We need to switch back before the coming election to SIMPLE BALLOTS - please read, esp NJ and other

[Baobab]

Are We All Touch Screen Machine Victims?

Unauditable machines that are not replaced raise troubling questions about the core activity of citizenship, voting's honesty. The voting system NEEDS to be beyond politics and beyond questions of its security.

Some of the leading computer security experts in the world versus a states' consultant

Who was listened to? Guess!

(Shows the woeful state of technology literacy in America)

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We absolutely cannot go through another election using touch screen voting and other electronic systems KNOWN TO BE VULNERABLE TO VOTE TAMPERING BY MULTIPLE METHODS BY ANYBODY WITH PHYSICAL CONTROL OVER THE POLLING SITES.. They contain no physical records of votes. They use ancient hardware and that ancient hardware is a mess of problems.

Example: The NJ Voting Machine mess:

They still have not been replaced!


http://citp.princeton.edu/voting/advantage/ (Authoritatively Researched!)

https://www.cs.princeton.edu/~appel/avc/ (Entertaining!)

http://www.nj.com/politics/index.ssf/2013/03/lawyers_voting_machines_could.html

http://citpsite.s3-website-us-east-1.amazonaws.com/oldsite-htdocs/voting/advantage/seals/

http://thehill.com/policy/cybersecurity/222470-states-ditch-electronic-voting-machines

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The Stop America from Voting Act needs to be repealed now, and we need to adopt a single national system similar to Canadas that uses simple paper ballots and transparent voting boxes. JUST READABLE PAPER.


Touch Screen electronic voting machines (like the ones in New Jersey and probably other states) have been the subject of endless generations of computer security papers about their vulnerabilities because they have 1970s - 1980s technology that is so vulnerable to hacking in so many different ways that at least three or four dozen papers have been written about them.

But even though the state was warned BEFOREHAND that they were likely to be vulnerable THE STATE BOUGHT THEM ANYWAY.

It would make the most sense to simply specify the ballot graphically and use optical scanning and transparent ballot boxes, etc, to create a modern but also easy to tabulate system which did not rely on computers in the same way. Basically then we could and should use totally off the shelf generic hardware, printers, scanners and everybody gets and marks (with a pen, or with a computer) the boxes in an unambiguous way, then deposits the paper ballot into a transparent box and keeps the receipt which has a unique number.

$5 Raspberry Pi computers and standard cheap laser printers and scanners can be used and the easy availability of all the hardware would make it possible so virtually anybod could afford to build their own system to help improve it with the goal being total simplicity..

standardization would be accomplished primarily by obviousness and readability to the non computer user.. specifying the paper size and location of the black boxes for the optical reading..

and the rest of the software written with shell sripts that anybody could read (its fairly obvious to anybody with a moderate level of computing experience) so nothing would be tamperable.


That way the system can be audited and is not vulnerable to hacking!

[Agnosticsherbet]

1. California uses paper ballots that are scanned in, so there is a paper trail to fall back on

in the event of a recount.

Older voting machines that did not use computer systems are long gone, save the few relegated to the hanging chad exhibition in the Bush Presidential Library.

[Baobab]

2. Yes- exactly The kind of system I am describing would cost less than $100 each-probably much less.

Computer hardware is extremely cheap these days. A $5 Raspberry Pi would be far more powerful than would be needed.

Also, a printer is needed, any kind of printer would work. People could use their own hardware to print out their own ballots from the net and color in the boxes or use a PDF or web form - then just bring them to the polling place when they were satisfied the right boxes were filled with ink. (Or use a permanent marker)

The simpler the better. Just like health care!


Commodity Off The Shelf = (COTS)

COTS Hardware is everywhere, predictably reliable, and costs next to nothing due to the magic of mass production and volume manufacturing. The government is supposed to use it whenever it makes sense. In this situation it makes a great deal of sense.

[Agnosticsherbet]

4. There have always been problems. My grandfather and I used to vote on paper ballots counted by hand.

You paid to print the ballots but relied on teams of individuals to count.
In San Diego, California, we have paper ballots that are filled out. They are then scanned into a machine and counted. The ballots are retained for a period of time after the election, so there is a paper trail.

the difficulty lies in the fact that each state runs its own elections, and has their own rules for determining the source of ballot systems. What you suggest is not easy.

Even if the US Congress could do something and they passed a law mandating a system, it would be challenged in the Supreme Court on the grounds that it violates the States Constitutional Rights. Even if they one, implementing such a system would take several years.

[Retrograde]

3. Does it? I know the mail-in ballots are paper

and have at times run to 7 pages with presidential, senate, congressional, assembly and local races, not to mention state and local propositions all up at the same time. The last time I voted in person they used a touchscreen.

BTW, the notorious Florida ballots were computer-counted. Santa Clara county here in California used the same system, as did Alameda. It was possible to check your slip against the written sample ballot to make sure you punched the right holes, since it was easy to misalign the card. (Back then absentee votes got a sample ballot, a card with numbered dots, and a bent piece of wire to punch them out. It was something of a literacy test to match the candidate with the right place to punch, but we somehow managed without the hash Florida made of things).

[99th_Monkey]

5. I love Oregon's vote-by-mail system: paper ballots, recountable-as-needed. nt