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posted by cmn32480 on Thursday October 06 2016, @10:41PM   Printer-friendly
from the rigged-in-not-the-peoples-favor dept.

With the U.S. presidential election just weeks away, questions about election security continue to dog the nation's voting system.

It's too late for election officials to make major improvements, "and there are no resources," said Joe Kiniry, a long-time election security researcher.

However, officials can take several steps for upcoming elections, security experts say.

"Nobody should ever imagine changing the voting technology used this close to a general election," said Douglas Jones, a computer science professor at the University of Iowa. "The best time to buy new equipment would be in January after a general election, so you've got almost two years to learn how to use it."

  • Stop using touchscreen electronic voting machines without printers
  • Conduct more extensive pre-election voting machine tests
  • Put better election auditing processes in place
  • Hire hackers to test your systems
  • Ensure that strong physical security is in place

Voters worried about vulnerable voting machines can rest easy--the fix is in!


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  • (Score: 2, Insightful) by Anonymous Coward on Friday October 07 2016, @01:25AM

    by Anonymous Coward on Friday October 07 2016, @01:25AM (#411279)

    > I fail to see any improvement over plain old paper ballots

    (1) Vastly improved user interface - ability for the voter to correct errors before commit, multiple languages, very large print for the sight-impaired, ability to randomize candidate order to reduce psychological effect of being first on the ballot, etc
    (2) Fast counting - some elections have 100+ races once state, county and city are included
    (3) No questions of partially marked ballots - the computer prints a paper ballot that have enough redundant information so even if it is damaged it is still readable

    There's more, but that's enough for now.

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  • (Score: 1, Interesting) by Anonymous Coward on Friday October 07 2016, @02:28AM

    by Anonymous Coward on Friday October 07 2016, @02:28AM (#411298)

    Yep scantron is pretty cool.

  • (Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Friday October 07 2016, @02:44AM

    by Anonymous Coward on Friday October 07 2016, @02:44AM (#411306)

    1) If you screw up your paper ballot, ask for a replacement.

    Additionally, if you meant to vote for NONE of the dirtbags listed, but you accidentally touched the screen, you can't undo that and do a no-vote for that category.
    With a paper ballot, you just fill in one box to many in that category.

    ...and, clearly you aren't aware of the news reports of screens that are poorly calibrated.

    2) What's the big goddamned hurry to get the results?
    (Fuck Lamestream Media and what they have done to USA.)
    The soonest anything will take effect will be January 1.
    The presidential inauguration is 3 weeks after that.

    3) A "None of the above" choice would eliminate that.
    Most ballots already have a write-in spot where you can scribble "I hate them all".

    -- OriginalOwner_ [soylentnews.org]

    • (Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Friday October 07 2016, @03:16AM

      by Anonymous Coward on Friday October 07 2016, @03:16AM (#411315)

      > 1) If you screw up your paper ballot, ask for a replacement.

      Yeah? After you've filled out 50 different candidates, go back and do it all again?
      And make sure you don't fuck it up again.
      Never mind all the other points you ignored like multiple languages, seeing-impaired, etc.

      > Additionally, if you meant to vote for NONE of the dirtbags listed, but you
      > accidentally touched the screen, you can't undo that and do a no-vote for that category.

      You assume that a well designed user-interface won't have a none-of-the-above option?
      Why are you making up bullshit? Shame on you.
      It is an intellectual coward's move to assume that the people you disagree with will do something obviously stupid.

      > 2) What's the big goddamned hurry to get the results?

      When there are hundreds of races the effort required to count them all is a huge pain in the ass.
      Hand counts are tedious and error prone on the best of days. Automated counting is the only reliable option.

      > 3) A "None of the above" choice would eliminate that.

      You are just as much of a fucktard as the mighty butthurt.
      A none of the above choice would make absolutely no difference in handling mismarked ballots.
      What if two choices are marked?
      What if all the choices are marked?

      • (Score: 1) by butthurt on Friday October 07 2016, @06:53AM

        by butthurt (6141) on Friday October 07 2016, @06:53AM (#411382) Journal

        > [...] the mighty butthurt.

        Heh. I wish I'd thought of that.

      • (Score: 2) by art guerrilla on Friday October 07 2016, @11:17AM

        by art guerrilla (3082) on Friday October 07 2016, @11:17AM (#411428)

        1. really, 50 candidates ? don't believe you... that is one out of a hundred ballots...
        2. really, you make THAT many mistakes on a ballot it is THAT big a deal ? ? ?
        3. really, SPEED of counting is your top priority ? tells me YOU have NO PLACE in deciding these issues...
        4. really, HOW are computer-based systems 'more accurate' ? ? ? sure, if you mean spitting out the same UNAUDITABLE results repeatedly, but that has nothing to do with 'accuracy'...
        (NOT TO MENTION -as you didn't- the COMPLETENESS of the count: are the absentee ballots actually counted, or just thrown in the dumpster after The They determine who 'won' from a computer printout controlled by unseen others and with PROPRIETARY spaghetti-code software which is a black box... similarly with early voters, do those ballots actually get counted, or just thrown in the box in a corner of a warehouse ? you don't know, and from your flawed and flippant attitude of 'computers are smarter, mmm'kay', i don't think you care... it is all about the shiny with you...)
        5. really, the actual vote is almost an afterthought: the SYSTEMIC voter suppression is FAR MORE egregious than any -mostly bullshit- actual voter fraud... (note: voter fraud is minimal, ELECTION FRAUD is pandemic, EXACERBATED by a PROPRIETARY, black-box system(s) which ARE AMENABLE TO HACKING...)
        6. i will ask again (out of ignorance): wouldn't a relatively simple spreadsheet of database be suitable for tallying votes ? ? ? when i hear of the PROPRIETARY spaghetti-code in our voting systems I AUTOMATICALLY think: that is cover for jigger-pokery going on... in short, it would seem to me that having OSS s/w for voting would be THE NUMBER ONE application of such software...

        • (Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Friday October 07 2016, @02:01PM

          by Anonymous Coward on Friday October 07 2016, @02:01PM (#411489)

          > 1. really, 50 candidates ? don't believe you... that is one out of a hundred ballots...

              It is ALL ballots in which there are 50 races.

          > 2. really, you make THAT many mistakes on a ballot it is THAT big a deal ? ? ?

              It takes one mistake to ruin a ballot and have to start all over again.

          > 3. really, SPEED of counting is your top priority ? tells me YOU have NO PLACE in deciding these issues...

          Speed and accuracy. You write like someone who has never been part of election beyond maybe voting if that.

          the rest, tl;dr for me, all your capitalization and shit is too tedious for me to parse given how ignorant your first three points were.

  • (Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Friday October 07 2016, @11:16AM

    by Anonymous Coward on Friday October 07 2016, @11:16AM (#411427)

    None of those supposed benefits outweigh the drawbacks of using inherently insecure electronic voting. I would rather us use slower paper ballots that have some issues than rely on electronic voting machines.

    Also, you seem to be comparing electronic voting done about as well it can be with paper ballots. In practice, voting machines use proprietary software (this alone destroys any credibility they have), often do not have good user interfaces, and are extremely insecure. You can potentially fix these issues to some extent, but I don't trust that our government will be able to do that.

    • (Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Friday October 07 2016, @02:03PM

      by Anonymous Coward on Friday October 07 2016, @02:03PM (#411491)

      Dude, this is about paper ballots. See that first line, printers this is about putting a GUI on a paper ballot.

      I swear, the number of dumbfucks that come out when you talk about voting is off the charts.