Los Angeles County, including Adam Schiff's district, is replacing hand marked paper ballots

[diva77]

with 100% nonverifiable touchscreen machines that spit out machine marked bar-coded "ballots." The cost was close to $300 million with an open-ended contract to add other expenses. These machines allow you to bring your cell phone to the polls with a pre-filled out sample ballot and transfer it to the machine -- something with QR code which is a huge security problem.

They are doing away with precincts and creating "voting centers" - this removes a check and balance in your neighborhood on witnessing voting behavior. Also, the paper poll books are now hackable e-poll books.

They're rolling out all this new gear in time for the 2020 primaries & general election.

Los Angeles County is split between 18 congressional districts, including Adam Schiff's district.

This is going in the WRONG DIRECTION.

[NCLefty]

1. Why can't they spit out a damn hard copy too, so the person can verify it and the state has it. WTF.

[diva77]

2. It spits out a "hard copy" which does not show voter intent -- if there is a recount, a

machine will read a barcode. It's the equivalent of the DRE's that Georgia had to sue to get rid of --they finally won their battle in court to get rid of them and are now plagued with similar BMDs to what we are going to have in LA County. These elections officials never let up.

[Hermit-The-Prog]

17. you cannot confirm that the hard copy matches what is stored

The electronic device does not have to tell you the same thing it tells the official count.

You cannot verify your electronic vote.
The public cannot verify you voted electronically.
The public cannot verify the results of an electronic vote.

You can verify your paper ballot.
The public can verify you submitted 1 paper ballot.
The public can verify the counting of paper ballots.

[Volaris]

24. Yep it should spit out 2 paper reciepts...

One for u to keep, and one for you to turn in to the election workers.

Each should have to be initialed by the other for verification of accuracy.

Additionally, the software for these voting machines should be open source, and AVAILABLE TO THE PUBLIC, so any one can offer software improvements, mock election runs, etc.
Lock the software at 24 hours prior to polls open, but allow the actual voting count algorithms to be monitored in real time, by anyone who wants to 'log in' and READ ONLY the software in 'live' mode.

Yes, this is still hackable. But if hacking has to happen in real-time, being able to monitor the live function of the process means it can be caught in real-time, as well.

And while I dont know a whole lot about software processing, this seems like it should be something any second year community college computer major class could handle without a lot of effort.

If our elections arent secure, WE DONT HAVE A DEMOCRACY.

[SharonAnn]

36. You can't keep a copy of your ballot. Vote buying would be one of the problems.

Where someone might pay a voter who can prove who they voted for? Not good.

However, you can have a Voter Verified paper ballot (what we used to have with paper ballots) that are turned in to the locked ballot box.

[Ms. Toad]

26. Because if you can prove (or be coerced to prove) how you voted

then those with money (to buy votes) or power to beat/fire/or otherwise coerce votes will control who wins.

The abused wife who cannot prove how she voted never has to fear being beaten by her husband for voting the wrong way - because there is literally no way to prove how she voted.

Employees cannot have their jobs contingent on voting for the company candidate, since there is literally no way to prove how they voted.

The Koch brothers cannot buy a president directly by buying the votes of impoverished people desperate for money - since there i sliterally no way to prove how they voted.

The inability to prove the content of the ballot you cast protects everyone's ability to vote without coercion.

https://www.dailysignal.com/2017/03/14/colorado-selfie-bill-opens-the-door-to-vote-buying-and-election-fraud/

[Hermit-The-Prog]

28. but you cannot verify the machine recorded your vote

You can't verify that you even voted, with electronic "voting" machines.

The public can't verify that you either (a) voted once, or (b) voted many times, or (c) played a video game.

Electronic "voting" machines substitute a fast, but unverifiable, number for a verifiable election.

We cannot have a secret ballot with a verifiable election so long as electronic "voting" machines are used.

[Ms. Toad]

29. There are far more checks and balances built in than you imagine.

Not the least of which is a correspondence between the signatures in the poll book, the number of ballots issued, an the number of votes case.

As to whether you cast a meaningful ballot - it's up to you whether you play a video game in the voting booth, so long as you properly terminate your vote in either a ballot cast or cancelled.

As for voting multiple times (in a single trip through the voting booth), no one has ever been able to demonstrate a hack that could be carried out under true voting conditions (i.e. in the presence of everyone else in the precinct. And if you're making multiple trips through the voting line, that isn't an electronic voting machine problem.

However little you trust voting machines, adding a way to prove who you voted for would make the problem dramatically worse - based on actual experience in the US when people could do that.

[Hermit-The-Prog]

30. it is not possible in this reality for voters to observe electrons in voting machines

This is not about how clever are the programmers of the proprietary code in the machine. This is not about my imagination.

It is simply a fact that you cannot verify how the electronic device treated your manipulation of the controls. What it tells you, as a voter, and what it tells others does not have to match.

Unless you have verified each line of source code, and verified each component on each circuit board, and verified the device's inputs and outputs, including the power supply, then you cannot be certain how any manipulation of its controls will be handled. Each voter would have to go through that for each vote cast. Even after all of that, a programmable device is designed to be programmable and therefore its programming can be altered without leaving any trace of its past or hints at its future.

Electronic "voting" eliminates the ability of the voter to cast a secret, yet verifiable ballot.
Electronic "voting" eliminates the ability of the public to verify the election process.
Electronic "voting" eliminates the ability of the public to verify the counting of the ballots.

[Ms. Toad]

31. So explain to me

(1) how to hack the machines in the presence of at least two members of the board of elections (of opposite parties), up to a dozen or more voters, Up to two observers from opposite political parties.

(2) how to do that simultaneously in enough jurisdictions to steal the presidency - with enough people to carry it out - each of whom has remained silent through several presidential elections.

There are bugs in all software, but they are bugs - not tools for vote shifting, and they are minimal enough to pass the calibration and sample voting runs all machines are put through. In independent tests, the accuracy of ballot counting by opitcal scanners (.001) is far less than that of hand counting (2%). The accuracy of DREs is about 3% (moderately more than hand counting - and most caused by human in using the machine) You don't have to see every line of code (although I have for machines from more than one software vendor), you have to run enough tests, with enough variations, to demonstrate the tally matches the votes input.

Unless you are talking about deliberate post-sale tampering - and then we're back to my original challenge to you. Switching one precinct would be too obvious - so the conspiracy would have to span multiple precincts (in multiple states), and (1) there are no invisible hacks I've seen demonstrated - so observers (of which I have been one numerous times) would have reported the attempted tampering and (2) there would have been leaks in a conspiracy that vast - no one is that good at keeping hundreds of people quiet.

So your "solution" to miniscule problem is to make vote stealing - documented to bought the election for at least one president in the past.

Finding an alternative to electronic voting is fine by me - but not by returning to methods that created documented corruption in the past - or to a method with an equivalent error rate when
much more acurate means of counting is available.. My preference would be for optical scanning (the lowest error rate) with the audit/recount performed on the actual paper ballots.

[Hermit-The-Prog]

32. electronic voting is corrupt to begin with

All communication is via symbols (auditory, visual, tactile). We agree upon symbols to represent things and acts. These symbols are an abstraction. Electronic devices introduce abstraction layers that are not viewable by the user.

When you vote, you communicate your selection to the general public while not communicating your identity with your selection. The public then tabulates these anonymous selections.

Using a paper ballot, you communicate your selection directly with the public. You deliver the token of your anonymous selection to a secure container which the public can guard until publicly tabulating all such selections.

Using an electronic device breaks that line of communication. Instead of communicating with the public, you are instead communicating with the manufacturers and programmers of the device. The device then communicates with the public. Everything that occurs within that device can not be verified by either you or the public.

You can swear (verify) that you followed the instructions given to you by the device. You can swear that the device displayed symbols that matched your selection. You cannot swear (verify) that the device properly recorded or tabulated your selections. The public cannot verify that tabulation, either. It's simply not possible.

Hypothetical corruption of paper ballots does not change the inherent break in communication that electronic "voting" machines introduce to the election process.

Historic corruption of paper ballots does not change the inherent break in communication that electronic "voting" machines introduce to the election process.

Paper ballots can be verified by the voter as having the correct selection of the voter, without any personal identification included.

Paper ballots can be secured in public view until they are tabulated in public view.

Neither is possible with electronic "voting" machines.

That "miniscule problem" is not miniscule. It's rampant (see, e.g., Georgia) and inherent in the devices.

Why did you call me a goatapotamus?

Now, prove that your device didn't send such a message and that mine didn't receive it. All you might swear to is that you didn't type it. Unless you have verified every line of source code on your computer and on every programmable device between your computer and mine, you can't swear the message didn't originate with your computer or arrive at mine.

[Ms. Toad]

34. You haven't answered the question I posed.

You have made unsupported allegations of error rates - but have not explained why the independently verified error rates are inaccurate.

In your hypothetical, given that we don't know all of the code and the pathways, you test - repeatedly, with different scenarios, whether my input creates a random goatapotamus on your screen. While it is theoretically possible that something could go haywire between my end and yours, it woudl be at best an extremely rare occurrence - with adequate testing, even when we don't know all of the inner workings between point A and point B. That's why reasonable programmers extensively error test their software, and why several independent entities have teted the electronic machines with the result that the errors are human-machine interface errors.

The other possiblity is hacking - and you still have not explained how you get around the physical reality of how we vote to carryout the only hacks that have been demonstrated.

As I said - change the voting system - fine. But fixing perceived dangers in the current system by implementing a system that has actually been proven in the past to have changed elections via vote buying is irresponsible.

[Hermit-The-Prog]

35. didn't mention error rates -- that's a measurement

You can't measure the unknowable. It is not possible to have both a secret ballot via electronic device and measure how many times that device distorts that ballot or the tabulation of ballots.

There is no hypothetical about programmable devices being programmable. There is no hypothetical about voting irregularities. See your favorite search engine for confirmation of that.

You can test until you wear out the nucleus of the atoms in the wires and it still does not address the fundamental, unavoidable break in communication (voter to public) imposed by electronics.

It doesn't matter how much software testing is done, that break remains and the programmability of the device remains and the secrecy of the code remains and the impossibility of the voter to verify the ballot remains.

The current system was pushed by voting machine manufacturers under Shrub (Bush The Lesser). It is more sophisticated now, but the inherent, uncorrectable problems remain. It cannot be fixed by fancier devices. The underlying problem is the break.

Vote buying has nothing to do with a verifiable, secret ballot and verifiable tabulation. Votes can be bought regardless of whether physical tokens are used for ballots, or abstract, arbitrary flickers of light on an electronic machine.

[Ms. Toad]

37. You obviously did not read the links I sent you on the independent testing of the machines.

You certainly can measure the error rates of machines when you input a known set of data and compare the input data to the output data. You can even distinguish between black box errors and machine-human interface errors by independently observing the data entry process.

You started by calling for something given to the voter by which the voter could confirm their vote was recorded accurately. That "something," - a means of proving how an individual voted - is precisely what led to rampant vote buying before there were secret ballots. (Not to mention coercion by employees and abusive spouses who could demand proof they voted the "right" way.

[Hermit-The-Prog]

38. the measurements you linked mean nothing!

Yes, you can measure how many errors it makes while you're testing. That does NOT change the fact that they are programmable devices. Those tests do not make the election secure and verifiable. They're fine for fly-by-wire or web browsing or recording a soap opera next year. Elections need both voter and public verification. Electronic voting machines eliminate the possibility of either.

Their only utility in an election is in producing a physical token of a voter's selection(s) that the voter can verify. As in a braille ballot for the blind or whatever language suits the voter.

The ONLY secret, verifiable ballot that can be tabulated by the public is a PHYSICAL token that both the voter and the public can see, guard and manipulate. Electrons do not fit the criteria.

I don't know how to make it clearer. Electronic voting machines are the classic black box -- you feed something in and something comes out, but it is not possible to guarantee the results will remain predictable. They are programmable.

[SeaTownBlue]

3. Putin Ordered These Machines

Obviously.

[diva77]

4. Rethug strategy for decades has been to install rethugs on all elections

boards, offices -- even before Putin was on anyone's radar.

The company for LA's machines is out of Venezuela.

Someone is pocketing obscene amounts of cash from all these voting machine contracts.

[DFW]

5. What I would want to know

Who ordered this, with whose consent, and with what backup verification?

EVERYWHERE these things are installed with no backup verification, Republicans invariably profit--both the companies that make the machines, and their party's numerous "surprise upset victories" in the subsequent elections. Kenneth Blackwell and the unverifiable voting machines in Ohio robbed John Kerry of the presidency in 2004, and yet 16 years later, they are going to be used in CALIFORNIA??

How was this even brought into consideration, let alone implemented? It seems to me that the California Republicans are like the Cheney White House Republicans in 2006. They knew difficult times were coming, so they slunk into the background only to plot a sure-fire series of unverifiable vote-counting schemes that would not only let them come back, but come back in a way that no one could later do anything about. The Republicans got Max Cleland out of the Senate in 2002, kept Cheneybush in office in 2004, and pushed through Citizens United in 2010. It would be a mistake to think they are fading away. They are at their most dangerous when you DON'T see them.

"Those who cast the votes decide nothing. Those who count the votes decide everything."

[diva77]

6. The LA County Board of Supervisors approved the contract without blinking. The

RR/CC has been holding dog&pony shows to convince the hoi polloi of the greatness of the new system. Tomorrow they are having a "mock election" to demonstrate the new gear, with prizes and food trucks and balloons.

[DFW]

7. Someone ought to do a thorough investigation of each board member's finances

See if any of them have achieved sudden affluence.

And a few Silicon Valley types should be there to try to hack the machines. My brother, who does tech stuff for DARPA, said "give me a cell phone and a laptop, and I'll make any of those machines give you any result your want." And that was in 2002.

[diva77]

8. RR/CC is not known for transparency. Can your bro make it to the mock election tomorrow?

[DFW]

10. I wish.

Washington keeps him on a pretty tight leash.

[Hermit-The-Prog]

22. electronic "voting" machines shouldn't be anywhere near an election

The devices spit out numbers that cannot be verified to be associated with an election.

It's just insane to have these things.

[DFW]

23. They were invented by, made by, regulated by, maintained by, and programmed by....

....partisan Republicans, the same ones that always score "surprise upset victories" in U.S. elections in states that use them, something Democrats never seem to manage in those states.

[Hermit-The-Prog]

25. a bit of their nefarious history ...

http://columbusfreepress.com/article/diebold-indicted-its-spectre-still-haunts-ohio-elections

https://www.wanttoknow.info/031109nytimes

[diva77]

9. List of all 18 Reps. from LA County - only 1 is a rethug

23 Kevin McCarthy (R)
25 Katie Hill (D)
26 Julia Brownley (D)
27 Judy Chu (D)
28 Adam B. Schiff (D)
29 Tony Cardenas (D)
30 Brad Sherman (D)
32 Grace F. Napolitano (D)
33 Ted Lieu (D)
34 Jimmy Gomez (D)
35 Norma Torres (D)
37 Karen R. Bass (D)
38 Linda T. Sanchez (D)
39 Gil Cisneros (D)
40 Lucille Roybal-Allard (D)
43 Maxine Waters (D)
44 Nanette Barragan (D)
47 Alan Lowenthal (D)

[DFW]

12. And look which one it is! n/t

[diva77]

16. I know! Right?! One of those "how did that happen???" phenomena

[chowder66]

11. Can you site your sources for nonverifiable, removing checks and balances, poll books being hackable

etc? I'm digging and not finding anything about this.

Thanks in advance!


For those who are curious;
https://www.latimes.com/la-me-voting-ballot-dean-logan-los-angeles-county-20190609-story.html

I live in L.A. so I take this seriously and would like to see something pointing out the claims of issues you are talking about.

[diva77]

13. here are some links

peruse Bradblog.com as well as coalitionforgoodgovernance.com for starters

https://bradblog.com/Docs/PhilipStark_GALetter021919_BMDAuditWorthless.pdf

and this article has a lot of links embedded:

L.A. Registrar Won't Answer Qs About County's New Unverifiable Touchscreen Vote Systems: 'BradCast' 8/26/2019

https://bradblog.com/?p=13113

[chowder66]

20. Thanks!! nt

[pnwmom]

14. Can you check your own ballot after the machine spits it out? n/t

[IndyOp]

15. Voters can check a summary sheet, but often don't. Stark says...

Only the voter can check for that: auditors can only see what’s on the paper. This is where security falls apart for BMDs. Uni- versal use of BMDs makes every voter responsible for checking whether the BMD is functioning correctly, but a BMD does not give voters the evidence theyvwould need to prove that a machine registered their vote incorrectly.

2 This is obviously a bad combination. According to the available evidence,
• very few voters check the BMD printout
• when they do, they generally do not notice errors
• if they notice errors, shame or inconvenience might keep them from re-
questing another ballot
• if they notice problems, there is no way for a voter to prove that the BMD
printed the wrong thing, rather than that the voter erred, so there’s no way
to catch a cheating or misconfigured BMD
• pollworkers are not trained to take a machine offline (and start a forensic
investigation) if a number of voters complain that the BMD is printing their selections incorrectly.

Stark is UCB faculty writing LA to tell them the system is not safe. Link to letter above.

[Hermit-The-Prog]

18. that DOES NOT verify your vote!

The machine can spit out the Encyclopedia Brittanica to you, while counting you as having voted for Hitler Uber Alles.

Electronic voting substitutes a fast number for a verifiable election.

The voter cannot verify an electronic ballot. The voter can only verify that something changed while operating the controls.

The public cannot verify 1 voter for 1 ballot. The public cannot tell what is happening with the electronic device when a voter is at the controls.

The public cannot verify the count of ballots with electronic devices. All the public can verify is that some numbers are reported from the device.

Paper ballots:

The voter can verify a paper ballot.

The public can verify that 1 voter submits 1 paper ballot.

The public can verify the counting of paper ballots.

[Hermit-The-Prog]

19. kick -- end electronic "voting"; paper ballots are a must!

[lostnfound]

21. Well there goes Adam. Nt

[wasupaloopa]

27. All of us in CA can get mail in ballots. There is no need to go to a poling place. You can hand

deliver them if you want. You can sign to have someone else deliver your ballot. And you get them in the mail weeks before election day along with voter information.

In my opinion we should just do away with poling places.

[not_the_one]

33. electronic voting equals republican wins

I have suggested several times that EVERYONE should photograph their own ballot, regardless of whether it is paper, scan ballot, touch screen, whatever they use.

And be willing to verify who they voted for. Secrecy is the problem, NOT the answer.

I have done it and will do it every election.

Yes, it would be cumbersome to verify, but are we too lazy, too unwilling to tolerate the inconvenience?

If so, we deserve what we get.

I am particularly concerned with the elimination of the voter rolls as a checklist. We must be able to see where we signed to vote, and then be able to prove how we voted. Each district's election office would have to verify the votes. So what if it takes two weeks. Better a delay, than Putin and the traitorous repubs re-electing the turd by electronic cheating.

It would only take a couple of instances of gross irregularities to trigger audits.

If California is doing this, we have already lost.

[Brother Buzz]

39. Supervisor Sheila Kuehl is totally cool with it

Voting Solutions for All People

This week at the Board meeting my colleagues and I authorized the Registrar-Recorder to enter into several contracts related to the Voting Solutions for All People Project Agreement. These three agreements will help us greatly improve and modernize our voting systems, making your experience on Election Day more efficient and transparent.

The Voting Solutions for All People (VSAP) project was developed by the Registrar-Recorder/County Clerk (RR/CC) in 2009 to address an aging voting system and an increasingly large and complex electorate. The project seeks a collaborative approach to voting system design that will put voters at the center and maximize stakeholder participation.

The first contract is with Smartmatic USA Corporation, who will build the physical VSAP system and integrate the voter software. Smartmatic USA would be responsible for building, certifying, and maintaining 31,500 new voting machines. Smartmatic USA has done similar work for a number of U.S. jurisdictions, including the City and County of San Francisco.

The second contract is with Digital Foundry, Inc, who will design the Tally System to count “vote in person” ballots, as well as develop the Ballot Layout Application, designing both “vote by mail” and “vote in person” ballots.

The third and final contract is with K&H Printers-Lithographers, who will provide all “vote by mail” printing services, as well as all mailing services.

It is important that we start preparing and testing our systems now so that we can ensure transparency, integrity, and efficiency in the 2020 elections.

https://supervisorkuehl.com/board-of-supes-take-5-june-12-2018/

[rockfordfile]

40. hahahahaha never learn

"These machines allow you to bring your cell phone to the polls with a pre-filled out sample ballot and transfer it to the machine "

Something like this will never be secure.