Hacker News Board Hacker News, browsed like a classic message board
Live data from Hacker News

Reddit user captures video of 2012 voting machines altering votes

thenextweb.com

Post reply on HN
Print view View original

31–40 of 659 posts

Re: Reddit user captures video of 2012 voting machines altering votes

#31

Post by Nursie »

jneal wrote: post #6
salman89 wrote: post #3

Voting machines need to be a lot better than this or not exist at all, but does anyone actually think that IF this machine was altering votes, it would alter it in this fashion with a UI element tied to the alteration? Seems more like a crappy touch screen.

This was my thought exactly. If someone was going through the trouble of altering votes, it would make no sense to make note of this within UI elements, it could just as easily "secretly" change the votes for 1/8 (just my theoretical magical number) voters and alter the results just enough without being noticeable.

I wonder though... maybe the inconvenience would be enough to either change a percentage of votes or make a few people give up.

Looks like a bug, actually swings a close election?

Re: Reddit user captures video of 2012 voting machines altering votes

#32

Post by citricsquid »

baddox wrote: post #20
salman89 wrote: post #3

Voting machines need to be a lot better than this or not exist at all, but does anyone actually think that IF this machine was altering votes, it would alter it in this fashion with a UI element tied to the alteration? Seems more like a crappy touch screen.

> does anyone actually think that IF this machine was altering votes, it would alter it in this fashion with a UI element tied to the alteration I think you mean if the machine was intentionally designed to alter votes, it wouldn't do it in this fashion. The article doesn't even hint that this might be done on purpose.

> The article doesn't even hint that this might be done on purpose.

Altering is an action, not something passive. If a machine is altering votes then it must be doing that intentionally. What is happening here is the person interacting with this machine is interacting in such a way that makes the machine believe he is pressing elsewhere on the screen.

The title reads as if the machine is doing something, the reality is the user is doing something in such a way that the machine believes they're doing something else, due to poor calibration.

Re: Reddit user captures video of 2012 voting machines altering votes

#33

Post by danielweber »

bibinou wrote: post #13
ditoa wrote: post #8

Looks like a calibration issue. They should have included selecting other candidates in the list. While not good enough (voting machines should be "perfect") calling it "altering votes" is a little much. It shows you that it has registered the wrong candidate, I would call this incorrectly registering input.

> I first thought the calibration was off and tried selecting Jill Stein to actually highlight Obama. Nope. Jill Stein was selected just fine.

If people have been pressing that "Obama" screen region all day, it could well be worn out.

I wonder what the trade-offs are for randomizing each ballot.

Re: Reddit user captures video of 2012 voting machines altering votes

#34

Post by pnathan »

morsch wrote: post #4

The shenanigans you seem to tolerate during elections are just incomprehensible to us foreigners. The number of horror stories I've heard in the last couple of weeks regarding everything from just weirdness of the system to blatant manipulation is farcical. It's possible that I'm getting a bleaker picture than reality, I suppose, since I only read about the broken stuff and not the instances where everything just wor…

(1) We have > 300 M people. That's a huge population.

(2) We are OK publicizing it.

(3) Probability would indicate that we'll have a certain error, and it'll be shouted about.

---

But it's very strange that it was "miscalibrated" to not select one particular candidate, no? :)

Re: Reddit user captures video of 2012 voting machines altering votes

#35

Post by jarek »

morsch wrote: post #4

The shenanigans you seem to tolerate during elections are just incomprehensible to us foreigners. The number of horror stories I've heard in the last couple of weeks regarding everything from just weirdness of the system to blatant manipulation is farcical. It's possible that I'm getting a bleaker picture than reality, I suppose, since I only read about the broken stuff and not the instances where everything just wor…

I had a similar reaction. The regulations on what is required to vote differ between states?! Cities run polling stations?!

David Frum weighing in: http://www.cnn.com/2012/11/05/opinion/frum-election-chaos/in...

Re: Reddit user captures video of 2012 voting machines altering votes

#36

Post by tocomment »

salman89 wrote: post #3

Voting machines need to be a lot better than this or not exist at all, but does anyone actually think that IF this machine was altering votes, it would alter it in this fashion with a UI element tied to the alteration? Seems more like a crappy touch screen.

But maybe the programmer didn't do this. Maybe it's something under the election worker's control like calibration settings on only part of the screen, or the spacing of the ballot, or something else user-configurable. Just a thought?

Re: Reddit user captures video of 2012 voting machines altering votes

#37

Post by llambda »

What I've read[1][2] in regard to this incident is that it is most likely a calibration issue: i.e. the touch screen is improperly calibrated and as a result is not selecting the proper region of the screen. Now this is concerning because it likely means other machines could be or are miscalibrated. However the important takeaway here is that this is not some malicious attempt to rig the vote. If that were the case the likely method would be completely invisible from the UI; why would an attacker bother to actually show a user they were being manipulated? Of course, they wouldn't.

[1] Joseph Hall comments here, also provides a link to further commentary by him: http://gawker.com/5958114/an-expert-weighs-in-on-that-viral-...

[2] http://www.theawl.com/2012/11/the-truth-about-voting-machine...

Re: Reddit user captures video of 2012 voting machines altering votes

#38

Post by danielweber »

ceejayoz wrote: post #22
bibinou wrote: post #13

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> I first thought the calibration was off and tried selecting Jill Stein to actually highlight Obama. Nope. Jill Stein was selected just fine.

If true, why not include that in the video?

Charitably, because they were sneaking it. Recording devices are not allowed in many (most?) states, precisely because it lets people sell votes.

And although I think this is overblown, in general I think this seems a legit reason to sneak a recording.

Re: Reddit user captures video of 2012 voting machines altering votes

#39

Post by hornbaker »

ditoa wrote: post #8

Looks like a calibration issue. They should have included selecting other candidates in the list. While not good enough (voting machines should be "perfect") calling it "altering votes" is a little much. It shows you that it has registered the wrong candidate, I would call this incorrectly registering input.

Did you read the article?

"I first thought the calibration was off and tried selecting Jill Stein to actually highlight Obama. Nope. Jill Stein was selected just fine. Next I deselected her and started at the top of Romney’s name and started tapping very closely together to find the ‘active areas’. From the top of Romney’s button down to the bottom of the black checkbox beside Obama’s name was all active for Romney. From the bottom of that same checkbox to the bottom of the Obama button (basically a small white sliver) is what let me choose Obama. Stein’s button was fine. All other buttons worked fine."

Re: Reddit user captures video of 2012 voting machines altering votes

#40

Post by ars »

morsch wrote: post #4

The shenanigans you seem to tolerate during elections are just incomprehensible to us foreigners. The number of horror stories I've heard in the last couple of weeks regarding everything from just weirdness of the system to blatant manipulation is farcical. It's possible that I'm getting a bleaker picture than reality, I suppose, since I only read about the broken stuff and not the instances where everything just wor…

Actually it's quite the opposite: People get so worked up about these things because they don't tolerate it.

If you never hear about these things in your own country that means that apparently no one there cares.

Post reply on HN