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from the confusing-cost-with-effectiveness dept.
Picked via Bruce Schneier's Cryptogram, the story of a massive electronic vote miscount, luckily paper ballots were available
Vote totals in a Northampton County judge's race showed one candidate, Abe Kassis, a Democrat, had just 164 votes out of 55,000 ballots across more than 100 precincts. Some machines reported zero votes for him. In a county with the ability to vote for a straight-party ticket, one candidate's zero votes was a near statistical impossibility. Something had gone quite wrong.
The worse news:
The machines that broke in Northampton County are called the ExpressVoteXL and are made by Election Systems & Software, a major manufacturer of election machines used across the country. The ExpressVoteXL is among their newest and most high-end machines, a luxury "one-stop" voting system that combines a 32-inch touch screen and a paper ballot printer.
The good news was that the chairwoman of the county Republicans realized the numbers made no sense and promptly initiated an investigation. When officials counted the paper backup ballots generated by the same machines, they realized Kassis had narrowly won.
How many trees still need to die until humans learn how to do voting properly?
Note: the original story ran on nytimes, but I respect their choice to not let me read their stories with 'Do not track' activated
(Score: 2, Informative) by Anonymous Coward on Monday December 16 2019, @09:53PM (5 children)
The company that had promised to give... Bush? the election a decade or so ago.
The surprising part here is there is still an apparently honest Republican out there, unless they realized this was such a sham win that it would result in bloodshed or a larger investigation they would rather avoid... Pardon my cynicism, but neither party has been showing their best colors in the recent past.
(Score: 4, Insightful) by Rosco P. Coltrane on Monday December 16 2019, @10:22PM (3 children)
Don't count on it. Most likely, the guy had no choice but to do the right thing, because had he done nothing, he'd have been exposed trying to cheat by ignoring a problem he couldn't possibly ignore.
Pardon my cynicism, but when in the history of politics have you seen any party or party member show their best colors?
Rich Hall once said something like this: "Always remember that a candidate to an election is someone who wakes up one morning, looks at himself in the mirror and says 'I know what the people needs, and that's me.'" He jested, but this joke is actually a profound insight on the mindset of the men who pretend to represent us, and why they can hardly be counted upon to be trustworthy or behave properly.
(Score: 4, Touché) by krishnoid on Tuesday December 17 2019, @01:00AM
Unless that person says, "Geez, I can do a better job than *these* guys."
(Score: 2) by captain normal on Tuesday December 17 2019, @04:43AM
Thank for reminding me that I shouldn't toss my hat in the ring for a local office, even though some people have have been pushing me me to step up.
Everyone is entitled to his own opinion, but not to his own facts"- --Daniel Patrick Moynihan--
(Score: 3, Interesting) by dry on Tuesday December 17 2019, @08:55PM
America does seem to have a chronic problem with election shenanigans. Unluckily the Republicans have been teaching their methods to other countries right wing parties.
(Score: 5, Informative) by c0lo on Monday December 16 2019, @10:44PM
Almost correct. [wikipedia.org]
This is to show that the competition is not who delivers proper e-voting machines, but only who takes the money.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=aoFiw2jMy-0 https://soylentnews.org/~MichaelDavidCrawford
(Score: 5, Insightful) by Freeman on Monday December 16 2019, @09:56PM (8 children)
I'd highly recommend paper votes, due to the problems with electronic voting. Paper ballot fraud is much harder to accomplish than electronic voting machine fraud. Worse yet, you could get someone voted in, due to a bug in the voting machine software. Who in their right mind would trust something as serious as the governance of a country to paper ballots? Perhaps, the same people who might think it would be good to have ICBMs part of the Internet of Things.
https://xkcd.com/2030/ [xkcd.com]
Joshua 1:9 "Be strong and of a good courage; be not afraid, neither be thou dismayed: for the Lord thy God is with thee"
(Score: 5, Insightful) by Anonymous Coward on Monday December 16 2019, @10:25PM (1 child)
I like the analogy of, "you enter the polling booth, rather than a paper and pen, there is simply a person in there, who asks you your voting preferences and promises to add them to the appropriate tallies."
I don't see how an e-voting system is different from that person... other than that a person is more likely to forget your face than the computer.
(Score: 1, Informative) by Anonymous Coward on Tuesday December 17 2019, @04:47AM
Well, it costs a fair bit more to compromise humans and then not have any of the humans tell anyone else. Much cheaper and easier to use a computer.
(Score: 5, Insightful) by c0lo on Monday December 16 2019, @10:30PM (4 children)
Proper voting = ballot printed on recycled paper.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=aoFiw2jMy-0 https://soylentnews.org/~MichaelDavidCrawford
(Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Tuesday December 17 2019, @05:55AM (3 children)
(Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Tuesday December 17 2019, @06:18AM (2 children)
Wasteful.
I mean, look, you need to pay the people to cut the trees, make pulp and then paper - those are trickle-down costs that can be avoided!
Better:
- let the trees in place - mature trees are better of sequestering carbon anyway [mongabay.com] - and recycle the paper
- redirect the money saved on personnel cost into fiscal paradises
- those fuckers waiting to be trickled-down? They must be stupid or something if they didn't make enough money, they deserve to suffer.
MAGA!!!!
(Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Tuesday December 17 2019, @05:29PM (1 child)
I can give you random BS that says different: https://psmag.com/environment/young-trees-suck-up-more-carbon-than-old-ones [psmag.com]
And even your BS says:
There seem to be more holes in the "old is better" arguments. For example:
Which is a disingenuous/dishonest argument since if you don't burn that building down but landfill the wood instead, much of the carbon is sequestered too.
The opponents to "chop them down and regrow stores more CO2" need to calculate how much it CO2 is released converting that wood to various wood products (including transportation) and see whether it really is high enough to negate or even go past the difference in CO2 absorption of a young forest vs an old one.
(Score: 2) by c0lo on Tuesday December 17 2019, @09:07PM
Which will be bullshit if you don't consider the vegetation in the under-storey of the forest; in the Amazons, that one is massive and rely on the old trees to develop. Not all forests are Canadian/Siberia tundra.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=aoFiw2jMy-0 https://soylentnews.org/~MichaelDavidCrawford
(Score: 2) by Freeman on Tuesday December 17 2019, @04:01PM
After re-reading my post, that Who in their right mind question. Should have been with regards to electronic ballots. As I was saying, it's nuts to trust the governance of a country to something as easily modified as electronic voting machines.
Joshua 1:9 "Be strong and of a good courage; be not afraid, neither be thou dismayed: for the Lord thy God is with thee"
(Score: 4, Funny) by krishnoid on Monday December 16 2019, @09:57PM (11 children)
*I* almost had a heart attack when I heard this part.
(Score: 3, Insightful) by Anonymous Coward on Monday December 16 2019, @10:16PM
Well, there's at least one *honest* Republican in Pennsylvania, perhaps the only one in the US.
Maybe it'll start a trend. I won't hold my breath.
(Score: 5, Insightful) by Thexalon on Monday December 16 2019, @10:21PM
It's important to them that the elections don't appear to be a sham, even if they are shams. That's the difference between being able to dismiss anyone questioning the election results as a conspiracy nutter, and the evidence being so clear that it's impossible to do that and thus the legitimacy of the government is called into question.
That's why the goal of election riggers in non-packed districts is to have the victory for $MY_TEAM to be over the threshhold for triggering hand recounts and other close scrutiny, but no more than about a 5-10% margin of victory so it's believable. The packed districts are effectively conceded to $THEIR_TEAM, which means they can operate as a controlled opposition in legislatures and such even as they're barred from making any kind of actual decisions.
The only thing that stops a bad guy with a compiler is a good guy with a compiler.
(Score: 2) by Mykl on Monday December 16 2019, @10:30PM
In Dungeons & Dragons, the Drow are a Chaotic Evil race of Dark Elves. The race, their religion (the Lolth, the Demon Queen of Spiders) and everything about them is evil. Yet one of the most famous heroes of the Forgotten Realms is a Dark Elf named Drizzt Do'Urden - an outcast who has turned his back on the evil nature of his race and is trying to make his way in a world that will automatically assume the worst of him because of his lineage.
May I suggest that the Republican County Chairwoman, Lee Snover, be hereby known as Lee "Drizzt" Snover?
(Score: 4, Informative) by progo on Monday December 16 2019, @10:37PM
Elections only get audited when 1) there IS a paper output and 2) someone NOTICES that the result is statistically impossible.
Do you really think that no one with an opportunity and motive to skew election results isn't doing it? It's probably happening everywhere, not necessarily in a grand conspiracy with central leaders.
(Score: 3, Funny) by c0lo on Monday December 16 2019, @10:46PM
Apologies for that.
I'll do my best to give you the real thing next time (large grin)
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=aoFiw2jMy-0 https://soylentnews.org/~MichaelDavidCrawford
(Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Tuesday December 17 2019, @04:51AM (3 children)
Just imagine if next fall that the orange alien got 90% of the vote like Putin. Maybe the pitchforks and guns would come out.
(Score: 1) by fustakrakich on Tuesday December 17 2019, @08:13AM (2 children)
Just imagine if next fall that the orange alien got 90% of the vote like Putin.
Trump/Clinton got 94.3% of the vote, and nobody says a thing
La politica e i criminali sono la stessa cosa..
(Score: 2) by Pslytely Psycho on Tuesday December 17 2019, @12:25PM (1 child)
Now that would truly be the ticket from hell itself....
Seeing this caused me to call my shrink for an emergency appointment.
My god man, are you trying to give us nightmares?!?!?!
Alex Jones lawyer inspires new TV series: CSI Moron Division.
(Score: 1) by fustakrakich on Tuesday December 17 2019, @04:01PM
On the radio they play the battling Bickersons. In real life they are swingers.
La politica e i criminali sono la stessa cosa..
(Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Tuesday December 17 2019, @10:19AM (1 child)
Had it been the other way around, nothing would have been said or done.
(Score: 2) by c0lo on Tuesday December 17 2019, @09:12PM
Why so hopeless and final, your heath insurance doesn't cover ambulance?
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=aoFiw2jMy-0 https://soylentnews.org/~MichaelDavidCrawford
(Score: 4, Insightful) by DeathMonkey on Monday December 16 2019, @10:30PM (4 children)
I'm sure it's just a coincidence that it's ALWAYS the Dem getting under-counted.
(Score: 0, Flamebait) by Captival on Tuesday December 17 2019, @12:01AM (2 children)
Just like it's a total coincidence that Iran, Russia, Qatar, China, and every other evil oppressive country loves giving money to charity, but only specifically the Clinton Foundation.
(Score: -1, Flamebait) by Anonymous Coward on Tuesday December 17 2019, @01:14AM
And to the NRA. Funny how triggered you are over a politician that did not win and no one advocates for around here.
Old man yelling at the clouds maybe?
(Score: 2) by krishnoid on Tuesday December 17 2019, @01:18AM
Just like it's a coincidence that he always has to deny it by saying, "I did *not* have sex with that country."
(Score: 1) by fustakrakich on Tuesday December 17 2019, @04:24AM
Bleh, democrat/republican, brothers in arms, the count between them is meaningless. It's always 95%. The only people being screwed are those that vote independent. There is where you find serious under counting and no way to prove it because there is insufficient demand for paper. And the paper ballots need to be counted always, with or without a contention.
La politica e i criminali sono la stessa cosa..
(Score: 0, Troll) by Anonymous Coward on Monday December 16 2019, @10:36PM (7 children)
There is the obvious comment about the flaws of electronic voting, which we all know. However, the thing which caught my eye was:
This actually made me feel good, like some members of the Republican party actually have integrity. In an era of, "I think Ukraine should investigate Biden, I think China should investigate Biden... but this isn't a quid pro quo, and even if it was it's okay," some members of the former "party of morals" actually do do the right thing.
(Score: 2, Informative) by c0lo on Monday December 16 2019, @10:52PM
FTFY. Try not to make the same mistake next time.
Oh sorry, I don't mean the typo; just don't be fooled twice by the same tricks (large grin)
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=aoFiw2jMy-0 https://soylentnews.org/~MichaelDavidCrawford
(Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Tuesday December 17 2019, @12:03AM (4 children)
As all good Libtards know, getting foreigners to investigate your corrupt political enemies is only acceptable when WE do it, like with the Steele Dossier. Oh, and then we have to lie about it and cover up evidence in 17 egregious situations, but it's all okay because our MSM propaganda squad will call it "total vindication" anyways.
(Score: 5, Insightful) by Anonymous Coward on Tuesday December 17 2019, @01:15AM (2 children)
Just so I have this straight. You are saying that the secretive activities of a private American company [wikipedia.org] hired (initially by one of Trump's Republican primary opponents) to do opposition research, and paid with campaign funds to do so, is *exactly* the same thing as a sitting public official using the power of his *public* office to pressure a *foreign government* to *publicly announce* investigations into his political opponent.
Is that correct?
To simplify, in case you aren't clear, your claim is that:
American Private citizens (on both sides of the aisle), using private funds to pay private, American, entities to do opposition research is *exactly* the same as a sitting government official using the powers of his office (and the public purse) to induce a foreign government to smear a political opponent with an *announcement* (the evidence is clear about this, the announcement was the important thing, not any investigation) that it was investigating political opponents.
Do I have that about right?
That you don't see the difference (regardless as to whether or not you think "opposition research" is appropriate) says more about you than anything else.
I feel pity for you.
(Score: 2) by shortscreen on Tuesday December 17 2019, @05:33AM (1 child)
The situations are nothing at all alike, because whether someone in Ukraine decides to investigate something that happened in Ukraine is their own goddamn business and they don't need permission from the DNC.
Pressuring foreign governments is SOP here. Hate to break it to you.
Christopher Steele is not an American. And he claimed his sources were Russian (not American).
What smear? Dems and their MSM friends say that Biden didn't do anything (hah!). So what's he got to worry about? Are politically-motivated investigations only OK if they are DNC approved? Or should politicians just never be investigated at all, because it might "influence an election"?
Actually it seems to be even simpler than that. The 2016 email leaks and the hypothetical Burisma investigation are both denounced as "election interference" so the criteria must be that anything that makes Dems look bad is "interference."
(Score: 4, Informative) by Anonymous Coward on Tuesday December 17 2019, @03:34PM
Pressuring foreign governments to do private political bidding by exercising the power of the Presidency is not SOP anywhere. Hate to break that to you. (Kinda the big difference between what Biden did in Ukraine and what Trumpiani was trying for. One was statecraft. The other was partisan politics.)
And you're childishly naive if you think that a lie from a foreign government about a candidate (Biden) would carry no weight. In fact, doesn't even have to be a lie... can just be an "investigation" about something that has been objectively proven to be debunked by anyone not drinking the Republican Kool-Aid which can cause damage.
Now... if Ukraine just came out of the blue, no Giuliani or Trump involved, and said, "Yeah, we're reopening the investigation into the dead horse..." Perfectly legal. If Trump had been smart enough to keep his big nose out of it and not use official communications to pressure the Ukrainian government to take calls and meetings with private individuals (Giuliani, etc.) fused with government officials (Barr, Sondland) there would likely be no issue. Especially so if Trump were smart enough to not fuck with the Congressional mandated Ukrainian aid in a way Congress knew nothing about, whether coincidental or intentional. If Trump were smart enough to not conflate his political activities with his duties as President, no trouble. But the reality is that Trump isn't that smart. King Trump thinks anything he does is legal, and doesn't stop to think how it might look to mention needing favors in context of whether or not Ukraine can purchase weaponry they need to defend from Russia.
TL/DR: Trump's not smart enough to be President.
Oh, and if Steele were actually employed by MI6... yeah, same problem. But he wasn't.
(Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Tuesday December 17 2019, @01:28AM
Please restrict such banter to the #schiflords IRC channel
(Score: 2) by Username on Tuesday December 17 2019, @01:03AM
lmao, "I think you should investigate this suspicious vote count." vs "I think you should investigate this suspicious money trail." Which one is bribery?
(Score: 2, Insightful) by Anonymous Coward on Tuesday December 17 2019, @03:42AM
This was just a test run. Version CH337 will be out in time for next year.
(Score: 5, Insightful) by ElizabethGreene on Tuesday December 17 2019, @04:09AM (3 children)
I'm sure I'm not the only one that would like a very detailed root cause analysis on this failure. "Touchscreen issues" doesn't cut it. The electronic votes are very clearly different from the paper votes even though they were cast and printed on the same machine.
It's exactly what people decrying e-voting have warned about from the beginning. :(
(Score: 3, Interesting) by canopic jug on Tuesday December 17 2019, @11:48AM
Failure is inherent in blackbox voting and there are unsovlable problems with electronic voting in general [schneier.com]. It's a topic that has been done to death in the last 20 years, again and again, but the worst parts are the BLOBs [wikipedia.org] involved. Notably the worst of those come from your f-ing company so don't act all innocent of this.
Elections aren't just about picking a winner, they are also about being able to prove the veracity of the results. That is a capability which the US has fully lacked for going on 20 years now, mostly bcause of electronic voting. Even upgrading to Free/Libre and Open Source Software won't satisfy those requirements. Paper ballots won't help much if you still use machines to tabulate them because the current state of computing hardware and software just can't guarantee the integrity, confidentiality, and availability of the election data.
If you really are concerned, change employers and find ways to try to work off all that bad karma accumulated there. On the side get involved with initiatives to eliminate voting blackboxes [blackboxvoting.org]. Probably the best way to get up to speed is to slog through the old videos from DefCon's [defcon.org] annual Voting Village [defcon.org] (warning for PDF). Videos are much slower than reading but that's where the results and directions for future remediation efforts are presented.
Money is not free speech. Elections should not be auctions.
(Score: 2) by jmichaelhudsondotnet on Tuesday December 17 2019, @01:32PM
I agree this analysis is critical to the meaning of the story.
voting machines should be very deterministic, if they can't even easily say what happened in a case like this by running a report with the admin interface, then they were designed so badly this capacity for failure would have to be intentional by design.
Which fits my predictions about everything this company and the republican party do, exactly. Not that democrats never have and never would, not that the two party system is sane, but the republican party in our time is a thin facade of organized crime.
And also what I and every technologist have been saying about blackbox voting since 2000. So it is nice to see my worldview triumph in the prediction market but it is very sad to the evidence of endemic corruption. Like, if this could have been overlooked, the chances are it has already been used to cheat an election somewhere.
(Score: 2) by ElizabethGreene on Tuesday December 17 2019, @05:07PM
In other news, Polly McPollFace has developed a commanding lead in preliminary vote totals. News at 11.
(Score: 4, Insightful) by stormwyrm on Tuesday December 17 2019, @05:23AM (2 children)
Numquam ponenda est pluralitas sine necessitate.
(Score: 3, Informative) by DeathMonkey on Tuesday December 17 2019, @04:50PM (1 child)
And Moscow Mitch kills his third election security bill. [independent.co.uk]
Republicans are an actual threat to Democracy at this point.
(Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Wednesday December 18 2019, @05:12AM
And the shills are in overdrive trying to make this all seem like no big deal.
What's a little light treason among drinking buddies?
(Score: 2) by shortscreen on Tuesday December 17 2019, @05:34AM
Can I get a gold-plated toilet seat with that 32" touchscreen?
(Score: 2) by jmichaelhudsondotnet on Tuesday December 17 2019, @02:06PM
That anyone would trust a company like this to make voting machines is itself a sign that maybe humanity is not intelligent enough to survive.
ffs a diebold related company.
Ten guys who have public profiles of not being spooks could do this in a large garage, there is no need for a megacorp, there is just a need for redundant hardware with a completely public designs and low level code with comments and checks. And a LAN with no WAN or USB ports ffs.
ftfy.
(Score: 2) by epitaxial on Tuesday December 17 2019, @03:43PM
As a lifelong PA resident I'll tell everyone right now. The whole state is corrupt and no politician is trustworthy. We're actually ranked #5 for most corrupt out of 50. Know how the "good ole boy" network works in the south? Yeah same exact thing but we're a northern state. We have insane tax rates (higher gasoline taxes than California, google it) and piss poor results to show for it. They build casinos that were touted as tax relief but all the profits disappear into the black hole. The turnpike toll road should be paved with gold by now but its broke because all the money gets funneled to the state police for some reason. The more you dig the more you see stuff like this. The whole state is rotten and do yourself a favor and don't get stuck here.
(Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Tuesday December 17 2019, @06:12PM
Having the results that badly wrong was probably not the intention, but I'm gonna suspect malice when stuff can go that badly wrong for an election system.
There needs to be a paper ballot election held and the voters get to vote for whether the people responsible for approving these voting machines or tampering with them, get prison or execution.