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Roy Schestowitz at TechRights reports:
Microsoft wages war on politics in all sorts of ways, sometimes through lobbyists, sometimes through 'former' staff, pseudo 'charities' like the Gates Foundation, and pressure groups like the Business Software Alliance.
Today we present information given to us courtesy of the California Association of Voting Officials. They complain about Microsoft lobbyists and they have expressed an interest in aligning for global issues, for they too realise that Microsoft cannot be ignored if society wants fair elections and ultimately pursues voting machinery that can be trusted.
Microsoft lobbying in this area is a scarcely explored topic. There is very little information about it out there, hence we hardly ever covered the topic. It is widely known, however, that voting machines in the US use Windows, which has back doors and therefore can never be trusted, with or without tampering by a human operator.
[...]Somehow, despite public will to induce transparency, accountability, audits, etc. on the process, decades later we are still [...] heavily dependent on a proprietary, secretive system (or set thereof).
[...]"We put open source language into voting system legislation", told us [sic] someone from the California Association of Voting Officials, "and the Microsoft lobbyists have it removed.
"This must be stopped as OS voting systems are a preferred security environment for vote tabulation... the alternative being Diebold / Dominion / Microsoft, etc."[...]
The head attorneys for President Obama's election report (which omitted open source voting system solutions even though the information was gifted to them) work for firms that lobby and/or represent Microsoft (Bob Bauer of Perkins Coie and Ben Ginsburg of Pattons Boggs/Jones Day)
Nate Persily was tasked with presenting the President with all information...but inexplicably failed to include any reference to open source in the report. When asked about this omission--and possible steps to remedy (addendum etc)--Persily went silent.
No members of the Presidential Committee were responsive...
In California--which is the frontline of the battle for open source voting systems in the USA--the lobbyist for the California Association of Clerks and Elected Officials Barry Brokaw is also the lobbyist for Microsoft
Original Submission
(Score: 3, Informative) by VLM on Monday June 15 2015, @02:17PM
That's how my state's voting works, pencil marks on scantron sheets fed into the machine, result available as quickly as someone wants to push a "results" button, paper ballots spot audited over the next week or so. If you incorrectly fill out your ballot the machine emits a foul noise and kicks the ballot back, or if accepted it emits two happy beeps and auto-ejects into a locked box for later auditing.
Whenever voting comes up the comments are always hyper provincial, that the posters home state uses a windows PC intentionally designed to be unauditable, but there are numerous less brain dead states that don't have the slightest problem not using windows and auditing a proprietary system.
I'm about 99% certain the antique scantron machines do NOT run windows. They are programmed using scan cards, and as kids we went to great effort (no longer needed online) to find out that the first card read at power up sets the program and/or key so theres no way to reprogram while in use. Of course times may have changed since 1990, but fundamentally they're pretty simple machines and .edu majors aren't the brightest so KISS principle reigns. The public schools use the same scantron model machines for multiple guess tests, presumably piggy backed onto some giant state purchase contract. Presumably if thousands of high school kids can't hack the machines, tens of 80 year old voter overseer aren't going to figure it out.
The main way to hack an election locally is to get the illegal voters out, both outright illegals, and dead people and non-voters. I've pretty much stopped voting, anyone who wants to show up and vote for me, can.
I talked to a senior citizen vote helper and there is a lot of behind the scenes stuff for anti-fraud that is interesting. For example two old people sign off on packages of serial numbered sequential ballots, so if the right sigs aren't on a receipt then there are questions if that serial number range suddenly shows up at audit time, or shows up at the wrong facility. This leads to insane delays if a site runs out of ballots. Also they shuffle and randomize packs of ballots at a time, then the old people add a new handwritten sequential number and log them, so if serial numbers 250-300 all show up in the system simultaneously at 7:59 right before polls close the shit will hit the fan, also if the old people signed off up to seq number 750 then anything found in the audit box over 800 would be kind of suspicious...
Note that some cultures think honest elections are a universal good, whereas other cultural areas are going to see them as an impediment to be worked around, so the mere existence of proven long experienced ways to electronically run a fair election doesn't mean crooks will want them or do anything to encourage fair elections.
This also assumes elections mean anything other than tweedle dee vs tweedle dum, we have a one party system with two PR campaigns etc. In a lot of ways the primaries matter enormously more than the general elections, and of course some primaries are more important than others, etc.
I am just barely old enough to remember ancient mechanical voting machines from when my parents voted. Crazy things. Basically mechanical counters with hidden counts and lever interlocking systems, pull like ten little levers some interacting with each other then pull the big lever and hope for the best. The optical systems are much simpler and more reliable.
(Score: 3, Insightful) by Thexalon on Monday June 15 2015, @02:42PM
Are you suggesting that illegal immigrants routinely show up to the polls? Because that would make approximately no sense: illegal immigrants tend to do everything they can to avoid interacting with the government, because they know that to do so is to risk getting caught.
As far as the dead people and non-voters showing up, you need to explain why there have been fewer than 20 cases of in-person voter fraud prosecuted in the last decade. If, for example, you're contending that there is a massively corrupt Democratic Party machine in Chicago, then why is it that Republican governor Bruce Rauner hasn't gone after it aggressively?
The only thing that stops a bad guy with a compiler is a good guy with a compiler.
(Score: 2) by VLM on Monday June 15 2015, @03:33PM
I have no real comment as to absolute level. As to relative level, yeah, I'd stand by those strategies being the best and most likely.
Now if we had un-auditable windows PCs full of malware, then that would be the best bet, but not having them, the relatively best strategy is going to be as listed above.
Aside from obvious legal hacks against the election process like gerrymandering.
(Score: 2) by urza9814 on Tuesday June 16 2015, @03:53PM
I looked into this quite a bit as my home state was trying to pass one of those voter ID measures a few years back. Nobody researching this issue has ever found even one single documented instance of this kind of voter fraud. People don't submit fraudulent votes in person, except by accident (ie, signing the wrong line in the poll book.) The risk is too high, and the reward of a single vote is far too low.
(Score: 2) by dry on Tuesday June 16 2015, @05:52AM
There are other ways to hack an election, my government has been implementing them in the name of small government and stopping the non-existent voter fraud. Phone up people who are likely to vote for the opposition, tell them that their polling station has moved. Since they got caught last time, downsize the non-partisan election oversight and also ban them from even mentioning any investigations. Put polling stations in the right spots so it is easier for your supporters to vote and harder for the oppositions supporters to vote (in the name of saving money). I usually vote in the advance polls as being self-employed it is hard to find time to vote on election day. Last federal election the advance polling station was 30 miles away in the wrong direction, for the provincial election it was on the way to town and so easy to use. And last, go on about imaginary voter fraud and make onerous demands for ID. No more showing up with 2 pieces of government ID and a utility bill for my wife (who doesn't drive), now we have to spend $75 for another piece of ID, Provincial, because her federal picture ID doesn't have her address, nor does her provincial (medical) ID.
(Score: 2) by VLM on Tuesday June 16 2015, @11:23AM
Put polling stations in the right spots so it is easier for your supporters to vote and harder for the oppositions supporters to vote
My personal experience, which is likely pretty normal, is you vote while in college and they have like two 90 year olds who are deaf in the basement of a 1000 person dorm complex only reachable by a locked door that is occasionally propped open and the oldest least reliable scanning machine in the fleet looks like someone tossed it down the stairs, and they tend to vote for the "D" PR team of the one-party. Vs in my 2nd/3rd richest subburb in the region and the polling place is 2 blocks away at the elementary school and they have 4 volunteers per roughly 300 person aldermanic district and a brand new vote scanning machine and they tend to vote "R". But we're all "equal" right?
(Score: 2) by Thexalon on Tuesday June 16 2015, @04:51PM
In my home state in 2004, I took strong notice of the fact that it took me approximately 20 minutes to vote in the mostly white genteel suburb, while a coworker of mine from a not-at-all-genteel urban precinct spent 2.5 hours waiting in line. And apparently it got worse in the not-at-all-genteel district as time went on. By complete coincidence, the secretary of state who controlled little details like how many voting machines were in which precincts just happened to be the state campaign manager for the Republican candidate for president. And the not-at-all-genteel urban precinct was chock full of die-hard Democrats.
Another technique seen more recently: The secretary of state has the tie-breaking vote on all of the county-wide elections councils (which are evenly split between Democrats and Republicans) that determine when early voting is open. Ours was voting for extended hours in areas which tended to support his party, and really short hours in areas which tended to oppose his party, until a federal court ruled he couldn't do that.
The only thing that stops a bad guy with a compiler is a good guy with a compiler.
(Score: 2) by dry on Wednesday June 17 2015, @03:03AM
Elections Canada has always been pretty good with running the elections here, non-partisan and honestly trying their hardest to have fair elections, its a shame that in the name of small government their budget was cut extremely and the "Fair Elections Act" really crippled them. But the Conservatives figure that if they're cheating, everyone must be cheating and Elections Canada is part of a liberal conspiracy that only picks on Conservatives.
I've been voting for over 30 years and don't remember any cheating to speak off besides Gracies finger when the people got really upset about gerrymandering and a few honest mistakes (navy guys who accidentally voted twice type of thing).
Generally the government does fear the voters here as parties can actually be wiped out when they screw up. Unluckily they just regroup under a different party as often as not.
(Score: 2) by VLM on Wednesday June 17 2015, @11:45AM
Generally the government does fear the voters here as parties can actually be wiped out when they screw up. Unluckily they just regroup under a different party as often as not.
Could you guys please just invade? Bring along maple syrup and your working health care system, we need both.
(Score: 2) by dry on Friday June 19 2015, @04:05AM
You really wouldn't like Stephen Harper's new Canada.