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They think they are above the law: the firms who own America's voting system

theguardian.com

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Re: They think they are above the law: the firms who own America's voting system

#121

Post by cardiffspaceman »

dbcurtis wrote: post #17

I would feel better if these folks https://www.gaming.nv.gov/index.aspx?page=15 helped establish the best practices for voting machine approval. Seriously, what does it say about our society that it is harder to deploy a slot machine in Reno than a voting machine in Peoria?

I recall compliance with the NV Gaming Control Board's processes to be painless compared to other regulated markets such as health care, but this is from the 80's. Can you say something about one dimension of the comparison such as change control in both cases?

Re: They think they are above the law: the firms who own America's voting system

#122

Post by colmmacc »

tptacek wrote: post #116
colmmacc wrote: post #115

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Of course it would work. A real world "attack" is more like a regressively patriarchal household where everyone "votes" at the dinner table. Yes, an 18 year old around that table could later make their way to a ballot station, but they'll run into their neighbors along the way, and if their swamp-creature of a father finds out, it won't go well for them.

I should be more precise. The voting system we have in Cook County accounts for the possibility that someone observed your vote, and that you might later want to rescind that vote. It does so imperfectly, as you note. I will say that the system we have goes to some annoying lengths to try to maintain this particular kind of integrity. For instance, if you have vision problems and want your husband to help you read th…

I've monitored elections in Ireland and the Netherlands which both have an interesting problem. They each use Proportional Representation and ranked voting. Voters filling in their ballots mark each candidate with a number indicating their preference.

There are routinely 10+ candidates in each constituency. That makes it easy to encode a highly-likely to be unique voter signature in the lower order numbers, which would make it possible to sell your vote.

To combat this, when the votes are unfurled from the ballot boxes in public, tallymen (independent checkers of the vote) are expected to record only the first preferences, and if you start marking any more, you can expect a conversation with the returning officer. They are keeping an eye out.

If you are a scrutinizer of potentially invalid ballots, which I've done a few times, you're also not allowed to bring or take any notes.

Re: They think they are above the law: the firms who own America's voting system

#123

Post by pulisse »

Wowfunhappy wrote: post #108
colmmacc wrote: post #102

Earlier quoted context omitted.

This is true of all remote voting. The all-postal ballots in Washington and Oregon are certainly subject to this, and there is a certain rate of voter coercion that goes undetected, particularly within households. For the proponents of all-postal voting, this trade-off is worth it for the sake of the increased participation rates. Democratic legitimacy can be very nuanced and delicate. A well-publicized example of vo…

> For the proponents of all-postal voting, this trade-off is worth it for the sake of the increased participation rates. It occurs to me that there's a fairly obvious way to get the benefits of both: require voting in person, but make voting mandatory.

> require voting in person, but make voting mandatory.

This is only feasible if employers are legally required to allow employees time off to vote. In many countries, election days are holidays, but attempts to follow suit in the US haven't gone anywhere.

Re: They think they are above the law: the firms who own America's voting system

#124

Post by Wowfunhappy »

Teever wrote: post #120
colmmacc wrote: post #114

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Australia has this and it gets turnout rates in the 90%+ range. In 2015, Obama threw out that maybe it was time for mandatory voting in the US: https://www.cnn.com/2015/03/19/politics/obama-mandatory-voti... But the idea has never gotten very far. In general, the idea of a collectivist state that is underpinned by citizen responsibilities has been subsumed by the idea of the state as service supplier, and the citizen…

I'm only for mandatory voting if there is a 'none of the above' option and if the majority votes for that then the election is a do-over and the candidates on that ballot are forbidden from running in the next election and possibly more.

> I'm only for mandatory voting if there is a 'none of the above' option

You could write in a name, or hand in an empty ballot. Mind, nothing will come of this even if it's the majority pick, but you're never actually forced to choose a candidate.

Re: They think they are above the law: the firms who own America's voting system

#125

Post by Wowfunhappy »

pulisse wrote: post #123
Wowfunhappy wrote: post #108

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> For the proponents of all-postal voting, this trade-off is worth it for the sake of the increased participation rates. It occurs to me that there's a fairly obvious way to get the benefits of both: require voting in person, but make voting mandatory.

> require voting in person, but make voting mandatory. This is only feasible if employers are legally required to allow employees time off to vote. In many countries, election days are holidays, but attempts to follow suit in the US haven't gone anywhere.

You could also move voting to Saturday.

Re: They think they are above the law: the firms who own America's voting system

#126

Post by specialist »

paulgb wrote: post #67
the_snooze wrote: post #64

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Some people might interpret this as gatekeeping, but it really is true. If you're serious about election security, you'll learn a lot very quickly by immersing yourself in the process and the people who do it. For example, one often-overlooked advantage of traditional in-person paper voting is that you're entitled to spoil your ballot and request a fresh one. This protects voters from being coerced into voting a cert…

> This protects voters from being coerced into voting a certain way and taking a photo of their ballot as proof I like that, and I think it's an important property of voting systems that people who want to implement online voting overlook. But isn't it undermined by absentee voting, or is there a similar mechanism for that?

Tabulating ballots as they are received eliminates the secret ballot. Ballots should be sorted into precincts beforehand.

Many larger jurisdictions use high speed image scanners for their postal ballots and adjudicate voter intent electronically (no paper record).

Election integrity types consider postal balloting and touchscreens roughly equivalent.

The gold standard is poll sites where the ballots are tabulated onsite immediately after the polls close. Anything else compromises public voting, private counting, or both, in some way. Though sometimes the tradeoff is worthwhile, eg enfranchising voters.

Re: They think they are above the law: the firms who own America's voting system

#128

Post by ska »

the_snooze wrote: post #64
tptacek wrote: post #41

If you want to have strong opinions about voting security, you should do as Matt Blaze recommends and sign up to be an election judge. I did it after my business partner 'lvh did, presumably at Blaze's urging, and he's right: you really can't comprehend fully what's going on in an election until you've worked on one firsthand. A lot of things you'd be inclined to think are major security problems probably aren't, and…

Some people might interpret this as gatekeeping, but it really is true. If you're serious about election security, you'll learn a lot very quickly by immersing yourself in the process and the people who do it. For example, one often-overlooked advantage of traditional in-person paper voting is that you're entitled to spoil your ballot and request a fresh one. This protects voters from being coerced into voting a cert…

   Some people might interpret this as gatekeeping,...
I don't think it is gatekeeping to suggest people learn something about a subject before developing & propogating strong opinions on it. Obviously this is one of the best ways to learn some of the ins and outs.

Re: They think they are above the law: the firms who own America's voting system

#129

Post by Buttons840 »

joshfraser wrote: post #89
donarb wrote: post #76

Earlier quoted context omitted.

In Washington State, photographs of each ballot are taken as the ballot is removed from the envelope and after it has been electronically tabulated. This prevents someone from replacing a paper ballot along the way.

Good thing photos can't be deleted. Oh wait.

Photos can be deleted. It would be detected and then law enforcement would or would not do anything.

A blockchain voting system would enable us to detect vote tampering, and then law enforcement would or would not do something about it.

What's the difference?

IMO, 99% of the people wont understand a blockchain system. To them it will just be "X won because a computer said so". So the question is do we want society to be filled with people thinking "I know those votes were made with pen on paper and were counted by my neighbors and trusted friends" or do we want society filled with people who think "it must be true because a computer said so"?

Re: They think they are above the law: the firms who own America's voting system

#130

Post by ska »

colmmacc wrote: post #114
Wowfunhappy wrote: post #108

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> For the proponents of all-postal voting, this trade-off is worth it for the sake of the increased participation rates. It occurs to me that there's a fairly obvious way to get the benefits of both: require voting in person, but make voting mandatory.

Australia has this and it gets turnout rates in the 90%+ range. In 2015, Obama threw out that maybe it was time for mandatory voting in the US: https://www.cnn.com/2015/03/19/politics/obama-mandatory-voti... But the idea has never gotten very far. In general, the idea of a collectivist state that is underpinned by citizen responsibilities has been subsumed by the idea of the state as service supplier, and the citizen…

I suspect an even bigger problem is that there are powerful players who seem to have have an interest in the opposite - that is, reducing the number of potential voters who actually vote. I can't imagine them letting mandatory voting go without a real fight.
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