In a Blow To E-Voting Critics, Brazil Suspends Use of All Paper Ballots (arstechnica.com)

An anonymous reader shares a report: In a blow to electronic-voting critics, Brazil's Supreme Court has suspended the use of all paper ballots in this year's elections. The ruling means that only electronic ballot boxes will be used, and there will be no voter-verified paper trail that officials can use to check the accuracy of results. In an 8-2 majority, justices on Wednesday sided with government arguments that the paper trails posed a risk to ballot secrecy, Brazil's Folha De S.Paulo newspaper reported on Thursday. In so doing, the justices suspended a requirement that 5 percent of Brazil's ballot boxes this year use paper. That requirement, by Brazil's Supreme Electoral Court, already represented a major weakening of an election reform bill passed in 2015. Speaking in support of Wednesday's decision, Justice Gilmar Mendes equated proponents of voter-verified paper trails to conspiracy theorists. "After the statements made here [by those who defend paper votes], we have to believe that perhaps we did not actually reach the moon," Mendes was quoted as saying. "There are beliefs and even a religion around this theme."

Comments

They didn't hit the moon

[TimMD909]

The US landed on the moon, not Brazil, so score one for the paranoid side. E-voting is also known to be a terrible idea, so one more score of the paranoid side.

Re:They didn't hit the moon

[ClickOnThis]

For the love of FSM, mod this plus infinity insightful. Computerphile does a brilliant job of summarizing why e-voting is an absolutely terrible idea.

In other news

[SemperOSS]

Electronic ballot boxes are safe and tamper proof, and in other news: vaccines cause autism, the Earth is flat and I have found a cure for cancer.

I'm not the ludite

[Swistak]

I'm definitely against the electronic voting though. Especially in light of the fact that lots of those are closed source solutions, and many of them were shown to be hackable.

The fact in the matter is - once you have paper voting, performing fraud is so much harder then changing some numbers.

When I make a vote on a paper with a ball pen, it's nearly impossible to change it without a mark without replacing whole box. If someone gives me a tablet or a computer. How do I know that when I click my vote was marked correctly? Without me personally inspecting the code, then inspecting the hardware, I can never be sure.

Some sources: http://thehill.com/policy/cybe... It took hackers _minutes_ to hack into several different voting machines, and once it's modified there's really no way to prove the vote was different.

Re:I'm not the ludite

[Tablizer]

TFA: government arguments that the paper trails posed a risk to ballot secrecy,

...lots of those are closed source [software] solutions, and many of them were shown to be hackable.

Indeed. All known approaches pose exposure and tamper risks; it's a matter of weighing the level.

Maybe It'll take a bad event to wake them up. Let's hope ethical hackers bust in and leave a harmless but illustrative warning. Change some votes to Mr. Goatse or something. The look on the inspectors' faces when they google it will be priceless.

Re:I'm not the ludite

[Solandri]

If someone gives me a tablet or a computer. How do I know that when I click my vote was marked correctly? Without me personally inspecting the code, then inspecting the hardware, I can never be sure.

The electronic voting machine i used in this past Tuesday's election used a monitor, scroll wheel, and buttons to let you select which candidates you wanted to vote for. After you finished voting, it showed you your votes on the screen and asked you to make sure those votes were correct. Then it printed your votes onto a piece of paper, and asked you to confirm that the printed ballot accurately reflected your choices. (Presumably if you clicked no, it would shred the printed ballot.)

That seemed to me a sensible method of electronic voting. Use a computer to reduce the expense and confusion of custom-printed ballots for every election. But retain the paper ballot for counting and auditing purposes.

Diebold and Harris

[PopeRatzo]

Just a reminder that Republicans are fighting every initiative to require paper ballots in the US. Even in the rare red state where a paper ballot initiative has been put forth by a Republican lawmaker, the state party has fought it and they only passed with the full support of Democrats.

http://humphreyonthehill.tnjou...

https://www.cnet.com/news/repu...

http://www.governing.com/topic...

Re: Diebold and Harris

[PopeRatzo]

Just remember it was the butt-hurt Democrats that insisted on electronic voting after Al Gore showed Hillary how to win the popular vote but lose the election.

No, sweetie. Democrats were demanding paper ballots and paper trails long before the 2000 election. The miserable way the Florida 2000 election was run, with the defective-by-design hole punch ballots, was just more incentive.

It's been 30 years since a Republican has won the popular vote for president. Think on that for a second.

Rigged elections on track

[manu0601]

They put Lula in jail but forgot to make him ineligible. Now forecasts tells he should win by a 10% margin. It was high time to make sure the people's vote would not be taken into account, hence electronic voting.

Let m get this straight..,

[kenh]

So because Brazil decides to go completely electronic voting that somehow invalidates the arguments against election technologies that provide an actual physical audit trail?

Having no physical audit trail simply means the government will be telling you 'just trust us' after they announce the election result.

Complete Secrecy

[techdolphin]

"In an 8-2 majority, justices on Wednesday sided with government arguments that the paper trails posed a risk to ballot secrecy."

The justices are right about one point, E-voting has complete ballot secrecy. The ballots are so secret that nobody knows if the ballot count is accurate.

Re:Bullshit Wingnut Propaganda Sense is tingling

[LynnwoodRooster]

It's actually over a thousand proven cases of voter fraud. I guess you don't care about those, eh? "Not enough to matter" - and yet we've had hundreds of elections change on as few as 1 vote...

Now, I agree with you that voting IS a right - and, in the Constitution, it is reserved for citizens only:

Amendment 14: the right to vote at any election for the choice of electors for President and Vice President of the United States, Representatives in Congress, the Executive and Judicial officers of a State, or the members of the Legislature thereof, is denied to any of the male inhabitants of such State, being twenty-one years of age, and citizens of the United States

Amendment 15: The right of citizens of the United States to vote

Amendment 19: The right of citizens of the United States to vote

Amendment 24: The right of citizens of the United States to vote

Amendment 26: The right of citizens of the United States, who are eighteen years of age or older, to vote

Funny, each time the right to vote is mentioned it's brought up in terms of CITIZENSHIP. Non-citizens are NOT allowed to vote. I guess we ignore those who chose to break the law? Or do you believe we should prosecute any caught committing voter fraud to the full extent of the law?

I wonder what you think about proving citizenship to purchase and own a firearm? Is that OK with you? The right to keep and bear arms is completely affirmed, and incorporated against the States. How come proof of ID, citizenship status - and much more - is OK for a 2nd Amendment right?

Welcome to the moon, judge Mendes

[Kirth]

Where people hacking your voting machines within 90 minutes is apparently only a conspiracy theory:
http://fortune.com/2017/07/31/...

I guess you believe in the easter bunny and the security of E-Voting?