Let white-hat hackers stick a probe in those voting machines, say senators US voting machines would undergo deeper examination for computer security holes under proposed bipartisan legislation. Senators Mark Warner (D-VA) and Susan Collins (R-ME) this week introduced an amendment to the Help America Vote Act (HAVA) that would require the nation's Election Assistance Commission to include penetration …
.... the obviously hacked election of 2016 they have all (FBI, NSA, etc.) decided to make sure that outside forces do not get to decide who gets elected to the position of figurehead of the only 'free' country in the World! They (FBI, NSA, etc.) really want to keep that choice for themselves!
Bait set ..... pop corn popping ..... feet up ..... waiting for the arguments to start!
An alternative suggestion: people didn't like it. I'm not sure whether the original comment was intended as sarcasm, but you seem to think it obviously was and it certainly could be. Amusing sarcasm, however, is not really in the cards. Maybe people thought that, as a possible joke, it didn't really work. I didn't vote on it, but I don't find much value in the comment.
lots of down votes by those that are ignoring that the CIA and FBI have been exposed in the last 2 weeks for election tampering.
Just because you don't like information, doesn't make it false.
However, I don't think voting machines were a problem (although always improving security is right) more the misinformation and Xi's millions in illegal donations/bribes.
I remember that election well. I was one of the first in line that day and we had to wait till the Ipad used to determine if you had voted early completed the IOS update. Who was the moron that thought go live day was patch day? It won't make a difference if the system is allowed to be patched AFTER it has been certified.
Trust experience, question everything else.
Trust experience, question everything else.
An impressively foolish maxim.
Personal experience is by definition anecdotal. The sample size of personal experience will be much too small to justify any generalizations for most categories of experience.
Humans are prey to a large number of well-documented perceptual and cognitive limitations and traps. Our ability to observe situations and draw rational conclusions from them is severely limited. That's why we have epistemological protocols for mitigating those limitations and not trusting personal experience.
Learning from experience is both necessary and unavoidable. But "trusting" it is the hallmark of uncritical thought.
"if the system is allowed to be patched AFTER it has been certified."
Are you implying that the "voting machine" was an iPad? Or was it merely being used to verify voters, in which case it's hardly a security issue if it's just being used to check if you already voted.
I pretty much agree here. I've been seeing this since I was in high school in the 90s, it doesn't seem to actually matter who you elect, the same kind of shit gets passed the only difference is the wording. Whether it SOUNDS like the D's or the R's. What's the same is the shaft and where they put it.
There's a difference between recording the votes and counting the votes though.
Following a couple of respected security bods on Mastodon who have given a lot of thought to election security, it does seem that good progress has been made in the last 10 years. The main one is that it's now recognised that computers can help with counting votes, but must never be responsible for recording votes. No system should ever require you to enter your vote electronically - there must be a physical ballot paper. Old touch-screen voting machines have been largely phased out. Some systems had you enter your vote and they printed a receipt - but these are also unacceptable as the receipt was often a barcode combining some sort of unique ID with the vote cast, which is not easily human-readable.
The happy medium seems to be that you mark your vote on a scantron-type ballot paper. You then scan it (and perhaps receive a receipt), and deposit your ballot in a traditional ballot box.
The computers provide a quick provisional result when voting closes, and you do an audit count of a statistically-significant proportion of ballots. In a landslide, you probably only count 10% of ballot papers. In a narrow race you'll basically end up doing a full manual count. On average this saves time (not waiting days for a result whilst mail-in votes are counted <side eye to Georgia>). Importantly, you've always got the paper ballots if one of your checks and balances ends up initiating a full recount.
Moreover, even if you decide as a matter of policy to always do a full manual count, an electronically-counted provisional result nukes the hours (or in the US, days) of commentators testiculating about what's going to happen, or candidates submitting vexatious lawsuits to "stop the count". If voting closes at 10pm, there should be a provisional result published by 11pm and we can all go to bed. Whilst some might say "be more patient", it's reasonable to suggest that the fake news in the wake of the last US election (when early provisional results shifted because mail-in ballots favoured Biden, giving rise to "tampering" theories) makes a strong case for being able to publish a provisional result quickly, and then quietly do the manual count (or audit counts) without the pressure of releasing misleading interim results. Obviously also... just don't release interim or partial results.
If you're using a scantron-type counter and doing good audits, then by far the larger source of fraud will be coerced postal votes.
That said, I agree that it's a bit bold to call the last US election "the most secure". Whilst I'm not suggesting it suffered any tampering, elections pre-1980 were more passively-secure by virtue of being entirely manual.
I would go for that. So long as the voter (or, at least I) can verify what they wanted is recorded on physical media as a verification, perfect. But the vote should not be counted until the paper ballot is "in the box". Human readable is a must.
Good luck with the Australian Senate voting papers, if one chooses to vote for your own selected candidates, rather than the party defaults.
... it's now recognised that computers can help with counting votes, but must never be responsible for recording votes ...
Quite so.
If I recall correctly, Germany did away with voting machines quite some time ago.
Once you go there ie: machines recording votes, it's a huge can with more worms that it can hold.
.
... elections pre-1980 were more passively-secure by virtue of being entirely manual.
Yes, they were.
Of course, once you made sure the vote early/vote often crowd had been controlled, the possibility of voter fraud was virtually eliminated as long as the ballot boxes were properly secured and traced.
In a democratic system you should not have to register to vote, it is a sure path to institutional vote corruption: if you have the right to vote you should be able to.
But voter ID seems to be an issue in some countries so keeping tabs on who (already) voted is not an easy task.
Some countries have been diping the voter's index finger in red ink for decades.
.
"In a democratic system you should not have to register to vote, it is a sure path to institutional vote corruption: if you have the right to vote you should be able to."
Being registered to vote isn't a problem so long that is ALL it is. Once you need to provide anything other than who you are, or have to jump through unrelated hoops, eg providing voting intentions etc, then it becomes a problem.
Agreed - I take issue with the "it was all much more secure before computers" because that's not the same as "election outcomes were more accurate before computers"
Automated vote tallying of paper ballots is indeed the way to go if you want absolutely demonstrable results.
With regard to voter registration - I've never understood the slightly weird US system. Most of the countries I've lived in are infinitely more democratic: you get a document by mail allowing you to vote, and you get it by mail by definition, not depending on whether you've followed some arcane process.
Mailed ballots were sent whether requested or not in the last two elections, and were sent to incorrect addresses. Anyone who receives that particular ballot can fill it out and send it in, and it counts. Therefore, it is susceptible to fraud.
The only way to ensure that the person voting is the correct person is in-person voting, and showing a verified ID to vote. You simply cannot get by in the US without ID, so showing one is not a hardship. There's no valid reason 99 percent of US citizens can't get to a voting booth when everyone knows it's the first Tuesday of November, and the law requires employers to allow people to vote.
Good point..
I think that the cause of the Republican lack of mail in ballots is more simple than the Republicans will admit. They (and particularly Trump) have spent 4 years saying that mail in votes are susceptible to fraud, so their voters likely didn't bother. After all, they thought it was insecure. They then put the low number of votes down to tampering, which backs up the idea it's insecure, and they have low numbers of postal votes in the next election.
And another problem they are causing that will impact democracy. Regardless of how secure the election is, if the results don't go their way, the MAGAts will claim the election is not secure. By doing this, they *are* destroying democracy, and I think they need to be stopped. I'm just not sure how.
There is along history of manipulating paper ballots. From simple ballet stuffing to more sophisticated schemes.
The common election “buying” scheme involves sending the first guy in, he marks your chosen guy on the ballot but does not post it. When he comes out the fixer checks the ballot pays up and gives the ballot to the next guy who posts the previous ballot and hands his ballot to the fixer and collects the money. Repeat until you run out of money or voters.
This system was common in Thailand, when measures were taken to prevent it there were mass protests from poor people who were derived a useful extra income.
You just need random audits in place where hand counts verify a few percent of the precincts, with a full hand recount required if the audit results are outside an acceptable range.
People who say we should hand count everything don't understand how US elections work. In a presidential (every four years) or congressional (every two years) election, there are typically a couple dozen things on the ballot for me to vote for. Everything from president, congressman and senator, to state representative and senator, retention of state judges at the local, appeals and supreme court levels, and random stuff like county water commissioner, assessor, etc. and maybe one or two propositions.
If the only thing on the ballot was the president, sure, that's a lot easier but that's not the reality in the US. We have technology for reading scantron bubbles that has been proven over what 60 years? Why not use it? You just have to double check to make sure it is reading accurately and no one is up to any funny business.
Everything from president, congressman and senator, to state representative and senator, retention of state judges at the local, appeals and supreme court levels, and random stuff like county water commissioner, assessor, etc. and maybe one or two propositions.
In fairness, this has always struck me as a bit overly complex - and it’s been shown in at least one case that confusing ballot layout affected election outcome because people accidentally voted for the wrong person.
Scantron is definitely a way of reducing count error, but ballots could also be broken out into multiple ballots (colour-coded so the staff can check people are posting them in the right boxes). One for President and/or congressional elections, then a couple for state and county/local elections. Two or three ballots could significantly simplify layout and the presidential ones (say) can be prioritised - it’s an odd thing to be slow delivering a result for a national vote because they’re concurrently counting ballots for local sanitation superintendent.
I just wish they would put plain worded items that we really want on the ballot. An example of what we get;
Vote yes to be against no to agree.
Not preventing sales tax increase not applied for items used but not consumed for increases in the rate of sales to be taxed. (Or some b.s. like that)
Instead of:
Vote yes for unlimited terms in office, vote no for a max of 2 terms.
Or
For or against
Entities cannot increase my tax rate without my express permission.
In the states, we have the voluntary tax system. If you don’t volunteer what they ask for, they will be happy to assist you.
I just wish they would put plain worded items that we really want on the ballot
That happens in states where politicians are responsible for the wording. They know what outcome they want, so they word it in a confusing way to hoping to fool less engaged voters into voting the way they want. In states where citizen petitions can put a measure on the ballot it is almost always worded very clearly like "should this amendment banning X be adopted into the state's constitution?"
USA has very complex votes, including voting for the local dog catcher, referenda etc. This is there justificiation for using electronic systems.
Voting Best practice is to avoid this for the most important votes such as presidential, governor etc as such complex voting overwhelms everyone.
For dog catcher etc for all I care they could just use an app.
Other best voting practice is a very short time for voting...reduces chance of tampering and avoid postal ballots like the plague. Massive source of fraud ...the biggest victims being women and minorities. Should be limited to government staff overseas and physically ill. Automatic voter registration good too.
"avoid postal ballots like the plague. Massive source of fraud"
The good news is that there are many different places that have been doing universal postal voting for a long time, not just after a pandemic. This means that, if you were right, you could provide a ton of evidence comparing locations that did that with ones where postal voting was forbidden or heavily restricted, thus demonstrating a suspicious correlation. Can you? Or did you perhaps just make this up?
Here in the UK, after a bunch of local elections where, for the first time, Photo ID was required to be able to vote, many 100;s of people were turned away and about 1/3rd of them decided not to bother to vote at all. In one local borough, about 100 people chose to not return and vote, 10 times more than the entire countries worth of voting fraud for last year. I'm kinda failing to see what problem is being solved here. <Tin foil hat alert as theories are put forward :-)>
Personally, since I don't happen to have any of the acceptable photo IDs, and can't be arsed with applying for a "voting certificate" or whatever they call it, I just went to the website to request a postal ballot.
Something for the downvoters to read. Unless, of course, you think it's fake news, in which case, do tell :-)
I'm sure i read something a few years back about suggestions that the voting machines go to be checked & tested by the Nevada gambling commission where they would also hold the software in escrow. As they're good at making sure the software in gambling machines does not skew the payouts etc..
From memory, the voting machine vendors point blank refused.
i saw a video as well where they got members of the public to watch whilst a sealed voting machine that was used in local elections was made to produce the "correct vote", they were sat in the room watching this happen, they were shocked at how easy it was to manipulate.
there needs to be more oversight of these machines and their software.
There was a push to use open source voting software where the source code was open to everyone to view, don't know what happened to that initiative though.
Also, I'm not American or in the US so the above is based on being an outside observer on stuff I've read.
As long as the code is not open source, I won't trust it.
RSA encryption is open source and that works fine. It's not because you know how the code works that you can break the system.
So why isn't the foundational process of Democracy not open source ?
Because greedy companies want to make a fortune out of it, and closed source is the direct path to achieving that.
Unfortunately, closed source is also the direct path to shady deals and unknown agreements that might very well undermine Democracy.
That is not acceptable.
What guarantee would you have that the open source code you've seen was the code running (and the only thing running) on the machine?
You need a secure development chain from source to binary installation, and provided the source has been properly audited as part of that, being open or closed is irrelevant.
If it was then Linux would be bug free, and when bugs are found they would never be a decade old or more. Not to mention it is still possible for someone with physical access to the machines to alter that code - easier to do that in fact, if it is open source and they can replace the software with a hacked version.
And then you get to the question of open source what? If it is an open source application running on a Windows PC it is not open source. If it is a open source application running on Linux with a binary blob driver for the video it is not open source. If it is open source but relies on EFI firmware for secure boot then it is not open source. If open source is claimed as a panacea as you appear to do, that will lead to a false sense of security.
The only way to insure open source voting software is producing correct results is the exact same way to insure closed source voting software is producing correct results. Pre-election testing, and post-election verification.
No - you just don't have software involved... with the possible exception of optical sorting and counting machines to assist with the rather tedious task of counting the paper ballots marked with a pencil or a pen that the voter has provided (rather than a pen with potentially trick ink left at the polling booth).
If you have the default administrative passwords still in place, wide open remote access to the underlying database and wide open, unfiltered access from the internet, is it really a voting machine security issue??
https://www.nbcnews.com/politics/elections/online-vulnerable-experts-find-nearly-three-dozen-u-s-voting-n1112436
If your voting machines are out of date and theres no plan to update them before an election, is it a voting system security issue?
https://www.texastribune.org/2023/02/10/texas-voting-equipment-legislation-senate-bill-1/
If the voting machine has "doesn't vazlidate its security signature" (2.2.1) "relies on self attestation" (2.2.2), "hidden functionality of a terminal emulator" (2.2.3), "allows authentication bypass spoofing" (2.2.7) and a whole list of other MAJOR year+ old vulnerabilities that have not been resolved on a majority of the voting systems by a nationally accepted system vendor, is it really a voting system issue?
https://www.cisa.gov/news-events/ics-advisories/icsa-22-154-01
If a judge that was responsible for certifying vote counts and election results was found guilty of accepting bribes and falsifying results, is that a voting system security problem?
https://www.justice.gov/opa/pr/former-philadelphia-judge-elections-convicted-conspiring-violate-civil-rights-and-bribery
If the voting process allows for unsecured drop boxes, mailin votes without signatures, signatures that don't match the signature on file, they turn off validation checking during processing "because it was running too slow", ballot harvesting and all the other issues with allowing mass mailin voting, is it really a problem with voting system security?
https://senatorpittman.com/2022/04/13/senate-votes-to-ban-unsecured-ballot-drop-boxes-and-private-funding-of-election-operations/
https://www.nytimes.com/2018/02/21/magazine/the-myth-of-the-hacker-proof-voting-machine.html
https://alumni.umich.edu/michigan-alum/hacking-the-vote/
The US really just needs to eliminate the possibility of fraud, require voter ID, paper ballots and permanent ink on a finger/thumb after you vote to eliminate fraud, like countless countries around the globe already do. Why can't we question the people who continue to vote against all of the common sense, low cost measures to secure and insure the voting process?
Oh look it is an election denier upset that Trump lost and trying to muddy the waters to justify his insane claims that it was rigged!
Voter ID is fine, so long as you make it FREE, you don't have only one place in the county to get one that's bogged down with huge lines, and the process of getting one doesn't discriminate against poor people (i.e. requiring a birth certificate which if they don't have a copy of is a huge hurdle especially if they were born in another state) And if they do that they should ban the use of anything other than a voter ID or driver's license for voting. No stupid nakedly partisan shit like Texas where a gun license is OK for voting but a school ID from a state university is not!
Almost everyone uses paper ballot already, there are very very few places left that have electronic voting machines that don't produce a paper trail and hopefully they'll all be gone by the next election. The "permanent ink" thing is only necessary if you don't require any sort of ID. It is a far right fantasy that lots of people are voting twice - and in fact the few who were convicted of voting twice in Pennsylvania and Florida were republicans!
If you want ink marking voters to mean anything you'd have to eliminate ALL voting by mail and ALL early voting - which would be a MASSIVE discrimination against urban voters where we don't have the infrastructure for all of them to vote on a single day - nor is it convenient for them all to vote on Election Day unless a law is passed making it a national holiday and requiring employers who have anyone working on that day insure they have plenty of time off work when the polls are open to vote. It is already bad enough that republican states make black voters wait for hours in line, now they don't want to allow anyone to give them water or give them a ride to the polls. Funny how every "election security" measure makes it harder for the kind of people who vote for democrats to vote, while not inconveniencing their own voters much at all.
Da999, please add links to your response like Eric did.
If you wish to mention all the court cases lost, please go take a look at the judgements. Most were either dismissed because of lack of injury because election had not happened or moot point after the election.
This happed to both parties. Our judicial system did not get involved. Some responses stated such.
Hence the request to cite your info. It is the only way to defuse this. Facts. (And they are in short supply)
Links don't matter to election deniers. They will just question the source and will tell you that the New York Times or even Fox News is "fake news" if it doesn't agree with their preconceived narrative.
You can't debate facts with people who believe reality has a left wing bias, so they've substituted their own.
I will address a few of these.
A voter registration card is already free. A REAL ID is a requirement to enter government buildings, fly, bank, ext. As you have to have it anyway, using it to verify who you are is a non-issue.
Getting a birth certificate is not hard to do, I had to do it myself and I'm old.
All you need to do for a college ID is show up and get one. You can take a class at several colleges in different counties, get an ID at each, and vote in each county if that were allowed. On the other hand, a gun license holder has been subjected to a full federal background check AND you're only getting the one.
If voter fraud is only catching Republicans, and Democrats never commit fraud (let's ignore cases like Detroit, where they had more votes than registered voters) then you should be all for voter ID. You know, let's get those Republicans arrested and banned from voting!
https://www.detroitnews.com/story/news/politics/2016/12/12/records-many-votes-detroits-precincts/95363314/
Ensuring there are enough polling stations is the responsibility of your local politicians, so if that is an issue for you, take it up with them. 30 US states require employers to allow people to vote, but this is the only place you are correct - there should be a federal law requiring employers to let you vote.
The whole "give people on line water" bit and other similar measures are to prevent vote buying or influencing, the same with the rides - show me how you voted and if you don't vote the right way, you walk home. The reason they are illegal is these very things have happened in the past, and those black folks you claim are being discriminated against by this were the victims when those laws were passed.
Quite frankly, your whole post reads like you'te complaining about these rules to protect vote integrity makes it harder to cheat.
The whole "give people on line water" bit and other similar measures are to prevent vote buying or influencing, the same with the rides
That's utter bullshit. No one is going to have their vote bought with a bottle of water! It is purely intended as voter suppression, so people won't be willing to stand in line in big city precincts to vote democrat. Ditto for rides - the reason they have those long lines is they are only allowed to set up so many voting sites by state authorities.
And some states like Georgia are trying to make it even worse - they passed a law allowing the legislature to take over elections in counties they deem as underperforming. Surprise surprise, they are reducing the number of voting sites which will make the lines even longer!
"Voter ID is fine"
There are places where carrying ID is not required... It's rare that I carry any ID at all, and I certainly don't need any to do any banking...
I needed some once, a long time ago, but for normal banking activities - nope.
In terms of voter ID... Exactly what fraud are you trying to prevent, and how often does that fraud happen?
Because turning people away from a polling booth is at least as damaging to democracy as the vanishingly small amount of fraud you might deter.
Indeed voter registration is a hurdle which I have doubts over... but that's a different question.
If you're going to have a dedicated "voter's ID" then don't accept anything else - why add the complexity of driver's licenses but not passports? Why add pensioner's Oyster cards but not adult ones?
Unless voter fraud is a major issue (which I doubt) then the issues with ID outweigh the benefits.
I've had quite a bit of experience as an elections officer, both as a Precinct Inspector under the old system and a Team Leader under the new. I can say with confidence that it would be extremely difficult to impossible to hack the vote without anyone noticing. A couple of points, though. A lot of political noise has been made about positive voter ID but its a fact -- a person's identity is confirmed by their signature, either at the polling place when they sign for a ballot or on the envelope when they return a vote by mail ballot. In the new system this is confirmed in real time against the voter registration records (which is where the eligibility of a voter is confirmed, BTW). There are rules for every contingency and poll workers will escalate anything not covered by them, first to the 'Roving Inspectors' and then to county election
The process of vote counting is mostly automate. First, like all election activities, is open to the public (within limits -- looking is OK, interfering is not). The ballot forms are first checked for legibility and any incomplete, illegible or unreadable ballots are put to one side. The rest are imaged -- ballots are processed using their images with the physical ballots being kept for cross checking if needed. Badly formed ballots may be referred to the voter if there's time (typically the signature's missing on a mail in ballot) and illegible ballots are screened by groups that include an election official and representatives of the candidates (and salvaged if at all possible -- this is done by copying the ballot, never by altering the original).
A couple of other details. One is that at no time is one person left alone with ballots during the entire election cycle. The other is that because of the way that we hold multiple elections at the same time in the US we end up with a lot of different ballot forms. This was a bit of a pain back when we had precinct based polling places (up to a dozen different ballots...) but now votes can vote anywhere in a county the number of potential ballot forms can be vast -- close to 200 in our (smallish) county for the 2020 election, for example. Doing a mass ballot dump of pre-printed Chinese ballots might be a bit tricky -- which ballots and where?
Lots of other things such as a detail like "Who makes the ballot boxes?". (Hint -- you need light, portable, containers.....the sort of thing that's similar to luggage... so SURPRISE!, guess who makes them!). But realistically, instead of speculating about 'hacking' and the like, why not ask someone or even -- gasp! -- volunteer to work an election. We all now know that Fox et al were BSing us so why are people still blathering on about stuff that's long been discredited.
We all now know that Fox et al were BSing us
Unfortunately the people watching Fox still don't know that, because Fox didn't report on the Dominion case and certainly didn't report on the text messages from Tucker, Hannity, Ingram etc. and the Fox leadership showing they knew all along the election wasn't stolen and that Rudy, Sidney Powell etc. were making insane claims with zero facts to back them up.
I wish Dominion had held out and gone to trial, and the jury had ordered Fox have to announce hourly for the next three months that they knew all along the election wasn't stolen and they lied to their viewers. Though that still might not change any minds - the viewers might go to Newsmax to keep getting spoon fed their comforting lies rather than admit to themselves they've been duped for the past two and a half years.
needs a few changes.
1. A REAL ID required to vote. And, this is far less onerous than what is required to exercise other Constitutionally protected rights.
2. Mail in voting prohibited, must vote in person.
3. All recounts requested by a candidate must be a statewide recount, all ballots.
4. All boxes holding ballots must be locked with a tamper evident decice, serial numbered and signed by the voting office head official. A trail of receipts must follow, and the last person reciepted goes to jail if a box comes up missing.
5. Any boxes found without the items from #4 do not count. But, the FBI investigates it nonetheless.
6. When you vote, you get the 3rd world nation indelible dye on the finger treatment.
7. A standardized, nationwide voting form. You can put what you want on it, but it must be the standard form and in a standardized format.
Probably more, but this would go a long way towards ensuring ballots are secure.
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