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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!
(Score: 2) by srobert on Friday October 07 2016, @02:15AM
I think we should get an ID number for verification at the time we vote. Then we could go to a national website, punch in the number and it would say:
The voter associated with this number voted as follows:
President: Joe Schmoe
Senator: Jane Doe
State Representative: Chuck Murphy
Ballot Question 1: No
etc.
This does not in any way violate the right to a secret ballot because no one would know what your ID number was. It wouldn't even have to be printed out.
(Score: 3, Insightful) by Anonymous Coward on Friday October 07 2016, @02:30AM
Secret ballot was designed to stop vote buying. Basically the idea is I pay you 10 bucks to vote a particular way. All you have to do is prove it.
So no cameras or other people in the booth with you.
Your code idea would allow vote buying to actually work.
(Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Friday October 07 2016, @03:02AM
New Hampshire law barring ballot selfies is unconstitutional, court rules [arstechnica.com]
2016/09/28
-- OriginalOwner_ [soylentnews.org]
(Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Friday October 07 2016, @03:44AM
Only in UCC1 and specifically NH. The others district courts have not ruled on it as the supreme court has not. They may rule along similar lines. But that is not clear if they would (they probably would).
However the reasoning in that verdict is interesting. Basically 'doesnt happen anymore so we dont need a law'. Even though it happened extensively in the past and was basically ended because the police had a law in which to stop it. Seems like kind of an odd argument. It is almost 'there is no pollution going into the air so this company can do it because it has not happened anymore'.
That I think is a ruling that is 'ok' but for bad reasons.
(Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Friday October 07 2016, @08:12PM
1. Take selfie of ballot marked as interested party would like.
2. Spoil ballot.
3. Vote as one would like.
4. Profit!
(Score: 1) by tftp on Friday October 07 2016, @05:32AM
You are proposing to disrupt the free market !!!1! What are you, a communist? If someone has something to sell and some other wants to buy it, they should be able to do so!!!
</sarc> But seriously, this rule tries to solve the social problem - readiness to buy and sell votes - with a technical measure. In a better society it would be not necessary. Furthermore, those who want to sell their vote should not have it. But individual votes are pretty much worthless to a voter: one vote decides nothing. The value appears only at a large scale of manipulation. For that reason an individual has every practical reason to sell his vote - and a PAC with deep pockets has every reason to buy as many as they can. They have the money; some of their donors print it themselves.
(Score: 2) by Thexalon on Friday October 07 2016, @03:15AM
Oh yes it could. Imagine hearing from a corrupt boss or union president: "Now, show me on that government website that you supported the candidate that will be best for this organization." Or alternately: "Hey, 35 bucks to everyone who shows me that they voted for Schmoe!"
Also, your ID number is in a finite range. Which means I can easily script an attack on your website.
The only thing that stops a bad guy with a compiler is a good guy with a compiler.
(Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Friday October 07 2016, @03:41AM
I don't know why anyone would vote for Schmoe, with that crazy orange hair of his.
(Score: 2, Interesting) by Anonymous Coward on Friday October 07 2016, @03:55AM
Whenever these electronic voting stories get posted people come out of the woodwork with cockamamie ideas for how to "fix" the problem.
All they ever do is prove that they don't have any idea what they are talking about.
The rule is very simple - paper ballots. You can (and should) put a well-designed computer on the front end to help users fill out the ballot and put a well-designed computer on the back-end to ensure accuracy and efficiency in counting the ballots. But in between it must be a clear, clean, human-readable (no qr-codes) paper ballot. There is no other option that satisifies the requirements of minimizing vote-tampering. Paper ballots don't eliminate vote-tampering, but they make it has ineffective as possible while still maintaining all the other features of a voting system that democracy depends on.
(Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Friday October 07 2016, @06:33AM
At least the money would be going to the voters, not to CBS.
(Score: 2) by srobert on Monday October 10 2016, @02:34PM
Then you experiment with numbers to show him what he wants to see. He has no way to verify what your actual number was.