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The Netherlands Opts For Manual Vote-Count Amid Cyberattack Fears (independent.co.uk)

Posted by BeauHD on from the better-safe-than-sorry dept.

Bruce66423 writes: Following revelations about the lack of security of the software, the Dutch government has decided to abandon the use of it to count the ballots at the forthcoming election in March. The Independent reports: The decision was taken amidst fears that hackers could influence next month's elections after allegations by the U.S. intelligence agency that Russia hacked into Democrats' emails to help Donald Trump get elected. Russia denies any wrongdoing. Intelligence agencies have warned that three crucial elections in Europe this year in the Netherlands, France and Germany could be vulnerable to manipulation by outside actors. In a letter to the Dutch Parliament, Interior Minister Ronald Plasterk said that 'reports in recent days about vulnerabilities in our systems raise the question of whether the results could be manipulated' and that 'no shadow can be allowed to hang over the result.' In previous elections, the ballots were counted by hand locally but regional and national counts were done electronically. But this year, all ballots will be counted by hand after voters make their choice on 15 March. Dutch media have reported that the counting software may not only be insecure but also outdated. The counting software is reported to be distributed by CD-ROM to regional counting centers, where it is set-up on old computers that are internet connected."

117 comments

  1. I'll never vote over the net by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 5, Informative

    Paper ballots, either scanned or manually counted is the ONLY secure way to vote. If there isn't a hard-copy, it didn't happen.

    1. Re:I'll never vote over the net by by+(1706743) · · Score: 2, Interesting

      I like the idea of posting all voting results publicly, where you are identified by something like a randomly generated UUID given to you at the time of voting (or some hash of your various personal information like name and SSN, etc.).

      Although it doesn't address "extra" votes, you would at least be able to verify that your vote got counted as you intended, which is something...

    2. Re:I'll never vote over the net by Caesar+Tjalbo · · Score: 3, Interesting

      The story is about the software used to send the results to a central place. So the voting was done by paper ballots but from there on it went digital. The "shocking" (probably not so much anymore) thing was that the particular vulnerability was known for years and pointed out by a student in 2011.

      --
      "I'm not much interested in interoperability. I want substitutability. I want to be able to throw your software out."
    3. Re:I'll never vote over the net by Highdude702 · · Score: 1

      Then how do you circumvent vote buying?

    4. Re:I'll never vote over the net by Jeremi · · Score: 4, Insightful

      I like the idea of posting all voting results publicly, where you are identified by something like a randomly generated UUID given to you at the time of voting (or some hash of your various personal information like name and SSN, etc.).

      Although it doesn't address "extra" votes, you would at least be able to verify that your vote got counted as you intended, which is something...

      The problem is that your boss (who has promised to fire you unless you vote for his candidate, and/or has offered to pay $20 to every employee who can prove they voted for his candidate) can also use this mechanism to verify that you voted the way he told you to.

      Keeping peoples' votes private is important to avoid that sort of abuse, and I don't think there is any reliable way to allow a voter to verify his own vote without also allowing someone else to lean on that voter for evidence that they voted "correctly".

      --


      I don't care if it's 90,000 hectares. That lake was not my doing.
    5. Re:I'll never vote over the net by Ol+Olsoc · · Score: 2

      Paper ballots, either scanned or manually counted is the ONLY secure way to vote. If there isn't a hard-copy, it didn't happen.

      Ill give you a two point boost for telling the truth, AC MOd this guy up people.

      Anyone who belives that computer systems are safe for voting cannot call themselves a technical or computer professional. Well that might, but tht would explain a lot. Because voting machinery has ben tampered with and is 100 percent insecure and long long before the 2016 election.

      --
      The shepherds did so well protecting the flock that the sheep no longer believed that wolves existed.
    6. Re: I'll never vote over the net by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

      Don't be that one guy who wasn't blasting The Donald's inauguration speech at full volume in his cubicle. That one guy got fired for not being a Trump player.

    7. Re:I'll never vote over the net by currently_awake · · Score: 5, Insightful

      The secret to Democracy is trust. The people must trust the voting system to be the will of the people. If you can't prove to the people the system is trustworthy then Democracy won't work. A black box computer system is not provable.

    8. Re:I'll never vote over the net by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 1

      Make every vote public, linked to a random and non deterministic UUID that is shown at the time you voted.

      Look up your own UUID afterwards to verify your vote was registered correctly.

      Give your boss someone else's UUID from the public list of all votes, who voted the way he demanded to keep your job or get the $20. Except your boss will know you could pick an UUID at random and claim it was yours, so making such threats/promises would be worthless.

      I suppose he could demand you bring a camera into the voting booth and snap a picture of the screen when the vote is displayed, to verify the UUID you gave matches. But he could also demand you bring a camera into the booth and snap a picture of you making a cross in the right box on the ballot paper, so it isn't any worse than the current system. And honestly, what is the likelihood that any boss will do that, when the employees threatened could simply report him to the police and provide multiple corroborating witness statements?

    9. Re:I'll never vote over the net by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

      What if I (being your Nefarious Person With Power) tell you "Transmit the UUID immediately after you've voted before the official results have been tallied so that you can't do exactly that?" Especially when you take into account several countries have advanced polling.

    10. Re:I'll never vote over the net by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

      You're half right; the other half is verification of citizenship for registration.

    11. Re:I'll never vote over the net by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

      Paper ballots won't make any difference as long as anyone is allowed to register to vote on their word that they are eligible to vote (think illegals, legal residents, dead people, etc.)

    12. Re:I'll never vote over the net by hey! · · Score: 1

      I have a theory for why voting machines are more popular with officials than optical tabulators. It has to do with election manipulation, but not by the mechanisms we're talking about.

      With electronic voting machines, the number of functioning voting machines can be a bottleneck. That can be exploited to create delays in certain precincts, causing voters to give up and discouraging turnout in the long term. Whenever I see a news report of voters lined up for hours waiting, it always shocks me that the line isn't moving at all. How many times would that have to happen before you start sitting elections out? And the lines aren't necessary. They shouldn't form in the first place and they weren't a "normal" feature of voting until electronic voting machines became standard in many places.

      Do the math: A precinct optical scanner/tabulator cost about the same as a single voting machine. That in turn costs about the same as 20 pop-up voting booths. So for the price of setting up a two voting machine precinct you can have a precinct that can handle 20 simultaneous voters. Granted you have to pay to have the paper ballots printed, but that's negligible, especially if you consider the cost of testing and prepping each voting machine after storage.

      The only advantage a voting machine has over OCR with a precinct tabulator is for blind voters. But there are machines that will mark a paper OCR ballot for blind voters -- they work just like a voting machine. What's more you can mix and match that with hand-marking to provide the same level of assistance for voters who need it and scalable volume handling which benefits everyone. And you get the results just as fast.

      --
      Post may contain irony: discontinue use if experiencing mood swings, nausea or elevated blood pressure.
    13. Re:I'll never vote over the net by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 1

      Vote buying is really a non-issue as long as politicians themselves are for sale.

    14. Re:I'll never vote over the net by Magnus+Pym · · Score: 1

      I think that ship has sailed; mail-in ballots are vulnerable to that sort of scheme as well. Now that we have adopted mail-in ballots, may as well go the whole hog and do full verification.

    15. Re:I'll never vote over the net by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

      NPWP.. You mean like Sree Kotay of Comcast who's pressuring his employees politically right now?

    16. Re:I'll never vote over the net by ChoGGi · · Score: 1

      Right after you cast your vote, (along with your personal UUID) you get a list of UUIDs for each candidate?

    17. Re:I'll never vote over the net by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

      And here is a prime example of how empty cynicism makes you stupid.

    18. Re:I'll never vote over the net by Goaway · · Score: 1

      Which won't be on the tally?

    19. Re:I'll never vote over the net by Goaway · · Score: 1

      Or, fix your idiotic system and stop accepting mail-in votes!

    20. Re:I'll never vote over the net by phantomfive · · Score: 1

      My precinct has a voting machine, connected to a printer. After I finish voting, I can look at the printout, verify that it is correct, and push OK. I think that is a good way to do it, because it reduces counting errors, but preserves paper ballots in case a recount is needed.

      --
      "First they came for the slanderers and i said nothing."
    21. Re:I'll never vote over the net by arglebargle_xiv · · Score: 1

      I've seen this brought up a number of times as a counterargument to ready auditability, and it's always seemed like a red herring to me. I don't live in the US so I don't know whether this sort of thing is rampant over there, but vote-buying in the countries I've lived in (stable democracies, e.g. the Netherlands) is essentially nonexistent. It's just not done, so there's no need to compromise your voting system auditability in order to deal with it.

    22. Re:I'll never vote over the net by arglebargle_xiv · · Score: 2

      The secret to Democracy is trust.

      Yep, and once you can con people into trusting that their vote counts, you've got it made.

    23. Re:I'll never vote over the net by TuringTest · · Score: 1

      And you don't think that, the fact that the voting system is not exploitable, plays a large part in making vote-buying nonexistent?

      The very same countries that have stable democracies now are the ones which implanted such systems because vote-buying was a common practice in the past.

      --
      Singularity: a belief in the "God" idea with the "demiurge" relation inverted.
    24. Re:I'll never vote over the net by arglebargle_xiv · · Score: 1, Troll

      And you don't think that, the fact that the voting system is not exploitable, plays a large part in making vote-buying nonexistent?

      I know this unicorn repellant I'm wearing works because I've never been attacked by a unicorn.

    25. Re:I'll never vote over the net by houghi · · Score: 1

      On the other had, I could get 20USD instead of the senator. So I see it as a win. Now I am down 20USD and the way I vote does not affect the way that senator votes.

      --
      Don't fight for your country, if your country does not fight for you.
    26. Re:I'll never vote over the net by houghi · · Score: 0

      So that is the reason the USofA isn't a Democracy. I thought it was because they where a republic.

      --
      Don't fight for your country, if your country does not fight for you.
    27. Re:I'll never vote over the net by GNious · · Score: 1

      People, incl politicians, have been posting vote-booth selfies for the last few years now - if you want to buy votes, have people post selfies with them, it'll get drowned out by the noise of everyone else doing so, even if illegal in your region.

    28. Re:I'll never vote over the net by slashrio · · Score: 1

      And here is a prime example of how naive ignorance makes one stupid.

      --
      "Trump!!", the new Godwin.
    29. Re:I'll never vote over the net by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

      Agreed...except for the scanning part. Pen and paper is the way to go and counting has to be open to the public. Counting also needs to include counting the number of ballots so that there are not more in the ballot box than people who signed in.
      How come that places around the world can figure this out, but not the US??

    30. Re:I'll never vote over the net by Opportunist · · Score: 1

      Exactly.

      Buying politicians, what bullshit. Start leasing, they might become worthless come next election.

      --
      We used to have a Bill of Rights. Now, with the rights gone, all we have left is the bill.
    31. Re: I'll never vote over the net by Opportunist · · Score: 1

      I was blasting during the speech, I was. People around me didn't like it.

      And then I was fired for being a Trumpet player.

      --
      We used to have a Bill of Rights. Now, with the rights gone, all we have left is the bill.
    32. Re:I'll never vote over the net by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

      Doesn't work.
      Inside the booth, there are ballots for all parties/candidates. You can make any number of selfies and go on to vote for someone else.

      Before you leave the booth, you fold the ballot so nobody can see how you vote. Then you take the ballot outside and put it in the container. This part is public, so they can see that you only cast a single ballot. But they can't see who you're voting for - and they WILL react if you try to vote openly. (Perhaps they allow a public vote for established politicians who will vote for themselves anyway. But not for ordinary people - precisely to combat vote shopping.)

    33. Re:I'll never vote over the net by anarcobra · · Score: 1

      My house has never flooded. Guess we don't need all these levees everywhere.
      Better just tear them down amirite?

    34. Re:I'll never vote over the net by number6x · · Score: 1

      I like the idea of posting all voting results publicly, where you are identified by something like a randomly generated UUID given to you at the time of voting (or some hash of your various personal information like name and SSN, etc.). Although it doesn't address "extra" votes, you would at least be able to verify that your vote got counted as you intended, which is something...

      The important thing is the vote, not the person casting it. In this system, a vote is a recorded thing so the UUID should be based on parameters of the vote:

      • - date-time Stamp when the vote is scanned (or entered)
      • - location id of the voting place (state/locality/precinct/ward/polling place id
      • - machine id of vote paper-scanner or electronic voting machine
      • - sequence number of vote on that paper scanner or e-vote machine that day
      • - id of voting judge who checked you off the polls?
    35. Re:I'll never vote over the net by Altus · · Score: 1

      These voting protections you are talking about weren't in place just a short while ago. You would need to show that vote buying was happening then.... IE, the house was flooding before we build the levees.

      --

      "In America, first you get the sugar, then you get the power, then you get the women..." -H. Simpson

    36. Re:I'll never vote over the net by Altus · · Score: 1

      The scanning isn't bad as long as you are doing sufficient manual checks.

      --

      "In America, first you get the sugar, then you get the power, then you get the women..." -H. Simpson

    37. Re:I'll never vote over the net by butzwonker · · Score: 1

      Absolutely. Any machine complex enough to have an operating system and some software on it can be hacked. I'd be surprised if there are any military networks that haven't been infiltrated at one time or another, and they are much more secure than voting machines. In fact, voting machines have again and again been shown to be insecure by various security researchers and white or grey hat hackers like the German CCC.

      A country that primarily uses electronic voting machine does not have a trustworthy democracy.

    38. Re:I'll never vote over the net by wyHunter · · Score: 1

      Yes, thank goodness it's a Republic and not a Democracy.

    39. Re:I'll never vote over the net by dryeo · · Score: 1

      Language has changed since the 18th century. Democracy includes representative democracy where the people vote in representatives to run things and republic just means the opposite of monarchy.
      Democracies include representative republics such as the USA and representative monarchies such as the UK or the Netherlands.
      Republics range from countries where the citizens have a say in the makeup of their governments through elections to countries where there is little difference from an absolute monarchy such as N. Korea.
      Presently, stating that your country is a republic rather then a democracy leads to wondering if you are talking about an authoritarian dictatorship which might have sham elections whereas stating that your country is a democracy implies that the people ultimately decide on the government through an election process.

      --
      https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Inverted_totalitarianism
    40. Re:I'll never vote over the net by Howitzer86 · · Score: 1

      Our Constitutional Republic is considered a form of Democracy. A Direct Democracy is also a form of Democracy. The fact that a Constitutional Republic isn't a Direct Democracy does not mean it's not a Democracy at all.

      I think the people that make the fallacious point that we're not a Democracy do so in response to people complaining about their government not representing the will of the people. It's a statement in defense of a representative system clearly failing to represent, and a rejection of the idea that the government should only operate with the Consent of the Governed. Wikipedia contrasts this with the Divine Right of Kings, which unfortunately is how some of our leaders prefer to operate.

    41. Re:I'll never vote over the net by stoatwblr · · Score: 1

      Why buy the voters when you can simply buy the vote counters?

    42. Re:I'll never vote over the net by stoatwblr · · Score: 1

      "But he could also demand you bring a camera into the booth and snap a picture of you making a cross in the right box on the ballot paper"

      Which is exactly why taking photos of people voting or in the ballot box is expressly prohibited in most functional democracies.

    43. Re:I'll never vote over the net by eric_harris_76 · · Score: 1

      Then how do you circumvent vote buying?

      We haven't. We've only changed the process slightly.

      "Vote for me and I'll have the government rob other people to pay for the goodies the government is going to give you. But if you don't vote for me, well, I might not win."

      (It also comes in another form: "Vote for me and I'll have the government rob you less than you're being robbed now. But if you don't vote for me, well, I might not win.")

      That kind of vote-buying is self-enforcing, to a degree.

      And that kind of vote-buying is not stoppable, AFAIK.

      --
      There's no time like the present. Well, the past used to be.
    44. Re:I'll never vote over the net by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

      Iffy. Could work near the end of an election with a large enough pool of already existing votes reduces the possibility of two voters picking colliding UUID's but not for those near the beginning of an election when the pool of alternative UUID's is small.

      Other problem is if the organization pressuring employees to vote XYZ is large enough, it can still detect this since I'd assume that they'd be smart enough to log the turned in UUID's. One possible attack would be to say, "Vote XYZ, you get $20, but if there's a duplicate then everyone that did vote looses that $20 and the person that tried to fake it gets ratted out." It can backfire pretty quickly mind you if the anger gets directed at the owner rather then the person ratted out admittedly but on the other hand it's just as likely that the person getting ratted out would be turned into a pariah. Especially if most of the company already supports XYZ

  2. Easy for them to do by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

    Like 10 people live there? SAD!

    1. Re:Easy for them to do by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

      17 million.

    2. Re:Easy for them to do by Damouze · · Score: 1

      More like 17 milion people.

      Nevertheless, a fantastic idea that should be adopted by other countries as well.

      --
      And on the Eighth Day, Man created God.
  3. Democracy about People. by rtb61 · · Score: 5, Insightful

    Reality is democracy is all about people. People should make the votes and people should count the votes and real people should be voted for. Outside actors were never the problem, the corporations that make the devices and the current government in power that control the devices, they are the problem.

    --
    Chaos - everything, everywhere, everywhen
  4. They are smart in the Netherlands by surfdaddy · · Score: 3, Insightful

    IMHO we should never use voting machines unless technology gets to a place where we clearly are not at. No way to avoid the risks of mass tampering with machines.

    1. Re:They are smart in the Netherlands by Carewolf · · Score: 1

      IMHO we should never use voting machines unless technology gets to a place where we clearly are not at. No way to avoid the risks of mass tampering with machines.

      I can't even see how it can be avoided with more technology. The whole purpose of using technology to count vote is to make it more efficient, but it is the inefficiency that makes human counting safer, any major improvement in efficiency will make tampering easier.

    2. Re:They are smart in the Netherlands by JaredOfEuropa · · Score: 5, Insightful

      Not just safer. Manual voting, counting and the applicable oversight all consist of transparent processes that pretty much any idiot can understand and take part in, as voter, counter or auditor. And that makes people's confidence in the results that much greater. Which is pretty important. "No shadow can be allowed to hang over the result" means the entire process must be transparent and auditable by laymen, which pretty much precludes the use of computers.

      --
      If construction was anything like programming, an incorrectly fitted lock would bring down the entire building...
    3. Re:They are smart in the Netherlands by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

      Voting machines aren't the only problem. In Washington state, USA, we are required to vote by mail, and since voting is not a right many of our votes are thrown in the trash. Who had their vote counted is public record, and the past few elections I checked my vote and several coworkers, and not a one of us had our vote counted.

    4. Re:They are smart in the Netherlands by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 1

      The reason that electronic voting machines were forbidden the last time was (among others) that some politicians had a name with special characters (Turkish, or French, etc). The electromagnetic radiation signature the machines gave off when voting on such a person was different, thereby removing the anonymity required.
      https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=B05wPomCjEY
      A group of activists sued the state, and actually dropped the suit when they were about to win to prevent chaos. The voting machines were banned, also because of other irregularities in their handling and because the people did not like that 'checks on the process' were replaced with 'trust in the process'.

      In the Netherlands, all citizens are listed in a civil registry. If you are eligible to vote, you receive a voting-pass in your name (a permit to come and vote) in the mail (no need to preregister). You take this pass and your ID to one of several local voting locations appointed to you (in your neighborhood), where a team (representatives of many parties) work together in checking your voting pass and ID against a printout of the (local) civil register. You then get a blank ballot which you take into a voting booth. They cannot come in and help you, you must go in alone (no relatives allowed). You color in one and only one box next to the persons name with a big fat red pencil. Any other marking renders the ballot invalid. No pictures are allowed. (This lack of anonymity is why online voting is fundamentally flawed)
      Then you fold the ballot shut, go out of the booth and put the ballot in the box in front of the checking team.
      Anonymity during and after voting guaranteed, review on the process guaranteed by all parties, no virtual voters possible. The Dutch voting system is one of the most trustworthy systems in the world, although constantly under attack from incompetent legislators trying to 'optimize' or 'future proof' the system.

    5. Re:They are smart in the Netherlands by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

      No, they are really rather stupid. They pushed for electronic voting and implementing it, wasting loads of money.
      The actually smart ones never started with that stupid (for the most part, Germany for example).

    6. Re:They are smart in the Netherlands by camperdave · · Score: 1

      Make a machine that will take a stack of ballots and split them into separate piles based on which box is ticked. Then run each of those piles through a separate tallying machine. The sorting machine doesn't count, and the counting machine doesn't sort. We've had this tech for nearly a century.

      --
      When our name is on the back of your car, we're behind you all the way!
  5. Much Ado About Nothing by 93+Escort+Wagon · · Score: 3, Funny

    "The Independent reports: The decision was taken amidst fears that hackers could influence next month's elections after allegations by the U.S. intelligence agency that Russia hacked into Democrats' emails to help Donald Trump get elected."

    You needn't worry, Netherlanders - if Donald Trump won your election, I'm pretty sure you'd figure out something went wrong pretty quickly.

    Besides, I doubt it'd be legal for him to run four countries at once. He's not Putin.

    --
    #DeleteChrome
    1. Re: Much Ado About Nothing by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

      Meh, Trump practically already runs Europe. What's Europe going to do? I'll give Europe this much, for being such silly insignificant cuckold bitches of the US's, they sure are uppity.

    2. Re:Much Ado About Nothing by Ol+Olsoc · · Score: 2

      "

      You needn't worry, Netherlanders - if Donald Trump won your election, I'm pretty sure you'd figure out something went wrong pretty quickly.

      Besides, I doubt it'd be legal for him to run four countries at once. He's not Putin.

      Bt would it not be hilarious for Trump to suddenly start winning every election in the world?

      --
      The shepherds did so well protecting the flock that the sheep no longer believed that wolves existed.
    3. Re:Much Ado About Nothing by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

      Our "Trump" got assassinated 15 years ago, but thanks for your concern.

    4. Re:Much Ado About Nothing by 93+Escort+Wagon · · Score: 2

      Bt would it not be hilarious for Trump to suddenly start winning every election in the world?

      ... also mayor's races, county council seats, and school board positions.

      --
      #DeleteChrome
    5. Re:Much Ado About Nothing by Ol+Olsoc · · Score: 1

      Bt would it not be hilarious for Trump to suddenly start winning every election in the world?

      ... also mayor's races, county council seats, and school board positions.

      Trumps for everything!

      --
      The shepherds did so well protecting the flock that the sheep no longer believed that wolves existed.
    6. Re: Much Ado About Nothing by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 1

      The main effect in Europe of the Trump administration so far is that European governments are beginning to view the US as a threat rather than an ally and are starting to distance themselves from the US. The US is rapidly losing influence on the rest of the world.

    7. Re:Much Ado About Nothing by 93+Escort+Wagon · · Score: 1

      It's Trumps, all the way down!

      --
      #DeleteChrome
  6. so...Manual will count all the votes? by turkeydance · · Score: 1

    hope he gets a raise.

  7. Re: SHE LOST by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

    Their SHE hasn't lost yet. "They" are taking steps to ensure these elections arrive at the preordained "free" outcome. We can't simply allow "fascists" to take power merely for winning according to the rules.

    Like everything else that's "right" and "good", it all comes down to teh feelz and whether it advances the "mainstream" "progressive" "liberal" cause of "justice" for "all".

  8. The Dutch Trump by Shane_Optima · · Score: 3, Informative

    This is the 'Donald Trump' the Dutch are worried about, for those who are interested. They actually aren't terribly alike other than their tendency to not mince words about Islam, but I somehow suspect the comparison is being constantly made nonetheless.

    1. Re:The Dutch Trump by Shane_Optima · · Score: 1

      Well, I suppose their hair could be distance cousins as well. That, and the Islam thing.

    2. Re:The Dutch Trump by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

      Worried? They'd would be well served if he wins.

    3. Re:The Dutch Trump by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

      You should read that Wikipedia page again. The guy is crazy, his party is extremely anti-democratic and he is being funded by foreign extremists. His plans are idiotic and change all the time and his budget proposals do not stand up to basic scrutiny. He may actually believe in some of the things he says, but most of his plans are only meant to draw votes from ignorant and gullible people.

      A number of years ago, he was given a golden ticket: his party supported a minority coalition government of centre-right parties without having to take any responsibility. He had a say in government policy and his party could abstain or vote against the minority government in many of the plans he thought his voters would not like. After a little over a year, government finances deteriorated and additional budget cuts were necessary. The coalition needed Geert Wilders and his party on board. However, Wilders did not like having to take responsibility for necessary budget cuts (they don't do well in a populist agenda) and he pulled out of the coalition, leaving opposition parties to solve the problem.

      Since then, Wilders has become ever more radical and hostile towards the serious political parties. Currently, all parties with more than one seat in parliament have vowed not to form a coalition with his party, partly because of his discriminatory stances and partly because he has shown that he cannot be trusted. Even if his party becomes the largest, which is not unlikely according to current polls, he will not be in government and since most of his proposals are not supported by other parties, he will rarely get a majority of parliament behind him on anything. He may have a large following, but the majority of people in The Netherlands don't like him at all.

    4. Re:The Dutch Trump by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

      > His plans are idiotic and change all the time and his budget proposals do not stand up to basic scrutiny. He may actually believe in some of the things he says, but most of his plans are only meant to draw votes from ignorant and gullible people.

      And how is this different from your typical politician?

    5. Re:The Dutch Trump by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

      Other political parties tend to have a plans that form a coherent programme that fits within the underlying principles and objectives of the party and they tend to make sure their plans are sufficiently detailed and substantiated for economic institutes to calculate the effects and consequences. For the upcoming elections, Geert Wilders just presented an A4 sheet with a few lines of mostly empty rhetoric.

    6. Re:The Dutch Trump by Shane_Optima · · Score: 1

      The guy is crazy, his party is extremely anti-democratic ... Even if his party becomes the largest, which is not unlikely according to current polls, he will not be in government and since most of his proposals are not supported by other parties, he will rarely get a majority of parliament behind him on anything. He may have a large following, but the majority of people in The Netherlands don't like him at all.

      I know I was just dismissive of the stylistic and policy connections between him and Trump, but surely the parallels in the overall situation deserve commenting on.

      When the public demands something and only a 'crazy, anti-democratic' guy steps forward to address that demand... that guy can still *win*, even if the majority of the public do not like him. If this can be true in a Presidential system, this surely must be true in a Parliamentary system as well (unless they have ditched first past the post voting, maybe.)

      The Dutch, like most of Europe, are probably well to the left of America on issues like immigration and dealing with jihadis, but (also like much of Europe) their Islam-related issues are bigger than ours and this tends to more than balance it out. For example, if Aayan Hirsi Ali was elected as senator and then forced out of her home by the courts, then forced out of office and out of the country primarily because some people didn't like the fact that she had insulted Islam (in much gentler terms than Trump, of course) and didn't want to have to provide her with security against jihadi assassins, I suspect there would be sustained riots over here.

      The record stuck on repeat here is one of polarization; of everyone shunning sane ground. Some may call this "centrist" ground, but I prefer "sane". Centrist implies some kind of a blend or balance of right and left, when frequently the correct solution is orthogonal to both sides' solutions.

      My overarching point is getting away from me here... anyway, I knew Wilders' popularity was on the rise (and I knew he was a bit of a one-note nutter, as opposed to Trump being a virtuoso nutter) but I'd no idea it was to the point where his party was strongest but (due to their parliamentary environment) he was still opposed by the majority. What an incredibly dangerous situation. The Tories showed that even if you can successfully contain a populist right party, the placating measures you take to contain them may well lead you down... undesired roads.

    7. Re:The Dutch Trump by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

      When the public demands something and only a 'crazy, anti-democratic' guy steps forward to address that demand... that guy can still *win*, even if the majority of the public do not like him. If this can be true in a Presidential system, this surely must be true in a Parliamentary system as well (unless they have ditched first past the post voting, maybe.)

      The Netherlands hasn't ditched first-past-the-post; it simply never had it. Seats in parliament are divided proportionally to the number of votes for that party. For Geert Wilders to gain any power, he must either convince a majority of members of parliament to go along with him (e.g. in a coalition government) or win more than 50% of votes by himself. The latter will never happen as long as a majority does not support him (or at least favour him compared to other poilitical parties).

      The Dutch, like most of Europe, are probably well to the left of America on issues like immigration and dealing with jihadis, but (also like much of Europe) their Islam-related issues are bigger than ours and this tends to more than balance it out. For example, if Aayan Hirsi Ali was elected as senator and then forced out of her home by the courts, then forced out of office and out of the country primarily because some people didn't like the fact that she had insulted Islam (in much gentler terms than Trump, of course) and didn't want to have to provide her with security against jihadi assassins, I suspect there would be sustained riots over here.

      I think there would also have been riots if the above story would have happened in The Netherlands. I wonder what would have happened if a politician in the US turned out to have provided a false name and a false date of birth when applying for citizenship. I suppose that would have caused major riots in a country where the veracity of the certificate of birth of a presidential candidate and then president got continued attention for over eight years, despite the fact that there were no indications that there was anything wrong with the document. I doubt someone like Ayaan Hirsi Ali could have just left the US to pursue a career in lobbying elsewhere. I think she would have ended up in prison, or in some offshore detention camp.

      The record stuck on repeat here is one of polarization; of everyone shunning sane ground. Some may call this "centrist" ground, but I prefer "sane". Centrist implies some kind of a blend or balance of right and left, when frequently the correct solution is orthogonal to both sides' solutions.

      I agree. There is too much polarisation and too little rationalism and sanity.

      My overarching point is getting away from me here... anyway, I knew Wilders' popularity was on the rise (and I knew he was a bit of a one-note nutter, as opposed to Trump being a virtuoso nutter) but I'd no idea it was to the point where his party was strongest but (due to their parliamentary environment) he was still opposed by the majority.

      His popularity is not on the rise. He has been scoring around the same level in opinion polls and in elections for quite a long time, with some fluctuation. His popularity was mildly rising in the middle of 2016, but it has been declining a bit in the past months. In a hypothetical parallel universe where The Netherlands had a first-past-the-post system with districts, his party would have won at most a handful of seats. He has a 15-20% following, typically less in big cities and suburban towns and a bit more in the countryside, but in the previous rounds of elections, there were very few municipalities where is party was the largest. I also suppose that in such a system, The Netherlands would have had only two or three big parties in parliament rather than the current seventeen.

      The Tories showed that even if you can successfully contain a populist right party, the placating measures you take to contain them may well lead you down... undesired roads.

      The Tories were willing to put the future of the country at stake for electoral results and they lost. I think this is a warning for moderate parties trying to woo the target audience of populists everywhere.

    8. Re:The Dutch Trump by Shane_Optima · · Score: 1

      I wonder what would have happened if a politician in the US turned out to have provided a false name and a false date of birth when applying for citizenship

      If that person was fleeing persecution from a hellhole like Somalia (or a hellhole-lite like Kenya) and there was no evidence that the false info was used for any nefarious purposes at all, no, there wouldn't be any negative repercussions for someone who had established herself as a high profile public servant. The reason she was forced out was because of her criticism of Islam, not because the Dutch government was incapable of re-approving her under another name.

    9. Re:The Dutch Trump by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

      Having opinions, whatever they may be, about any religion is not a condition for citizenship in The Netherlands. Truthfully providing the right information is. At no point was Ms Hirsi Ali's criticism of Islam ever a factor. She simply lost a citizenship she was never entitled to because she committed fraud.

    10. Re:The Dutch Trump by Shane_Optima · · Score: 1

      Where is the section of Dutch law that says no one can ever reapply for citizenship once it is lost (for fraud, or for any reason)?

  9. Trompe 2017 by rossdee · · Score: 1

    Build a wall and make the North Sea pay for it.

    1. Re:Trompe 2017 by Fire_Wraith · · Score: 1

      Actually, the Dutch have been building walls to keep the North Sea out for some time now. They just pay for it themselves, though. :)

  10. Thank you by manu0601 · · Score: 1

    I am not sure who we should thank for the rejection of electronic vote: Russia or US intelligence.

    Russia did not tamper with US voting, even US intelligence acknowledges this, and the real threat on electronic voting is more about fraud by national parties, but Russia threat made up by US intelligence seems the key to fix the problem.

    1. Re:Thank you by Fire_Wraith · · Score: 5, Informative

      The "Russia hacked the vote" accusations didn't come from U.S. Intelligence, but rather, from a deliberate bit of confusion designed to act as a strawman to take away from the actual story. Nobody ever accused Russia of hacking VOTING MACHINES, and everyone official agrees that this didn't take place at all.

      What did occur were several instances of politically motivated hacking that took place as part of a Russian campaign to find anything that seemed like dirty laundry on one side, and then dump that into the media. It was a digital Watergate operation, meant to influence who voted and how they voted, not one meant to stuff the ballot box or change votes that had already been cast.

      That said, if this makes people paranoid enough to wake up to the dangers of unauditable electronic voting machines that Slashdot and others have been warning about for years, I'll certainly count that as a silver lining to the mess.

    2. Re:Thank you by theshowmecanuck · · Score: 1

      Both options were bad. The one engineered into a candidate by manipulating the news and getting free advertising on CNN and... Dammit both Clinton and Trump did that. Well I guess the difference is that Clinton had help from the unscrupulous douchebags in the DNC, including that hag leader they had, and Trump got it by rating addicted news presidents and the Deliverance Babies of the republican party.

      --
      -- I ignore anonymous replies to my comments and postings.
    3. Re:Thank you by tinkerton · · Score: 1

      No that is not what occurred. There is proof whatsoever that Russia has given DNC dirty laundry to wikileaks and it's also unlikely, given that wikileaks denies it and in a situation where everyone expected Clinton to win, it's not really in Russia's interest to simultaneously signal their powerlessness and their aggression by scheming against her. It's plausible that Russia hacked DNC, or hacked anything they could hack. DNC could have been hacked a dozen times over actually by all kinds of parties. The NSA has records on all web traffic, so they should be able to show up whatever the russians did. but they're not coming up with proof(they just consider it plausible), which I would count as proof of absence.

      Wikileaks is in another situation. They can't afford to sit on DNC dirty laundry till after the election whichever way it leads.

    4. Re:Thank you by DNS-and-BIND · · Score: 0

      Just amazing the reach of Putin. First, he manages to get the DNC & Hillary Clinton to write thousands of self-incriminating (and on Hillary's side, remarkably foul-mouthed - or is it foul-keyboarded?) emails. Then he suborns the DNC to steal the nomination from Sanders and give it to Clinton, to give Trump an easier opponent. Next he induces a DNC staffer named Seth Rich to steal the compromising emails and give them to Wikileaks, which dutifully publishes them, showing the DNC to be corrupt and Hillary to be venal. Then he manages to get Rich to set himself up for a mugging in which he is shot twice in the head but nothing is stolen. Then he manipulates the Director of the FBI to announce just before the election that many, many thousands of emails potentially involving Hillary have been found and need to be examined. And finally, he finesses the US intelligence community into believing he hacked those DNC computers to influence the election, thereby concealing - and taking off the discussion table - any examination of the DNC's & Hillary's wrongdoing.

      I heard that they found the cell-phone-smashing sledge hammer in Putin's basement!

      --
      Shutting down free speech with violence isn't fighting fascism. It IS fascism!
    5. Re:Thank you by tinkerton · · Score: 1

      A bit hyperbolic but I think a valid argument to criticize the current hysteria. I think your argument about Seth Rich has too little foundation though.

  11. And then here in King County Washington (Seattle) by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

    we trust Windows servers that are down often and prevent counting votes. My vote hasn't counted since 2008.

  12. lead app by leadapp · · Score: 1

    http://www.leadingappliances.c...

  13. Re: And then here in King County Washington (Seatt by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

    My vote hasn't counted a single time since we switched to voting by mail controlled by Microsoft.

  14. Re: And then here in King County Washington (Seatt by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

    Jacob Lodge here told me that in the US we don't have the right to vote then he said they would sue me if I complained publicly. Posting AC for obvious reasons.

  15. Re: And then here in King County Washington (Seat by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

    In the US you don't have the right to vote which is why Washington state gets away with that.

  16. Hm.. by fluffernutter · · Score: 2

    So if Trump wins in the Netherlands as well, will he continue to deny the Russians had any involvement?

    --
    Laws are rules for the court, but merely a bottom bar to hit for life. Think beyond laws in your actions always.
  17. Failure by Design by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 1

    The entire point of electronic voting is the fraud.

    That's why the diebold machines had no paper-trail right from the start, and why everyone pointing out how easy it was to alter mere excel files on an unprotected system were chided, accused, or told to go put on their tinfoil hat.

  18. Shadows? by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 1

    "No shadow can be allowed to hang over the result"...

    There is always shadow, gerrymandering, voter suppression, election hacking by foreign governments, foreign money used in PR etc.. I think it reaches a new level of dark, when you get an election and a clear majority vote for one candidate, and yet another candidate takes office, there is no transparency light that can shine to fix that. The majority spoke and it was loud and clear. So any system not based on majority of votes is highly vulnerable to attack and thus shadows.

    Transparency needs to be also of candidates backers, finances, Super PACs, accounts, foreign interests.

    And for elections, there is still a lot of computer based work, simply printing the dispatching voting location details, tallying voter registrations etc, is still computerized. If you hacked election registration databases and simply changed a detail or two to make that voter ineligible, e.g. change the name by one letter so it doesn't match the id and bingo you've excluded that voter. Do that for a few voters in a few key districts in a few keys states and you've rigged an election.

    You audit the result, and the other one won more votes, yet usurper is still in office, breaking laws and doing deals with foreign bad actors to keep in power. But hey, if you squint it's not *that* bad a shadow. Maybe if we ignore this shadow it won't get worse? But of course it does get worse, because a bad actor in power, rewards his co-conspirators, not the majority of people in his country.

    1. Re:Shadows? by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

      She lost! Get over it!

      Ok, canned response aside. It's the electoral college! Get over it!

  19. E-voting problems by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 1

    Read Craig Burton's http://www.parliament.vic.gov.... submission to the Victorian government (southern state of Australia) about the difficulties of e-voting, it's well thought out. If you can't get this level of security, better to only allow paper voting.

  20. Re: SHE LOST by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

    The Trump administration is still looking good for LGBT rights despite Darth Pence, especially for those dread trans women!

    As long as the voters in different states can continue legalizing cannabis, all is good in my book as a pot-smoking kale-eating tranny.

  21. Re:Absentee ballots still a risk by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 1

    Please provide proofs of Russia hacking registration databases.

    This is the first I've heard of it, beyond the allegations of a fishing e-mail and the town hackcycle that was Hillary's private server.

    I'll go out on a limb and say you're just rolling with some conspiracy theory you read on huffpo.

  22. So what's the LATEST on this? by Bruce66423 · · Score: 1

    Given that the story - which is alarming - is over 6 weeks old, what has happened since?

    1. Re:So what's the LATEST on this? by bongey · · Score: 1

      Detroit city auditor said it was lack of training and broken machines. That is why a linked to the report from 2003, the report in 2003 said that it was basically impossible to over counted with the new machines they were getting in 2003. In 2

  23. Trump just took sanctions off the KGB by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 1

    I can see you want to make it a partisan issue, but Trump just removed sanctions from the FSB (which is just the new name for the former KGB). It means Trump can send and receive money to the Russian KGB without violating US sanctions. Which is handy, because he's still got his Russian companies in place.

    When asked to explain, he made a vague comment about 'FSB also dealing with trade'. Which is false. The sanctions were against Russia, they were not limited to the FSB/KGB and there are no trade tarrifs if no trade is permitted.

    So you don't want to face the reality of this, but you have a Russian agent in the Presidency, and as expected, he's handed over the names of American agents in Russia (which resulted in the arrest on treason charges of two of them), and now he's made transactions with the KGB legal.

    But hey, scream #CrookedClinton, wave the red (Republican) flag and pretend Republicans should back this traitor because 'Democrats'!

    1. Re:Trump just took sanctions off the KGB by wyHunter · · Score: 1

      You mean handed over names of American agents like Clinton did by putting them in the news?

  24. TRUMP! by slashrio · · Score: 0

    Although I'm sure Clinton was willing to sell herself to whomever wanted to 'pay for play', I'm still not certain about Trump whether he (or his policy) is up for sale or not. I guess we'll find out eventually.

    --
    "Trump!!", the new Godwin.
  25. Re:What about the registration database? by slashrio · · Score: 0

    Russia hacked two election registration databases...
    NBC News

    Never mind, fake news...
    Totally baseless, no proof, except for the usual government agency lies "Trust us, we have evidence but we can't show it."

    --
    "Trump!!", the new Godwin.
  26. As it SHOULD be by p51d007 · · Score: 1

    I have always been against ANY form of electronic voting, or mechanical voting. Piece of paper, box where you can put an X for your vote. Hand count them. Along with that, I would advocate that after you vote, you dip your index finger in that purple ink, to signify that you have voted. It's the old ways that help guarantee the election process is valid.

  27. Re:What about the registration database? by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

    Even if it wasn't, I don't see the point.
    Absentee ballots are a problem anyway (secrecy of the vote at the least is completely broken), if too many people used that we'd have to get rid of them.
    Blocking voters: First, that certainly would be quite obvious, and it can be solved by just removing the registration requirement (and e.g. use the magic ink solution to ensure only one vote). I.e. it is a problem that would be blindingly obvious if it happened and the exact degree to which it happened (so you know if you need to re-do the election or not) and pretty trivial to fix once it is an issue. That is pretty much a non-issue.

  28. LaaS by Howitzer86 · · Score: 1

    Legislation-as-a-Service. All the hip new kids are doing it.