[BlackGriffen]

Who here doesn't realize that black box voting (no user auditable paper trail) is a bad thing?

Just think about it: how do you know your vote will be counted like you think it should?

Well, the thread's been done before, but I felt that this little firebomb of a potato deserved it's own thread.

The short of the link: accuses Diebold of fixing the Florida elections so that Bush would win in 2000.

The point of this thread: which is more disturbing - that the accusation is possible, or that we have no way of testing the accusation now nor will we have one in the future?

Again: we need a user auditable paper trail. Without it, fixing an election could become an effective strategy in elections that aren't even close.

BlackGriffen

[Millennium]

Agreed; Diebold's design is just freakin stupid.

This is not to say that electronic voting machines are Bad Things. There are people in this world who are just plain too stupid to fill out a ballot even with directions provided and second chances given, as the 2000 elections showed us clearly. And so, damning commentary on humanity though it might be, some of us need a babysitter machine to fill out the ballots for us.

Yes, this galls me incredibly. Punching a hole in a piece of paper with a stick isn't hard. A person who can't manage this has more pressing issues to worry about than voting, both from their own perspective and from society's. But in the interest of treating all people equally, we've no choice but to somehow accommodate them.

However, machine-countability is still a must. The reason from this comes from the fact that when it comes to elections, the integrity of the vote count is the single most important thing. Everything in the system must be based first and foremost around that premise, at any cost.

Machines don't get counts wrong on ballots which are filled out. Furthermore, machines don't care who wins, unlike humans; they just count and that's it. Finally, there's the fact that a machine can go through millions of ballots in a couple of hours; for humans they take days. These three factors -speed, accuracy, and impartiality- give machine counts a clear advantage over hand counts.

However, this is not to say that hand counting shouldn't be possible. This is the point of a user-auditable paper trail, but there is another reason to ensure that it can be done. Let us propose a doomsday scenario, in which every single voting and counting machine in the country is compromised. Perhaps they are hacked, or perhaps an EMP weapon is used to break them, or perhaps some freak circumstance brings them all down. In the end, it doesn't matter; a hand count would still work. As a last resort, to be used only in times of real emergency, hand counts are still better than nothing at all. This, then, must be our second priority, with only assuring the integrity of the vote count being higher up.

Third, the votes must still remain anonymous. The secret ballot is the cornerstone of modern democracy, because it is the only assurance voters have that they can never be ostracized, harmed, or otherwise affected negatively about their votes. This, then, becomes out third priority, held equal to hand counting.

With these three principles in mind, we can start our design.

First, and perhaps most important, the machines must not be networked. There are several reasons for this, but damage control is at the top of the list. With networked machines, a single person could theoretically affect hundreds -perhaps thousands- of machines at once. Could they get all of the machines? Probably not (though the possibility can't be ruled out completely). But they could get enough machines to seriously hamper the results. Non-networked machines aren't unhackable, of course, but they have to be hacked individually; this seriously hampers large-scale compromise efforts. In order to compromise the same number of machines, more people must be recruited. The more accomplices one has, the riskier the operation, and if it is pulled off, the greater the likelihood of being caught. It also makes polling places easier to set up -because there are no network cables- while also enhancing both security and reliability, because the data is not transmitted wirelessly, and the machines can be used in conditions where wireless networking would not work anyway.
Of course, if the machines are not networked, there is the issue of how votes are to be recorded. This can be done by having the machine print out a paper ballot, which the voter can first inspect to ensure correctness and then cast in much the same way we cast them now. This has the added psychological advantage of preserving much of the traditional voting experience, including the imagery of the ballot box, even as it reduces the chance for user error.

Second, as many methods of recognizing the candidates as can possibly be used, must be. Computers open up a very wide variety of ways of doing this. The candidate's name could be reproduced onscreen in up to three ways: English -the de facto standard language of most US media, and therefore the name will be rendered many times this way such that a user who cannot read English may still recognize the rendering- the candidate's native language if that is different from English, and the voter's native language, if that is different from both of the other two. A picture of the candidate can also be provided. It should even be possible to play an audio sample of each candidate saying his or her own name, thereby allowing a candidate to be recognized by voice. Given this many ways of recognizing a candidate, the chances of user error are as low as they could possibly be made while maintaining privacy.

Third, ballots should be traceable to the machine on which they were printed. This may seem difficult to do at first, because of concerns over voter privacy. However, it can be solved first by ensuring that the user never gives personally-identifiable information, and second by ensuring that users are never assigned a booth, but instead pick one at random. This could be assisted by hiding the booths behind heavy curtains. Since no one knows the booth which the user picked, the ballot cannot be traced back to the machine.
Why trace the ballot back to the machine? This way, if a machine is found to be malfunctioning -or worse, compromised- then the votes printed by it can be found and discarded. Discarding the votes would be necessary, because even though the machine may have appeared to fill the ballot out properly, if we know the machine was malfunctioning then we have no further way of determining if it actually cast the votes which the viewers wished to cast. The integrity of the vote count is, remember, the most important thing; suspect votes must be removed. Machine-traceability allows such votes to be found, without allowing those votes to be linked to voters. Better to remove votes from a single machine than from an entire polling place.

Finally, some software details. First, the program used to run these machines must be formally verified to be bug-free. This is a process whereby the program's source code is converted into a single huge mathematical equation, which is then proven to always arrive at either a specific result (usually defined as not crashing or misreporting any data) or a set of results. It is incredibly expensive and time-consuming, which is why most consumer apps don't go through the process, but again, the integrity of the vote count is the most important thing. Most intelligence agencies require that their computer operating systems be formally verified before the machines running them are allowed to contain sensitive data, and voting machines are no different. Formal verification is the only way to prove that there are no security holes in a product, and in what software could it be more important to prove that there aren't any security holes?

Second, the source code to the program should be available for public scrutiny, and particularly for scrutiny by the candidates. This is the final assurance the public has that the vote counts are fair, because the code can be scrutinized by anyone with the necessary knowledge.

But I've ranted long enough. Suffice it enough to say that both Diebold and the current proposed IEEE specifications for voting machines suck long, hard, and mightily. The fact that we even need these machines sucks, but the way that they're being designed sucks even worse.

[mr. natural]

Just gimme a paper ballot and pencil, for God's sake!

It's cheap, we all know how to use them, and everyone can count them.

[ZackS]

Originally posted by mr. natural:
Just gimme a paper ballot and pencil, for God's sake!

It's cheap, we all know how to use them, and everyone can count them.

Seriously, scantron machines can actually be very accurate. Why not just have the scantron + computer method that counts on the spot and tells you who you voted for of a little screen. If the screen and your intent don't match up, you tell it to spit back out the paper. That way we have fast, reliable counting with a safeguard in the counting process AND a paper trail. Is there something wrong that makes it so people in business and government are devoid of all common sense?

[einmakom]

Originally posted by ZackS:
Seriously, scantron machines can actually be very accurate. Why not just have the scantron + computer method that counts on the spot and tells you who you voted for of a little screen. If the screen and your intent don't match up, you tell it to spit back out the paper. That way we have fast, reliable counting with a safeguard in the counting process AND a paper trail. Is there something wrong that makes it so people in business and government are devoid of all common sense?

Because it's not as simple as you want to make it. Once the first results have been scanned, there's the vulnerability for it to be counted. What makes your proposal secure from votes being counted twice or edited after the fact?

Here, ask yourself these questions about your simple proposal:

Questions for Voting System Vendors
Copyright © 2000 by Rebecca Mercuri_ All Rights Reserved.
mercuri@acm.org__ http://www.notablesoftware.com

The following questions can be used in conjunction with the generic security questions in order to elicit information regarding any electronic balloting and/or tabulation system under assessment._ Answers should include thorough documentation and independent evaluation and testing to support vendor claims._ Additional questions pertinent to the particular system being investigated should be added as necessary.
_
What means is used to separate voter identity from voted ballot?


How is the balloting process secured such that voter submissions can not be observed, or recorded in any way that is traceable to the individual voter?


What actions on the system are audited?


How is the auditing process precluded from associating voters with cast ballots?


How is the audit trail accessed and used?


Who is permitted to access the system (through all aspects of handling)?

What facilities are provided for recount purposes?


How are voters authenticated and authorized to cast ballots?

What access controls are in place to ensure single ballot per voter per election?

If multiple systems are deployed, how are voters tracked so the same person does not vote in different formats?

What controls are used to ensure that the correct ballot is provided to the voter?

What controls are provided to ensure that each ballot item is voted properly?

How are all forms of tampering detected and prevented?

How is vote confirmation provided without ballot-face receipt?


How is the voter prevented from retaining a copy of the cast ballot?

How does the system assure that each ballot has been correctly recorded?

How does the voter know that a cast ballot has been accepted?

How is vote tabulation correctness assured?

What features are employed to ensure operability of the voting system throughout the election?

How are downtimes handled in the event that they do occur?

What alternative balloting system is available for voters when the system is down?

How do the poll workers and system administrators know that the system is operating correctly?

How is the voting system precluded from use when deemed inoperable?


UNTIL you can answer every one of those with a specific answer that details exactly how it will be handled, we aren't ready for electronic voting.

[mr. natural]

Posted by einmakom:

UNTIL you can answer every one of those with a specific answer that details exactly how it will be handled, we aren't ready for electronic voting.

EXACTLY!

All this elctronic gizmo sheeit presents more problems than it solves.

They use paper & pencil ballots in Europe and Canada just fine and dandy, why can't we?

<sarcasm>It's a big business scam here, and isn't actually meant to count our votes</sarcasm>

Once again

[kvm_mkdb]

Originally posted by mr. natural:
Just gimme a paper ballot and pencil, for God's sake!

It's cheap, we all know how to use them, and everyone can count them.

Worth repeating.

[finboy]

Originally posted by mr. natural:
Just gimme a paper ballot and pencil, for God's sake!

It's cheap, we all know how to use them, and everyone can count them.

Evidently not -- folks said the same thing about the butterfly ballot.

[Millennium]

Originally posted by finboy:
Evidently not -- folks said the same thing about the butterfly ballot.

Exactly.

This is, once again, why I propose a hybrid system, where a machine fills out a paper ballot for the user, but the votes are then cast in the usual way. This preserves both the integrity and psycological advantages of the traditional voting system, while using machines precisely where they should be used: eliminating user error on the voting-booth side, and counter error on the vote-counting side. Every step in between remains the same as it is now.

[Lerkfish]

Originally posted by Millennium:
Exactly.

This is, once again, why I propose a hybrid system, where a machine fills out a paper ballot for the user, but the votes are then cast in the usual way. This preserves both the integrity and psycological advantages of the traditional voting system, while using machines precisely where they should be used: eliminating user error on the voting-booth side, and counter error on the vote-counting side. Every step in between remains the same as it is now.

yeah, I've suggested a similar thing way back when the hanging chads were the big story...

1. electronic votes that have a tracking number
2. a printer that prints out the vote w/ tracking number
3. voter votes, prints, signs the paper copy
4. drops the paper copy in a locked ballot box.
computer counts electronically and paper ballots.

-- why is that unacheivable?

[einmakom]

because it relies on the machine-

how do you vote in a power outage?

Let me tell you how it's really done.

paper ballot.

Names double to 2.5 line spaced.

names have a dashed line between name on left and arrow on right. Voter must complete the dashed line using a heavy black marker provided by the polling place officials.

That's it. All you have to do to vote is complete the line (already dashed so you can't get it wrong) between your candidate and the arrow.

This is then fed into a scan machine that simply reads where the lines are on the page and tallies the votes as well as number of ballots received.

You've got auditable system, you've got voting in a power outage, you've got something difficult to mess up, and electronically countable.

[kvm_mkdb]

Originally posted by finboy:
Evidently not -- folks said the same thing about the butterfly ballot.

Evidently? What's the logic behind that statement?

And no, two negatives do not a positive make.

[Spheric Harlot]

Originally posted by finboy:
Evidently not -- folks said the same thing about the butterfly ballot.

Um.

*Remembers past five or six regional and federal elections*

I see no problem whatsoever with paper and pencil.

300 million Europeans are managing just fine.

AFAIK, in Germany, every vote is counted twice to eliminate manipulation, it's all pencil or ball-point "X"s in big circles on long and narrow pieces of paper. The number of "bad" votes each election is miniscule, and we get our results entirely tallied up by just after midnight on federal elections - usually (the last Bundestag elections took until 4 a.m., IIRC, because the counters in one single district of Kassel decided to call it a night and went home ).

But it doesn't involve technology so much, so I guess whatever solution Americans can come up with *must* be better.

One wonders for whom?

-s*

[Millennium]

Originally posted by einmakom:
because it relies on the machine-

how do you vote in a power outage?

Since my proposal already stipulated that the printed ballots had to be human-readable, certainly they could be filled out by hand in an emergency in am emergency. They could even follow your proposed design, thus granting the best of all worlds.

[Millennium]

Originally posted by Lerkfish:
yeah, I've suggested a similar thing way back when the hanging chads were the big story...

1. electronic votes that have a tracking number
2. a printer that prints out the vote w/ tracking number
3. voter votes, prints, signs the paper copy
4. drops the paper copy in a locked ballot box.
computer counts electronically and paper ballots.

-- why is that unacheivable?

Because votes are not anonymous under your proposed system. That may well be the single most important innovation in democracy since its invention, since it is the only way to ensure that no one can be persecuted -governmentally or otherwise- for his or her vote.

[Lerkfish]

Originally posted by Millennium:
Because votes are not anonymous under your proposed system. That may well be the single most important innovation in democracy since its invention, since it is the only way to ensure that no one can be persecuted -governmentally or otherwise- for his or her vote.

ahh...good point. but that can be addressed.

[einmakom]

Addressing it is easy-

You have the poll officials have a list of all who are registered to vote at that polling place. These are on stickers.

When a person is handed a plain, unmarked, non-unique ballot (no numbers to distinguish it) the poll official moves the sticker from the side of 'not voted' to 'has voted' in their book.

Nothing marks the ballot except the voter's votes, so that the ballot remains anonymous.

The voter marks the ballot by hand, and deposits it into the ballot box which scans the votes and displays the number of ballots cast, so that precinct officials know what voter turnout is.

The point of electronic voting is to expedite counting. The method I describe does this without the problems inherent in all implementations we have seen thus far.

Yes, voting on an LCD screen is flashy and makes us hear the voice ringing in our ears saying, "WAVE of the FUTURE!" - but there's no benefit to it over the system I've elaborated.

The poll workers are volunteers, trained by the board of elections. There's no appreciable cost savings to be had in electronic voting.

[mr. natural]

I don't recall anyone saying a "butterfly ballot" was "cheap, we all know how to use them, and everyone can count them."

Butterfly ballots involved a mechanical contraption to strap the butterfly ballot in place, properly aligned holes to punch the chad thru, and as we all know the holes got jammed with chads, or otherwise did not get cleanly dislodged, plus the design layout was a further cause of confusion (due in part to the mechanical layout of the punch machines!).

The point is this: LEAVE THE DAMNED MECHANICAL ELEMENT OUT!

Posted by Spheric Harlot:

Um.

*Remembers past five or six regional and federal elections*

I see no problem whatsoever with paper and pencil.

300 million Europeans are managing just fine.

AFAIK, in Germany, every vote is counted twice to eliminate manipulation, it's all pencil or ball-point "X"s in big circles on long and narrow pieces of paper. The number of "bad" votes each election is miniscule, and we get our results entirely tallied up by just after midnight on federal elections - usually (the last Bundestag elections took until 4 a.m., IIRC, because the counters in one single district of Kassel decided to call it a night and went home ).

But it doesn't involve technology so much, so I guess whatever solution Americans can come up with *must* be better.

One wonders for whom?

As Spheric Harlot points out, with a simple paper and pencil ballot and a big circle to mark an X in, there is little to go awry. Tallying such simple marks in open isn't rocket science, nor would it require a degree in mechanical engineering, or computer science, or a room full of judges to determine the results (nor to explain what did go wrong because something bad we didn't expect happened -- how many times and how many ways have we heard this lament after the fact about something designed failure proof!). Nor should it take long to count & post the results either if polling sectors were limited to say 1500 eligible voters.

Europe, Canada, India all use mostly paper ballots and pencils. Do they look foolish compared to us when it comes to voting? Nope. Only the great USA looks like a third world banana republic when it comes to vote scandals. This is indeed scandalous.

We only compound our human failings when we introduce mechanical and electronic contraptions into this equation. Simple Paper & pencil ballots have not failed us, and everything else has in one way or another. But rather than return to the tried and true, some of you propose even more complexity into the process.

And for what good reason?

Speed?

I don't care how fast results are tallied. Only that they are fool proof and accurate!


Just gimme a paper ballot and pencil, for God's sake!

It's cheap, we all know how to use them, and everyone can count them!

What is so bloody hard to understand about this?!

As Spheric rightly suggests: "One wonders for whom" all this human stupidity benefits?

Ceratinly not the We the People.

ARggH! Idiots one and all we have become.

[spacefreak]

Originally posted by BlackGriffen:
The short of the link: accuses Diebold of fixing the Florida elections so that Bush would win in 2000.

So what do the anything-to-get-even liberal radicals do next? They hack into Diebold's corporate network, steal documents, and distribute them to anyone who can help their cause.

Despite lawsuit threats from one of the nation's largest electronic voting machine suppliers, some activists are refusing to remove from Web sites internal company documents that they claim raise serious security questions.

Diebold Inc. sent "cease and desist" letters after the documents and internal e-mails, allegedly stolen by a hacker, were distributed on the Internet. Recipients of the letters included computer programmers, students at colleges including Swarthmore and at least one Internet provider.

The documents began appearing online in August, six months after a hacker broke into the North Canton, Ohio-based company's servers using an employee's ID number, Jacobsen said. The hacker copied company announcements, software bulletins and internal e-mails dating back to January 1999, Jacobsen said.

In August, someone e-mailed the data to electronic-voting activists, many of whom published stories on their Web logs and personal sites. A freelance journalist at Wired News, Brian McWilliams, also received data and wrote about it in an online story.

The data was further distributed in digital form around the Internet and it is not known how many copies exist.

[petehammer]

Originally posted by spacefreak:
So what do the anything-to-get-even liberal radicals do next? They hack into Diebold's corporate network, steal documents, and distribute them to anyone who can help their cause.

Wow, do you just enjoy libel? Yes, Diebold was allegedly hacked and the memos leaked. Who did it? Who knows. The fact that a voting system company can be hacked is a pretty scary thought, no?

It's wierd, you selectively quote the story as if it were one quote. But in fact, you left out much of the story and put all the sentences together as if the content wasn't missing. It's like Al Franken says, if you know you're changing the article, you must know you're lying. Here's some of the missing content:
(full article here: Diebold)

In another e-mail, a Diebold executive scolded programmers for leaving software files on an Internet site without password protection.

"This potentially gives the software away to whomever wants it," the manager wrote in the e-mail.

March contends the public has a right to know about Diebold security problems.

Wendy Seltzer, an attorney for the Electronic Frontier Foundation, said she has been contacted by about a dozen groups that received cease-and-desist letters. Among them is Online Policy Group, a nonprofit ISP that hosts the San Francisco Bay Area Independent Media Center, which published links to the data.

Seltzer encouraged them to defy the Diebold cease-and-desist letters.

"There is a strong fair-use defense," Seltzer said. "People are using these documents to talk about the very mechanism of democracy - how the votes are counted. It's at the heart of what the First Amendment protects."

Want an idea of Diebold's problems? Go here:
http://slashdot.org/search.pl?query=diebold

[mr. natural]

Posted by spacefreak:

So what do the anything-to-get-even liberal radicals do next? They hack into Diebold's corporate network, steal documents, and distribute them to anyone who can help their cause.

Hey, if the do-anything-to-get-elected radical right-wing republicans won't play fair & square with our votes why should we play fair & square with their corrupt vote counting machines.

[spacefreak]

Originally posted by petehammer:
The fact that a voting system company can be hacked is a pretty scary thought, no?

It's not like the voting boxes themselves were hacked. This was their corporate network. I'd say it's more scary that liberal extremists are hacking private networks and stealing.

It's wierd, you selectively quote the story as if it were one quote. But in fact, you left out much of the story and put all the sentences together as if the content wasn't missing. It's like Al Franken says, if you know you're changing the article, you must know you're lying.

My bad for not taking the time to break up the quotes. (I actually thought I had linked the article, but review of my post shows i didn't). Regardless, I didn't feel it was necessary to include the quote from the liberal activist attorney who is telling these law-breakers to disobey the cease-and-desist letters. What she advises her following is irrelevent to the actual events of the case.

My quoting of the article does not change the article. If you go back to the article, it is still the same as it was before I quoted the article - so your role model's quote is not necessary.

[petehammer]

Originally posted by spacefreak:
It's not like the voting boxes themselves were hacked. This was their corporate network. I'd say it's more scary that liberal extremists are hacking private networks and stealing.

So, besides the fact we don't know who hacked the network (why the hell would it be a liberal extremist - this is before they found the memos/emails saying that Diebold's CEO is conservative), you're not scared at the fact that a company who manufactures a product which should be 100% secure got hacked.

Phew. I mean, what if tomorrow IBM was hacked... would you trust their security?

[mr. natural]

Posted by spacefreak:

I'd say it's more scary that liberal extremists are hacking private networks and stealing.

As opposed to republican extremists stealing elections.

Now that's compassionate conservatism in action for ya.

[spacefreak]

Originally posted by petehammer:
So, besides the fact we don't know who hacked the network (why the hell would it be a liberal extremist - this is before they found the memos/emails saying that Diebold's CEO is conservative), you're not scared at the fact that a company who manufactures a product which should be 100% secure got hacked.

I say liberals because that is who have been distributing, hosting, and spreading the stolen property.

As for their product's security, understand that the corporate network that was hacked is not the same as their product. I can break a window in a bank, and maybe even jump in through the broken window, but that doesn't mean I can get into the vault.

[spacefreak]

Originally posted by mr. natural:
As opposed to republican extremists stealing elections.

This served my point perfectly...

Originally posted by mr. natural:
Hey, if the do-anything-to-get-elected radical right-wing republicans won't play fair & square with our votes why should we play fair & square with their corrupt vote counting machines.

[mr. natural]

And this serves my point perfectly:

Posted by spacefreak:

As for their product's security, understand that the corporate network that was hacked is not the same as their product. I can break a window in a bank, and maybe even jump in through the broken window, but that doesn't mean I can get into the vault.

But if I was actually running the bank vault, well that's a whole different kettle of fish!

[scoxx]

Originally posted by spacefreak:
the stolen property

Actually, no:

Supreme Court Justice Blackmun:

It follows that interference with copyright does not easily equate with theft, conversion or fraud. The copyright Act even employs a separate term of art to define one who misappropriates a copyright: "Anyone who violates any of the exclusive rights of the copyright owner," that is, anyone who trespasses into his exclusive domain by using or authorizing the use of the copyrighted work in one of the five ways set forth in the statute, "is an infringer of the copyright."

Originally posted by spacefreak:
As for their product's security, understand that the corporate network that was hacked is not the same as their product.

They were, however, equally insecure. Just might have something to do with their attitude towards security.

Tadayoshi Kohno, Adam Stubblefield and Aviel D. Rubin:

Our analysis shows that this voting system is far below even the most minimal security standards applicable in other contexts. We highlight several issues including unauthorized privilege escalation, incorrect use of cryptography, vulnerabilities to network threats, and poor software development processes. For example, common voters, without any insider privileges, can cast unlimited votes without being detected by any mechanisms within the voting terminal

Wally O'Dell, CEO of Diebold:

I am committed to helping Ohio deliver its electoral votes to the President next year.

Originally posted by spacefreak:
I can break a window in a bank, and maybe even jump in through the broken window, but that doesn't mean I can get into the vault.

Getting into the vault is not a problem when the bank leaves the security code unprotected on a public Internet server.

[vmpaul]

The big question here is - What's the hurry?

As someone else said, all these solutions are designed to expedite counting. IMO, it seems like we're bending over backwards to feed this ever hungry news media that needs results sooner, not later. How many times have you turned on the news to hear a network call a winner when barely 1% of the precincts have reported? It happens all the time. They use exit polling and just plain guessing for no other reason than to scoop the other stations.

Seems like a classic case of the tail wagging the dog. Why can't we wait till the next day or so for the results to be finalized? We're voting to choose representatives for us not so the networks can get ratings.

As Spheric and others have said, why not use paper and pencil or scantron ballots? They're cheap, easy, traceable and reliable.

I guess it's just a symptom of America's go-go, impatient lifestyle. I heard a comedian once say "American's are the only group of people who will stand frustrated and annoyed in front of a microwave and yell 'Hurry up' at it because it's too slow".

[BlackGriffen]

Well, paper and pencil has security concerns as well (person counting hiding a lead under the fingernail, and such).

I like the idea of a marker that makes a thick pretty thick line (say 1/2 a cm or so). It seems that such a thing would be harder to change without anyone noticing. Especially since there won't be any erase marks.

Cause you know American voters will demand the presence of an eraser at the polling station.

BlackGriffen

P.S. Spacefreak: "This is a thread-jacking, put em up!"

[Spheric Harlot]

Originally posted by BlackGriffen:
Well, paper and pencil has security concerns as well (person counting hiding a lead under the fingernail, and such).

This is why there are two unrelated volunteers, sitting right next to each other, that count and verify every single vote coming out of the ballot box.

It would be difficult to modify the piece of paper in full view of the second person, not to mention that the best one could do is to turn a vote for one candidate into a discarded one, since you can't "unerase" the X.

Originally posted by spacefreak:
As for their product's security, understand that the corporate network that was hacked is not the same as their product. I can break a window in a bank, and maybe even jump in through the broken window, but that doesn't mean I can get into the vault.

Dude, you're not talking about some mom-&-pop-store's company correspondence here.

This is a company which presumably assumes responsibility for the outcome of your next presidential elections. A *LOT* of people (about 300 million, not counting a couple of billion whose lives are affected in one way or another by the outcome) have a vested interest in data on this company's servers. The machines will be networked.

Exactly how long have you been on the internet, spacefreak?

Not long enough to know that there is no such thing as "security", apparently. Especially considering just how many people might have an interest in manipulation.



-s*

[voodoo]

Originally posted by mr. natural:
Just gimme a paper ballot and pencil, for God's sake!

It's cheap, we all know how to use them, and everyone can count them.

paper and pencil is enough for anybody!

[scoxx]

2000 November Election

I need some answers! Our department is being audited by the County. I have
been waiting for someone to give me an explanation as to why Precinct 216
gave Al Gore a minus 16022 when it was uploaded. Will someone please
explain this so that I have the information to give the auditor instead of
standing here "looking dumb"

[hart]

just read this in NYTimes months later.

Security Poor in Electronic Voting Machines, Study Warns

http://nytimes.com/2004/01/29/techno...9CND-SECU.html

Deibold seems to be in advanced denial. As are those who choose to use this system. Some of the more disconcerting quotes:
-------------------------------

"The latest study found that some issues discovered last July in the Johns Hopkins study had not, in fact, been corrected, and that other issues that had not been discovered in other studies were equally troubling"

!!!! "And the server computers do not have the latest protection against the security holes in the Microsoft operating systems"

Prime denial: "Still, she noted that tampering with voting equipment is a felony. "I'm not sure how many people would be willing to get a felony conviction and risk going to jail over an election," she said. Citing the problem of easily opened locks on the machines, she said an attempt to unlock a machine "would be very unlikely to succeed, because it would have to occur in a public place."

"William A. Arbaugh, an assistant professor of computer science at the University of Maryland and a member of the Red Team exercise, said, "I can say with confidence that nobody looked at the system with an eye to security who understands security."
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I've been reading the book Beyond Fear (which discusses security issues at length) by Bruce Schneier which makes this whole fiasco seem so imminently avoidable. Why is this going forward with so little opposition? Why are people so thick?!

[cpt kangarooski]

Millennium--

Punching a hole in a piece of paper with a stick isn't hard.

Meh. They said this about DOS when the Mac came along. Lots of things aren't bothersome until a much better solution appears, and then people realize how awful the old ways were.

Which isn't an endorsement of computer voting, which I'm against, just a reminder that surely it's good for us to make even 'easy' things easier.

Personally, I also would endorse the pen and paper method, counted by hand.

Spacefreak--

It's not like the voting boxes themselves were hacked. This was their corporate network. I'd say it's more scary that liberal extremists are hacking private networks and stealing.

Well, that's fairly dumb, honestly. Your position is akin to being upset that someone would leak the Pentagon Papers. It's horrendously important information -- the harm that would result if it were kept secret is far greater than the harm that has resulted in the process if exposing it.

Regardless, I didn't feel it was necessary to include the quote from the liberal activist attorney who is telling these law-breakers to disobey the cease-and-desist letters.

Heh. Wendy is a copyright lawyer answering a copyright question -- i.e. is the dissemination of this material in violation of copyright. She says it isn't, and in fact, she's almost certainly right. AFAIK she's not a 'liberal activist.' I have no doubts that regardless of the politics of the people involved, that she'd answer that question the same way.

vmpaul--

The big question here is - What's the hurry?

I agree. Are people going to keel over if it takes as long as a week? If necessary, we can always adjust the date that terms begin; God knows we've done it before.

[Developer]

Here were I live we make a cross with a pencil on paper. This is then counted by hand. Seems perfect to me.
I wouldn't trust a machine.

[zigzag]

My precinct uses the "fill-in-the-blank-with-a-marker" method. It's easy to do and I feel pretty confident in it. It's just one step beyond pencil-and-paper. Machine-readable, but easy to verify by hand, with little opportunity for ambiguity or fraud. No complex software or interface problems to worry about.

After the 2000 fiasco I was all excited about electronic voting but the more I learn about it, the less confidence I have in it. You have to have a hand-readable backup.

The problem with the Diebold documents is that they were (apparently) improperly obtained, which is theft/misappropriation, not just copyright infringement. It might be in the public interest, so I'm not making a judgment, just stating a fact. Those who were not part of the original misappropriation but who subsequently publish the documents as reportage might have a First Amendment and/or fair use defense. I seriously doubt that Diebold would go after them anyway - it wouldn't be worth the bad publicity that would ensue.

It's ironic that we concern ourselves so much with ballot secrecy, but we aren't prepared to afford the same privilege to Iraqi citizens. I don't know all the arguments and counter-arguments for caucuses vs. general elections, but there's certainly a hint of irony in it.

Diebold also makes ATM machines. I'd like to be able to vote and get cash back at the same time. The candidate who offers the most cash wins.

[DeathToWindows]

/. has been having a lot of fun with Diabold's failings...

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Death's Proposal:

Heavily encrypted, sealed system electronic voting (4024) that produces a hard-copy, human readable ballot that is hand-dropped into a sealed counting unit.

F*ck diabold.

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And oh yeah... any democrat in 04 is fine with me