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Will 'controlled open source' software take over election work? (NewsForge)
NewsForge
interviews Open Vote Foundation founder Scott Ritchie.
"NewsForge: If you could put together the open source code and system, do you think the political and institutional barriers would ever allow an open source election in the U.S.?" "Ritchie: Absolutely. Because decisions for which voting systems to be purchased are carried out at the local level, there isn't much room for the iron-triangle present in other government projects. The incumbent voting machine vendors, big as they are, don't have much influence over local governments fed up with them." (Log in to post comments)
Will 'controlled open source' software take over election work? (NewsForge) Posted Aug 19, 2004 18:36 UTC (Thu) by QuisUtDeus (guest, #14854) [Link] The problem with computer-based voting is that, without a paper trail that takes the place of the ballot (so the counting of the votes is done with tangible ballots), no one can truly convince anyone (even himself) that the counting of the votes was accurate and reliable. There is nothing to show, nothing tangible to handle. You can't reveal the memory of the computer and all the logic that manipulates it. Even an open source voting program cannot prove that that is the software running on the machine.
Computer assisted voting, where a receipt is printed and used as the ballot would probably be acceptable, so long as those receipts are counted (or are at least available to be counted).
If there is a problem, a power failure, an abend, whatever, then the votes already cast are not lost. Then the tabulators would know that a hand-count of the receipts was required. In the case of smooth operation, a computer-counted tally could be accepted as a quick answer, but if people demanded a recount in a certain precinct, then the receipts are available to be counted.
The potential for fraud in a receipt-less computer-based election is too high.
For a (somewhat extreme) presentation of the problems with computer-only elections, see http://www.votefraud.org/ .
Free elections work only because people can see for themselves (or can hear from others they trust) that the reported results accurately reflect the votes that were intended to be cast by the voters.
There are other factors as well, like confidence that only those who are elible to vote for a decision voted, and that each voted at most once for each decision. These involve determining identity and matching identity to elibility. People can be fooled, but it is not clear that a computer-based ID and eligibilty check would be any more accurate or resistant to wide-scale fraud.
Don't hand over your freedoms (the few that are left), not even for nifty gadgets. Use computer voting all you like for your own needs, but don't remove the mechanisms that keep the elections of our public officials verifiable, even if many elections aren't verified that should be.
Don't tempt the powerful with a tool that only the powerful can effectively wield to their own advantage.
"Those who cast the votes decide nothing. Those who count the votes decide everything."
attributed to Communist Tyrant Josef Stalin
Will 'controlled open source' software take over election work? (NewsForge) Posted Aug 19, 2004 19:06 UTC (Thu) by crouchet (guest, #1084) [Link] Unfortunately one of the selling points of e-voting is that the costs of a recount are negligible because it just consists of having the computer add up the same numbers again and get the same result. Eventually the idea of a recount would fall into disuse.
To a public official that looks quite attractive from both a political and financial standpoint. It becomes easy to accept the justification that it does not matter because the overall result will be more accurate anyway.
Democracy is messy and expensive. When we try to avoid that reality we only dilute our own power.
JC
Will 'controlled open source' software take over election work? (NewsForge) Posted Aug 19, 2004 19:17 UTC (Thu) by Baylink (subscriber, #755) [Link] Florida (duh) is embroiled in a controversy right now because the non-direct-recording electronic voting machines in use in the state violate the state statute requiring something which can be independently recounted -- Miami/Dade has outlawed touchscreens, falling back on scantrons which *can* be counted by hand, if necessary.
A *whole lot* of people (hopefully including ex-Sarasote stripper and US Senatorial candidate Katherine Harris) are gonna lose their jobs this year...
Will 'controlled open source' software take over election work? (NewsForge) Posted Aug 19, 2004 19:22 UTC (Thu) by jabby (guest, #2648) [Link] I agree that a paper trail is a necessary condition for the proper recording of votes. I also hold that open source code is a necessary condition. Neither is by itself sufficient, but taken together they create a set of circumstances that are the best one can hope for with computerized electronic voting.
I disagree with this statement, however: "Even an open source voting program cannot prove that that is the software running on the machine."
Open source software built using an open toolchain (compiler, linker, etc.) and running on an open source OS would be sufficient for being able to literally *prove* that the code over here resulted in the binary over there.
Now if you're talking about the span of time between when the binary was verified and the election, more conventional means have to be relied upon, such as putting the binaries on a read-only medium and locking them in a safe until election time. I'm specifically thinking about KNOPPIX-like CDs with an entire open source election "distro". Everything could be run from read-only media bearing verified binaries of open source code.
Another option would be to avoid compilation altogether and go for an interpreted language, like Python or Perl. Then you would literally have the source code available on the machine *during* the election. It could even be compared against a read-only medium carrying the original before *every* vote is cast.
With open source code, a plethora of options are available for protecting the integrity of a voting system. With paper ballots as a backup, the resulting system earns my confidence. But, as they say, "trust, but verify". No matter how much I might trust such a system, all voting solutions require constant vigilance. Someone must still be actively looking for tampering and comparing exit polls to the computerized tallies.
Will 'controlled open source' software take over election work? (NewsForge) Posted Aug 19, 2004 20:19 UTC (Thu) by JoeBuck (subscriber, #2330) [Link] I would be satisfied with a paper printout for every vote that is checkable by the voter (printed out in large type for easy reading by the elderly), then dropped into a locked box for use in recounts as well as for cross-checking.The code need not be open source, however, it would need to be made available in source form to trusted third parties (including opponents of software voting machines) for inspection and review, with no restrictions placed on the inspectors that harm their ability to report flaws to the public. Regardless of whether the code is open source or not, the third-party inspectors should verify the process for producing the binary code (possibly by running the build process themselves with the specified software development tools, and checking that the binaries match). Open source would be nice, but it's not a necessary condition for confidence in the election, and that's the problem that vitally needs to be fixed.
open source necessary condition for voter confidence Posted Aug 20, 2004 2:49 UTC (Fri) by jabby (guest, #2648) [Link] I don't trust any third party... or even a couple of them. I want to be able to review the code myself and to have the local computer science department perform a code review and the military and all interested political parties and the foreign governments who are affected by our political choices... Yes, everyone should be able to inspect the code. No more "trade secret" or "competitive advantage" whining from the companies who are making money hand over fist at the taxpayers' expense.
Remember Linus' Law: "Given enough eyes, all bugs are shallow." How long do you think it would take for *someone* *somewhere* in the world to find subverted code? With as much as there is at stake in the general election, my guess is "not long." When the Diebold source was leaked on the internet it took very little time for computer scientists to examine the code and find dozens of critical weaknesses.
Also, the compiler has to be open source and inspectable as well. I'm not forgetting the famous backdoor-inserting compiler hack by Ken Thompson:
http://www.acm.org/classics/sep95/
This actually demonstrates that you can't trust any program that handles programs, but I would still maintain that you are *far* better off with open source than with closed source. With closed source, only those "trusted parties" (who sign NDAs and are therefore bound in ways that make them untrustworthy) can see the source code and try to compile it and verify the binary. That's when you have the problem of closed source compilers and the inability to verify that the binary produced actually obeys the code that you approved and fed to it.
As for confidence in the election, I fail to see how closed-source (secret) software running on closed-source, proprietary operating systems and inspected by only a few "trusted parties" is going to inspire confidence. In general, people are smart enough to know that transparency is good and trustworthy and that wherever something is hidden from public view there resides the temptation to deceive the public.
open source necessary condition for voter confidence Posted Aug 20, 2004 17:59 UTC (Fri) by tzafrir (subscriber, #11501) [Link] You should realise though, that the "software" is the whole stack, not only the the voting software itself.
Backdoors cdan be added in the underlying OS. Quite easily.
But you can go even further: What about the firmware of the CPU? The firmware of the BIOS? The firmware of the disk controller?
Will 'controlled open source' software take over election work? (NewsForge) Posted Aug 19, 2004 20:23 UTC (Thu) by bdixon (subscriber, #1055) [Link] Ownership and visibility into the codebase that constitutes an open voting machine does not mean that we can be assured that a subversion hasn't been planted. It is impossible to be assured that inspection has found all subversions.
Solving this problem will take a codebase that is simpler and far more verifiable then either Windows or Linux.
Will 'controlled open source' software take over election work? (NewsForge) Posted Aug 20, 2004 13:58 UTC (Fri) by hummassa (subscriber, #307) [Link] " Ownership and visibility into the codebase that constitutes an open voting machine does not mean that we can be assured that a subversion hasn't been planted. It is impossible to be assured that inspection has found all subversions. "... but it is possible (even easy) to establish a system of distributed, formalized testing that finds /many/ possible subversions (read my other posts in this same thread)
" Solving this problem will take a codebase that is simpler and far more verifiable then either Windows or Linux. "... I won't argue this, the simpler the system, the easier to make it secure.
Will 'controlled open source' software take over election work? (NewsForge) Posted Aug 20, 2004 18:28 UTC (Fri) by tzafrir (subscriber, #11501) [Link] No. This is practically impossible.
Yes, programs in OCAML (?) can be officially verified. How nice. But what about the implementation of the OCAML compiler? run-time environment? (which are probably written in C)?
What about the libraries and the kernel of the underlying OS? A formally-verifiable OS is, ATM, a non-practical academic research subject.
But then again, the aim is not a totally safe system, but a practically-safe system. If someone wants winning hard enough one can always take a shot at bribing citizens and other low-tech methods. See http://www.schneier.com/crypto-gram-0404.html#4 for a better insight.
Will 'controlled open source' software take over election work? (NewsForge) Posted Aug 19, 2004 20:43 UTC (Thu) by mmarsh (subscriber, #17029) [Link] I often hear the statement that our voting machines need to have paper trails. Technically, this isn't true. What we need is _some_ sort of voter-verifiable, recount-enabling trail. It need not specifically be printed on paper. Granted, printed ballots are a reasonable solution, but we shouldn't focus on one particular technology or technique at the exclusion of all others.
Why the need for a paper trail? Posted Aug 20, 2004 0:57 UTC (Fri) by vdvo (guest, #24133) [Link] The problem with computer-based voting is that, without a paper trail that takes the place of the ballot (so the counting of the votes is done with tangible ballots), no one can truly convince anyone (even himself) that the counting of the votes was accurate and reliable. There is nothing to show, nothing tangible to handle.Why do we need papers or something tangible to convince us of anything? I thought we were hackers, here? This argument is so often repeated that I keep thinking I must be overlooking something, because it seems so obviously false. I offer you a paper-less, yet verifiable solution. In fact, my solution seems to be much better that paper voting, because only a few selected individuals have access to the paper ballots, so most people can't verify anything. Tell me where I'm wrong. The solution:
What have I missed?
Why the need for a paper trail? Posted Aug 20, 2004 1:29 UTC (Fri) by vdvo (guest, #24133) [Link] There's one more thing I forgot to add: with this solution, it doesn't matter whether the voting machine's software is open source or proprietary, nor whether it's made by Diebold or whoever. When you can verify the results, it's not important how you obtained them.
Why the need for a paper trail? Posted Aug 20, 2004 3:44 UTC (Fri) by freemars (subscriber, #4235) [Link] What have I missed? Sammy the Enforcer hangs around outside the polls and offers you $100 to vote for Slimey Fred. He instructs you "use 8353459322 as your identifier." The day after the election Sammy reads the newspaper and notes that voter "8353459322" voted for Honest Ellen. After breakfast Sammy stops by your house and breaks your legs. Or Sammy reads the paper and notices that nobody used ID "8353459322" in your ward. After breakfast Sammy stops by your house and breaks your legs. But if Sammy sees that voter "8353459322" cast a ballot for Slimey Fred he'll stop by your house and give you $100. Isn't it simpler to just print the official, recountable, ballot, let the voter view it behind glass, and then drop it into the locked box?
Why the need for a paper trail? Posted Aug 20, 2004 11:23 UTC (Fri) by hingo (guest, #14792) [Link] You have missed Sammy as explained above, also known as coercion. But other than that, your thinking is on the right tracks, just add some appropriate cryptography.see http://www.eucybervote.org/xootic2000.pdf, http://citeseer.ist.psu.edu/40542.html and http://votehere.net/. Of course, even with this kind of system you could add paper receipts as well, but there is less need for them.
Why the need for a paper trail? Posted Aug 20, 2004 13:35 UTC (Fri) by arafel (subscriber, #18557) [Link] You've missed people forgetting their ID, particularly if it's a random string of numbers. You've also missed the fact that who you vote for is supposed to be confidential, unless you choose to tell people. Having it published in a paper doesn't sound too confidential to me. :-)
Also, unless someone takes the printed paper, and counts up the number of people listed as voting for X, and the number of people the system *said* voted for X, how do you know they match?
I'm not entirely sure why people are rushing for electronic voting anyway. What's wrong with the systems currently in use?
Why the need for a paper trail? Posted Aug 20, 2004 14:52 UTC (Fri) by dskoll (subscriber, #1630) [Link] Complicated series of steps deleted What have I missed? A very important point: Joe Average's eyes will glaze over when he gets to step 2. Voting must not only be fair, it must be seen to be fair by average members of the public. A voting system is no good if only 1% of the population (computer scientists) can understand and trust it. A simple paper ballot is easily understandable by anyone capable of voting. Recounting paper ballots is easily understandable and verifiable by anyone capable of voting. Even if someone came up with hack-proof hardware, hack-proof software, hack-proof officials and a hack-proof voting protocol (all of which is highly unlikely), it would still not be good enough because it's too complex for the large majority of the population to understand. I don't know why people insist on trying to mis-apply technology where it will only create new problems. There is no problem whatsoever with paper ballots; there's absolutely no need to corrupt the system with technology.
Will a paper trail help? Maybe not. Posted Sep 2, 2004 21:28 UTC (Thu) by lilo (guest, #661) [Link] How will a paper trail actually help? Yes, I'll be able to walk away with my vote, and if I ever have any question about whether it was falsified, I can come back and check to make sure my vote was registered properly. But votes are fungible pieces of the vote total. A system with a backdoor could simply replace the complete ballot with a bogus one, and still be able to verify that my vote was registered properly in the original, fraud-free ballot. The only way I can think of to use those paper ballot receipts would be to have every single voter in the original election come back and verify their ballots as part of a single process. In a country like the US where there's relatively poor voter turnout, one could reasonably suspect that two elections in a row might not have more than 60-70% voter overlap. Getting all the same people back to verify their votes might be a non-trivial exercise. All of this assumes that the original receipt wasn't bogus, and that the process of verification is closely monitored. Paper receipts would seem to be no panacea.
With the e-Vote "Fair Elections" are History Posted Aug 19, 2004 21:55 UTC (Thu) by huffd (guest, #10382) [Link] The only thing the e-Vote does is gives the impression that the voter actually had a say in their future. Without a mechanical voting procedure the vote cannot be trusted.Of course that whole election (show) in Florida was designed to create the problems we see today. If people aren't capable enough to use a punch card why would computer results be any more accurate?
Ultimately this is all about "Voter Manipulation", it's not that your vote counts, it's what you percieve to be the normal or popular count that they want to bring out by manipulating the votes, "thus guiding destiny through our own will". (or what we thought was the will of the people)
This is why a country founded as a Republic should stay a public and not become a demonacracy..
"Fair Elections" are Ancient History in the USA; standard elsewhere Posted Aug 20, 2004 9:41 UTC (Fri) by xoddam (subscriber, #2322) [Link] Without a mechanical voting procedure the vote cannot be trusted. This is a very peculiar claim. I've voted dozens of times on paper with a pencil, and always the paper ballots have been counted by hand. (I have voted in New South Wales, Australia and in Scotland and England, UK). I have always trusted that the count will be fair. I do not expect the count to be completely accurate on the first attempt, as people counting sheets of paper can make mistakes, but I trust that if the result is very close the counters *will* take the time to recount the papers more carefully, several times if necessary. This is *standard procedure*. The idea of a court case being necessary to invoke a recount of miscounted ballot papers is rather strange to someone who grew up in this environment. The reason I trust the counters to count fairly and responsibly is that they are observed by representatives of the political parties, who would not hesitate to shout if there were any irregularities. The potential advantages which might be claimed for 'mechanical' or electronic vote counting over paper ballots are speed, accuracy and cost. (a) speed.Since the early 80's we've watched exciting election-night TV specials with lots of computerised statistics, and live TV crosses to the counting rooms where we can see crucial recounts happening. We usually get a conclusive result by about 10pm local time (ie. it's midnight in the eastern states by the time we know how WA voted), though official results aren't released until all "absentee and postal votes" are added to the election-day ballots. (b) accuracyIn a country with reasonably high literacy (and a reasonably sensible ballot design), the kinds of problems with paper ballot errors are much less relevant today than in 1910. Indeed the proportion of spoiled or blank ballots ('informal' votes) in Australian elections is rarely above 5%, and many of those are deliberate protest votes by people writing such things as "none of the bastards". This is fair enough, as turning up at the polling place is compulsory, but submitting a formal vote is not -- the base rate seems to be about 2% in close elections where it looks like government might actually change hands, with deliberate lazy or informal votes increasing the total to around 5% when the outcome seems foregone. I can't find stats on the number of votes lost due to 'confused voters' vs. deliberate spoiled or blank informal ballots. It does seem that recent immigrants and other non-English-speakers in an electorate tend to increase its informal vote count, but this may be because the candidates aren't reaching out to these voters. The potential for error by *voters* in card-punching and lever-pulling is much greater than that for writing on a piece of paper, and likewise much greater than for trusted, monitored counters of paper ballots, and much less susceptible of correction by recounting. A recount of a paper ballot means extra hours put in by officials and scrutineers who are already present and practised at the task. (c) cost.I very much doubt that the long-term costs to the electoral authority of voting machines developed by private capital have ever been less than the cost of counting paper ballots by hand. The possible exception is perhaps India where a single, very simple, electronic vote-counting system is used throughout a very large country. It was not developed by entrepreneurs but by the Electoral Commission itself. It is not networked, does not supply voter-verified ballots, nor does it report votes remotely -- indeed it functions purely as a (permanently locked) self-counting ballot box. The only thing which can guarantee a fair election is that all parties concerned with the election are trusted parties. The fact that America has such things as "private vote-counting firms" convinces me that the USA sold its democracy down the river a long time ago.
Brasil, too, has e-voting, and it /works/. Posted Aug 20, 2004 13:40 UTC (Fri) by hummassa (subscriber, #307) [Link] Yes, I said this all before, but...
I live in Brasil. We have had voting machines in the last 12-14 years (yes, twelve to fourteen -- it depends the size of the city you are in). Brazilians here: the first election here in Belo Horizonte to use the machines were the mayoral (and city council, state representation, governor, house and senate) before FHC was elected (as I count it, 2 years + 8 years + 1 1/2 = 11,5 years). I know it, because I was "mesário" (election "table" official? election "clerk"? what is a good English translation?) in the previous election, and in the two subsequent elections). IIRC, there were electronic ballot boxes in Rio and Sao Paulo in the election before that (the only two cities larger than Belo Horizonte).
Our voting machines are mainly of three different (internally) models: (a) the old ones, that use VirtuOS (*) as the OS, (b) the new ones, that use WinCE as the OS, and (c) the newest and deprecated ones that have the second printer to print your vote, show it to you inside a clear acrilic case, and mix it with others inside the machine.
Externally, all of them look roughly the same: a box similar to the old "portable computers" of the eighties, with a 5-6" diagonal LCD and a big numerical keypad in the right side of the screen, that has, besides the 0-9 keys, "confirma" (ok), "erro" (cancel), and "branco" (white).
The electoral process (from the point of view of the voter) begins ... when you get your first job. If you are a mandatory voter (literate person with age 18 to 65) you have to go to Electoral Court and register to vote. In the process of registering, you receive the "Título de Eleitor" (voter id card), in which you have the number of you voting section. To change jobs, and specially to get a government job, you have to prove you are a registered and regularized voter (you voted in the last election, or regularized your voting situation after it).
In the election day -- normally the first Sunday of October for the first round and the first Sunday of November in case of needing a second round (**), you scan the newspapers (or the Superior Electoral Court website), search for the address of your section, and go there. No, there is no transit (absentee) vote, you can only vote at that address. If you can't get there, you'll have to "justify" your absence to an Electoral Judge, to regularize your voting situation.
At the section, you will present your voter id card to one the "mesários", and if you don't have it on you, you can still vote (you can show other valid id), but will be delayed. The mesário will search for your name in the vote-ticket sheet, and annex it to your id while you vote. You will sign a receipt in a sheet, and proceed to the voting "booth". Another "mesário" will type your voter id # in a remotely connected keypad, setting the machine in the "ready to vote" mode.
The voting "booth" is really only a desk with the voting machine over it, facing nobody else in the room, and sometimes with a cardboard "cover" around it. You will "dial" the numbers of the candidates, in order. when you dial all the digits of one candidate, a star-trek-like chime rings, his/her face will show up in the screen, and if you digited it right, you hit "ok". otherwise, you hit "cancel" and start over. After typing all the candidates, you hit "ok" one last time, the machine chimes again, and goes to "stand by" mode. You have voted. If you don't want to vote for nobody for some office, you can hit "white" instead of the candidate ## (accounted as a "white vote", or "none of the above" -- this is the equivalent of putting your paper ballot in the box without marking anything), or if you really want to protest you can type 9999 or other non-existent-candidate-#, and your vote will be accounted as a "null vote", or "I'm really pissed of" (the equivalent of drawing pictures or writing "improper expletives" in a paper ballot)
Then, you get your id back, your ticket (keep it together with your voter id!! -- it's the proof that you are a regularized voter!), and you go home. Ah, bars do not open (theoretically) in the election day, so hope you have bought your beer/wine/other-booze in the day before).
From the point of view of election officials, things are more complicated. The machines arrive to the Electoral Judge (yes, a Judge of Law) pre-prepared one to two months before the election day, along with boxes of diskettes (where the results will go) and Flash ROM cards (where the software and the candidates names/photos will go). All Electoral Judge Offices already have Flash readers, to make some verifications on this Flash ROMs.
The electoral Judge has the personal responsability of, in the meantime before the election day, testing *ALL* of the machines and checking their Flashes with some checking software. He has to set the clock to the election opening date/time, emit the "zerésima" (0th report), that is a report saying "this box has no votes on it", make some votes, close the box, emit the totalling report, check if those were the votes, repeat the procedure a random number of times, and sign the machine as "ok" in a list. He should do it in a way that prevents "date/time" hacks, "number of activation times" hacks to be done. Some machines even get tested for a full day, to test for "number of votes" hacks. He can delegate some of the work, but it's his responsability -- he better delegate it to trusted people, in case of fraud it's his neck on the line.
In the evening of the election day, he must make sure the clocks are ok for all of the machines.
In the election day, the "mesários" in each section must emit the 0th report, annex it to the official election papers, and the box is ready to be used. At the end of the election day, the "mesários" emit 6 or more copies of the totalling report for each box. Three of them go with the official election papers, one is affixed in the outside of the section, and the others go to party appointed officials. Some electoral judges appoint press members to receive them, too.
The totalling is already in a diskette, that is inside a sealed compartment in the box. Some Electoral Judge Office employee breaks this seal (marking he's done so), and the diskettes are read in a computer in the Office, their contents (probably signed cryptographically) sent (directly by a dial-up line, not over the Internet) to the Regional Electoral Court, where they are processed against all other ballot boxes.
I should say, at this point, that all of this is accompanied by the Electoral Judge and the District Attorney, which are not elected officials in Brasil, and the elected officials have no power over them. Or at least, should not have.
The press and the parties' officials all have the intermediate per-box results, immediately after the election closed, so they can do the math, too. And they do -- in small towns the result of the mayoral elections is usually known far before the official announcement, because people sum the per-box results by hand, instead of waiting for the Big Computer at the Regional Court add for them.
Quoting (mis-quoting?) Gangs of New York, "ballots do not win elections -- counting does!", the counting/summing part is verifiable.
At this point, I should say I consider our system very very reliable, because of the distributed nature of the checkings that are done in the machines. I have worked at a District Attorney's office, and the fiscalization of the procedures to be done to the machine by the Electoral Judge was partly delegated to me, so I know what I'm talking about. The Judges and their guys usually fiddle with the clock, make a lot of votes, and thoroughly check the machines before they are used. This is taken very seriously.
Even in the few instances where it's not done so seriously, the overall bad effect is not great. Yes, it should be relatively easy to rig a mayoral election in a small town (100 machines or less -- each machine in the range from 500-10000 voters) -- but just with the DA's and the Judge's help. And they usually won't help, normally they have nothing in it for them, and the risk is very big [election fraud penalties are reasonably high]). But I think impossible the effort to rig, p.ex., an election like our last presidential one -- and, to boot, won by the opposition party.
You must notice that this is only allowed by our unified electoral system. The voter database is also a single one and it's very difficult to vote twice or more in our system.
I think the electronic system is better than the paper-ballots one (at least here in Brasil, but probably everywere) because counting ballot papers is hard, slow, error- and fraud-prone and no-one wants to recount them. It's easier, in my opinion, to rig some pre-printed million paper ballots and distribute them in a lot of ballot boxes than to distribute a million swing votes in 1000 machines.
I think the snafu in the last USofA election is really due to few people watching the counts, etc. Our multi-party (c. 20-30 parties now, but there were 50 at some point in the 90's) system makes every count/recount have at least 100 party officials doing the same. The voting machines were reasonably scrutinized by party-appointed experts.
Yes, paper trail (now deprecated here) is good, but only if you have a good, OCR-like way of counting the paper ballots. This is expensive. Our paper-trail machines had a second (thermal?) printer, that printed your vote and displayed it inside a clear plastic case before it was dropped in a box inside the machine, all sealed. But... as I said before, who is gonna recount them? It's easier to trust the distributed nature of the election and the audits made by the parties officials. If the paper trail were made in big, OCR-able letters, or with some bar-code, the tickets would have to be fixed-size, bigger than they were, and more expensive, in general.
Finally, yes, I would like the boxes to be all-free-software, so every citizen could independently verify the reliability of them, and even to check criptographically in some sense that the voting box he is using is "pristine", if possible, but... we did not get there yet.
(*) a DOS-clone-enhanced with possibility of multitasking and multiuser operation. a nice system, and it was always far better than MS-DOS.
(**) we have many political parties, so for the majority-vote offices (normally executive ones), if a candidate does not win 50%+1 of the valid votes, another electoral round is made with only the two most-voted candidates.
Mechanical voting and reliability Posted Aug 20, 2004 13:51 UTC (Fri) by hummassa (subscriber, #307) [Link] With mechanical voting, there are the following possible frauds:1. insertion of pre-printed ballots in the boxes 2. magical creation of boxes full of ballots 3. magical creation of districts 4. swinging the numbers during/after the counts
All these frauds are possible because of the slowness of counting and difficulty of manually adding the ditricts.
With fully digital voting (*) there are the following possible frauds:
In both cases, the solutions are the same: Fiscalization. Many eyeballs. Free press. Free speech. Full and thorough investigation in the cases that raise doubts (**)
(*) Take a look at my post below, to se a model that IMNSHO *works*.
(**) This last one is the most important: don't you think some people today holding high offices in the USofA would be in jail because of the last presidential elections' snafu if the investigation of it was full and thorough?
Mechanical voting and reliability Posted Aug 20, 2004 14:00 UTC (Fri) by hummassa (subscriber, #307) [Link] Hate replying to myself.... I meant "take a look at my other post ABOVE" :-)
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