NYU Study: America's Voting Machines Are Rapidly Aging Out 263
Presto Vivace passes on a link to a report at the Brennan Center for Justice at NYU's law school which says that many of the vote-counting machines set to be used in the 2016 U.S. general election will be past their prime by the time of the election, if not long before. From the report:
Technology has changed dramatically in the last decade, but America's voting machines are rapidly aging out. In 2016, for example, 43 states will use electronic voting machines that are at least 10 years old, perilously close to the end of most systems' expected lifespan. Old voting equipment increases the risk of failures and crashes — which can lead to long lines and lost votes on Election Day — and problems only get worse the longer we wait.
Comment removed (Score:5, Funny)
Re:The first voter will take time (Score:4, Funny)
The first person at each machine at the next election will take some time, because he will be asked to update to Windows 10 first.
And if MacAfee is on there just forget about it.
hear hear, harumph! (Score:3)
Face it, our voting machines are all rigged now.
How else can NOBODY vote for THAT GUY, but he keeps getting elected year-in and year-out?
Can't have the wrong lizard get elected, now can we?
Re: hear hear, harumph! (Score:2)
buy stock in Diebold? (Score:2)
Here's one suggestion. (Score:2, Interesting)
Re:Here's one suggestion. (Score:5, Insightful)
Let's not try to automate voting beyond OCR scanners until we can secure it. We can't now. No. We cannot.
Thanks.
Re: (Score:2)
Let's not try to automate voting beyond OCR scanners until we can secure it. We can't now. No. We cannot.
This actually isn't true any more. It definitely was true a decade ago, and I was making this same argument up to about a year ago. However, another slashdotter pointed me to several research papers describing not just electronic but Internet voting systems with rather outstanding properties, properties that I would have said were impossible. The schemes provide for guaranteed voter anonymity (including receipt-freeness, for some level of coercion resistance), universal verifiability (any voter can verify t
Re: (Score:2)
The main reason I remain somewhat skeptical is that I'm concerned that complex systems of this sort, even if the math is beautiful and the proofs are rock solid and the implementation is bulletproof (though note that these systems do not rely on perfect implementation for their security proofs) may not actually engender as much vote confidence as simpler systems which are vastly more vulnerable to manipulation.
Oh, I forgot to point out the obvious counterargument here: Americans seem, by and large, to be fine with using voting machines that are excessively complex and have been proven to suck in all sorts of ways and for which there's even non-trivial evidence that they've been used to manipulate actual national election outcomes.
So, yeah, there's that.
Re: (Score:2)
I would be interested to see how much online voting affected voter turnout. As of now non voters are still the majority.
Re: Here's one suggestion. (Score:2)
0. Implementation is as important as design. Both must be flawless. If not, why change from paper?
1. Ranking system are intended to gain consensus. Majority elections are intended to reach decisions. Big difference.
Re: (Score:2)
But even if we could, why? It's hard to beat pen on paper for what it does. Matching that level of accountability is not its own reason for change.
The only thing I can think of is a voter that is too disabled to use a pen, but could touch the giant square button on a touch screen. Putting aside how narrow of a demographic that is, we've already had that covered forever. All those old people volunteers hanging around the voting place; that is what they are there for. They can and will go into the booth with
Re: (Score:2)
Re: (Score:3)
wow are you going against the American military complex? Hey NSA this person does not speak for me. Let it be known. I don't know this guy. He's obviously delusional.
Hail to the bomb baby.
Excellent! (Score:2)
Best news we've had all week.
Re: (Score:2)
I don't understand why. I was recently asked to interface with a 30 year old DOS based system. It's running just fine in its intended environment. Why should there be a risk of either crash or failure on a single tasking, single use machine?
Aging Out (Score:5, Insightful)
In Canada our voting systems have a design lifespan of one day, because they are made out of paper and cardboard. Still a lot more secure and reliable then the US system.
Re:Aging Out (Score:5, Funny)
Re: (Score:2)
Bonus points for overshoot's
Re: (Score:2)
Rubbish paper voting systems have an ultimate error rate of zero. That is what a recount is all about. The vote is very close and you double check everything. After two or three rounds of recounts those error bars get smaller and smaller till everyone is happy. The mistake in the USA is to have stupid machines punching things rather than people marking a piece of paper with a pencil.
Re: (Score:2)
And yet 1 in 100 votes are classified as invalid because people can't figure out the scrawling on the paper. The remarkable part about this number is the lack of compulsory voting. Why would someone throw away a vote if they didn't need to vote at all? When voting is compulsory the number of informal votes rises to e.g. Australia's 6%, enough to sway a close election.
Re: (Score:2)
Why would someone throw away a vote if they didn't need to vote at all?
I'm pretty sure it's the same situation in Australia, but in the USA, we typically don't vote for just one election when we're filling out the ballot. A voter might care(or not) about the president, senator, and representative. He might be neutral on the county clerk, to bring up one position that's actually elected in at least one state(I think it's silly).
There have been years were my feelings between the presidential candidates amounts to a coin toss, why shouldn't I spoil my vote for that election?
Re: (Score:2)
Democrats disagree (Score:2)
I can see why you might say that. On other hand, US Democrats believe that when Democrats design a paper ballot, then the state Democratic party approves that paper ballot, you end up with a paper ballot that democrat voters aren't smart enough to use. There are a lot of errors on those paper ballots, they say. They may well be right . They may have done a terrible job of designing the ballot, their committee who reviewed and approved the ballot may have been incompetent, and their voters may be less t
Re: (Score:3)
Why stay with a simple and proven technology, when you can replace it with something complicated and unreliable?
So what happens in Canada before an election? The voting authorities buy a few cardboard boxes, and print a few ballots? Where is the potential for expensive pork contracts for voting machines there? And how do the palms of voting authorities get greased with goodies, if the contracts are only for inexpensive boxes and paper ballots?
We Americans might be able to learn something, if we took so
Re: (Score:2)
Unfortunately there seems to be a bug of some sort, in the functioning of the pencil component, as we still get a lot of already-corrupted republicans voted in.
Although we DID vote in legalized cannibus last go-round so the universe does seem to self-correct from time to time.
risk of failures and crashes (Score:4, Insightful)
And let's not forget fraud...The black boxes are not trustworthy. I find it hard to believe that some of these crackpots are actually winning the vote. We need to go back to paper. It's easier to verify and very low maintenance.
Re:risk of failures and crashes (Score:5, Insightful)
Or do what Ohio did after the 2004 election disaster, go to scantron style ballots. Everyone has used them, they can easily be retallied by industry standard equipment or by hand and the error rate is low. As far as reliability, schools with almost zero budget manage to keep them working through much higher workloads then a few elections a year so the equipment is obviously robust enough and the likelyhood that it will become outdated is zero.
Re: (Score:3)
Yes, this. It's a solved problem. The fact that it hasn't been solved indicates to me that certain people don't want it solved.
Or should I just go back and meditate on Hanlon's Razor again?
Re: (Score:3)
As far as reliability, schools with almost zero budget manage to keep them working through much higher workloads then a few elections a year so the equipment is obviously robust enough and the likelyhood that it will become outdated is zero.
I think that one of the states I lived in actually rented the school's machines for the election - the ballots were the same as the scanning sheets the school used.
As if it matters (Score:3, Informative)
The elections are rigged, anyway. The preponderance of the masses are too busy, sick, or lazy (or all of the above) to vote, and those who do are told who to vote for by the mass media. Even if an unprecedentedly huge 5% of the population were actually informed on the issues and voted for a candidate who'd actually make things better (or die trying), it wouldn't make enough of a difference in the election to tip the scales.
We don't like to admit it because we think we're "freer" than other countries that run faux democracies like Russia and India, but in reality, we're no freer than they are, and our elections are just as rigged, if not moreso.
Re: (Score:2)
Even if an unprecedentedly huge 5% of the population were actually informed on the issues and voted for a candidate who'd actually make things better (or die trying), it wouldn't make enough of a difference in the election to tip the scales.
Is there evidence that informed voters (or more widely, an informed electorate) produces better outcomes? In other words, informed people can pick terrible politicians and vice versa. Is there any data to suggest that informed voters pick better candidates who perform better?
Re: (Score:2)
No informed voters vote for the one with the same letter after there name. They are informed in as such that they know what party they belong to.
Re: (Score:2)
My idea was to replace the voting machines with slot machines from Vegas. Given a choice between Hilary Clinton or Donald Trump . . . letting a slot machine decide doesn't look like a very bad idea.
Oh, and you have the added thrill of maybe winning a few quarters.
In Canada... (Score:3, Informative)
When we arrive to vote there are at least three volunteers there to manage everything. They first validate our voter registration card sent to us in the mail or government issued ID against a list of registered voters for that polling station. Next they cross us off the list and hand us a paper ballot and some other piece of paper with our name and other information on it.
We then go to a private booth which has pens and instructions that clearly show how to mark the ballot and how not to mark it. When finished we return to the desk of volunteers and clearly show them that we are placing only one ballot in the box. They control access to the slot. Finally we give them the other piece of paper that they gave us earlier and they pass it through a machine that looks like a shredder but it has digital counters on it. I guess it is counting the number of votes and might even be recording who voted. I'm not sure about the who part or if that information is shared across all polling stations to ensure you only vote once. Regardless, it is separate from the paper ballot. The machine looks like it could last decades because it's not a Windows computer with a spinning disk etc.
At the end of the night the three volunteers count the ballots and report the results. We have three major political parties in Canada and I wonder if the volunteers represent each of the parties to ensure no cheating. I'll ask at our next election in October.
Re:In Canada... (Score:4)
Re: (Score:2)
For people who have money, the US Healthcare system is one of the best in the world.
For people without money, it sucks.
Re: (Score:2)
Actually that's not really true. The correct statement would be.
1. for people with money, the US healthcare system is the best one in the world
2. for people with no money at all who live in a city with excellent public hospitals, the US healthcare system is one of the best in the world
3. for the working poor, and the middle class for whom their employer doesn't provide coverage, the US healthcare system sucks. ironically, it sucks for them even more after the "affordable healthcare act".
Re: (Score:2)
I'm in the states and where I live we do the exact same thing. It works wonderfully, and because you don't need any expensive voting machines there are no shortage of voting locations. It's never taken me more than 20 minutes to vote, and that includes the time spent walking to the polling place and back.
Only in some districts (Score:3)
Its a good match voters are aging out as well (Score:2)
https://upload.wikimedia.org/w... [wikimedia.org]
Anyway that's what I started voting on. Probably still works, harder to hack than something updating an MDB file. Had lasted at least 40-50 years when I used it.
Re: (Score:2)
Bad accessibility for the disabled, no paper trail and high susceptibility to manipulation (not harder to hack than updating an MDB file). Yeah, that's a good idea. As bad as they are, the crappy electronic voting machines were an upgrade over the mechanical lever machines.
Vote by Mail (Score:5, Interesting)
One of the interesting things I've noticed is when I raise the subject with friends, the ones who are opposed almost always grew up east of the Mississippi, and are terrified that large-scale fraud will occur. There's a PhD dissertation for a sociologist or political scientist in there somewhere.
Re: (Score:2)
One of the interesting things I've noticed is when I raise the subject with friends, the ones who are opposed almost always grew up east of the Mississippi, and are terrified that large-scale fraud will occur. There's a PhD dissertation for a sociologist or political scientist in there somewhere.
And what makes you think they are wrong?
You honestly trust the voting system as it stands? Really?
Re:Vote by Mail (Score:4, Informative)
One of the interesting things I've noticed is when I raise the subject with friends, the ones who are opposed almost always grew up east of the Mississippi, and are terrified that large-scale fraud will occur. There's a PhD dissertation for a sociologist or political scientist in there somewhere.
And what makes you think they are wrong?
You honestly trust the voting system as it stands? Really?
I do. Here in Oregon, the vote by mail system has reasonable checks and balances. You receive your ballot, which is a "fill in the bubble" optical scan form, in the mail. You mark your ballot and place it in a "secrecy envelope" and then inside a different "mailing envelope" that contains your voter ID. You sign the mailing envelope. You mail your ballot back, or hand deliver it to a near by drop off station. Upon receipt, one election official hand verifies your signature against the one on file when you registered to vote and adds you to the list of people that have voted. If a signature doesn't match or there is a duplicate vote, someone investigates and contacts the voter. Next the inner "secrecy envelope" is placed in a box of votes to be counted. A different set of election officials opens the secrecy envelopes and feeds the ballots into the optical scanning machine. Members of the public are welcome to personally observe both processes. If a recount is necessary the forms can be re-scanned or manually counted.
Don't worry. (Score:2)
I know why (Score:5, Informative)
'Past their prime' or 'Upgrading for no reason'? (Score:3)
Voting really hasn't changed in thousands of years, so I'm not really sure why the voting machines can be 'past their prime'.
What exactly do you upgrade on a voting machine? Its electronic or its not. If its electronic, you're already fucking stupid so I'm going to ignore you. If its not electronic, then just put a new sticker on the faceplate and move on because functionally theres no reason what so ever to upgrade, use it until it breaks, THEN upgrade.
If its electronic, and you need to update it, then you do, but you update it with another company that can make voting machines that don't suck ass instead of continuing to pay the company that sold you broken machines and can't be bothered to write software properly. You don't need a new voting machine because theres a new version of windows, you don't need a new version of windows, you don't need a new 'theme' for your voting machine.
There are pretty much zero reasons to upgrade a voting machine that isn't broken.
You don't have to upgrade just because there is a new version, and its really fucking stupid to do so if you do. When a machine is performing properly, use it until it doesn't.
If you have to 'upgrade' to get a functioning machine because the company refuses to fix its existing one, you just ban that company from doing any government business and you ban every single person above middle management from ever doing any business with the government or any business they work for from doing any business with the government. You make it impossible for those greedy manipulative pricks to ever be involved with tax payer money again. If that means they can't find a job and starve to death ... well, its good to throw some chlorine in the gene pool regularly, maybe they type of person will become a little less common.
Re:'Past their prime' or 'Upgrading for no reason' (Score:4, Insightful)
Actually, voting has changed. It used to be done by tokens placed into urns or people raising their hands in a town square. Then by marks made on paper.
Only fairly recently has it started being done by "machine" (punch cards, levers, or digital computers), and it's unclear why a "machine" is needed: it's expensive, difficult to audit, and easy to manipulate.
pen and paper (Score:4, Insightful)
I think we should go back to pen-and-paper voting, with ballot boxes and manual counting. No practical purpose is served by introducing technology into the process of voting.
Hashed anonymous publicly verifiable votes now (Score:2)
Each voter can then go to a publicly accessible website and enter where and when he voted and what passw
Scantron sheets (Score:5, Insightful)
My voting precincts use scantron sheets for all elections. Simple, anonymous, secure. I mark my ballot, walk to the scantron machine and enter my ballot. If there's a problem with my ballot there's an error message. If the sheet is destroyed by the scanner I can fill out another sheet.
Why is this so hard for everyone else? I don't want online voting. It complicates a very easy task.
Mail in Ballots (Score:2)
Re: (Score:2)
Mail-in ballots have a huge downside: they enable vote buying and coercion. If you don't show me your ballot, filled out the way I told you, and then give it to me to mail for you, I'll break your kneecaps. If you do it the right way, I'll give you $50. My (perhaps cynical) belief is that the only reason this hasn't proven to be a problem is that those who want to manipulate election results have easier/cheaper options available.
Re: (Score:2)
Ten years?! (Score:2)
(That's my first interrobang of the day.)
So, a system, vital not only to a process but to a nation's entire constitution and fundamental to its very sense of right and wrong, and the basis for its existence and the reason it's at war with other nations, is ten years old, and you want to replace it?
Here are the HUGE problems.
First, it's used, what, once every 4 years? So you want to replace the system with something new basically every third time. So the first is the test to see if it works, and the second
TOLD YOU ALL SO (Score:2)
And of course, those of us who prefer humans make basic marks on physical media are right about all of this and talked about the expense and untrustworthy nature of voting machines.
Here in Oregon, we vote by mail, and are joined by WA and CO now, with some other pockets here and there in various states. It's awesome, works, can be trusted, is difficult to fraud on a scale that would impact anything, and turnout is generally higher than the poll methods in use most everywhere else today.
We can actually manu
Make the TV Media pay for it (Score:2)
the ONLY reason we have to have "electronic" voting AT ALL, is because the TV news media wants the results before voting has even ended.
Paper ballots require that they be actually COUNTED. But with electronic systems, you can see where the voting is headed before the polls have even closed.
Which is great for TV media, because they get to turn the entire thing into a horse race, and keep you on the edge of your seat, eating popcorn, watching their holograms and pie charts, and of course their commercials, so
Re: (Score:2)
Oh please.... (Score:2)
...if voting machines did anything, they'd be illegal.
Between the pre-loaded Diebold machines and the amazing "counting errors" they exhibit, you might as well be playing one of those carnival games where it's stacked a billion to one against you.
What's the problem? (Score:2)
Awkward Colloquialisms are 'Out' Too (Score:2)
EOM
Re: (Score:3, Insightful)
I don't understand why you think we can have an anonymous online vote. Online banking is 100% about de-anonymizing the person doing the transaction. Show me a formally demonstrated system for an auditable, anonymous vote and then let's entertain the notion.
Re:Mobile banking? (Score:5, Insightful)
Re: (Score:3)
Re: Mobile banking? (Score:4, Insightful)
they do not link, you insensitive clod! (Score:3)
there is no link to ballot 376 run through the scanner and your signature in the polling record book. the monitors are not allowed to bring in invisible ink or anything.
your having voted, period, no other information becomes public information and ends up on poll records for all political parties and independents that are willing to pay the fee and put the .csv file into a spreadsheet. nobody knows how you voted unless you tell people.
that's how it works in Minnesota, and anybody who does it differently b
Re: (Score:2)
Re: (Score:2)
Online voting would be subject to the same attacks as any online system.
Do you really need a list of just the *recent* breaches to show why voting online is insecure for the foreseeable future?
Re: (Score:2, Insightful)
If it's somehow racist to suggest folks show up at the polls with a photo ID and given the partisan arguments that follow such statements, It's pretty clear to me why "online" voting is not likely to happen any time soon.
Can you imagine the rancor that would ensue over how to register people to vote online? How that disenfranchised voters who didn't have or couldn't afford an internet connection or where unable to follow even the simplest of instructions about how to vote? Lord help us trying to sort all
Re:Mobile banking? (Score:4, Insightful)
What's racist is the intentions of those who demand the photo ID, as their own admissions show that they know that the possession of such ID is unbalanced, and they refuse to address the problem as evidenced by their refusal to make the provision of that ID a state mandate.
That's all they have to do. Make it a burden on the state, and they can satisfy everyone. But no, we get pretend measures like alleged "free" ID that the citizen still needs to document, and they may even need to travel far outside of their area to get one.
But hey, feel free to put the ID measure online, I won't mind being able to send the state a request for ID and an agent show up and find out what it will take to satisfy them.
Home delivery is fine.
Re: (Score:2)
You do realize that many Democrat states require photo ID as well? In Texas, they passed this law, and even handed out free IDs to all who had the proper documentation, but they are racist for requiring IDs (like almost every other state).
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/... [wikipedia.org]
But keep beating that racism drum against the party that has a black man as polling in second place.
Re: (Score:3)
Of the 17 states which do require photo ID, 59% of them (10 states; Alabama, Georgia, Idaho, Indiana, Kansas, Lousiana, Mississippi, South Dakota, Tennessee,Texas) voted Republican in the last election and 41% of them (seven states; Hawaii, Florida, Michigan, New Hampshire, Rhode Island, Virginia, Wisconsin) voted Democrat.
Of the 24 states that voted Republican in the la
Re: (Score:3)
In other words, this is clearly and primarily a Republican thing. If you are in a Republican-leaning state, you are much more likely to need photo ID.
That is exactly the opposite of what your stats say, and what I was saying. I was pointing out that it is not solely a Republican thing, and you just confirmed exactly what I said.
Also, I DID NOT state photo IDs, that was your invention. Only 17 states require no identification, and even that is changing.
There is no way to determine without requiring photo IDs the scale of voter fraud. Every article I have read has shown that fraud is pretty rapant, and photo IDs prevent people from voting who aren't eli
Re: (Score:2)
That proper documentation is handed out free with every birth, you bigot.
Prices for duplicates vary by state, my state runs through this service:
https://www.vitalchek.com/birt... [vitalchek.com]
What is the cost of not having ID in today's society?
Re: (Score:2)
Are you sour over something? You make it out that the Republicans are the only gerrymanderers, but you are talking about Democrat controlled states...where the Democrats drew the borders (as the party in power draws the borders).
You are a very odd hyper partisan person, open your eyes, both parties are the same, and neither gives a damn about poor people. The Democrats don't give a damn about your blind support. You aren't hurting the Republicans by your blind hatred. Just give it up, you are only causi
Re: (Score:3)
For some evidence of the Gerrymandering, take a look at this page:
http://pjmedia.com/zombie/2010... [pjmedia.com]
I went through that list, and was amazed at how bad Florida is...a state that voted for Obama. But I totaled up all the states based on which way they went in 2012, though I could have just as easily done 2014, I think a presidential election makes the most sense. I came up with 25 D, and 8 R.
The law I was trying to come up with is mentioned in the article, it is the voters rights act, it is mentioned under
Re: (Score:3)
Florida is a perfect example of Republican gerrymandering, they vote almost exactly 50/50 in national elections but 2/3rds (actually 17/27) of their representatives are Republican and it's similar at the state level (80/120 state house seats held by republicans). It's pretty obvious from those numbers that folks who vote in national elections aren't being equally represented in either the state or national houses of representatives.
Re: (Score:2)
That's all they have to do. Make it a burden on the state, and they can satisfy everyone. But no, we get pretend measures like alleged "free" ID that the citizen still needs to document, and they may even need to travel far outside of their area to get one.
You mean the ID that most countries require to vote? ID is required in Mexico, India, and China in order to vote. Massive poverty and they still have their IDs.
Requiring ID isn't actually 'racist' in their view. You could get away with classist. Republicans don't hate people of color. If anything, they hate poor people equally. That it affects blacks and hispanics unequally is happenstance for most of them.
Oh, let's filter, but support. (Score:2)
I would rather add the additional support and funding necessary to provide photo ID's necessary- including sending advanced teams necessary to help secure birth certificates and ancillary documentation- than allow continued voting without ID.
In the presence of such additional support, would you still contend that it's racist to require photo ID? And on what basis would you make that claim?
"These people are too incompetent to secure a photo ID despite being offered all the documentation & processing assi
Re: (Score:3, Insightful)
You need an ID to get a job, cash a check, buy beer and ciggs, use a credit card, drive, etc. You need an ID for life nowadays, and passing a voter ID law that includes free IDs for all who can prove who they are (a requirement to register to vote!) is somehow racist?
Grow up.
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/... [wikipedia.org]
Re: (Score:2)
Re:Mobile banking? (Score:4, Informative)
Except that non citizens are prevented by the law from voting. Illegals cannot legally vote, no racism there, they choose not to become citizens.
Re: (Score:3)
they choose not to become citizens
HAHAHAHAHA. One does not choose to become a citizen. You pretty much have to have family in the US or have a company sponsor you, and then the backlog can take decades.
Re: (Score:2)
If it's somehow racist to suggest folks show up at the polls with a photo ID
if you look at the statistics for who has a photo ID and who doesn't have a photo ID, it SURE IS racist to suggest using its absence as a filter to remove voters.
See what I mean? Partisan rhetoric will make it impossible to find agreement on online voting rules. We cannot even agree on Voter ID rules.
Re: (Score:3)
Because it's hard and expensive. Anonymous paper / scanner systems have been around ... since at least 2006 or so, and shown to work.
Really, the entire premise of this article is foolish. Just because the tech hasn't been replaced in 7 years doesn't mean it's going to fall apart. In backwards Alaska (according to this, and many other maps), we have mark / sense systems. Like I was using in elementary school for standardized tests. Tech is simple, robust, paid for. Likely not perfect, but certainly wor
Re: (Score:2)
The mechanical systems used by some states up till mid 2000's ran for 50 years with minimal errors. Add a small upgrade of a camera on the counters and transmit the information far more securely than modern digital systems.
Re: (Score:2)
We have reliable and effective ways to cast our votes, whats the big rush to switch to e-voting that we are willing to risk using such flawed devices. I mean has anyone put out an e-voting machine that hasn't had major issues? And my god the ones used had to
Re: (Score:2)
Re: (Score:3, Insightful)
Re:Mobile banking? (Score:4, Insightful)
Here are some differences between ballot counting and banking transactions:
1. Votes are supposed to be anonymous so voters can not normally confirm their transactions are posted accurately. There are various complex schemes to provide voter verification but none of them IMHO are especially simple or transparent. Banking transactions are traceable and verifiable.
2. Voters are not supposed to provide proof of how they voted presumably as a deterrence to voter buying.
3. Votes are not transferable among individuals. Mail ballots typically require signatures which is while forgeable are a long accepted legal authentication method. Banking transactions typically use transferable passwords.
4. Erroneous or fraudulent banking transactions can be reversed or corrected relatively easily with the costs born by the banks as business overhead. Major irregularities in elections are typically settled by court cases where the outcome may bear little relationship to the actual votes.
Re: (Score:2)
They are very different problems one of which is much simpler than the other.
Re: (Score:2)
The need of a bank and voting are two different security models.
Between you and the bank, the bank is one "party" and all transactions going to them can be a black box. So, as far as the user is concerned, proper TLS/SSL is needed, as well as website security. Everything else is the bank's problem.
Voting is a different thing altogether. You have the party that made the machines, you have the county, you have the volunteers deploying the voting machines, and you have the voting public. Unlike a bank wher
Re: (Score:2)
If a voting system cannot last more then 20 years... it was defective to begin with.
pencils last for 20 years?
Re: (Score:2)
If they are only used for one day every 2 years? Yeah I think a pencil can survive 10 days of usage.
Re: (Score:2)
Other countries don't have party-political candidates for school crossing attendants and second assistant dog catchers and hence have nice simple ballots where you have to write one X in one of half-a-dozen boxes or - at worst (where they use the alternatively-unfair-vote system) - write numbers in a few of them.
In that case, bits of paper with Xs on and human counters are a nice, scalable solution given that its only needed every couple of years.
Oh and other countries, if they really don't like the resu
Re: (Score:2)
It's 2015, but electronic voting is a solution in search of a problem.
You can't really make an electronic system that protects secrecy, while also preventing large scale fraud, and most importantly, being auditable by citizens, not security experts, and right there on election day.
Paper vote has different versions, but most of them comply with that. There are some cases where paper ballots mislead, things like that, but all those cases can be improved by better, possible, citizens and party auditing.
Electro
Re: (Score:2)
Re: (Score:2)
We do this here in Washington (howdy, neighbor!) but you have to opt-in to it. I opted-in about 25 years ago and I think vote-by-mail should be the default in every state.
Same as you, I get the ballot and the voter guide and then do my research. Although for presidential candidates my mind is usually made up long before the election.
Re: (Score:2)