from the rigged-in-not-the-peoples-favor dept.
With the U.S. presidential election just weeks away, questions about election security continue to dog the nation's voting system.
It's too late for election officials to make major improvements, "and there are no resources," said Joe Kiniry, a long-time election security researcher.
However, officials can take several steps for upcoming elections, security experts say.
"Nobody should ever imagine changing the voting technology used this close to a general election," said Douglas Jones, a computer science professor at the University of Iowa. "The best time to buy new equipment would be in January after a general election, so you've got almost two years to learn how to use it."
- Stop using touchscreen electronic voting machines without printers
- Conduct more extensive pre-election voting machine tests
- Put better election auditing processes in place
- Hire hackers to test your systems
- Ensure that strong physical security is in place
Voters worried about vulnerable voting machines can rest easy--the fix is in!
Related Stories
The project Protect Democracy is suing the state of South Carolina because its insecure, unreliable voting systems are effectively denying people the right to vote. The project has filed a 45-page lawsuit pointing out the inherent lack of security and inauditability of these systems and concludes that "by failing to provide S.C. voters with a system that can record their votes reliably," South Carolinians have been deprived of their constitutional right to vote. Late last year, Def Con 25's Voting Village reported on the ongoing, egregious, and fraudulent state of electronic voting in the US, a situation which has been getting steadily worse since at least 2000. The elephant in the room is that these machines are built from the ground up on Microsoft products, which is protected with a cult-like vigor standing in the way of rolling back to the only known secure method, hand counted paper ballots.
Bruce Schneier is an advisor to Protect Democracy
Earlier on SN:
Top Voting Machine Vendor Admits It Installed Remote-Access Software on Systems Sold to States (2018)
Want to Hack a Voting Machine? Hack the Voting Machine Vendor First (2018)
Georgia Election Server Wiped after Lawsuit Filed (2017)
It Took DEF CON Hackers Minutes to Pwn These US Voting Machines (2017)
Russian Hackers [sic] Penetrated US Electoral Systems and Tried to Delete Voter Registration Data (2017)
5 Ways to Improve Voting Security in the U.S. (2016)
FBI Says Foreign Hackers Penetrated State Election Systems (2016)
and so on ...
(Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Thursday October 06 2016, @11:00PM
Can we fire the people that didn't do all this from the start??
(Score: 2) by Arik on Thursday October 06 2016, @11:06PM
No. In fact those are (mostly) the same people that are going to save us all by doing it right next time.
http://www.counterpunch.org/2016/05/16/clinton-does-best-where-voting-machines-flunk-hacking-tests-hillary-clinton-vs-bernie-sanders-election-fraud-allegations/
If laughter is the best medicine, who are the best doctors?
(Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Thursday October 06 2016, @11:41PM
Yeah, uh huh, right. I trust them totally to do it right this time. Total trust, 100%, full confidence.
(Score: 2) by davester666 on Friday October 07 2016, @06:57AM
If we fire them (people who used to be the dumbest sacks of shit they could find, other than politicians, but now with just a smidgeon of experience into how elections work), then all that will happen is they will hire "people who are the dumbest sacks of shit they can, other than politicians"
(Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Thursday October 06 2016, @11:11PM
No way! I seen that Mr Robot show on the TV and that guy Elliot he done belong in prison where he belong. Only thing is them Chinese let him out and now he a threat to our National Security.
That kinds shit never gun happen in our reals world where we don take any chances with them terrorist hackers no way. Security means beating the shit out a punks!
I say we hire some big burly bouncer type men for every polling place. Bouncers let in the grandmas who always vote the right way. Election bouncers beat the fucking shit out a the punks who never vote the right way only come to tamper with our voting machines.
Bouncers at every polling place make sure we have a nice orderly election with the right result.
(Score: 2, Funny) by Anonymous Coward on Thursday October 06 2016, @11:19PM
Here's what's even better about this election. if Trump doesn't win, it's proof that there's rampant voter fraud caused by a lack of photo ID laws. If Clinton doesn't win, it's proof that Russian commies have hacked the polls using their hacker superpowers.
(Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Friday October 07 2016, @01:32AM
More likely the russians will hack the registration data so random people are turned away at the voting booth which will blow up and gets tons of news coverage. The russians' goal isn't to necessarily to make Trump win, but to sow chaos. Trump is definitely an agent of chaos, but he is not the only way to accomplish that.
(Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Thursday October 06 2016, @11:49PM
One more item for that list - don't use voting machines that run on Windows. This is (what's left of) our democracy at stake. Daylight and transparency mean open source.
(Score: 2, Insightful) by Anonymous Coward on Friday October 07 2016, @02:39AM
Windoze machines are absolutely the wrong way to go. [xkcd.com]
The better solution is, of course, to do what Canada does and don't use ANY machines.
Give everyone a paper ballot and a marker.
Count the votes by hand.
Problem solved.
What's the big goddamned hurry to get the results?
(Fuck Lamestream Media and what they have done to USA.)
The soonest anything will take effect will be January 1.
The presidential inauguration is 3 weeks after that.
...and I have yet to see any situation where what the machines were supposed to solve (disabled people having difficulty voting) is solved by the machines being used.
-- OriginalOwner_ [soylentnews.org]
(Score: 3, Informative) by dry on Friday October 07 2016, @03:56AM
Of course that doesn't fix the voter registration part, which is how the Conservative government manipulated the last federal election[s] here in Canada.
Pass a law stopping Elections Canada (Independent) from trying to register people. Used to be people everywhere with voters lists making sure you were registered, that went away.
Pass a law tightening up the voter ID requirements to discourage the poor, students, natives, people with no road address etc from voting. Last election my son, who had just turned 19, was disenfranchised due to lack of good enough ID. $75 to get the ID, plus my having to take time of of work to go the 50 mile round trip to the nearest government office (used to be one locally and in the next town but gotta cut costs).
Screw with the voters list. My wife has always used her maiden name to vote, as well as her ID being in her maiden name. Checked the online voters list, shows she's registered correctly. Since she's a native we didn't trust the government so went in with lots of ID including our marriage license and certificate of marriage. Sure enough she was registered with her married name. Luckily the polling place was fairly quiet and someone was willing to spend an hour on the phone to Ottawa to re-franchise her. Lots of people would have given up at this point, especially in a busy polling location.
The advanced polling places were reduced to one, also a 50 mile round trip away.
Previous election, they did the robo-calling thing, sending lots of people to the wrong polling place. They made sure that they didn't get caught again by stopping Elections Canada from investigating voting irregularities, under the argument that they were prejudiced since no-one else was caught manipulating the voters rolls. Crooked people just take it for granted everyone is crooked.
Apart from all that crap, voting does go smooth here, though it helps that there is only one choice on the ballot. Which is another weakness of the American system, voting for up to a hundred different offices at once is going to make it hard for a voter to be informed and encourages the 2 party lock-in. We do get new parties here in Canada, usually starting at the Provincial level, though too often the old guard just moves into the 3rd party that is suddenly doing well.
(Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Friday October 07 2016, @12:31PM
Use postal voting?
(Score: 2, Funny) by Anonymous Coward on Friday October 07 2016, @05:03AM
The better solution is, of course, to do what Canada does and don't use ANY machines.
Paper ballots are super slow. After 149 years Canada has yet to elect its first president.
(Score: 5, Insightful) by Appalbarry on Thursday October 06 2016, @11:49PM
I fail to see any improvement over plain old paper ballots, counted by hand by poll captains, with scrutineers from each candidate overseeing the whole affair.
Recounts? Easy. Data loss? As long as you have the paper ballots you can start over.
Plus there are few practical ways for the Russians to have paper ballots.
(Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Friday October 07 2016, @12:21AM
Ya those Russians don't even have trees! How they gonna get the expensive paper stuff??
(Score: 2, Insightful) by Anonymous Coward on Friday October 07 2016, @01:25AM
> I fail to see any improvement over plain old paper ballots
(1) Vastly improved user interface - ability for the voter to correct errors before commit, multiple languages, very large print for the sight-impaired, ability to randomize candidate order to reduce psychological effect of being first on the ballot, etc
(2) Fast counting - some elections have 100+ races once state, county and city are included
(3) No questions of partially marked ballots - the computer prints a paper ballot that have enough redundant information so even if it is damaged it is still readable
There's more, but that's enough for now.
(Score: 1, Interesting) by Anonymous Coward on Friday October 07 2016, @02:28AM
Yep scantron is pretty cool.
(Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Friday October 07 2016, @02:44AM
1) If you screw up your paper ballot, ask for a replacement.
Additionally, if you meant to vote for NONE of the dirtbags listed, but you accidentally touched the screen, you can't undo that and do a no-vote for that category.
With a paper ballot, you just fill in one box to many in that category.
...and, clearly you aren't aware of the news reports of screens that are poorly calibrated.
2) What's the big goddamned hurry to get the results?
(Fuck Lamestream Media and what they have done to USA.)
The soonest anything will take effect will be January 1.
The presidential inauguration is 3 weeks after that.
3) A "None of the above" choice would eliminate that.
Most ballots already have a write-in spot where you can scribble "I hate them all".
-- OriginalOwner_ [soylentnews.org]
(Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Friday October 07 2016, @03:16AM
> 1) If you screw up your paper ballot, ask for a replacement.
Yeah? After you've filled out 50 different candidates, go back and do it all again?
And make sure you don't fuck it up again.
Never mind all the other points you ignored like multiple languages, seeing-impaired, etc.
> Additionally, if you meant to vote for NONE of the dirtbags listed, but you
> accidentally touched the screen, you can't undo that and do a no-vote for that category.
You assume that a well designed user-interface won't have a none-of-the-above option?
Why are you making up bullshit? Shame on you.
It is an intellectual coward's move to assume that the people you disagree with will do something obviously stupid.
> 2) What's the big goddamned hurry to get the results?
When there are hundreds of races the effort required to count them all is a huge pain in the ass.
Hand counts are tedious and error prone on the best of days. Automated counting is the only reliable option.
> 3) A "None of the above" choice would eliminate that.
You are just as much of a fucktard as the mighty butthurt.
A none of the above choice would make absolutely no difference in handling mismarked ballots.
What if two choices are marked?
What if all the choices are marked?
(Score: 1) by butthurt on Friday October 07 2016, @06:53AM
> [...] the mighty butthurt.
Heh. I wish I'd thought of that.
(Score: 2) by art guerrilla on Friday October 07 2016, @11:17AM
1. really, 50 candidates ? don't believe you... that is one out of a hundred ballots...
2. really, you make THAT many mistakes on a ballot it is THAT big a deal ? ? ?
3. really, SPEED of counting is your top priority ? tells me YOU have NO PLACE in deciding these issues...
4. really, HOW are computer-based systems 'more accurate' ? ? ? sure, if you mean spitting out the same UNAUDITABLE results repeatedly, but that has nothing to do with 'accuracy'...
(NOT TO MENTION -as you didn't- the COMPLETENESS of the count: are the absentee ballots actually counted, or just thrown in the dumpster after The They determine who 'won' from a computer printout controlled by unseen others and with PROPRIETARY spaghetti-code software which is a black box... similarly with early voters, do those ballots actually get counted, or just thrown in the box in a corner of a warehouse ? you don't know, and from your flawed and flippant attitude of 'computers are smarter, mmm'kay', i don't think you care... it is all about the shiny with you...)
5. really, the actual vote is almost an afterthought: the SYSTEMIC voter suppression is FAR MORE egregious than any -mostly bullshit- actual voter fraud... (note: voter fraud is minimal, ELECTION FRAUD is pandemic, EXACERBATED by a PROPRIETARY, black-box system(s) which ARE AMENABLE TO HACKING...)
6. i will ask again (out of ignorance): wouldn't a relatively simple spreadsheet of database be suitable for tallying votes ? ? ? when i hear of the PROPRIETARY spaghetti-code in our voting systems I AUTOMATICALLY think: that is cover for jigger-pokery going on... in short, it would seem to me that having OSS s/w for voting would be THE NUMBER ONE application of such software...
(Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Friday October 07 2016, @02:01PM
> 1. really, 50 candidates ? don't believe you... that is one out of a hundred ballots...
It is ALL ballots in which there are 50 races.
> 2. really, you make THAT many mistakes on a ballot it is THAT big a deal ? ? ?
It takes one mistake to ruin a ballot and have to start all over again.
> 3. really, SPEED of counting is your top priority ? tells me YOU have NO PLACE in deciding these issues...
Speed and accuracy. You write like someone who has never been part of election beyond maybe voting if that.
the rest, tl;dr for me, all your capitalization and shit is too tedious for me to parse given how ignorant your first three points were.
(Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Friday October 07 2016, @11:16AM
None of those supposed benefits outweigh the drawbacks of using inherently insecure electronic voting. I would rather us use slower paper ballots that have some issues than rely on electronic voting machines.
Also, you seem to be comparing electronic voting done about as well it can be with paper ballots. In practice, voting machines use proprietary software (this alone destroys any credibility they have), often do not have good user interfaces, and are extremely insecure. You can potentially fix these issues to some extent, but I don't trust that our government will be able to do that.
(Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Friday October 07 2016, @02:03PM
Dude, this is about paper ballots. See that first line, printers this is about putting a GUI on a paper ballot.
I swear, the number of dumbfucks that come out when you talk about voting is off the charts.
(Score: 2) by goody on Friday October 07 2016, @02:53AM
And if the paper ballots malfunction the Supreme Court can pick the president!
(Score: 2) by Kromagv0 on Friday October 07 2016, @12:44PM
I've never understood why more places can't just do what MN does and have a scantron type ballot [state.mn.us] that you fill out and feed into the counting machine. You have the ability to quickly and accurately do a mechanical count and in case of a recount you have paper ballots. Add in that it is really simple to fill out as everyone has likely filled out a scantron sheet at one point or another and it eliminates a lot of the problems other places have. I'm a big fan of mechanical counting as it is less error prone than human counting but having paper ballots is essential as it does provide an audit trail.
T-Shirts and bumper stickers [zazzle.com] to offend someone
(Score: 4, Interesting) by frojack on Thursday October 06 2016, @11:51PM
Lets avoid paper by getting touch screens. But lets print out every ballot.
What the hell is wrong with these people?
There is nothing wrong with a hand marked ballot that can be read by machine.
The voter can see it in her hand and check it.
The machine can count it.
The recount can count it, by machine, or by hand. The paper ballot can't be hacked from Russia.
No MORE paper to deal with (beyond the ballot itself), and no Printers to break.
If your readers break down, or your comms fail, Lock up the ballots and call in the hand-counters.
The single best change would be not to count any ballots until all ballots are in. Nation wide.
There is no reason to feed the media frenzy.
Stretch voting period to 5 days. Even big media won't stand outside a polling places for a week.
No, you are mistaken. I've always had this sig.
(Score: 2) by takyon on Friday October 07 2016, @12:55AM
A mandatory delay in reporting results could be interesting. It could also have some unintended effects.
[SIG] 10/28/2017: Soylent Upgrade v14 [soylentnews.org]
(Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Friday October 07 2016, @01:34AM
You still have to contend with exit-polling.
(Score: 3, Interesting) by maxwell demon on Friday October 07 2016, @06:50AM
In Germany it is illegal to publish the results of exit polls before the voting ends.
The Tao of math: The numbers you can count are not the real numbers.
(Score: 2) by maxwell demon on Friday October 07 2016, @06:44AM
Such as?
The Tao of math: The numbers you can count are not the real numbers.
(Score: 2) by Kromagv0 on Friday October 07 2016, @12:48PM
People having one day free of political reporting.
T-Shirts and bumper stickers [zazzle.com] to offend someone
(Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Friday October 07 2016, @01:30AM
> What the hell is wrong with these people?
As usual, forjack thinks himself superior than actual experts based on nothing more than his ignorance. Someone who was actually superior would have recognized this pattern in himself and done something to stop making the same mistake over and over.
> There is nothing wrong with a hand marked ballot that can be read by machine.
Two words: Hanging Chad
Not only does a printer guarantee a consistent and clearly marked ballot, it can also easily include redundant information so a damaged ballot. Voter verification of the ballot is easier too because it only needs to print the list of chosen candidates, so there is no question of which candidate was picked.
(Score: 1, Insightful) by Anonymous Coward on Friday October 07 2016, @03:08AM
I'm afraid this time it's you that's off kilter. Hanging chads are caused by voting machines. Frojack makes no mistakes here.
Where I live we vote the way Frojack described. It just works. I head to the polls (which thanks to living in a small town almost never have a line). They give me a sheet. I go to a booth. In the booth I find a pen. I mark my vote by filling in a bubble. I walk over to the scanner. The scanner takes my ballot, reads it, I watch the counter increment, and the ballot goes into a secured box. There's usually an observer from each of the two major parties watching all of this. They've even got the ballot-scanner-thing set up so that I walk my ballot over in a sleeve and the scanner can feed the ballot out of the sleeve so the poll worker can't see my vote.
We could vote in the middle of a damned power outage if we needed to.
This is how voting should be done everywhere. This is a solved problem.
I said I lived in a small town, but it's how they vote in the big city as well.
(Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Friday October 07 2016, @03:21AM
> I'm afraid this time it's you that's off kilter. Hanging chads are caused by voting machines. Frojack makes no mistakes here.
They are caused by old, poorly designed machines.
> (which thanks to living in a small town almost never have a line).
And there is your problem. Do you even live in the USA? Most american elections are complex, with tens to hundreds of races and when the turnout is the lines move very slowly and mistakes happen a lot more frequently.
You've got some pastoral utopian version of voting that simply does not apply.
(Score: 2) by t-3 on Friday October 07 2016, @05:15AM
Umm no. Where I live, in a suburb of Detroit, voting is handled just as he described. I've even worked at the polling place when I was younger, the process is very simple, orderly, and foolproof. Maybe everyone where you live has their head stuck up their ass but some areas know how to make shit work and get things done.
(Score: 2) by Phoenix666 on Friday October 07 2016, @12:52PM
That is quite an exaggeration. American elections are not complex. Once in a while you might have to vote on a judicial candidate in addition to a president, city councilman, or state office, but it barely ever scratches a dozen races to choose from at any point in time.
I have lived in Brooklyn, NY, for coming on 20 years and have been very deeply involved with local politics during that time; I vote in every election so I am what campaigns call a '1,' those voters they heavily court. I have never seen the ballot complexity you assert. In fact, I can count on one hand with fingers left over the number of ballot initiatives that have appeared--it's simply too hard to get them on the ballot because the requirements are too tough (a key ingredient in New York City's endemic corruption, but that's a different conversation).
Washington DC delenda est.
(Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Saturday October 15 2016, @04:48AM
> That is quite an exaggeration.
False. And I mean really fucking false.
In 2012 Illinois had nearly 400 county level referenda on the ballot - and Cook county (chicago) had over 50. [ballotpedia.org]
Michigan had 400 referenda [ballotpedia.org]
California had about 300, [ballotpedia.org] but Los Angeles County had about 50 alone. [ballotpedia.org]
Ohio had 1500+ [ballotpedia.org] looks like at least 20 on most ballots, the more populous counties easily had 50. [ballotpedia.org]
So I don't know what a "1" is but I do know you are full of shit.
(Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Friday October 07 2016, @05:59PM
I said I lived in a small town, but it's how they vote in the big city as well.
(Score: 2) by NotSanguine on Friday October 07 2016, @07:32AM
There is nothing wrong with a hand marked ballot that can be read by machine.
The voter can see it in her hand and check it.
The machine can count it.
That's exactly.how we do it in my state. Although, these days we let the men vote too.
At least that's how it is now. We used to have these wonderful old machines where you'd pull a big old handle with a red grip from right to left to move the actual paper ballot into place behind the console. Then you'd flip levers to make your choice, and once you'd confirmed you'd chosen what you wished, you pulled the big old handle back from left to right, which recorded your choices on the paper ballot. Even cooler was that the first time you pulled the lever to set the machine, it closed a curtain behind you so you had privacy. When you'd pulled the lever to record your vote it reset the levers and opened the curtain. I miss those rickety old machines. Sigh.
No, no, you're not thinking; you're just being logical. --Niels Bohr
(Score: 4, Insightful) by jmorris on Friday October 07 2016, @12:02AM
We know how to run a fraudproof election. We refuse to do it here in the U.S. itself for reasons which should be obvious. But we do know how, the U.S. military did just fine in Iraq. Photo ID, paper ballots, purple dye on the finger, clear plastic tub to hold cast ballots, hand count after the polls close with plenty of witnesses. No fraud, not even any grumblings of fraud because it was so self evidently transparent. And never been done inside the U.S. and won't ever be done here. Draw your own conclusion.
(Score: 2, Funny) by Zz9zZ on Friday October 07 2016, @03:20AM
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them
~Tilting at windmills~
(Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Friday October 07 2016, @03:36PM
Lol you said to draw our own conclusions, maybe you missed the "them" below the hand?
(Score: 1, Funny) by Anonymous Coward on Friday October 07 2016, @11:21AM
Fuck Photo ID. I don't have one and refuse to get one. Many states are now using photos on people's drivers licenses and such and putting them in facial recognition databases. I don't want the government to have a photo of me.
(Score: 5, Insightful) by takyon on Friday October 07 2016, @12:31AM
Hey, how about a paper ballot?! And no e-voting. And nothing connected to the Internet.
[SIG] 10/28/2017: Soylent Upgrade v14 [soylentnews.org]
(Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Friday October 07 2016, @01:37AM
The idea is to print the ballot after the voter has confirmed their choices. That's why the first on the list is "printers."
(Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Friday October 07 2016, @01:39AM
The fix is in all right!
(Score: 2) by srobert on Friday October 07 2016, @02:15AM
I think we should get an ID number for verification at the time we vote. Then we could go to a national website, punch in the number and it would say:
The voter associated with this number voted as follows:
President: Joe Schmoe
Senator: Jane Doe
State Representative: Chuck Murphy
Ballot Question 1: No
etc.
This does not in any way violate the right to a secret ballot because no one would know what your ID number was. It wouldn't even have to be printed out.
(Score: 3, Insightful) by Anonymous Coward on Friday October 07 2016, @02:30AM
Secret ballot was designed to stop vote buying. Basically the idea is I pay you 10 bucks to vote a particular way. All you have to do is prove it.
So no cameras or other people in the booth with you.
Your code idea would allow vote buying to actually work.
(Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Friday October 07 2016, @03:02AM
New Hampshire law barring ballot selfies is unconstitutional, court rules [arstechnica.com]
2016/09/28
-- OriginalOwner_ [soylentnews.org]
(Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Friday October 07 2016, @03:44AM
Only in UCC1 and specifically NH. The others district courts have not ruled on it as the supreme court has not. They may rule along similar lines. But that is not clear if they would (they probably would).
However the reasoning in that verdict is interesting. Basically 'doesnt happen anymore so we dont need a law'. Even though it happened extensively in the past and was basically ended because the police had a law in which to stop it. Seems like kind of an odd argument. It is almost 'there is no pollution going into the air so this company can do it because it has not happened anymore'.
That I think is a ruling that is 'ok' but for bad reasons.
(Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Friday October 07 2016, @08:12PM
1. Take selfie of ballot marked as interested party would like.
2. Spoil ballot.
3. Vote as one would like.
4. Profit!
(Score: 1) by tftp on Friday October 07 2016, @05:32AM
You are proposing to disrupt the free market !!!1! What are you, a communist? If someone has something to sell and some other wants to buy it, they should be able to do so!!!
</sarc> But seriously, this rule tries to solve the social problem - readiness to buy and sell votes - with a technical measure. In a better society it would be not necessary. Furthermore, those who want to sell their vote should not have it. But individual votes are pretty much worthless to a voter: one vote decides nothing. The value appears only at a large scale of manipulation. For that reason an individual has every practical reason to sell his vote - and a PAC with deep pockets has every reason to buy as many as they can. They have the money; some of their donors print it themselves.
(Score: 2) by Thexalon on Friday October 07 2016, @03:15AM
Oh yes it could. Imagine hearing from a corrupt boss or union president: "Now, show me on that government website that you supported the candidate that will be best for this organization." Or alternately: "Hey, 35 bucks to everyone who shows me that they voted for Schmoe!"
Also, your ID number is in a finite range. Which means I can easily script an attack on your website.
The only thing that stops a bad guy with a compiler is a good guy with a compiler.
(Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Friday October 07 2016, @03:41AM
I don't know why anyone would vote for Schmoe, with that crazy orange hair of his.
(Score: 2, Interesting) by Anonymous Coward on Friday October 07 2016, @03:55AM
Whenever these electronic voting stories get posted people come out of the woodwork with cockamamie ideas for how to "fix" the problem.
All they ever do is prove that they don't have any idea what they are talking about.
The rule is very simple - paper ballots. You can (and should) put a well-designed computer on the front end to help users fill out the ballot and put a well-designed computer on the back-end to ensure accuracy and efficiency in counting the ballots. But in between it must be a clear, clean, human-readable (no qr-codes) paper ballot. There is no other option that satisifies the requirements of minimizing vote-tampering. Paper ballots don't eliminate vote-tampering, but they make it has ineffective as possible while still maintaining all the other features of a voting system that democracy depends on.
(Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Friday October 07 2016, @06:33AM
At least the money would be going to the voters, not to CBS.
(Score: 2) by srobert on Monday October 10 2016, @02:34PM
Then you experiment with numbers to show him what he wants to see. He has no way to verify what your actual number was.
(Score: 3, Insightful) by drussell on Friday October 07 2016, @03:19AM
Paper and pencil ballots with nice big circles beside the candidate names and party affiliation to place your mark in is the only sane way to do it.
Spend the money that would be wasted on the machines hiring more actual people to run more polling places and count / oversee counting the ballots.
Your (USA) current hodge podge of crazy systems is just pure insanity! Especially for a country that loves to pretend to the world that they are a shining light for democracy around the globe... GROAN!
(Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Friday October 07 2016, @06:05AM
verifying the voter is too much bother.