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from the I-know-what-you-did-last-summer^W-election dept.
According to a paywalled (register for three free articles per month) article on Law.com, it is impossible to cast a secret vote using Georgia's electronic voting machines.
In a new motion for a preliminary injunction, attorneys for the Coalition for Good Governance and several plaintiff voters have asked a federal judge in Atlanta to sideline use of the state’s obsolete electronic voting machines after Oct. 1.
The plaintiffs claim that evidence obtained from state and county election officials revealed that a “unique identifier” is attached to each electronic vote cast on the 17-year-old machines. Those unique identifiers could enable “election insiders or malicious intruders” to connect each ballot to the voter who cast it, the motion contends.
The motion contends that state and county election officials have admitted that ballot image reports maintained in their electronic databases and memory cards—when combined with other election records—contain enough information to identify who cast every electronic vote in Georgia. If proven, the practice would violate state and federal constitutional provisions requiring that all voter ballots be secret.
(Score: 4, Informative) by Thexalon on Tuesday June 25 2019, @10:53PM (1 child)
I don't consider it too prohibitive to be done. Sure, it would take work to correlate, but if you were intent on, say, arresting a bunch of people that voted for the "wrong" candidate with a possession felony (why possession? because the cop can bring the contraband to "find") that would conveniently prevent them from voting again and intimidate others from voting that way, I have no doubts some political hacks would consider it.
Here's the process, in case you hadn't figured it out:
1. There's always a poll book that records who arrived and when.
2. There's also a record book of who was handed which cartridge, and/or which machine was allocated at what time.
3. There's an electronic record of what the votes were for each cartridge.
The end result is that with a bit of OCR and a couple of table joins, you'd get to put the pieces together accurately enough to do some real intimidation. And remember, the value of doing this is in the millions.
The only thing that stops a bad guy with a compiler is a good guy with a compiler.
(Score: 2) by http on Wednesday June 26 2019, @12:08AM
The value of doing this is probably better measured in political power than dollars.
I browse at -1 when I have mod points. It's unsettling.