by rsobers on 11/6/16, 3:31 AM with 120 comments
by Shank on 11/6/16, 4:21 AM
Typically, tamper seals that are identifiable as broken are placed on all access doors (including the power switch, data load slots, etc), access panels, and openings on the device. All seals were verified in tact before and after the election, and no voter was ever permitted in the back of the access panel where the firmware update would take place.
Before the machine starts, it gives a "zero" report which is verified independently by poll watchers, and confirms candidate choices are in place as needed. When the polls are closed, we seal everything again before the machines are sent back for reporting (at which point the seals are checked and verified prior to dumping results).
If this was really a damaging hack, the protective counter & live counters would show different numbers than what the machine read, but that didn't happen. It very clearly was tampered with, which means these physical measures would counteract any unwanted firmware updates during an election. It's preposterous to think that election judges aren't actively verifying seals during election day and making sure nobody is tampering with them.
by peterarmstrong on 11/6/16, 5:54 AM
This all sounds complicated and insecure.
Why can you not just do paper voting with simple ballots, like in Canada?
Yes, you have 10x the people, but just get 10x the human counters and scrutineers. Counting is parallelizable.
We run elections and get accurate, verifiable results in the same day.
Ours aren't as nasty as yours are, and we still have better anti-fraud than you do, since every paper ballot can be counted, as many times as needed. And since the thing which is counted is the same physical thing which can be audited, we can always verify the results if anything goes wrong.
You've had some problems with your ballots 16 years ago, and we're not sure why you haven't fixed this by now. After all, you've gotten people to the moon and robots to Mars--surely you'd want a fair, verifiable presidential election? (Especially when one of the two candidates is, frankly, terrifying to all your friends around the world.)
Love, Canada
by alexandercrohde on 11/6/16, 4:35 AM
Fortunately, there are pretty simple policies we can enact to prevent fraud and give faith in elections (both in America, as well as other countries). If you care, I'd perhaps start at https://www.verifiedvoting.org/
by mpweiher on 11/6/16, 5:35 AM
In Germany, we get
(a) a paper ballot
(b) a pen
Works perfectly. And quickly.
by noir-york on 11/6/16, 8:32 AM
Approaching vote counting as a mere technical problem that can be solved with enough technical safeguards misses the point. You cannot just ask a democracy to beta test vote counting and fix the bugs post-election - that will kill trust in the process.
Politics is polarised enough as is and you will find demagogues who will latch on to anything to reduce the legitimacy of an election.
It shouldn't even be up for discussion that trust and legitimacy are the most important goals in vote counting. Stick to paper voting and only introduce e-voting in parallel and not as the authoritative and final vote counting solution.
by sfifs on 11/6/16, 6:57 AM
by jakeogh on 11/6/16, 5:47 AM
by godelski on 11/6/16, 4:33 AM
by seanwilson on 11/6/16, 4:37 AM
Also, what happens if there's a random hardware/software glitch where incrementing one vote actually increments 10 votes? Is this checked for? How much reliance is there on the software and hardware being error free?
by imode on 11/6/16, 6:43 AM
as if I needed more of a reason to say "wow, this is rigged", now I see this!
I can't imagine how well this will go. november is a cake walk. january is where the fun starts.
by based2 on 11/6/16, 6:46 AM
by top_post on 11/6/16, 4:33 AM