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posted by janrinok on Tuesday February 20 2018, @08:03AM   Printer-friendly
from the newer-is-not-necessarily-better dept.

The Intercept reports

The nation's secretaries of state gathered for a multi-day National Association of Secretaries of State (NASS) conference in Washington, D.C., this weekend, with cybersecurity on the mind.

Panels and lectures centered around the integrity of America's election process, with the federal probe into alleged Russian government attempts to penetrate voting systems a frequent topic of discussion.

[...] One way to allay concerns about the integrity of electronic voting machine infrastructure, however, is to simply not use it. Over the past year, a number of states are moving back towards the use of paper ballots or at least requiring a paper trail of votes cast.

For instance, Pennsylvania just moved to require all voting systems to keep a paper record of votes cast. Prior to last year's elections in Virginia, the commonwealth's board of elections voted to decertify paperless voting machines--voters statewide instead voted the old-fashioned way, with paper ballots.

[...] Oregon is one of two states in the country to require its residents to vote by mail, a system that was established via referendum in 1998. [Oregon Secretary of State Dennis] Richardson argued that this old-fashioned system offers some of the best defense there is against cyber interference.

"We're using paper and we're never involved with the Internet. The Internet is not involved at all until there's an announcement by each of our 36 counties to [the capital] Salem of what the results are and then that's done orally and through a confirmation e-mail and the county clerks in each of the counties are very careful to ensure that the numbers that actually are posted are the ones that they have," he said. "Oregon's in a pretty unique situation."

[...] In New Hampshire, the state uses a hybrid system that includes both paper ballots and machines that electronically count paper ballots with a paper trail.

Karen Ladd, the assistant secretary of state for New Hampshire, touted the merits of the system to The Intercept. "We do a lot of recounts, and you can only have a recount with a paper ballot. You can't do a recount with a machine!" she said.

America's paper ballot states may seem antiquated to some, but our neighbors to the north have used paper ballots for federal elections for their entire history. Thanks to an army of officials at 25,000 election stations, the integrity of Canada's elections is never in doubt.


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  • (Score: 3, Insightful) by VLM on Tuesday February 20 2018, @02:27PM (3 children)

    by VLM (445) Subscriber Badge on Tuesday February 20 2018, @02:27PM (#640640)

    An excellent analogy to what you're talking about is the technology and mathematics of metrology. Although it sounds like metrology is the study of metrosexuals or some such funny nonsense, its actually the study of the math and protocols and procedures to design, prove, test and build accurate measurement tools, both the tools and standard test conditions. Its somewhat complicated yet interesting.

    I'm just saying the math and algorithms for how to really accurately measure the diameter of a diesel engine piston oddly enough work pretty well for measuring voters in a precinct. You manufacture realistic test cases from live data to feed to multiple competing gear makers and the math for evaluating the quality of their gear was all figured out a century or so ago in the industrial era.

    Its pretty much a solved problem.

    Now if The Powers That Be permit the solution to be deployed or opposed is the real problem, because they have an agenda. Also you're spending a lot of money on something that usually doesn't mean very much in practice due to gerrymandering and simple bribery and various other illnesses of a republic.

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  • (Score: 2) by Wootery on Tuesday February 20 2018, @03:36PM (2 children)

    by Wootery (2341) on Tuesday February 20 2018, @03:36PM (#640672)

    I'm afraid I don't see where you're going with this.

    • (Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Tuesday February 20 2018, @05:13PM

      by Anonymous Coward on Tuesday February 20 2018, @05:13PM (#640735)

      What's the problem, VLM even gave you a car analogy (grin)...

    • (Score: 2) by VLM on Tuesday February 20 2018, @11:57PM

      by VLM (445) Subscriber Badge on Tuesday February 20 2018, @11:57PM (#640938)

      You question asked how to scientifically mathematically validly measure stuff. Thats old WRT precision machine tools, etc.