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Fearful of Hacking, Dutch Will Count Ballots by Hand

nytimes.com

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Re: Fearful of Hacking, Dutch Will Count Ballots by Hand

#61

Post by stretchwithme »

cynwoody wrote: post #25
stretchwithme wrote: post #11

We only every needed technology to make sure ballots get encoded correctly. We could do that with open source software, commodity PCs and card punch machines and readers. Then validating that your choices were encoded correctly would be easier. So would counting. You could count at the voting location to get fast results and recount once the ballots arrive at the central office to confirm that the reported count was…

>You also should have a unique number on each ballot that you can later use to look up how your ballot was recorded. The standard objection to such a practice is that it facilitates vote buying / selling / coercion by giving the voter a means of proving how he voted. However, I think it's a good idea nonetheless. All the ballots, randomly numbered, should go into a file available for download. That way, anyone can co…

Good points all.

People could use their phone to record the entire time they are in the booth.

Re: Fearful of Hacking, Dutch Will Count Ballots by Hand

#62

Post by gumby »

At least they interviewed a computer scientist. I was amazed in 2001 and have continued to be amazed at "civilians'" (i.e. those not in the industry) faith in all things electronic.

I remember this also from when I was on the school board. The parents and the administration were eager to augment the young kids' curriculum with "technology skills" -- by which they meant Word and Powerpoint. The only opposition was from board members and parents in the computing industry.

Of course now my teenager doesn't even use those tools and had to learn actual technical skills on his own. None of those kids learned anything about what a computer is, or even what "technology" is.

Re: Fearful of Hacking, Dutch Will Count Ballots by Hand

#63

Post by ar-jan »

wila wrote: post #7

This is due to a Dutch ethical hacker (Sijmen Ruwhof) investigating the way that our elections work. He had posted a great research document [0] that showed how bad our current system was. Two days later, we're back to paper. Thanks Sijmen :) [0] https://sijmen.ruwhof.net/weblog/1166-how-to-hack-the-upcomi...

A great write-up, but I'd say at least as much credit to the person who reported the issue to the RTL news, who then contacted Sijmen to investigate further. According to [0], the original reporter had already enumerated all the flaws of the system.

0: https://tweakers.net/nieuws/120667/proces-stemmen-tellen-ned...

Re: Fearful of Hacking, Dutch Will Count Ballots by Hand

#64

Post by 3pt14159 »

stretchwithme wrote: post #60
3pt14159 wrote: post #46

Earlier quoted context omitted.

No I don't want you to move my vote before I can see it. Use computers to do the count fast and first if you want to, but I want paper receipts also stuffed into a box and I want to be able to observe the whole process and I want to be able to observe the votes being physically counted at the end. Democracy gives so much legitimacy to her government that it will be gamed if it's possible.

If you have your ballot encoded on a punch card, you should be able go a pc with a punch card reader at the polling place and see what is actually encoded on it. The software to read the card could also be open source. Or you could have an app on your phone that snaps a photo and reads it according to the settings published by the municipality where you are voting. All that can happen before you give it to a poll wor…

Yes but I don't want that. I want to be able to read who I voted for with my eyes. I want to be able to check that the ballot box is empty when it comes in and I want to be able to verify that every voter only got one printout that they could check with their eyes what they voted before sliding it in the ballot box.

I don't want anyone to be able to stuff a box with a bunch of votes I didn't see. And yes, voting by mail has some of these problems, but it makes up such a tiny fraction of the vote where I live I put up with it without complaining.

Voting needs to be so secure that when people like Trump call an election rigged we need to be able to laugh at him and show everyone how secure it is.

Re: Fearful of Hacking, Dutch Will Count Ballots by Hand

#65

Post by mixedCase »

EdHominem wrote: post #56
vkou wrote: post #45

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Leaking the Trump tax return was illegal. There was nothing illegal in the tax return. The Snowden leaks were quite probably illegal. Many of the things he leaked were not illegal. (Since this will never go to trial, we'll probably never know.) Should the press only report on legally-sourced information? They aren't a jury. Good news for us, though - both illegal leaks, and illegal hacks are illegal. We already have…

> The Snowden leaks were quite probably illegal. Not at all. It was required behavior. Until the government enacts a useful whistleblowing program someone who witnesses criminal actions has literally no legal choice but to leak. Ignoring it and hoping it goes away is the illegal option. I want my institutions to be fixable from inside but when they aren't, I simply want them fixed. Re Downvoter - I understand that yo…

It was illegal. Which does not stop it from being moral.

Re: Fearful of Hacking, Dutch Will Count Ballots by Hand

#66

Post by mattnewton »

sidlls wrote: post #54
mattnewton wrote: post #53

Earlier quoted context omitted.

While you are technically correct, do you want to live in a country run by private corporations or would you rather public pressure and regulations be able to influence the parties?

I'd rather the latter. Which is why I don't care that the private company that is the DNC was hacked. They don't succumb or respond to public pressure in any meaningful way.

I think we should do more than treat it as a governmental organization, we should regulate it into behaving more like one, or regulate some of its influence away so that there's is more room for third parties

Re: Fearful of Hacking, Dutch Will Count Ballots by Hand

#67

Post by sidlls »

mattnewton wrote: post #66
sidlls wrote: post #54

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I'd rather the latter. Which is why I don't care that the private company that is the DNC was hacked. They don't succumb or respond to public pressure in any meaningful way.

I think we should do more than treat it as a governmental organization, we should regulate it into behaving more like one, or regulate some of its influence away so that there's is more room for third parties

Plenty of states already have regulations. California has rules about how parties elect their boards and whatnot, for example, and officially recognizes parties.

I agree that we should reduce their influence. That would be the opposite of doubling down on our current system of treating them like pseudo-branches of government.

One way to accomplish that would be to ban official recognition of parties, require them to fund and run their own primary elections, and move to multi-member representation districts. All of these things can be done at the state level for state and local offices.

Re: Fearful of Hacking, Dutch Will Count Ballots by Hand

#68

Post by contravariant »

Jraf wrote: post #18

In France we count all ballots by hand. As every ballot station count only his ballots, it's quick. For a presidential election, maybe 30 minutes. The counting is done by the citizens, so no (easy) frauds are possible. All ballots are visible, the process is transparent, no suspicion. I personally think that a 30min delay to get the election results is worth the wait.

This is literally how the Dutch election system has worked for years, ever since they stopped with the voting machines (which were admittedly a mistake).

The recent change has to do with how the votes were tallied. Basically the way they were transmitted wasn't really tamper-proof, and there wasn't a system in place to determine the difference between the result of the ballot station and the publicly announced result.

Of course they've 'solved' this by replacing the electronic tallying system. Which I can't help but feel is a very misguided way of fixing those problems.

Re: Fearful of Hacking, Dutch Will Count Ballots by Hand

#69

Post by harry8 »

mattnewton wrote: post #23
vkou wrote: post #13

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> You wouldn't say that that somebody hacked Iceland's democracy. No, you wouldn't. The wailing and gnashing of teeth over the DNC hacks are all because the Democratic leadership is unwilling to accept responsibility for putting forward a bad candidate. Better blame the Russians, instead! If only the public didn't know the truth, we would have won!

You aren't wrong about the Democratic Party putting forth a weak candidate, but it is concerning that there weren't similar actions on the other side. The attacks were targeting a specific party alone and seem to be motivated by foreign geopolitical interests, not in the American public's interest. There is a reason we want equal time laws for example, because if I constantly hear one side of the argument, it doesn't…

> but it is concerning that there weren't similar actions on the other side.

This is just wrong, of course there were. "Grab them by the pussy." Was also a leak and was also published with political intent. (And just quietly, also demonstrated a man is an utterly foul human being whom I would cross the road to avoid.)

Re: Fearful of Hacking, Dutch Will Count Ballots by Hand

#70

Post by DrScump »

kordless wrote: post #35

I live in Contra Costa County, California. When my wife and I went to vote during the election, my wife's name "had a problem". A lady came out with a binder to compare to the roll where people sign before grabbing their forms. I got my forms, but my wife was told she had to take an absentee ballot because her name was not in the binder, but was on the roll list. Her name was highlighted in the list on the roll that…

But an "absentee" ballot and a conventional paper ballot are processed the same.

Could you instead mean to say a provisional ballot?

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