Dear America: Want secure elections? Stick to pen and paper for ballots, experts urge The upcoming 2020 US presidential election should be conducted on paper, since there is no way currently to make electronic and internet voting secure. That's according to a dossier from the National Academies of Sciences, Engineering, and Medicine, which probed the fallout of alleged Russian meddling with America's 2016 …
Why? A cross made with a pencil, black biro or felt-tip will do just as well and, indeed, is much better if the ballots are counted by humans.
For machine-counted ballots a black mark in a box read by an Optical Mark Reader (OMR) is also better because it will not be subject to the 'hanging chad' problem.
OMR is old, tested and reliable technology: I was writing systems to use it back in 1971/2. With reasonably well designed forms it provides an easily used offline interface that works in places where online access isn't usually available, such as a polling station. When polling closes, the marked-up ballots from each polling station would be securely transported to the counting centre and fed through its OMR reader. Security is good because there's no need to connect any part of the voting system to a network.
The first example I saw of a live OMR system belonged to a magazine distributor. This is the middle man between the publishers and newsagents. The distributor's delivery van driver delivered magazines to the newsagent and collected last week's unsold copies. Both were recorded on an OMR form in front of the shop owner and passed to the distributor's computer dept to be read into the stock control and accounting system. The OMR forms had been printed with the retailer's code and the list of magazines he sold before being handed to the van driver, sorted into delivery round order - a very slick operation. Using then-traditional data prep methods took 3-4 weeks to produce invoices etc: the use of OMR reduced this to 3-4 days.
The OMR system I worked on used a set of forms to record case histories for a hospital cardiovascular unit: there were forms, designed by medical staff, to record pre-op examinations, details of the operation, post-op examinations and outcomes. We developed a system that read the OMR documents and stored the details in a database. As well as generating outcome statistics (its main purpose), it printed easily readable case histories that went back to the surgeons for checking/correction and to be added to the patient's case notes.
I doubt there's any OMR system in current use that cannot be hacked in one way or another (via USB, exploitable chipset vulnerability, whatever). No, human counting of ballots only please. Sure you could have the odd bad actor, but arranging for an army of them is a lot more difficult.
"the odd bad actor"
I would have thought that before Trump/Pence, but it appears Pence has brought a not insignificantly large group of Evangelicals who seem hell bent on bring about the Apocalypse and will use their whole "lying for Jesus" methodology to do so. The religious right in the US, it seems, is going through a massive, collective, cognitive dissonance. They know they're wrong, but cannot bring themselves to accept that, yet. It is this group that would like to be the ruling equivalent of the Taliban or the religious branch in Saudi Arabian governance (autocratic theocracy?). If we can make it through another generation or two without being thrown into a nuclear war and/or Fascist regimes everywhere we might be able to shake off the shackles of that religious tribalism and have one fewer group to fear will bring about the loss of human rights.
There are idiots on both extreme ends of the spectrum, AC. Right and Left both have their share of moonbats all too willing to sacrifice all rights of a few, or a few rights of all, in exchange for the illusion of "security", largely against threats mostly invented, or at least heavily exaggerated, but those in Congress and the White House, regardless of which side of the aisle they lean toward. To focus so ineptly on the threat from one direction would blind you to the equal threat from the other. Our friends over in the UK, where there's a political party for every blade of grass, have the correct of it. A two-party system cannot help but eventually polarize as people are forced into one or the other, though they do not fit into the mold of either, and here we are. Elsewhere, these people would band together and form a new party and become, perhaps, a force to reckon with in time. Here, the titanic two have amassed so much money as the ONLY two that no third party can raise enough to combat them. Long term, getting this nation back means making it easier, a *LOT* easier, for alternate political parties to take on the Democrat and Republican parties, and ultimately, ideally, eliminate *all* parties and make every candidate run as an individual, espousing what they really believe instead of what the "party" makes them say in order to get the "soft money" campaign funds. I'm tired of voting for a candidate knowing its really the DNC and RNC that are pulling the puppet strings.
"There are idiots on both extreme ends of the spectrum, AC. Right and Left both have their share of moonbats all too willing to sacrifice all rights of a few, or a few rights of all, in exchange for the illusion of "security""
Sorry, but that's false equivalence.
First, the share of "moonbats" on the right is currently much higher, as is evident by the current President of the U.S. Second, the consequences of the right's agenda is much more severe. What would we get by following some of the currently mainstream "extreme" left views right now? A few more kids mistakenly self labeling as transgender and insisting their name is "Jace" before they're old enough to really even understand what they're talking about? More directors being fired for telling bad jokes? Both not great things -- but solvable.
Now, it is true that if you go far enough left or right, you'll end up in the chewy fascist center. But the vast majority of current "leftists" are nowhere near that extreme, where the evangelical movement in the U.S. has made "right" synonymous with "lunatic" -- unless you think policies like medicare for all, net neutrality, etc. etc, are extreme, but then you're just being foolish.
The number of leftists with truly dangerous views is relatively low -- and certainly not anywhere near the threat of the right's agenda that's currently supported by a majority of those identifying as "right". The problem we have right now is that the right has gone so far right that normally sensible ideas from the left somehow seem extreme.
That's merely your opinion sitting on the left, where someone left of you has to be extra moonbatty to seem like a moonbat. Those on the right would no doubt claim that the left has the much higher share of moonbats.
The problem on the right is that the moonbats became empowered, and unfortunately rather than speaking out most conservatives / republicans are just going along with Trump and defending his craziness. Some of the names being posited as potential democratic candidates for 2020 are pretty moonbatty themselves. Maybe it is a reaction to Trump, or maybe it is a overreaction to having run a more moderate establishment candidate in 2016 who managed the seemingly impossible and lost to Trump.
If a democrat moonbat becomes president in 2020 we'll probably see much the same thing, though without the entertainment value of deranged tweets and pools over how long he/she will remain in office.
The post on which you're commenting is about election technology. The issue of left versus right, moonbat count, and so forth, isn't relevant. Were it relevant, I would point out that many states in the US have their electoral votes wholly determined by the preference of their one or two largest cities. Those cities all vote majority dem, having their vote determined largely by union affiliation or social benefit dependence. But that doesn't clarify the tech problem. Even the machines can't fix the absence of voter ID. The left holds Scandinavia out as the model of democracy...but Sweden, Norway, et al, require one's "legitimation card" in order to vote, a card having a photo and ID number. In Sweden that number is your birthdate and your number in line of births reported that day. People don't find such ID offensive. Why does the US left?
"People don't find such ID offensive. Why does the US left?"
Because the US has a long and proud tradition of voter suppression. The issue is not having to have a card; the issue is that it's too easy for local authorities to decide that the card will cost you $50, or is only available if you have a drivers license, or if you have a clean criminal record, or are paid up with your taxes any of which would mean a huge population of low income (and generally Democrat voting) people can't get one. Same reason the right don't want voting age lowered to 16... the majority of kids will vote democrat.
The US loves the idea of local control (to save us from the big bad feds) but the by-product is you get lousy governance.
In and of itself. The problem is that GETTING a photo ID provides many places from which to suppress the vote. You can charge people for it, which will turn poor people off from voting. You can demand all sorts of difficult ways to prove your identity - low income people who have moved many times in their life often have lost their birth certificate, and never had any other forms of ID like a passport. So how do they prove to the office giving out photo IDs that they are who they say they are?
Even if you pass those hurdles, you can insure that only one location in the whole county is available to provide such IDs, and locate it off any bus routes etc. so it is very difficult for poor people to get there. You can also understaff it, to guarantee long waits, so even if people make it out there with money and proof of ID in hand, they have to leave because they need to get to work, or they don't make it through the line before they close for the day.
This is why a simple requirement for ID will suppress the vote of the poor, especially urban poor who often have no transportation of their own and have moved around a lot in their life so they have no proof of ID.
First, the share of "moonbats" on the right is currently much higher, as is evident by the current President of the U.S. Second, the consequences of the right's agenda is much more severe
Sorry, but that simply isn't true.
The consequences of the lefty moonbats are always more severe. Pop over to Venezuela and report back. Trump hasn't achieved, and will not achieve, anything remotely as severe.
It's reached the point where Socialism has destroyed enough of the worlds successfull economys that the only rational response is to ensure anyone entering a voting booth is sufficiently educated as to its obvious and persistent evils that they never even think about voting for a leftist party again.
The consequences of the lefty moonbats are always more severe.
Comparisons of left and right only really make sense for moderates. Extremists are extremists whether they are Marxist or Fascist. Was Pinochet really better than Chavez? Cuba under Castro had little freedom of expression but better healthcare for the poor than the US.
If you're going to spill evilness about those on the opposite side of the political spectrum, you may want to at least take a few minutes to look at how imbedded you are.
You should consider how fascist your words are.
A fascist doesn't want to hear the other side. If someone doesn't believe what you believe, then they are wrong... and should be punished. --This is fascism.
A fascist doesn't look at both sides. They are stuck on what they are told (rarely looking for the truth).
A fascist sees faith as a bad thing, and belittles anyone who follows religious beliefs.
Finally, a fascist calls others fascist without proof...often times without knowing what the word actually means--because they've spent so much time just repeating what they've been told to say.
Attempting to apply 'tribalism' to religion is so completely ignorant, it's clear you don't have any original thoughts of your own, and you've never stopped to use the cognitive creative abilities your brain does have. You may want to try critical thinking for once. You'll find your life suddenly becomes a lot more enjoyable and filled with less hate.
"No, human counting of ballots only please. Sure you could have the odd bad actor, but arranging for an army of them is a lot more difficult."
Even with the kind of size and clout the major political parties can bear? Does the term "political machine" ring a bell back to the old Gilded Age? Wasn't the pursuit of nonhuman ballotting the result of the corruption of the human ballot process, regardless of its supposed safeguards?
You'd have to hack them in person, one by one, so it isn't scalable. What I've been saying for years is that there needs to be a mandatory recount of small percentage of randomly selected precincts (statisticians can determine the value of 'small' based on the confidence we want) that's done by hand to catch any large scale fiddling. If any is found then a full statewide hand recount can be conducted.
The reason you want machine reading is because people aren't patient enough to wait until the next day to find out who wins an election. You can't have the ballots hand counted the night after the election, anyone who thinks that's possible does not understand how US elections are conducted well enough to comment.
So you let the machine count them, send them to the county/state HQ, and the results can be reported as 'unofficial'. The next day you do the random audit recount in thos precincts that are selected, and if no problems are found you're done other than late arriving absentee ballots etc. that get added to the total and don't matter unless the election is close - in which case the loser will request a full recount anyway which can be done by hand pretty quickly since it is only one item on the ballot.
Give people the electronic touchscreen machines they are familiar with, have them spit out a ballot with text designed to be both human and OCR readable and the voter looks at it to verify his vote for Lizard 1 was recorded instead of Lizard 2, puts it in the secrecy folder then deposits it into a locked ballot box (or a fancy machine like the one at my precinct that takes the secrecy folder off it and reads the ballot then and there so result reporting is very quick)
There in lies the problem...you are assuming all machines need to be tampered with.
You only need to tamper with sufficient machines, to cover the winning margin+1 vote.
Anything else is a waste of resources you could use hacking other things.
However if your're on the voter machine security side, you must secure ALL voting machines for the election to be credible BEFORE the election.
This changes AFTER the election dependent on tbe result...i.e. you need the winning margin-1 to have been secured.
You only need to tamper with sufficient machines, to cover the winning margin+1 vote.
Unless it is a very close election, you need to tamper with a lot. If you say "well, we need 100,000 votes, so we will turn 100 large precincts that were 80/20 D to 70/30 R, problem solved" it will be quickly discovered that something really odd has happened that would be looked into.
At any rate, that's why my proposal (and the one that the republicans refused to vote on in the house) includes mandatory hand recounts of a statistically significant portion of precincts, with thresholds set that would trigger mandatory statewide recounts if necessary. That's going to easily catch any OMR/OCR fiddling, so matter how carefully done.
You don't even need to tamper with enough to win the vote.
Have a couple of noteworthy senators defeated by 65536 votes to zero - or even win by the same margin. - and you start the new administration with everyone believing the vote was rigged
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In Canada at least ballot counting is done a local level, by lowly paid election employees, with party scrutineers looking over their shoulders. It's reasonably fast, fairly foolproof, and includes a paper trail just in case. It would be very hard to significantly swing a vote.
I just don't see the rationale for trusting technology in this case. There are just too many ways that it can be hacked or gamed to be trustworthy.
So what stops PEOPLE from being subverted, including any watchers?
Party loyalty. There will be at least one observer from each political party in most precincts. I suppose one of them could try to bribe all the rest to look the other way, but you'd only be do that in a LOT of precincts to swing the total. And somehow keep that from ever becoming public, or those who were bribed from coming back and asking for more money saying "while I was being offered this money, I had my phone recording what your guy was saying, I'll call all the major newspapers and networks with this unless you pay $20,000 a month for life to keep it locked up"
I have stood for election to my local council in England, and was therefore one of those "party scrutineers" you mention. The people counting the ballot papers are a mixture of council officials and others such as bank tellers, used to sorting and counting slips of paper.
Those counting people are instructed to ignore useless and irrelevant interjections from the party scrutineers. The counting process is simple if just one councillor is to be elected, but becomes complicated in a large ward that elects two or three councillors.
Some ballot papers are queried. This ranges from the one that used ticks instead of crosses, to the one that just said "s*d off". A council official will gather representatives from all the parties to decide these cases. Where the voting intention is clear, it is usually granted. In the cases I saw, it would not have affected the result, but in a marginal seat there exists an escalation procedure.
I doubt that an electronic process could replace all that.
Just that common sense is not all that common (somebody said).
I have been baffled by the USians insistence to use those machines, doubly so ones that do not create a paper ballot to recount afterwards. To me this is madness - which actually is apparently common. Still, as somebody commented, maybe these are used so you can properly rig the elections (no need for the Russians to interfere...)
I expect they had already compiled the dossier before it emerged that the Russian Trolls are really Michigan Democrats and Oracle-backed campaigners.
Michigan Link: On 2018-08-16 DNC security partner Lookout tested the DNC's email security by setting up phishing sites to collect user names and passwords. This information was then sent back in time to before the 2016 election so that DNC emails could be leaked.
Oracle link: The Internet Research Agency indictment is dated 2018-02-16. Google said they had taken steps to prevent similar trolling by the Russians. CfA tested this by setting up account using the Internet Research Agency's address and doing some trolling. Apparently this trolling travelled back in time to before the 2016 election and caused the indictment.
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