law to prevent fraud.

[dbIII]

The wall didn't work for the Chinese so why do people think it's going to work this time?

Re:Dekalb has more problems than this

[Anonymous Coward]

The former CEO of DeKalb is a Democrat. The party affiliation would have been mentioned had he been a Republican.

Re:Dekalb has more problems than this

[sabbede]

Yup. Corruption in the county is out of hand. It's a factor in the move towards cityhood.

Re:Dekalb has more problems than this

[sabbede]

If I recall, he was appointed by the governor because corruption and mismanagement was out-of-control in the county. Somewhat amusing as Governor Deal is infamously corrupt himself - once named the most corrupt member of Congress, he abandoned his seat just ahead of a massive investigation into his behavior. He said it was because he wanted to focus on his gubernatorial run.

It didn't take long for ethics and corruption investigations to be launched against him once he was elected as governor, which he has since been accused of interfering with.

Re:Dekalb has more problems than this

[sabbede]

I believe he was appointed by a Republican governor if that makes you feel better. Don't know why it would. I know I'm not proud of it.

Re:Only if DNC loses

[sabbede]

Don't be such a crybaby you unhinged loon. Only an idiot says they want to die because someone else has a different perspective or favors different policies.

"Oh no! Somebody who shares the same goals as I has a different opinion on how to achieve them! Boo-hoo I want to die!"

Re:The Republicans do this...

[sabbede]

Nonsense. Might as well say Democrats hate freedom and want everyone to be poor.

You know what the big difference between Democrats and Republicans is? The policies they think will have the best outcome for the American people.

If you are so convinced you're right that anyone who disagrees must be doing so for evil reasons, then you have abandoned empathy and understanding in favor of partisan rage. You and your blind, ignorant hatred disgust me. Not your party or ideology, you.

I almost wish I had watched the news story

[sabbede]

instead of Family Guy, but I'm standing by my decision to wait till this morning to find out what happened. (I live near Atlanta)

How could this happen?

[rickb928]

In the US Democrats assure us that election fraud is nonexistent, unles Republicans commit it. DeKalb county is not Republican.

Electronic voting in the US can only serve to enable fraud. It solves no problem.

Confirmation Hash

[wardrich86]

Why can't voting contain some sort of hash that you get after voting? You can enter the hash into the website to confirm that your vote actually recorded as what you entered?

Re:If only GA had a voter ID law to prevent fraud.

[dywolf]

no, its making the point that Voter ID is a distraction, and contributes nothing to combatting actual election fraud.

Voter ID is like saying you should lock your car door, when you live on an island in the middle of the ocean. Alone.
Voter ID is a solution in search of a problem.
Voter ID only stops in person vote fraud, the rarest, least rewarding, and most effort-requiring form.
Voter ID stands to stop a whopping handful (literally, handful, as in 5 or less) of bad votes every year, out of the billions cast, votes that aren't even a statistical blip and pose absolutely zero threat to the integrity of our elections.