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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, Insightful) by Anonymous Coward on Friday October 07 2016, @02:39AM
Windoze machines are absolutely the wrong way to go. [xkcd.com]
The better solution is, of course, to do what Canada does and don't use ANY machines.
Give everyone a paper ballot and a marker.
Count the votes by hand.
Problem solved.
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.
...and I have yet to see any situation where what the machines were supposed to solve (disabled people having difficulty voting) is solved by the machines being used.
-- OriginalOwner_ [soylentnews.org]
(Score: 3, Informative) by dry on Friday October 07 2016, @03:56AM
Of course that doesn't fix the voter registration part, which is how the Conservative government manipulated the last federal election[s] here in Canada.
Pass a law stopping Elections Canada (Independent) from trying to register people. Used to be people everywhere with voters lists making sure you were registered, that went away.
Pass a law tightening up the voter ID requirements to discourage the poor, students, natives, people with no road address etc from voting. Last election my son, who had just turned 19, was disenfranchised due to lack of good enough ID. $75 to get the ID, plus my having to take time of of work to go the 50 mile round trip to the nearest government office (used to be one locally and in the next town but gotta cut costs).
Screw with the voters list. My wife has always used her maiden name to vote, as well as her ID being in her maiden name. Checked the online voters list, shows she's registered correctly. Since she's a native we didn't trust the government so went in with lots of ID including our marriage license and certificate of marriage. Sure enough she was registered with her married name. Luckily the polling place was fairly quiet and someone was willing to spend an hour on the phone to Ottawa to re-franchise her. Lots of people would have given up at this point, especially in a busy polling location.
The advanced polling places were reduced to one, also a 50 mile round trip away.
Previous election, they did the robo-calling thing, sending lots of people to the wrong polling place. They made sure that they didn't get caught again by stopping Elections Canada from investigating voting irregularities, under the argument that they were prejudiced since no-one else was caught manipulating the voters rolls. Crooked people just take it for granted everyone is crooked.
Apart from all that crap, voting does go smooth here, though it helps that there is only one choice on the ballot. Which is another weakness of the American system, voting for up to a hundred different offices at once is going to make it hard for a voter to be informed and encourages the 2 party lock-in. We do get new parties here in Canada, usually starting at the Provincial level, though too often the old guard just moves into the 3rd party that is suddenly doing well.
(Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Friday October 07 2016, @12:31PM
Use postal voting?
(Score: 2, Funny) by Anonymous Coward on Friday October 07 2016, @05:03AM
The better solution is, of course, to do what Canada does and don't use ANY machines.
Paper ballots are super slow. After 149 years Canada has yet to elect its first president.