Possible Process by which to Audit Election Results

2008-01-16 | Mike Acker

[Mike Acker]

the only way to keep anything honest is to get all the cards on the table where we can all check everything together

now here is my proposal for electronic voting with audit procedure

first, use touch screen voting machines. this technology has been beautifully developed in game machines and is perfect for voting. fast, easy to use

when you have finished voting the computer should:
1 print your ballot for you. fold it and put it in your pocket.
2 write a copy of your ballot to the local hard disk appending it to its local ballot file ( this is a backup copy )
3 upload the local ballot file to the precinct web site

now, when the polls close all the ballots will have already all be up-loaded. all that is necessary is to run a program such as a Crystal Report to roll up the precinct totals.

upload the precinct totals to the secretary of state

roll up the state totals

show the totals on the news

now you still have your ballot and you can go to the precinct web site and browse to he ballot file

you can look at any ballot but all you are going to see is the ballot number not the voter name

so you would do a FIND using your ballot number and you can verify that your ballot is recorded as you voted it

you can download the precinct ballot file and run the crystal report ( or write your own program ) and roll up the precinct totals and check them against what's published in the news

and you can check your precinct totals in the state levelroll ups and your state totasl in the national roll ups

THIS IS THE SAME WAY WE HAVE PROVED TOTALS IN DATA PROCESSING SINCE WE HAD IBM 407 TABULATING MACHINES

you can check the number of ballots in your precinct and then go down to the precinct and check the names of the people who voted just to be sure your dog didn't vote

this ain't rocket science folks, its how this figures have been audited for years

[Brad from Tennessee]

Sounds like a winner to me.

[Freee-dame]

great idea

[umgud]

Not bad, but I’m more concerned with illegal voting than miscounts.

[Mike Acker]

i think this audit might “fly” — if it gets some consideration ( this is the first time i’ve posted these thoughts to F/R )

but people are going to want to stick to secret ballots

so the only thing we can do is check to make sure that if “n” people voted at the precinct that there are “n” ballots in the upload.

then you can examine the precinct records to be sure everyone who voted belongs in that precinct ( you can do this now )

as things are done today I could take the NFL Football Schedule and run it through the computer and then publish something I claimed was the results of the election

with this audit process each voter can check his own ballot — either himself of have a friend help, use a library computer — and everyone can verify the roll-ups

[cosine]

You cannot have a voting system that gives people copies of how they voted. This would enable the buying and selling of votes. No receipts allowed.

[BohDaThone]

This means that you get a copy of your ballot that you can take back to the guy who bought your vote and PROVE that you stayed bought. Bad Idea

In the bad old days, with paper ballots, this was the genesis of the "chain ballot" fraud. Voter ONE goes in, palms the ballot and walks out. Gives it to the boss, gets paid. Boss marks the ballot, gives it to TWO, who goes in, deposits the marked ballot, palms the blank ballot, and takes it back to the boss, who pays him. Lather, Rinse, Repeat.

This system just makes it even easier -- you don't have to steal the first ballot.

[DBrow]

If I were a union enforcer I’d love this plan.

The guys in my local would all show me their ballots they printed out!

[maica]

I agree that touch-screen are easy to use and accurate and quicker than other paper systems. However they are not connected electronically to anything during the voting process. No uploading or downloading or cross-contamination of machines is possible. Each machine collects the data of the ballots cast on its machine on a memory chip inside the machine. A paper receipt with the name of each person who used the machine is kept in an envelope attached to the machine during the voting and returned to Election Headquarters with the paper copy of the vote totals and the memory chip for the particular machine, at the close of the election. The number of ballots cast, and voters at the machine must match.

[Brad from Tennessee]

You make a good point as does DBrow on Post #8. The reason for this scheme is that ever since the advent of electronic voting —highlighted by problems in the Florida 2000 election—there has been requests from the public for ballot copies. I think if such a system is ever seriously considered arguments like yours and DBrow’s may open people’s minds to the downside.

What does need to happen with systems like Diebold is some kind of paper printout of votes at the polling place that can be later compared with the final tally if there are accusations of irregularities.

[Mike Acker]

i certainly see that the printed receipts might be mis-used

you wouldn’t have to print the receipts to make this work but if you didn’t print the receipts people would have to rely on memory when they checked their ballots and that would lead to some disputes

Notes

1 what we are doing now is easily compromised and i’ve read an alarming number of reports to the effect that there is already a lot of fraud going on

2 just because microsoft computers are easily compromised over network connections doesn’t mean all computers have to be made that way. you don’t *have* to take programming changes over your net connection and it certainly appears taking program changes over the net has facilitated our plague of computer virus codes

3 perhaps voters could sign their ballots and leave their ballots at the polling place. if they need to re-check them they come back to the polling place and do that

[DBrow]

One of the main ways election fraud works depends on paper ballots.

Boxes and boxes of them; regular ones, and special ones like same-day registrations on hold, absentees, damaged, and so forth.

Moved around on trucks, into and out of buildings, stored here and there, and lots and lots of people are involved.

Look at the famous Washington State gubernatorial recounts- each time they recounted, they got a new number, closer and closer to a dem win.

Or the Florida recount, where someone got caught with blank ballots and a voting machine.

With electronic votes, though, every time you ping the storage medium you get the same number.

As soon as you introduce paper int an electronic scenario, right off the bat you will have a discrepancy between the paper and the hard drive, then the election count relies on which? Lawyers will say use the paper trail, and now you are right back to dirty tricks.

[Mike Acker]

if you try to rely entirely on computer you have no source documents from which to verify the computer data

interesting comment though, and more so because if you told people to take their printed ballot with them you wouldn’t have a problem with “truckloads of boxes”

but the problem of goons demanding those ballots is very real

a counter offer for goons might help but i don’t like going there anymore than i like results that are totaled up by “experts” working in secret

if we are going to have elections we have to know the results are right

[DBrow]

If you let people take their ballots home, there is no guarantee that you’ll see the same ballots come back for a recheck, nor will you get 100% back.

Also, if you let every individual check the integrity of their actual vote, using a “look up on the web” function, each individual will see the vote they cast, not the number the reporter reports as a “total”.

The concept that electronic voting machines are easily corrupted is false. Many point to the Youtube movie in which some people got unrestricted access to a machine, loaded THEIR OWN CODE, then showed how their own code could be hacked, while going on and on about the integrity of their own methods and the specious claim that the key was a key to a hotel mini-bar. It convinced many people it was true. I believe that fraud is best done with paper ballots, because the boxes can be swapped, individual ballots changed, and chads pecked out by fingernail as was seen in the 2000 recount, all tracelessly.

[Mike Acker]

The concept that electronic voting machines are easily corrupted is false.

I've been writing computer code since 1967. I've never deliberately done anything to make a computer produce incorrect results but I do know exactly how it could be done

If you would like a demo of random number generations just go watch a computer play keno

as I said, I could read in the NFL football schedule and print out a document and claim it was the election results

the trouble today is that the people just don't trust the system. isn't VNS owned by the media?

Reference: Vote Scam / Collier