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Reddit user captures video of 2012 voting machines altering votes

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

#311

Post by btilly »

icarus_drowning wrote: post #297
btilly wrote: post #272

Earlier quoted context omitted.

That possible explanation has been put out repeatedly. Given how successful exit polling was until 2000 in the USA, and given how successful it is in elections around the world, I do not believe that this is a plausible explanation of recent discrepancies. But, as is common in this sort of situation, I have no way to prove it.

Nate Silver wrote a great article in 2010 about why the notion of exit polling itself has a lot of fundamental problems[1]-- among them, the fact that it is extraordinarily difficult to get an truly random sample. [1] http://www.fivethirtyeight.com/2008/11/ten-reasons-why-you-s...

None of which is news.

Still the national media had faced those issues and successfully did it for decades. Then their polls stopped working in 2000. Why?

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

#312

Post by spectrum »

In the Netherlands they got rid of voting machines all together in 2008.

A group set out to ensure that the election process in the Netherlands would become as fraud resistant as it was before the advent of paperless voting computers. They demonstrated that the voting machines could be hacked. It wass also a risk because of the small group involved in getting the results out of these computers, with no real possibility to check if they are real (because the source code is not open). Committing fraud would only have to involve a few people.

On May 16, 2008 the Dutch government decided that elections in the Netherlands will be held using paper ballots and red pencil only. A proposal to develop a new generation of voting computers was rejected.

More info at http://wijvertrouwenstemcomputersniet.nl/English

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

#313

Post by zbowling »

eli wrote: post #227
zbowling wrote: post #165

Earlier quoted context omitted.

One way hash with secret salt would work. You enter a secret password as a salt and get a hash code from all your votes so you have a provable record your vote got counted that you can verify but no body can reverse to know it's you. Then stick all the votes up on a server somewhere. Let us go and check our votes are in the list. We could then have informal verification and audits of the counts.

No dice. One of the goals is that you can't prove how you voted (i.e. so you can't sell your vote).

No one can prove I voted with a one way hash either. That's the point. Only I can verify myself.

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

#315

Post by tedunangst »

TwistedWeasel wrote: post #47
llambda wrote: post #37

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 t…

The consumer electronics industry has shipped hundreds of millions of touch screens in the last few years and i've not seen a single article complaining that they opened up their new tablet/phone to find it mis-calibrated and that their touches were off my such a huge margin. Why are voting machines apparently subject to calibration problems that other touch screen devices are not?

Don't fly much I'm guessing. It's the rare checkin kiosk that is accurately calibrated.

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

#316

Post by eric_the_read »

wizzard wrote: post #198
michaelhoffman wrote: post #125

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Other countries rely less on machines where this sort of thing is even possible. The fact that human-built systems are likely to contain errors is an argument for making these system as simple as possible. The fact that we use touchscreen voting machines in the U.S., with all the hidden errors (honest or malicious) they can introduce into the canvass, is insane.

Because having groups of random, untrained people squinting at dangling chads is less error-prone? What system, in your opinion, would minimize error?

Computer-based systems that print out a machine-readable paper ballot that can be hand-counted as well. You vote (perhaps with a touch screen, perhaps not) by making your selections, printing out your ballot, examining it, and inserting it into the tabulator once printed.

There's still plenty of margin for error (for instance, the printer could run misprint or run out of ink, the tabulator could be buggy), and corruption ("here, let me file that for you...") but I think it maximizes the benefits of touchscreen voting for disabled voters while minimizing the downsides.

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

#317

Post by thanithani »

sinnerswing wrote: post #288
eli wrote: post #238

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Agreed. There are a couple of other papers as well. The problem is they are far too complicated to explain to voters which makes them unlikely to be adopted and unlikely to be trusted. Having a secure vote is obviously the primary goal, but having a vote that people trust is pretty important too.

Here's one FROM Romney to Obama 'DOZENS' OF COLORADO ROMNEY VOTERS CLAIM MACHINES CHANGED VOTES TO OBAMA http://www.breitbart.com/Big-Government/2012/11/03/Dozens-of...

I'd argue that people from Pueblo don't know how use a touch interface

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

#318

Post by chris_wot »

kevinalexbrown wrote: post #192
eli wrote: post #147

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Definitely not! It's a secret ballot -- you cannot have any way to prove which candidates you voted for.

What about, e.g. taking a video of your vote as the original Reddit poster did? I think this verification may already be a reality. The alternative is to disallow any form of verification, as with the Reddit poster, but then we lose the ability to perform checks on the voting procedure, and would never have known about this current anomaly. What's missing, though, is the proof that who you voted for is who the vote w…

It amazes me how complicated electronic voting becomes. The current paper based system is far better.

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

#319

Post by usaar333 »

VMG wrote: post #309
JoeCortopassi wrote: post #295

I know that this will remain at the bottom of this thread, because it doesn't have enough conspiracy theory in it, but does anyone really think that this is actual vote tampering ? I mean, why on earth would you tamper with a voting machine so that it stuffs the ballot, but have it update the UI so that the user can see and report the error? This should fall to the way side of failing basic logic, but it doesn't beca…

But what is the other explanation then?

touchscreen calibration errors or related software glitches. I've certainly seen my own phone get screwed up enough on occasion that a touch on point x registered at y.

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

#320

Post by regularfry »

JoeCortopassi wrote: post #295

I know that this will remain at the bottom of this thread, because it doesn't have enough conspiracy theory in it, but does anyone really think that this is actual vote tampering ? I mean, why on earth would you tamper with a voting machine so that it stuffs the ballot, but have it update the UI so that the user can see and report the error? This should fall to the way side of failing basic logic, but it doesn't beca…

If you assume that the team developing the software consists of more than one person, and a hypothetical vote-stuffer wants to minimise the number of people who know about the vote-stuffing attempt, they might not have any choice about who on the team actually implements the stuffing. It might be that they only have influence over the guy doing the UI.

Or it could be an attempt at plausible deniability. If all the machines need calibrating, but an uncalibrated machine just so happens to mis-register votes in the direction you want, that would give you an edge because you can guarantee that some machines won't be deployed correctly.

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