Senate Rejects New Money For Election Security (apnews.com)

The Republican-controlled Senate has defeated a push by Democrats to set aside an additional $250 million for states to upgrade their voting systems to protect against hacking and other cyberattacks. From a report: An amendment offered by Vermont Sen. Patrick Leahy received 50 yes votes, 10 short of the 60 needed for approval. Leahy said securing U.S. elections and "safeguarding our democracy" is not a partisan issue. He said the Senate "must send a clear message to Russia and other foreign adversaries that tampering in our elections will not be tolerated. The president will not act. This duty has fallen to us." A similar effort was also rejected in the House.

Comments

States can get serious

[iggymanz]

This problem can be addressed at the state level with it being major talking point at federal level for the elections. Great opportunity to find where lawmakers stand, and yes some Democrats are dirtbags on the issue too, despite what comes out of their mouths.

Re:States can get serious

[virtualXTC]

It's a "National Election" if just a few stated decide not to implement security it affects the integrity for everyone. So no this isn't something States should deal with.

Re:States can get serious

[Anonymous Coward]

Ya ya ya "they're both the same!" but they're not so stop with that horseshit please. Republicans have REPEATEDLY blocked upgrading election security. The party that can't seem to throw enough money at corporations is now suddenly very much against giving new money away.

I'm sure it's just a coincidence that they personally benefited from the Russian hacking and election interference.

Re:States can get serious

[AutodidactLabrat]

False
Since hacking seems to be party dependent, it follows that those states in favor of the pro-foreign-intervention party will deliberately ignore hacking attacks, counting on a favorable result to justify minority rule.

Re:States can get serious

[bluefoxlucid]

That's not how election security works.

Security begins and ends at the ballot box. The voting machine has to be shown untampered; it has to be observed untampered throughout the day; and the counts have to be demonstrated with no chance of tampering before being shipped off to SBE. SBE publishes ballots and you regenerate the counts to show that they all come up with the right tally, thus integrity is maintained.

You can also attack the ballots from other directions. Voting methods which allow manipulation--such as plurality--are wide-open to such attacks. Clones can turn a narrow race into a sure victory (have a friend run against you, mimicking the campaign of your opponent). The election generally revolves around tipping a small amount of the swing vote and exciting the party voting base, so propaganda at the right time can directly select any candidate.

Resistance to attack requires strong procedural election security and a voting rule that resists manipulation (such as certain Condorcet methods and STV). An election system monoculture benefits from greater scrutiny and adherence to procedure; the most important procedure is the minimization of attack surface and the strict maintenance of integrity. Varied systems create more opportunities to discover weaknesses--which doesn't matter if you've got no attack surface, but then you're relying on a property which (again) suggests varied systems aren't a defense but rather a liability.

Re:States can get serious

[Anonymous Coward]

False.
If "pro-foreign-intervention party" states are the only ones affected by foreign intervention, then nothing will change with or without additional security. Those states will still be won by that party.

Take a step back from emotional reasoning. You are making a fool of yourself.

Re:States can get serious

[bluefoxlucid]

That's because election security at the polls relies on locality to the community, loud announcement, and non-reuse of voter ID. We essentially presume that fewer people can repeatedly show up at the same polling place and claim to be someone else without anyone noticing it's the same person or, alternately, wander from polling place to polling place casting other people's votes without the real voter appearing or anyone recognizing them as not that person than there are voters who would be unable to produce a State ID for various reasons.

It's harder to defraud an election than one might think.

Re: States can get serious

[meglon]

Then they elected a majority republicans, and unlike Kansas, learned from the error.

Re: States can get serious

[Cajun Hell]

Unfortunately, there is no evidence to dispute the claim either.

And that is why everyone believes in unicorns.

Re:States can get serious

[tbannist]

If "pro-foreign-intervention party" states are the only ones affected by foreign intervention, then nothing will change with or without additional security. Those states will still be won by that party.

After all, what's the difference between a state sending 3 Democrats and 7 Republicans to congress (with a 50-50 popular vote split, see gerrymandering) or 0 Democrats and 10 Republicans with a 3-97 hacked vote split, right? Where's the harm in letting Russians decide the outcome in a few states? Maybe they'll even pick some libertarian or green candidates to win, and won't that be fun?

</sarcasm> for the humor impaired.

Re:States can get serious

[dryeo]

All the anti-tampering methods in the world can be for naught if the voter ID requirements are designed to disenfranchise certain groups of voters.

Re:States can get serious

[currently_awake]

Paper ballots work really well. Rigging the election requires a LOT of people in many regions of the country, it's easy to explain to the people how it works, and it scales with population size. The only downside is you need to wait until the next morning to see who won.

Much bigger threat

[Anonymous Coward]

There is a much bigger threat to our elections that they refuse to do anything about. Gerrymandering. It's legal election fixing.

Re:Much bigger threat

[serviscope_minor]

Well it's a hobby of the Republicans at the moment and they're the ones in power. They're not going to make a fairer system if it harms them.

I now await a reply along the lines of "what about something unrelated bad the Democrats did", as if one bad action somehow justifies another one.

Why change what's working?

[mspohr]

The Republicans are very happy with the situation now. Easy for Vlad to help out keeping them in power. Why risk upsetting the gravy train?

Re:Why change what's working?

[TFlan91]

Fuck machines, throw that money at >=$15/hr jobs where people hand count paper ballots.

Temp work is work. Who cares if CNN/Fox Shit/etc don't have immediate counts to give audiences, go vote, watch the news about exit polls, but then go to sleep and wait a couple days for a legitimate count.

Fuckin instant satisfaction is the true illness here.

Re:Why change what's working?

[Kenja]

It is a mistake to think that Russia is on their "side". They are interested in conflict, not one side winning over the other.

If the problem is ...

[WoodstockJeff]

... "outside influence", rather than election fraud, then fixing the voting machines is not addressing the problem.

According to many people who are fighting efforts to stop efforts like requiring picture ID to vote, there is no election fraud going on. So what is the $250M supposed to fix, other than contracts for people who sell insecure voting equipment?

We need LESS money

[anthony_greer]

Slips of paper and human counters are pretty damn hard to hack - Since we cant seem to get open source hardware and software platforms for voting, the only option is slips of paper and manual counting.

Re:As long as the security isn't proper id...

[Plus1Entropy]

Liberal here. Willing to agree to voter ID laws under 3 conditions:

1. Election days are national holidays.
2. Same day registration everywhere.
3. The ID is 100% free.

None of these compromise the security you are looking for. However, no conservative will agree because they do prevent actual voters from being disenfranchised, which is actually what they want.

Prove me wrong.

Paper can be "hacked"

[Comboman]

Paper ballots can be "hacked" too. Remember the 2000 election with butteryfly ballots and hanging chads and cancelled recounts all ultimately decided by a Republican-controlled supreme court? The sad truth is that Democrats have to win by a wide margin because the Republicans will always find a way to "hack" any election that is close.

Re:Paper can be "hacked"

[Train0987]

No, Democrats make up the stupidest excuses to accuse Republicans of stealing elections when they can't accept defeat.

Re:Do they really believe what they are saying

[FictionPimp]

Do you have to believe the election was stolen to want to secure it? It seems both sides agree our elections are in jeopardy and nobody wants to do anything about it.

What is wrong with doubling down on securing our election tools? We have ample proof that outside parties want to manipulate our elections. If they have or have not does not matter, we need to take steps to ensure that our elections are secure and safe. They are literally the most important part of our country. If they are compromised the US is compromised.

I could give a fuck who is president, but I want to know for sure that idiot (be it democrat, republican, or reptilian) was elected properly and without interference from outside parties.

Re:As long as the security isn't proper id...

[Dragonslicer]

The true cost isn't the dollars, it's the time required to obtain an ID card. When the nearest office is 2 hours away, and your boss will fire you if you take an entire day off from work to go there, it becomes pretty much impossible. Statistically, minorities are more likely to be in that situation, but it's really just as much an attempt to discriminate against the poorer working population as it is racial discrimination.