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Colorado scrambles to change voting-system passwords after accidental leak

arstechnica.com

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Re: Colorado scrambles to change voting-system passwords after accidental leak

#231

Post by boomboomsubban »

echoangle wrote: post #163
ForHackernews wrote: post #100

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Incompetence is not malice. I just googled for more info: https://eu.usatoday.com/story/news/politics/elections/2024/1... > Laurel County Clerk Tony Brown addressed the issue in a statement, saying the machine was temporarily taken out of service while an investigator from the Attorney General's Office was called to inspect the machine. Investigators tried to recreate the anomaly and were able to do so after spending…

> Marking machines allow voters to make their selections for their ballot and then physically print them to be cast and counted. As someone not from the US: Why do you need that? What’s the advantage over manually filling out a piece of paper? The machine can’t use the data of printed ballots for anything if I can print multiple ballots, so it’s just a glorified pen making a checkmark?

It limits the user error pens cause. You can look up old disputed ballots, many of them are things like; people sloppily starting to fill out A then realizing they really want B, making such a large checkmark that it covers A and part of B, or those pranksters that fully color in A B and C.

As this shows, it still allows some user error, but they hope for less.

Re: Colorado scrambles to change voting-system passwords after accidental leak

#232

Post by loteck »

zmgsabst wrote: post #140
loteck wrote: post #127

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Virality is not an indicator of accuracy or authority. Do you dispute this?

I don’t understand your comment. Are you claiming that the video is fake? — if not, what’s your comment referring to with “accuracy”? — how is “authority” relevant at all, when discussing video of a malfunction?

There's nothing about my question to misunderstand. Are you troubled at the prospect of answering it?

Re: Colorado scrambles to change voting-system passwords after accidental leak

#233

Post by [deleted] »

EasyMark wrote: post #230
coolhand2120 wrote: post #48

Please correct me where I'm mistaken. * This password list has been public for a long time, and is easy to access: hidden excel column on a public spreadsheet. * BIOS access means the intruder can change boot devices, boot their own OS, infect the BIOS with a virus, change boot devices back, compromise the vote host OS. * Keycard security isn't tight security. Any amature physical penetration tester would just use a…

In texas you pick your items on computer and it spits out a paper ballot that you can look at to verify it's what you voted for. The info is also included in a qr code like form for a reader. In the event that something looks off it can be verified by humans. I figured something similar was done all over.

[deleted]

Re: Colorado scrambles to change voting-system passwords after accidental leak

#234

Post by EasyMark »

ForHackernews wrote: post #93
Molitor5901 wrote: post #30

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I think random, serialized paper ballots are the way to go. When the polls close you know the serial numbers of every vote cast, so no new serial numbers should be added to that unless a very good reason. Keep them or destroy them afterwards is another issue, but it's a step in the right direction. I have some distrust in the American voting system, first with the computerized systems, but also that federal elections…

https://www.cpr.org/2024/10/08/vg-2024-how-your-vote-gets-co... Colorado ballot envelopes already have a bar code - essentially your "serial number". I feel like I'm taking crazy pills because everyone who thinks there's widespread election fraud seems to not know anything about how elections work.

Virtually all the election deniers live in a sphere of unreality where they only listen to what their politicians/keepers tell them, they don't care about reality.

Re: Colorado scrambles to change voting-system passwords after accidental leak

#235

Post by acdha »

chrisco255 wrote: post #185
ForHackernews wrote: post #90

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Ironically America's fragmentary and incoherent electoral system makes it extremely hard to steal an election there.

The 2000 election was decided by 500 votes. You think it would be unfeasible to flip 500 votes in a critical swing state with such a system?

The question is how to know which county you need to do that in. The more you try, the greater the odds of being caught but with margins that small you’d need to attempt multiple states and predict rather accurately how many votes you need to win but not to attract too much scrutiny.

Re: Colorado scrambles to change voting-system passwords after accidental leak

#236

Post by EasyMark »

aftbit wrote: post #21

I hate the narratives around voting security in the US. One side says that it is totally secure, basically 0 fraud, most secure election in history, etc etc. The other side claims that the election was completely stolen from them by voting machines. Neither of these claims is right. Personally, I doubt the election was stolen. I know of a handful of cases of voter fraud both anecdotally ("My mom [in a retirement home…

The side that says there's virtually 0 fraud is correct, and the other side is living in a fantasy land because they feel their party is becoming less and less relevant. That side has never produced an iota of proof that there is widespread fraud of that it has affected elections in major races, especially the presidential one. Sometimes "both sides" works in an argument, but when one side has all the proof and the other side has only accusations, I comfortably give my allegiance to the one that has the proof.

Re: Colorado scrambles to change voting-system passwords after accidental leak

#237

Post by BurningFrog »

playingalong wrote: post #208
BurningFrog wrote: post #182

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I'm from Sweden where we only have 3 things to vote on (national, county, and city). I assumed Denmark was similar.

Europarlament too?

That's on a separate day.

Re: Colorado scrambles to change voting-system passwords after accidental leak

#238

Post by EasyMark »

tupolef wrote: post #13

The only way to get an honest electronic vote is by giving realtime visibility on who voted what and where publicly. Everything else is a scam. It would mean no secrecy of vote, but I think that secrecy of vote is for places that are new to democracy. It could be anonymised to a point a clever system of personal certificats, but the idea is that in a 100 people district, the citizens should be able to count themselve…

The value of secrecy is for protecting wives, mothers, etc from violence and punishment. the same is also true in local elections in particular. You could be ostracized from public services in a heart beat if they knew your vote. I can think of a hundred other reasons why a secret ballot is better than a public ballot. A secret ballot is necessary for safety, courtesy, and well being of a society.

Re: Colorado scrambles to change voting-system passwords after accidental leak

#239

Post by ceejayoz »

wannacboatmovie wrote: post #141
CaliforniaKarl wrote: post #85

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> You would think AI/ML could help with fraud detection. I think that's a very big leap to make, that the ballots are going to where they're going because of fraud. Hanlon's razor applies. > ballot box stuffing Ballot-box stuffing happens when more ballots are cast than there are people who voted. This is difficult to do when voting by mail. Indeed, from the article: > LeVan Hodson told KING 5, "Even if someone gets…

[flagged]

Or they work at an old folks home.

Re: Colorado scrambles to change voting-system passwords after accidental leak

#240

Post by BurningFrog »

wannacboatmovie wrote: post #211
BurningFrog wrote: post #165

Earlier quoted context omitted.

In a serious voting system the paper ballots are saved and can be recounted by hand. I've worked in elections in Sweden, and all elections are recounted at least twice, by different people.

The issue in the US is compounded further as running elections is left up to not only the states, but the individual municipalities in those states and typically run at the county level. Each with their own rules, whether or not ID verification is mandatory or literally illegal, style of voting (mail vs in-person), ballot design/UX, what languages the ballots are in (are ballots in Sweden in anything but Swedish?) an…

Aside from national referendums every few decades, Swedish ballots only contain party and candidate names, no actual language.
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