[nickcarraway]

What a surprise?

[smith288]

Well, if we ran it on Linux instead....

HEHE

[adam_az]

"This isn't the code for a vending machine," he said. "This is the code that protects our democracy."

"This isn't the code for a vending machine," he said. "This is the code that protects our democracy."

"This isn't the code for a vending machine," he said. "This is the code that protects our democracy."

"This isn't the code for a vending machine," he said. "This is the code that protects our democracy."

BINGO this can not be said enough times!

[adam_az]

The flaws are architectural, not just programming errors.

There is simply no way to do this with sufficient audit trail, given the stakes!

The risk far outweighs the benefit.

[Libertina]

Gee, ya think? At first I was happy to see that the liberals were finally getting the message, but I believe this is more likely setting up a foundatin to say that Bush really DIDN'T WIN (again) in 04. They won't be happy until they achieve civil war. IMHO

[OldFriend]

Of course, this is why the left proposes internet voting. Look how well motor voter registration and mail in voting worked.

[y2k_free_radical]

And GA. went statewide with electronic voting last year

[mabelkitty]

Riight.

And we can get several THOUSAND PROGRAMMERS TO GO ALONG WITH THIS.

I am so over conspiracies. I really am.

[steve in DC]

What is the difference between voting on line and voting over the phone?

[Carry_Okie]

Here's a pertinent piece I wrote in December 2002.

Ballot Transparency to Eliminate Fraudulent Counts

Voters have read and seen all sorts of assurances that the new touch-screen balloting systems are fool proof, tamper proof, and nothing to worry about. Many, including those who are familiar with the technology, are not at all reassured.

The concerns are on two levels. First, from the perspective of those not familiar with the technology, it is a device whose inner workings and inherent security they cannot possibly understand. If they can't understand it, how can they be assured that it is honest? Second, those who DO understand signal processing, software, and communications technology know that is far too easy to defraud the system in a way that would be irreversible and undetected. Either way, touch-screens are a loser.

Now, as users of ATMs, cell phones, the Internet, and other electronic media, it might at first seem a little strange that so many people have such concerns. Upon further consideration however, the key distinctions between voting and a service handling mere money become obvious:

• Customers have a choice of banking vendors. Citizens don’t have a choice of governments.
• There is a major difference between mere financial assets at risk, and a risk to individual liberty.

Governments are monopolies. One can go down the street to another bank and take the offending bank to court. An evil government can land you in prison (or worse) because they ARE the court. The stakes associated with voter fraud are far higher than with an ATM and so is the temptation to defraud the system.

Necessary and Sufficient

So, given that we are still smarting over hanging chads, what are the alternatives? Let’s begin to answer that question by looking at the requirements.

1. The system has to be simple and familiar to the voter.
2. There must be NO SOFTWARE involved, because it is too easy to change.
3. The system must be capable of completely manual operation.
4. The count must be capable of being validated by all parties involved and each count must be separate and distinct.
5. There must be no possibility to count a ballot twice or "lose" counts along the way.

Electronic sensors and interlocks are permissible as long as they can be duplicated manually.

Here is my proposal for a system that meets these requirements:

At the Polling Place

1. Ballot boxes are preprinted, serialized and tracked by a physical chain-of-custody document.
2. The box must be destroyed to be opened.
3. The box is locked under a ballot receiving machine.
4. The ballot receiving machine at the polling place reads the box number and records it on the ballot in Scantron form on the back side (fill in the dots). Note that one could do the same manually under observation.
5. The voter completes the standard optical ballot and delivers it to the receiving machine.
6. The machine prints the box number on the back of every ballot it accepts with a Scantron dot pattern. This too can be both read and performed manually. Then a dry film coating (basically an adhesive or heat activated tape) is applied to the ballot on the way into the sealed ballot box.
7. The coating is transparent but reveals a "watermark" when exposed to UV light. The ballot is now tamperproof.
8. The receiving machine totals the number of ballots in every box. The total is read manually and a receipt is delivered to each political party and candidate detailing the box numbers, precincts, and tally of ballots in every uniquely identified box.
9. Representatives of all Parties check the box tallies before the boxes leave the polling place.
10. If they agree on its accuracy, they record the ballot tally on the box using Scantron dots, initial it, and put a similar dry film over the number.

Note that the Scantron pattern is the perfect bridge between human and machine. It is readable by people for manual counting but does not require an optical character reading machine that needs cameras or software.

Both parties thus know the EXACT number of ballots cast in every precinct and in every box. Every box is signed. All parties can thus run check sums at the processing centers and verify the chain-of-custody.

At the Ballot Counting Center

1. The total of the ballots on the box is read by the counting machine. It would be very similar to the existing optical reader and might only require very minor modifications.
2. The counting machine reads the box code for precinct and ballot count or accepts that data input from a keypad read off the box by at least two witnesses with keys. The machine will not count the ballots without the UV visible watermark on the ballot over the votes AND matching precinct codes on the box and the ballot.
3. The machine halts and will not display the vote totals if the number of ballots recorded on the box and the number it counts do not match.
4. The ballots leave the counting machine get a NEW ballot box. Counted ballots are stamped again with output box number, recoated, and then deposited into the new sealed ballot box.
5. The new coating was applied in case of a recount, thus each ballot thus maintains a recount history.

[Publius6961]

D'OH!

[Recovering_Democrat]

No wonder Democrats are pushing this type of balloting.

[Search4Truth]

Well the media does like its boogy men, and technology is one of its favorites.

I've worked in the Data Processing field, as it was once called, for 25 years; all of my adult life. And I can tell you from experience, that no one can FU a computer project like the government.

If we assigned the goal of creating a nationwide technology-based voting system to the private sector, we'd have one built for you in less than a year. Not only would it meet or exceed requirements, but would be a fraction of the cost.

[Cicero]

Not a surprise. The primary purpose of the Chad War was to change the election results and install Gore. But the secondary purpose was to change voting machines in ways to make it easier for the Dems to cheat.

Computer voting is a very, very poor idea, as I said at the time. Instead of poking out a few chads or resurrecting a few dead people, you can switch 10 million votes at the touch of a mouse button. And there will be no ballots to recount.

[Iris7]

A necessary part of the world we live in is the public's trust in the "honesty" of the voting process. Another necessary part of the world we live in is that this process elects only the "right", or "correct", people. Merchandising technologies are no longer adequate to reconcile these two requirements since lies are more often detected by the voters than in decades past. (Although the Democratic Party merchandising is filled with lies, and is expected to be successful. At least the Republican Party lies more by omission than commission!) Perhaps being exposed to the never ending deluge of commercial merchandising is making even the "voter" class aware that they are being "merchandized", to coin a neologism.

So what to do? The best approach at the moment is computerized voting, the only problem is getting the "voters" to believe it is "honest".

[CaptIsaacDavis]

But Douglas W. Jones, an associate professor of computer science at the University of Iowa, said he was shocked to discover flaws cited in Mr. Rubin's paper that he had mentioned to the system's developers about five years ago as a state elections official.

"To find that such flaws have not been corrected in half a decade is awful," Professor Jones said.



THIS IS NOT A MISTAKE -- IT IS DELIBERATE, THESE AUTHORS NEED TO DIG DEEPER TO EXPLAIN WHY...

[jmc813]

People think I'm crazy when I tell them that I think voting should be as LOW tech as possible.

[Maria S]

I just heard some guy call in to Sean Hannity and tell Sean to get a tape of Hillary on KHOW today…wherein she practically admitted she would run if needed. Don’t tell me we don’t need to be worried about computer voting!

[zoyd]

A Follow-Up on Several Back Columns and Can Diebold Voting Machines Really Be Hacked?

I, Cringely

A little bit of info in this Cringely column.

[doc]

Guess who tallies the votes? Weren't these machines the properties of the major networks?