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CNN Wire reports via KTLA TV in Los Angeles
Hillary Clinton's campaign is being urged by a number of top computer scientists to call for a recount of vote totals in Wisconsin, Michigan, and Pennsylvania.
[...] The computer scientists believe they have found evidence that vote totals in the three states could have been manipulated or hacked and presented their findings to top Clinton aides [on November 17].
The scientists, among them J. Alex Halderman, the director of the University of Michigan Center for Computer Security and Society, told the Clinton campaign they believe there is a questionable trend of Clinton performing worse in counties that relied on electronic voting machines compared to paper ballots and optical scanners.
[...] [It was noted that] Clinton received 7 percent fewer votes in counties that relied on electronic voting machines, which the group said could have been hacked.
Their group told Podesta and Elias that while they had not found any evidence of hacking, the pattern needs to be looked at by an independent review.
[...] A former Clinton aide declined to respond to questions about whether they will request an audit based on the findings.
Additionally, at least three electors have pledged to not vote for Trump and to seek a "reasonable Republican alternative for president through Electoral College" according to a [November 16 statement] from a group called the Hamilton Electors, which represents them.
"The Founding Fathers created the Electoral College as the last line of defense", one elector, Michael Baca, said in a statement, "and I think we must do all that we can to ensure that we have a reasonable Republican candidate who shares our American values."
(Score: 5, Insightful) by Anonymous Coward on Thursday November 24 2016, @11:59PM
Regardless of whether there was enough foul play to actually change the results of the election or not, electronic voting that relies on proprietary software or doesn't also have paper ballots is a bad idea. If you're going to have electronic voting, you must make sure to collect paper ballots as well. Also, be certain that the voting machines run 100% free software that respects people's freedoms.
(Score: 0, Funny) by Anonymous Coward on Friday November 25 2016, @01:31AM
The software on the voting machine has no effect on your freedom.
(Score: 4, Informative) by Anonymous Coward on Friday November 25 2016, @01:47AM
You are incorrect. Proprietary software on voting machines has an effect on the freedoms [gnu.org] of everyone who uses it. This is especially bad in this context, because you must choose between not voting or using proprietary software.
It's important for everyone to have the freedom to see and modify the source code (i.e. educate themselves about how the software works and what its flaws are), as well as make changes and distribute those changes for everyone to potentially make use of. Also, we don't want the government to be completely dependent upon some private company to develop the software, since then the only options are to either cease all use of the software or hope the company fixes problems and doesn't do anything nefarious. Governments should promote freedom and education, so them using proprietary software--something that is in opposition to both of those things--is completely inappropriate.
(Score: 2) by darkfeline on Saturday November 26 2016, @09:19PM
>Proprietary software on voting machines has an effect on the freedoms of everyone who uses it.
No it doesn't. Stallman specifically distinguishes between the owners of a computer and the users of a computer.
>Likewise, I don't need to worry about what software is in a kiosk, pay phone, or ATM that I am using. I hope their owners migrate them to free software, for their sake, but there's no need for me to refuse to touch them until then. (I do consider what those machines and their owners might do with my personal data, but that's a different issue, which would arise just the same even if they did use free software. My response to that issue is to minimize those activities which give them any data about me.)
https://stallman.org/stallman-computing.html [stallman.org]
The users of a kiosk don't care whether the machine uses free or proprietary software, because proprietary software restricts the freedoms of the owner, i.e., the federal/local government.
Even if the machines ran free software, they would still need to produce paper ballots, for example, in case of an unintentional software bug.
Join the SDF Public Access UNIX System today!
(Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Thursday December 01 2016, @09:10AM
No it doesn't. Stallman specifically distinguishes between the owners of a computer and the users of a computer.
The owner in this case is the government, which uses taxpayer money and is supposed to be a servant of the people.
I also disagree. I think proprietary software is always an injustice, both to the owners of the computer and to everyone who uses it. Its mere existence is an abomination.
Even if the machines ran free software, they would still need to produce paper ballots, for example, in case of an unintentional software bug.
Which is what I said.
(Score: 2) by turgid on Friday November 25 2016, @10:05AM
That was so stupid it made me laugh out loud. Thanks :-)
I refuse to engage in a battle of wits with an unarmed opponent [wikipedia.org].
(Score: 1, Insightful) by Anonymous Coward on Friday November 25 2016, @01:37AM
This seems like a good spot to put this always-popular gem:
Voting Machines [xkcd.com]
.
I disagree with using machines at any level in elections.
If we ever get ranked voting, I may temper my position.
N.B. This would still not include "voting machines".
...and I certainly disfavor any machine method that isn't triple-redundant.
-- OriginalOwner_ [soylentnews.org]
(Score: 3, Insightful) by mhajicek on Friday November 25 2016, @05:01AM
Indeed; there's no good reason for a voting machine to be a general purpose computer. It could just as well, if not better, be made with a handful of wires and relays. Unless of course you need to play Doom on it.
The spacelike surfaces of time foliations can have a cusp at the surface of discontinuity. - P. Hajicek
(Score: 3, Insightful) by TheRaven on Friday November 25 2016, @11:32AM
sudo mod me up
(Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Friday November 25 2016, @06:57PM
Contrast the skills required to [verify paper ballots vs] the expertise required to audit a complex piece of software to ensure that it does exactly what it claims
I have been meaning to submit this story but haven't found the time to investigate more thoroughly and write it up:
Bev Harris of BlackBoxVoting has been alerted by those technologists who have investigated that the voting machines contain a FINANCIAL app.
Why would that be needed??
For the tally, the vote of a guy who votes for $Party_D_Candidate, for example, is assigned a value of 0.5.
The vote of a guy who votes for $Party_R_Candidate is assigned a value of 1.5.
The total vote count is 2.0 (with the decimal part not visible), but votes for the R candidate have been weighted more heavily. [google.com]
-- OriginalOwner_ [soylentnews.org]
(Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Friday November 25 2016, @03:56PM
We use optical scanners. The results could be spot checked with open source machines to detect any funny business.
(Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Friday November 25 2016, @07:09PM
I have seen and heard reports of ballot scanners giving different results when the SAME ballots are run through multiple times.
The touchscreens also require "calibration" and have repeatedly been reported not doing what was expected afterwards.
Dump the machines.
The soonest that the results will take effect is January 1 (referendums) and January 20 (the presidency).
What's the big fucking hurry to get totals?
Getting it done PROPERLY should be much more important than getting it done quickly.
$DIETY damn corporate media.
-- OriginalOwner_ [soylentnews.org]
(Score: 2) by Mykl on Friday November 25 2016, @01:51AM
[nods about the paper ballot / verifiability thing]
Oh Geez, this non-sequitur? Yes, I get that free software can be more secure over time if properly analysed and modified by a wide range of people (though the recent round of Android exploits suggests that there is a non-zero benefit to security-by-obscurity). But we're talking about an inside job here, which means that open vs closed makes no difference.
(Score: 1, Informative) by Anonymous Coward on Friday November 25 2016, @01:59AM
Oh Geez, this non-sequitur?
It's not a non-sequitur. My position isn't that respecting people's freedoms in software is good because it leads to more security or quality (though those are secondary benefits), but that it is an ethical imperative to do so. Forcing people to use proprietary software in order to vote is especially intolerable, for reasons I said above.