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A bipartisan group of six senators has introduced legislation[pdf] that would take a huge step toward securing elections in the United States. Called the Secure Elections Act, the bill aims to eliminate insecure paperless voting machines from American elections while promoting routine audits that would dramatically reduce the danger of interference from foreign governments.
The legislation comes on the heels of the contentious 2016 election. Post-election investigation hasn't turned up any evidence that foreign governments actually altered any votes. However, we do know that Russians were probing American voting systems ahead of the 2016 election, laying groundwork for what could have become a direct attack on American democracy.
[...] The first objective is to get rid of paperless electronic voting machines. Computer scientists have been warning for more than a decade that these machines are vulnerable to hacking and can't be meaningfully audited. States have begun moving away from paperless systems, but budget constraints have forced some to continue relying on insecure paperless equipment. The Secure Elections Act would give states grants specifically earmarked for replacing these systems with more secure systems that use voter-verified paper ballots.
The legislation's second big idea is to encourage states to perform routine post-election audits based on modern statistical techniques. Many states today only conduct recounts in the event of very close election outcomes. And these recounts involve counting a fixed percentage of ballots. That often leads to either counting way too many ballots (wasting taxpayer money) or too few (failing to fully verify the election outcome).
The bill reads like a computer security expert's wish list.
(Score: 5, Insightful) by Justin Case on Wednesday January 03 2018, @11:36PM (2 children)
Surely this is from the sudden-outbreak-of-common-sense department?
There are a few things that seem fundamental to the continued existence of a representative government:
* Ability to defend your turf from invaders
* Voter trust in the elections
* ???
I mean there are a lot of other functions that are important, but existential threats? So how is there not enough money to fix this? Too busy prosecuting users of Vegetables We Don't Like?
(Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Thursday January 04 2018, @04:10AM
There are lots of reasons to be down on New York State, but this isn't one of them. We used lever machines (which are visually audit-able by election workers) for about as long as any state. Finally switched to paper ballots that are scanned optically (looks like an old fax machine), but can be manually counted for close races.
Hope this bill gets support from all over the country, it would be reassuring to me if it passed easily with support from both sides.
(Score: 2) by DannyB on Thursday January 04 2018, @05:41PM
Getting rid of paperless e-voting machines is the biggest confirmation that the Russions are manipulating elections the right way. By manipulating people on FaceTwit. Are you paying attention CIA?
The lower I set my standards the more accomplishments I have.