E-Voting FUBAR

[Turtle]

As we near the Fall elections in the US, the unreliability, high costs, and vulnerability of electronic voting machines is developing into a serious issue.

Here's a new report from Princeton on just one such system:

http://itpolicy.princeton.edu/voting/ts-paper.pdf

 

What do you think about using this technology? FUBAR, or not FUBAR; that is the question.:cup:

[Mercedes Benzene]

Not entirely FUBAR. I think that the technology is good in theory. We just need to get all the bugs worked out. Using such electronic voting systems could seriously improve the efficiency of the voting process... but as I said, things need to be fixed.

 

FUBAR for this year = yes.

FUBAR for the future = probably not. <<< if we work to improve.

[Racoon]

I agree with Turtle.

There needs to be a paper trail in these sorts of ordeals..

 

Sorry MB, you're still a bit naive when it comes to politics and corruption and voting.. Lucky You; but you'll learn quickly enough eventually.

 

If they can rig it on paper, it can definitely happen electronically...:cup:

 

Nice link Turtle-san

[Mercedes Benzene]

Sorry MB, you're still a bit naive when it comes to politics and corruption and voting.. Lucky You; but you'll learn quickly enough eventually.

 

Mhmm.

I read the newspaper every day, and I live < 20 miles from the white house.

I took AP Government, and AP law. Got A's in the classes and 5s on the AP exams.

Yup. Naive I am.

 

More like politically gifted.

You don't have to be any older than me to understand corruption and the inner-workings of politics. :cup:

[Racoon]

Mhmm.

I read the newspaper every day, and I live < 20 miles from the white house.

I took AP Government, and AP law. Got A's in the classes and 5s on the AP exams.

Yup. Naive I am.

 

More like politically gifted.

You don't have to be any older than me to understand corruption and the inner-workings of politics. :cup:

 

You'll be cynical sooner than later then :)

and realize newspapers spoon feed the masses what "they" want to tell you.

It wasn't meant as an offense.

 

E-Voting has too much potential for corruption/tampering.

There needs to be a paper trail. Paper, Rock, Scissors reality here.

 

Are you even legal voting age?

[pgrmdave]

Racoon - just because somebody is young, or not jaded, does not mean that they are naive. In this case, I do agree that a paper trail is needed - I want my vote to have something tangible behind it, something that I can touch and hold. But that doesn't mean that those who disagree are naive, just that they have more faith in the machines/electronics/computers/human nature.

[Tormod]

I live < 20 miles from the white house.

 

:lol:

 

I live less than 10 miles from the Norwegian Parliament *and* the Norwegian Government (hell, I even work for the State).

 

Somehow I think distance is slightly irrelevant here.

[Boerseun]

E-Voting has too much potential for corruption/tampering.

There needs to be a paper trail.

Anything can be tampered with. And, with a secret ballot, I don't see how a paper trail will help you. Okay, so you'll have a few piles of ballots to count after the fact, if there's any doubt about the first count. And you can re-count them fifty times, and you'll get fifty different totals. That's no solution.

 

You should keep in mind, at one time a pencil and a scrap of paper was state-of-the-art, and people probably mistrusted that as well.

 

E-voting? I'm all for it. And backups of all the involved systems will give you a pretty accurate 'paper trail' if there are any doubts as to the outcome.

 

Politicians are normally too stupid to be efficient hackers.

[hallenrm]

Politicians are normally too stupid to be efficient hackers.

 

But most often they have sufficient money to hire smarter people, who unfortunately are too often too willing to sell their brains!! :lol:

[Boerseun]

But most often they have sufficient money to hire smarter people, who unfortunately are too often too willing to sell their brains!! :lol:

True enough, but what's easier;

 

Hiring an IT-boffin at one hell of a price to hack into an encrypted system in order to change the outcome, or

 

Giving a couple of guys a few bucks to make a few boxes filled with ballot papers 'dissappear'?

 

The outcome is the same, but I think short-circuiting the voting process through cheating as explained above, is actually easier with the current paper-based system.

 

No system is perfect, surely, but we shouldn't be shooting down any new improvisation because of its possible pitfalls without considering the shortcomings of the existing one.

[Turtle]

Just wondering if anyone has bothered to read at least the Abstract of the Princeton paper I cited? They do point out specific weaknesses after all.

http://itpolicy.princeton.edu/voting/ts-paper.pdf

 

In my state, they allow permanent absentee type registration which allows us to vote from home, whether out of necessity by reason of disability or simply choice as convenience. What will happen to all the people who can't get to a polling place and have no computer? Oh yeah...screw 'em like before we set this up.:lol: At least with paper ballots there is a lot of heavy lifting and travel involved to fix an election, unlike the few keystrokes for the same effect with E-voting.

 

Post Script I have added a poll to this thread. Please vote now....err....electronically.:eek:

[sanctus]

Turtle, i looked quickly in your cited paper and my question is if one of this malicious codes would be intalled couldn't see it if they check the machine afterwards? So in the case of a hacked voting machine all who had voted on that machine should just vote again...

[Turtle]

Turtle, i looked quickly in your cited paper and my question is if one of this malicious codes would be intalled couldn't see it if they check the machine afterwards? So in the case of a hacked voting machine all who had voted on that machine should just vote again...

 

Yes, I suppose so. But the problem is that the companies that make the machines are the ones who know how to program them and the districts getting the machines don't train their people to do that, rather they pay the company. This makes security risky as well as raises the cost of holding an election as the machines have to be programmed anew for each election.

 

Our local polling places are staffed by citizen volunteers who do know how to handle papers and spot irregularities. This level of security will disappear with E-voting.:lol:

[Boerseun]

Why voting machines?

 

Why not vote over the internet, using your social security number?

 

We send millions of bucks over the internet, with encrypted certificates being our only safeguard against fraud. It's not perfect, but hey, we actually do it.

 

Why not employ the same thing, but over the 'net? And if you don't have a computer, there are internet cafe's and libraries all over the place.

 

If we do it like this, then voter apathy will probably drop as well, and people will get more involved in running the country - that they're supposed to be doing in any case, but standing in a long queue is simply too much of a schlepp. Which means a relatively small percentage of the electorate votes, which means the government doesn't ever really have a clean and clear mandate to govern.

 

Come on - we trust the internet with our hard-earned bucks, why not with elections? Take the localised machines out of the equation. Have a bunch of independent auditing firms continuously audit the system to see if there's any foul play. And using certificates, a person can only vote once.

 

This can't be too hard, surely?

[Turtle]

Why voting machines?

 

Why not vote over the internet, using your social security number?

 

We send millions of bucks over the internet, with encrypted certificates being our only safeguard against fraud. It's not perfect, but hey, we actually do it.

 

Why not employ the same thing, but over the 'net? And if you don't have a computer, there are internet cafe's and libraries all over the place.

 

If we do it like this, then voter apathy will probably drop as well, and people will get more involved in running the country - that they're supposed to be doing in any case, but standing in a long queue is simply too much of a schlepp. This can't be too hard, surely?

 

For one thing, in the US only about 2/3 of the population own a computer.

http://www.tinkergraphics.com/internetreport1.htm

For another, it is often the poor, aged, and disabled who lack computers.

The vote by mail in my state has actually increased election participation.

Id theft and internet fraud are rampant over here.

If it aint broke, don't fix it.:lol:

[sanctus]

Well why not the possibility of mail voting and internet voting at the same time?

[Turtle]

Well why not the possibility of mail voting and internet voting at the same time?

 

Why go to the extra expense and risk when the current system works? With the paper ballots you can do a recount (as is required in close elections here), but if the machine software is hacked using e-voting there is absolutely no recourse. :naughty: The only people who stand to benefit by E-voting are the people making & selling the machines. Just say NO!:evil: