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US election system reveals frightening vulnerabilities at almost every level

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Re: US election system reveals frightening vulnerabilities at almost every level

#51

Post by creaghpatr »

narinek wrote: post #17
code_duck wrote: post #13

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Is that your response to the gigantic list of legitimate concerns about our Swiss-cheese election system... it’s all a conspiracy by the media?

If they win they won't complain but if they lose they'll say the election was hacked because of the machines. He's not delegitimising the concerns about the machines, which are evident. He's delegitimising the way journalists are bitching about it. (I don't follow the American election so I don't know who will win.)

Correct, and we saw exactly this happen in 2016, to such an extent that Barrack Obama had to make a public statement “It’s not rigged” in response to conspiracy theorists claiming that entities would exploit vulnerabilities in the voting infrastructure. It’s uncomfortable for some to confront this.

Re: US election system reveals frightening vulnerabilities at almost every level

#52

Post by cletus »

At this point I'm really wondering what it will take before we accept the utter insanity that is electronic voting.

Even if there isn't a major breach to the point where hostile actors (foreign or domestic) "steal" an election, the confidence in e-voting will inevitably be cast into doubt by the losing side at some point. Guaranteed.

How do you audit or recount an anonymous electronic vote? How do you know if a vote cast is recorded as such? How do you know votes aren't wiped at some point?

There are two basic options that work perfectly well:

- Fill in a paper ballot with pen or pencil marking in spaces for the candidates you vote for. Have a machine verify your ballot.

- Vote on a touch screen. Once done print out your ballot and put it in a box.

In either case you use some kind of paper that isn't impossible to counterfeit (that's basically an impossibility) but it should be hard enough such that it's nontrivial.

That's it. That's all you need to do.

Sure local actors can "lose" ballots, ball stuf and so forth but this all has to be done on a pretty local level. You get rid of any potential vectors like a Russian or Chinese state agency changing the result from the other side of the planet because someone forgot to update OpenSSL on one Linux server or someone clicked on a phishing link on an innocuous looking email.

Apparently we didn't learn our lessons from unreliable voting methods in 2000 (pregnant chad, anyone?) so I'm not super-hopeful.

Re: US election system reveals frightening vulnerabilities at almost every level

#54

Post by djohnston »

This goes back to the whole, “hacking the election” 2016 fiasco. Why are we talking about these potential flaws more than the glaring flaw that adversaries already exploited, that of a relatively dumb populous easily manipulated via social media? There’s already a 0 day we don’t know how to patch, our adversaries don’t need to invest in complex cyber attacks when they can achieve the same end via free broadcasting platforms.

Re: US election system reveals frightening vulnerabilities at almost every level

#55

Post by gsich »

DennisP wrote: post #47
tomrod wrote: post #7

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Unless you specify open testing protocols that also test for cheating (like VW emissions). It shouldn't be this hard to vote and to trust a certified outcome. Regulators require businesses to run with specified parameters, why do elections get off the hook?

It's not hard, if you use paper ballots and well-established protocols for securing elections. On the other hand, if you use electronic machines without paper backup, it's basically impossible.

Then why do electronic machines in the first place?

Re: US election system reveals frightening vulnerabilities at almost every level

#56

Post by burfog »

monocasa wrote: post #29
_red wrote: post #24

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Further the article never mentions: ID, illegals, undocumented Complaining about fraud via electronic voting machines and ignoring the 20M+ that are potentially voting illegally is quite curious indeed.

Because we've looked into it many times, and it's not a big deal. Trump just silently disbanded the task force looking for undocumented immigrants voting for instance. "I'm undocumented, what am I going to do on a Tuesday? How about skipping work where I already don't get paid a living wage to go to a government building with sone police standing around, and big voter rolls of all citizens in the area. Yeah, that sou…

The task force couldn't operate because the states most suspected of having this problem would not supply data. One could infer that this means they know they have the problem and are hiding it.

Re: US election system reveals frightening vulnerabilities at almost every level

#57

Post by bluejekyll »

gsich wrote: post #55
DennisP wrote: post #47

Earlier quoted context omitted.

It's not hard, if you use paper ballots and well-established protocols for securing elections. On the other hand, if you use electronic machines without paper backup, it's basically impossible.

Then why do electronic machines in the first place?

Exactly. They provide nothing over the security of a paper ballot.

Re: US election system reveals frightening vulnerabilities at almost every level

#58

Post by vibrolax »

gsich wrote: post #55
DennisP wrote: post #47

Earlier quoted context omitted.

It's not hard, if you use paper ballots and well-established protocols for securing elections. On the other hand, if you use electronic machines without paper backup, it's basically impossible.

Then why do electronic machines in the first place?

Because they're cheaper. I lived in counties that formerly used mechanical voting machines. They were replaced by electronic ones when the cost of maintaining them became higher than the replacement cost. If security was considered at all, I speculate that it was not the highest priority.

Re: US election system reveals frightening vulnerabilities at almost every level

#59

Post by monocasa »

burfog wrote: post #56
monocasa wrote: post #29

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Because we've looked into it many times, and it's not a big deal. Trump just silently disbanded the task force looking for undocumented immigrants voting for instance. "I'm undocumented, what am I going to do on a Tuesday? How about skipping work where I already don't get paid a living wage to go to a government building with sone police standing around, and big voter rolls of all citizens in the area. Yeah, that sou…

The task force couldn't operate because the states most suspected of having this problem would not supply data. One could infer that this means they know they have the problem and are hiding it.

Did they try to subpoena the information? The Feds have a constitutional right to this information. Or did they just look for the first road block so that they could say "oh we tried to look into it, but we were foiled by those dastardly Democrats"?

Re: US election system reveals frightening vulnerabilities at almost every level

#60

Post by TheAceOfHearts »

Paper ballots are the superior method of voting. It makes it nigh impossible to cheat at a large scale and there's a paper trail verified by multiple adversarial parties. It's also way more reliable due to the sheer simplicity of the system. For a system as important as our elections we should take every precaution possible.

Maybe I'm paranoid, but I don't even trust mail-in ballots. I'm perfectly content to fill out my ballot ahead of time and hand-deliver it on election day.

I think it should also be a requirement to show a state or federal ID before you can cast your vote. I'm always floored when people try to defend voting without requiring any kind of identity verification. In Puerto Rico you're required to register ahead of time for a voter ID and you must present it in order to vote. If Puerto Rico, which is drastically poorer than all 50 states, can pull this off without it being considered a problem then I find it really hard to take seriously the claims of people saying it sets too high of a bar.

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