Electronic voting

[method77]

I was reading an article in a paper which explained how unbelievably un-democratic electronic voting is. How will the results be checked? How will the American people know if the results are real?

I can't believe that people don't react against fascist moves like that.

Who is in charge of choosing the system?

Do you think that the rest of the civilised world is stupid and technologically illiterate and choose the old fashioned voting? No. They choose that cause it's the only way of making sure that the results are real.

In Greece, the votes are put in a DA's office, open to public to check anytime they choose to and when the counting is done, members of ALL parties are present. No way you can steal.

Venezuela used the electronic way but the machine popped out a piece of paper which you then place in the ballot box.

[DudeAsInCool]

A lot of people are up in arms about these machines. The head of Diebold, who makes them, is a Bush supporter..this does not sit well with a lot of people

[method77]

Just one question. How will you know those machines are not lying?

[Kooperman]

George Bush and Dick Cheney will let us know....

[method77]

no man... really. How will you know the results are real? Is there a way to check them?

[rainbowdemon]

This is how it works.

http://www.wearabledissent.com/101/floridavote.html

[Wolfie]

Just one question. How will you know those machines are not lying?

They'll prolly ask the Supreme Court. We all know who they favor though. :rolleyes:

[Kooperman]

This is the actual Diebold Election Systems site:

http://www.diebold.com/dieboldes/

Q: How do I know my cast ballot is safe and secure?

A: When a voter casts their ballot using the Diebold touch screen system, the ballot selections are immediately encrypted and stored in multiple locations within the voting station. When stored, the order of cast ballots is scrambled to further insure ballot anonymity. The image of each and every ballot cast on the voting station is captured, and can be anonymously reproduced on standard paper should a hard copy of ballots be required for recount purposes. Once voting concludes at a precinct, a printed election results report is printed as a permanent record of all activity at each voting station. This printed record is used to audit the electronic tabulation of votes conducted during the election canvas process, when final, official election results are reported.

As stated before, the owner of Diebold Systems is a George Bush supporter....

[method77]

ok...

so you don't know if the results are real

[slum_goddess]

method, bev harris spent the last almost four years talking about this on black box voting. the entire system's so fucked up, it's incredible. what's worse, it's only recently made it to mainstream US media--when i told my (offline) mother about this last january, she couldn't believe it, told me 'that wouldn't happen in this country.'

i dint have the strength to begin w/the supremes handing bush 2K and all...we've been through that too many times and now it's too expensive to go over it again by phone (i would have if she was a republiKKKan but thank fuck she's not).

[cjules13]

I believe the electronic voting will be secure...

There's simply going to be too many checks and balances for a new machine with these type of implications. Each vote will be logged and be available for checking at anytime...

These bits aren't going to lie. The electronic trail they will leave will be very traceable. People trust technology every day - it's just the newbie jitters...

[method77]

No jules. Electronic voting is the least secure way. The machine can be easily set to change the vote anytime easily. We all know the new technollogy and it's capabillities. If the machines are handled by independent people then yes, I'd agree with you. But the thing is that noone is really neutral. Not only in the US but everywhere.

The only secure way of taking a vote is the old, very simple piece of paper. It's right there for everyone to see, read, wipe their ass or whatever

[slum_goddess]

I believe the electronic voting will be secure...

i'm sorry, cjules, i think you're terribly misinformed (but i hope you're correct).

see FL 04 is 10X FL 2K

[method77]

to tell you the truth, I don't need articles to prove the obvious. Electronic voting is not to be trusted

[slum_goddess]

i know what you mean but i love backing my shit up w/others who are way more eloquent than i could ever be.

[cjules13]

i'm sorry, cjules, i think you're terribly misinformed (but i hope you're correct).

see FL 04 is 10X FL 2K

I checked out that link but didn't find anything about electronic voting...

Anyway, I work in tech, especially secure systems like this one, and I simply haven't seen or heard anything fishy except for techno-phobe jitters.

What about hanging/dimpled chads, and lsoing whole truckloads of votes... And what's the deal with truckloads anyway? There's problems with paper ballots too....

[DudeAsInCool]

There are several issues with electronic voting - some which can be remedied. Some of the machines dont print a record of the vote. Secondly, the head of Diebold, which makes the machines, has said he is a Bush supporter publicly... I guess he can say what he wants, but the public announcement brings up questions of conflicts of interest...

[cjules13]

There are several issues with electronic voting - some which can be remedied. Some of the machines dont print a record of the vote. Secondly, the head of Diebold, which makes the machines, has said he is a Bush supporter publicly... I guess he can say what he wants, but the public announcement brings up questions of conflicts of interest...

Because the Diebold boss says he's a Bush supporter I would think ESPECIALLY that these machines would be certified, and re-certified, and run under the magnifying glass. He couldn't trick all his liberal programmers to fudge the count. It just wouldn't happen because of executive conspriracy.

I think people should be more worried about data integrity after all votes have been cast and extracted from the machines.

[DudeAsInCool]

I think people should be more worried about data integrity after all votes have been cast and extracted from the machines.

Right. Which is why a hard copy should be available after someone has cast their vote

[method77]

Venezuela (which Bush accuses of been un-democratic and backed the soldierly bearing against the current leader) uses the same systenm but theu print the vote and you throw it in the box. How un-democratic

[cjules13]

hmmm.... you guys got me interested.... I just found this paper written by the good folks at IEEE - a rock-solid reputable source.

They question e-voting too and have changed some of my thoughts... take a read. Nice and concise and thorough.

http://avirubin.com/vote.pdf

[Kooperman]

hmmm.... you guys got me interested.... I just found this paper written by the good folks at IEEE - a rock-solid reputable source.

They question e-voting too and have changed some of my thoughts... take a read. Nice and concise and thorough.

http://avirubin.com/vote.pdf

4.5 Tampering with election results and linking voters with their votes

A likely attack target are the voting records themselves. When stored on the device, the voting records are

“encrypted” as described in Section 4.4. If the votes are transmitted to a back-end authority over a network

connection, as appears to be the case in at least some areas, no cryptography is used: the votes are sent in

cleartext.

Not good........

[DudeAsInCool]

http://wearabledissent.com/101/floridavote.html