More on the Dangers of eVoting 339
blamanj writes "A lot of discussion has been focused on the lack of security in electronic voting systems. What hasn't been as widely discussed, is just how tiny the voting manipulations have to be to have an effect. In this months CACM (cite, pdf of original paper is here), some Yale students show that altering only a single vote per machine would have changed the electoral college outcome of the 2000 election. Changing only two votes/machine would have flipped the results for four states."
Unrealistic (Score:3, Insightful)
First of all, this "study" was done with full knowledge of the outcome of the election. While this makes for a slightly amusing statistical exercise, for it to work right, one candidate would not only have to have unrealistic access to countless voting machines, he'd have had to have guessed WHICH machines he needed unrealistic access to beforehand.
Second, this doesn't show any problem specific to electronic voting. Each of those votes in the "one vote per machine" total could have been "flipped" by countless other fraudulent activities if the aforementioned prerequisite of psychic ability had been met.
Finally - see that horse? It's dead. You can stop beating it. Electronic voting has happened, is happening, and will happen. The only way people will rise up and kill it is if (when) some massive fraud or error occurs that totally fucks the outcome of a major race.
I suppose that pointing this out to Sims is a waste of time given his history of childish antics and self-serving coniptions, but I'll do it anyway: this sort of nonsense being given face time on Slashdot just serves to stir up a bunch of clueless 16 year old zitheads who go around yelping about a real problem in an unrealistic way which just galvanizes everyone who needs to know about it against the people who actually understand the threat and have a real case to make. Congratulations, Michael. You not only continue to lower the overall level of discourse in the technical arena, you even manage to get paid for it now.
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Screw fraud, what about bugs? (Score:4, Insightful)
Voter fraud is going to be the biggest issue of th (Score:5, Insightful)
It should sicken everyone that both major parties are willing to go so far to win that we are now hearing about so many voter fraud problems arising before the election. Voter fraud should be one of the most severe crimes on the federal law books, it should be classified as a form of "attempting to overthrow the United States Government." No less than five years in prison IMO.
That said, America needs a much more comprehensive solution to voter fraud. It is one of the few things that I think warrants having a DNA tag for every citizen. There should be a national voter database that has the DNA of all citizens in it so that instead of having a national id you only have to go to the precinct and get a quick biometric test done to verify your ID.
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Re:Unrealistic? Not really... (Score:2, Insightful)
The only way people will rise up and kill it is if (when) some massive fraud or error occurs that totally fucks the outcome of a major race.
You're right on one count, electronic voting is here to stay. However, since we're already seeing signs of the massive error and possible fraud you allude to, this is a very salient issue. The article is a rather silly statistical exercise in one way, since there's no way a single person could skew all the different machines they would need to if they wanted to fix an election in this way. The difficulty of doing so is compounded by the different types of machines in use.
That said, it does point out a real issue with American elections. Very small shifts in the popular vote have such radical effects on the outcome that we can't afford to keep tolerating all the irregularities in the election process. The relatively high number of "spoiled" ballots with the touch screen systems, the partisan involvement in voter registration that's leading to corruption of the voting register in at least Nevada and Ohio, and the systematic efforts of the Republican party to suppress the vote of people likely to support the Democrats has got to stop. This type of crap is bad enough in countries where elections are mere ratifications of the party in power, it shouldn't be allowed when the election really counts.
Re:Voter fraud is going to be the biggest issue of (Score:4, Insightful)
You do have a really good point about voter fraud in your first paragraph. Maybe you should push this point a little more. You just convinced me that voter fraud is a tantamount to overthrowing the US Government.
Re:On a side note (Score:3, Insightful)
Absolutely. But see, there's this little problem: education takes time and effort. If I can't decide who to vote for based on sound bites from TV, then hell, I'll vote for Kerry because Bush looks like an ape. Yes, I am the problem with America today. I watch TV and never hear mention of any concepts covered in, say entry level economics or history courses. I hear tax cuts this, free trade that, but have no concept of the long or short term effects of these policies. I don't know what my senator has done; I don't know the name of my current House representative.
Ignorance is bliss, and bliss is god.
because there's nothing to decide this year (Score:2, Insightful)
What I find amazing... (Score:3, Insightful)
is that each voteing place has at least 2 workers. One is democrat, and another is republican. This was started a long time ago, BECAUSE ppl tend to corrupt. Chicago, Texas, and Tennase were great examples of cities/states that have notorious voter fraud in the past.These days neither party trust each other and will be sueing in huge amounts over the next couple of weeks.
Yet, here is a system that is fairly easy to defeat esp. when a paper trail is not created. And both major parties seem to want to push it.
Re:Unrealistic (Score:5, Insightful)
Uh, the people at Diebold had exactly this kind of access in California and Georgia in previous elections and all the manufacturers probably have it this time around too. Local election officials who all tend to be very partisan have it too. California is pursuing Diebold in court for precisely this kind of unauthorized access to their machines. Unrealistic indeed.
Unless there are extraordinarily rigorous procedures followed in auditing the source, doing builds controlled environment, and making sure properly signed builds are on the machines, they are constantly vulnerable to compromise. If they had a paper trail it would be less bad because you could do random audits to catch cheating. With these paperless machines you have absolutely no way to catch fraud.
You only need a compromised software load distributed across all machines. Its silly to act like some guy in black needs to go around and stuff ballots in each machine individually like they have to with good old paper ballots.
This is a very real danger. STOP TRYING TO DOWNPLAY IT.
"he'd have had to have guessed WHICH machines he needed unrealistic access to beforehand."
Both sides know exactly the places where they need to jigger the results to steal the elections. They are called swing states and two of them with huge electronic voting presence are Ohio(home of Diebold and where Diebold's execs are a key part of the Bush campaign apparatus) and Florida where the election apparatus is dominated by the President's brother and his appointed Republican secretary of state.
"Finally - see that horse? It's dead. You can stop beating it. Electronic voting has happened, is happening, and will happen."
You are so wrong. This horse is just out of the gate. If this election ends up at all close the jockeys(thousand strong armies of lawyers on both sides) are going to being whipping this horse all the way around the track. Its likely the losing side will blame these machines whether they are at fault or not forever because they are so fundamentally untrustworthy.
This issue isn't ever going to be over until all machines have a paper trail at a bare minimum. I'm inclined to say all of the purely electronic machines should be replaced with paper ballots run through a national standard optical scanner like most sane precincts are using. You can take the all electronic machines and put one in each precinct for the handicapped to use but otherwise get them out of the process because they are fundamentally untrustworthy.
Re:Paper receipts and voter fraud question. (Score:5, Insightful)
An auditable paper trail shouldn't involve paper that leaves the custody of the state.
Re:On a side note (Score:4, Insightful)
Oh, and adults know the issues? Kids nowadays are more informed than their parents, and there is nothing wrong with a GOTV campaign aimed at young voters.
Re:Voter fraud is going to be the biggest issue of (Score:3, Insightful)
Re:Wouldn't it depend (Score:3, Insightful)
If there is any shifting of votes, then we *all* lose.
Re:Unrealistic (Score:5, Insightful)
Irrelelvant, as it applies to all elections that are close.
Second, this doesn't show any problem specific to electronic voting.
True, the same mechanisms could be used, however, the likelihood is higher with computer voting because the processes are often hidden even to those running the balloting, and a single manufacturer may supply an entire state (or states).
Finally - see that horse? It's dead. You can stop beating it. Electronic voting has happened, is happening, and will happen.
Not the point. No one suggested that we turn back the clock. The point is to show how seemingly trivial effects can have consequences.
If you told someone that in an election of several million voters, having a set of voting machines off by only a single vote would affect the results, they probably wouldn't believe you. This analysis shows otherwise.
Re:Unrealistic (Score:5, Insightful)
Electronic voting is not the issue here, its unverified voting.
Both India and Australia have used electronic voting with out issue. Mainly because the code and the process is open.
You can not privatise your electoral system and not expect something to go wrong.
Perhaps it should be paper ballots with electronic counting.
Do your thing with paper, get the machine to check it, i.e. if it can not read it it asks the voter to fix the error or get them to ask for help from the ballot people.
Then put the paper vote in the big box of votes.
Quick machine counts and if need be humans can check the real votes.
What software? (Score:4, Insightful)
How can electronic voting ever be trusted? (Surprisingly, my mom of all people, who knows nothing about computers brought up this point with me.) Even if we use open source voting software, we still have a major problem. How do we know the open source we saw is actually running on the machine? It would be more than easy to get the GUI to SAY that it was running "so-and-so version X.X". How do we actually KNOW it's running that though?
The only viable solution I see would be to actually have every voter load the software onto the machine, and the machine interface somehow, but then again, this has some major downfalls. How does the community feel about this? What solutions do you propose, in this election, and in future elections?
Re:Unrealistic (Score:3, Insightful)
Eminem's appearance on SNL tonight was unremarkable and evidently an attempt at carpe diem, or in this case, carpe jugulum - I've blogged about this point in my blog.
Re:UI designer interview questions (Score:4, Insightful)
2) There shouldn't be a default selection, it wouldn't matter though, since there should not be an enter key.
3) No, they're not. You can still call it user error if they weren't paying attention, the blame rests on both sides. Now, since one side has a sinister reason, and the other side doesn't, I think it's not unreasonable to investigate and perhaps conclude it was intentional.
Re:Unrealistic (Score:5, Insightful)
Uh... and who was Katherine Harris again? Its just not called "fraud" when its up-top -- its called "oops, sorry" and the current laws are too weak to prevent it from happening. As long as there is no accountability, there will be fraud -- at every level.
if they get caught, they'll get so utterly crushed it will be disgusting.
Crushed how, exactly? Voter rebellion? Not if the machines don't work, the laws are gutted and the courts packed with facists. Riots? Maybe in the ghetto but not in middle class america, plus its a great excuse to establish martial law and kill all the "terrorists". Massive non-violent protests? You might get some good turnout but Americans are dangerously complacent these days.
Re:On a side note (Score:5, Insightful)
Kids nowadays are more informed than their parents
Well, the kids think so, anyway. Their parents might disagree... and might remember when they thought the same.
Re:On a side note (Score:5, Insightful)
There IS nothing wrong with a campaign aimed at young voters though. It's hard to disagree with that.
Re:Unrealistic (Score:2, Insightful)
Furthermore, elections which are reasonably close tend to get closer due to economics. That is, opinion polls are used to gauge the amount of money to spend on advertising, which is calculated to push the margin just slightly past the half-way mark -- no more, no less -- and correspondingly there is a huge incentive to try to manipulate the outcome by making these small changes -- it is easy, cheap, and its also devastatingly effective.
Re:On a side note (Score:3, Insightful)
If after seeing this dog and pony show they still feel unqualified and unmotivated to vote, maybe they are right. Much as I want people to come out and vote, I don't ever want anyone to vote against their will.
Re:On a side note (Score:5, Insightful)
Why is a brainwashed person who listens to news from the radical (right/left) more informed than someone that just watches Oprah/MTV and the local news, and otherwise wouldn't care to vote? Yet the radical right/left person will definitely vote for their cause, why is the vote of the Oprah/MTV fan less important?
Shouldn't political education be placed in front of political mobilization?
I actually think that political mobilization will encourage political education.
Many countries (eg Australia) actually fine people for not voting. The point of the campaign is to get people involved with the political system, which is the whole foundation of democracy to begin with.
By going out and voting, whether you do for a major candidate or even if you write-in 'mickey mouse', you get involved with the system. You begin to get some sense of not just the presidential candidates, but of state and city government, and many other proposals which you might not have otherwise known existed.
For example, if you own a pizza shop near the waterfront, and you go to the polls and learn there's a proposal for the city to borrow/spend $5 million to enhance the waterfront area, that resolution will definitely impact you greatly.
Then again (Score:5, Insightful)
Under the old laws, which were repealed in grand fashion without so much as a whisper from the press, such voting would be flagrantly illegal. Voting less than 40 feet from a newsstand, for example, or voting on a day other than election day was unheard of...
The election of the people whose responsibility it is to run our government is now treated with the same level of consideration as a sale on ground beef in the frozen food aisle. Naturally, this is fine, since everything in our society is evaluated based on the convenience factor for the SUV moms, and whether it can be scheduled between trips to the dry cleaners and the bank. More thought is invested in the right windows for the breakfast nook and the new countertops for the kitchen renovations at Home Repo than is invested in the sober consideration of who should run the country.
Selfishness, greed, apathy and laziness are great criteria for elections.
It was possible to vote before the most recent debate. It was possible to vote before several very lengthy and comprehensive articles on various propositions were published in newspapers. It was necessary for the legislature in California to repeal no fewer than EIGHT election laws in order to make "election month" legal, and nobody pays it a second thought. We did just fine with election DAY for 228 years, but now, that doesn't seem to be enough.
The potential for fraud and inaccuracy is immense, but there wasn't even the most rudimentary opportunity to even COMMENT on this before it showed up next to the paper towel display weeks before the election.
Election without representation is even worse than taxation without representation. We had better turn off the fucking high-definition entertainment center and develop some reverence for the democratic process, and soon.
Re:On a side note (Score:3, Insightful)
They all have internet access, so they have the means to be very informed voters if they only have something to motivate them. Being registered is a motivator. If you are registered you are more likely to research. If you research, you are more likely to vote. If you aren't registered, research is a waste of time. When young people couldn't vote, they had to resort to mass demonstrations that were a much more dangerous way to express their opinions [cnn.com].
Re:Voter fraud is going to be the biggest issue of (Score:3, Insightful)
right. because we all know that the underfunded, understaffed registrar of voters never fails to remove everyone from the voting rolls when they die, move away, etc. without telling them about it.
and populations shifts don't happen.
and no political party would ever stoop to coming up with bogus statistics to justify a massive campaign to disenfranchise their opponents.
-esme
Re:Unrealistic (Score:2, Insightful)
I've noticed the media seems to have this interpretation, but I don't think it makes nearly as much of a difference as they would like you to believe -- the incentive to spin the story is enormous at this point in the game. We know the gallup polls are complete b.s. and the rest are pseudo-scientific at best. The fact is 10 million people are not going to change their mind because bin laden says he doesn't like bush -- we already know that. Now, if bush suddenly produced bin laden's head on a platter, we might see that kind of shift in opinion.
Why eVote? (Score:2, Insightful)
Once upon a time many people thought they'd be voting from home - but we all realize that isn't safe whatsoever. Even if it was, what happens to my packets after they are received and who has access. I don't even know who has access to the ballot box or responsibility for transporting it now.
The next large scale delusion is that it will expedite the results. Sure, the Electoral College rarely votes differently than the popular vote predicts - but they do not do so until the third week of December in their respective state capitols. Do we really need to know the results any sooner than that? and haven't we been capable of it thus far?
Accuracy. While hanging chads are a real problem, this and other physical problems could easily detected before a person drops their ballot in the box. What's missing from the current system is a way to see how the ballot will be interpreted by the system before we cast our vote. I think that is where we ought to focus our mindshare. An optical card reader something like Mr. Spock would look into could verify the selections for the voter and when attached to a printer could create a souvenier hardcopy.
The 'problems' that keep cropping up with eVoting just seem to be obfuscating the real issue. This whole thing just looks like a way to create more demand and sell products that really can only introduce more problems into the process.
As a nation, "We" need to work on the logic of resolving ties, the granularity of the Electoral College, and uniformity of ballots accross precincts. We need to make Election Day a national holiday for heaven's sake, or we need to stretch voting out over a weekend. And in my not so humble opinion we need to mandate that the only way you're allowed to have Cable-TV is if you are registered to vote!
Re:Unrealistic (Score:1, Insightful)
That's why he released the tape, didn't he? To give GWB a push over the line, which means more recruits for al-Qaeda and their fellow travellers?
Re:On a side note (Score:3, Insightful)
Bush is getting his 50% approval rating from somewhere, and I don't think it is college campuses. If I had two kids, a morgage, and a carreer, I doubt I would have the time to follow the hundreds of millions of dollars that is getting funneled to a company who is openly paying the vice president.
and what's everyone else doing? (Score:3, Insightful)
Re:On a side note (Score:2, Insightful)
I'm not sure what you mean by "shouldn't" here. If you are suggesting that in an ideal world, the opinions of the stupid should have as much weight as those of the smart, then I strongly disagree with you.
If you mean that we, the intellectual elite, require the services of the imbeciles on our side of the political spectrum to cast a ballot to maintain the facade that they have control over their political destiny, then yes, I agree with you. It would scarcely be fair if the far right got to tell their religious nutjob Rush Limbaugh-listening, Bill-O'Reilly watchers who to vote for if we couldn't get our MTV-generation, pot smoking, hippie youth, and unemployed black female Oprah watchers to get out and vote in our general direction.
Don't fetishize democracy too much, buddy. It's just the least bad system we've come up with so far. That doesn't mean it's good, or that dumb uneducated people really deserve a say what the government is doing.
I don't understand the problem (Score:3, Insightful)
PUT AN X IN THE BOX ON A PIECE OF PAPER!
Simple, effective, auditable. It's worked for the UK for hundreds of years, it worked on the EU elections with hundreds of millions of voters. IT JUST WORKS!
Changing the way we vote. (Score:5, Insightful)
There are many things we need to do in this country to improve our democracy.
As far as Number Three, above, is concerned--clearly, we need to enact an amendment to the Constitution that will provide that all election methods must be "open source". We simply must apply the "many eyes" doctrine to our elections. Only through transparent, independent, repeatably verifiable means can we ensure the validity of our elections. This clearly requires open source methods and rigorous accounting and auditing standards. As this is a fundamental aspect of our government, it must be codifi
Re:Diebold using DES encryption! (Score:1, Insightful)
I'm all against Diebold, but man... RTFA.
That aside, the report is rather appalling. One line of Diebold source code says it all:
#define DESKEY (des_key* "F2654hd4")
Re:Unrealistic (Score:4, Insightful)
If I can hack a voting machine, I can personally control the election results in my state.
Re:On a side note (Score:3, Insightful)
Let me paraphrase a lot of people who said roughly the same thing under different circumstances:Turns out that that movie was anythnig but anti-Christian, but even to this day (last time was actually a few months ago) I hear from Christians who think it's a movie that was designed to make them hate their faith or some such foolishness.
Now, I have no idea what that rally contained, but I can state as fact that people who didn't attend it like you and me are not authorities on what it's about. Go find a town where they're going to show up, go in and listen to them. Hear them out and think about what they've said. Wouldn't you expect the same?
Re:On a side note (Score:3, Insightful)
I think support for Bush is largely a side-effect of mental illness, a very severe lack of cognitive processes, and/or such a burned-in zeal that the sky is pink and the earth is flat no matter what. There was this senile woman at the grocery store the other day, and she asked us if we were going to be "good Republicans" on Tuesday. Then there are the people who only care that Bush isn't a "baby killer". Then there are the people who think Bush is some sort of prophet. Then there are the people who vote for Bush, because the Democrats are commie pot-headed socialist utopic beatniks. Add up all those edge cases of humanity, and you could very well get most of that 50% (or 25%, considering how many people vote).
One very interesting trend I've noticed, is that intellectuals seem to be supporting Kerry, and that the people supporting Bush are either in favor of the war-mongering, are fundamentalist christians, or are people who believe that Republicans are more "capitalist" (highly debatable--see history of government balance sheets).
Before Tuesday, people really need to consider whether the words "Republican" or "Democrat" mean what they used to. It is very odd that the deficit shrunk under the Clinton administration, yet ballooned under Bush. It is very odd that Kerry mentions free trade for pharmaceuticals, yet Bush managed to evade that question in the debates. Only Kerry mentioned that the Patriot Act needs to be reviewed. Bush says that he wants to limit government intervention, but in the next sentence supports amending the Constitution. Bush is often anti-science, when science is the foundation for business growth. Note that Kerry's health care plan keeps the insurance industry in the loop--it is not a socialist pit like many people claim. I urge people to think about whether the historical definitions we are all used to matter anymore; I'm not convinced they do.
LIARS (Score:3, Insightful)
These powermad sleazebags don't care about getting caught. They've been repeating "Nixon was guilty only because he got caught" for 30 years, so they've decided to just ignore getting caught. Their incessant shocking crimes have pushed everyone past disgust, into expecting fraud at every turn. They will do their worst, without even blinking. Expecting common decency from them is asking to get raped.
Re:Straight ballot in Texas (Score:3, Insightful)
Besides, I don't get why after voting Democrat for every race, I would have to go to another screen, and reselect Kerry. It doesn't make any sense.
It sure sounds like whoever designed these machines intentionally made it so that people would "accidently" vote for Bush.
Re:Unrealistic (Score:3, Insightful)
Does anyone actually have first hand experience with this sort of malfunction? I'd be more likely to believe someone lying to me with a first hand account than 3rd or 4th hand account that are true.
Re:Try an electoral system where votes count (Score:2, Insightful)
While there are differences in choices posted to voters at the state level, you can still find out the percentage that voted for a specific candidate, regardless of whether or not they available to be voted for.
Is it meaningful? Not particularly. Especially not in any legal or official way. But if a president was elected by 1/3 of the population that voted, and did not even have a plurality of the population that voted nationally, I'd say it might be an interesting case and should start (or enhance) discussion on whether or not reform of the electoral system is necessary.
Then consider that one of the stated benefits of the electoral college is that it helps prevent candidates from focusing on a few highly-populated metropolitan areas to win the election. But of course, it results in the candidates focusing on a few "battleground" or "swing" states.
(I'm not really against the electoral college, but I find the whole subject quite fascinating...)
Did anyone RTFA? (Score:3, Insightful)
Looks like /. is off jumping the gun and running into wild off-topic "discussions" again. I tried to read the article, but became disgusted with the poor quality of it early on. Just a couple of points that made me give up are (1) a blatant lie claiming that Georgia doesn't have absentee voting and (2) their wild and faulty assumption that 90% of all votes cast are cast on electronic machines. North Dakota is finally getting optical scan ballots state-wide, and I think they're likely to stay with them a long time, because they're cheap and reliable and not such a big change. Lots of other states are in the same situation, so assuming 90% is ludicrous. Also, an increasing number of votes are being cast early using absentee ballots or paper early ballots, so it's unlikely that in the future 90% of votes will ever be cast on election day.
I applaud these Yalue undergraduates for trying, but there's not much to see here. Let's move along.