51–60 of 76 posts
Earlier quoted context omitted.
That's because one of the two political parties has only minority support and thus depends on a long list of dirty tricks to remain in power.
I think it'd be disingenuous to call either party's support a "minority" when they collectively represent 55% of voters as of 2014. https://www.people-press.org/interactives/party-id-trend/
Regardless of one's political leanings, it's frightening that only one of the two major American political parties is even feigning interest at fixing what is clearly a vulnerable system. This shouldn't be a partisan issue, but it somehow continues to be.
The Secure Elections Act was introduced by a Republican: https://www.congress.gov/bill/115th-congress/senate-bill/226....
They ALL have a known vulnerability. Works like this: Pretend the machine is a person in a secure room only they are in, and only they know the contents of. You approach a window, tell them your vote. They say it back and optionally hand you a piece of paper. Then, in that room, they do whatever they want, and the final tally, winner of the election is determined by whatever they did in the room. Voters have no chain…
Or just abandon electronic voting entirely. Ireland tried electronic voting, but scrapped it for just these reasons. You could even keep the ballots in a machine-readable format for sanity checks if necessary.
Regardless of one's political leanings, it's frightening that only one of the two major American political parties is even feigning interest at fixing what is clearly a vulnerable system. This shouldn't be a partisan issue, but it somehow continues to be.
This isn't true. The Secure Elections Act was introduced by a Republican: https://www.congress.gov/bill/115th-congress/senate-bill/226... .
They ALL have a known vulnerability. Works like this: Pretend the machine is a person in a secure room only they are in, and only they know the contents of. You approach a window, tell them your vote. They say it back and optionally hand you a piece of paper. Then, in that room, they do whatever they want, and the final tally, winner of the election is determined by whatever they did in the room. Voters have no chain…
Why not have paper ballots that can be read by a machine? It doesn't get around the issue entirely, but you can always look at the physical ballots for a recount. It's a lot harder to tamper with an election at scale when you need to handle physical ballots. Or just abandon electronic voting entirely. Ireland tried electronic voting, but scrapped it for just these reasons. You could even keep the ballots in a machine…
I don't have any real concerns about machine counting given a physical record, basic statistical means can tell us all we need to know.
They ALL have a known vulnerability. Works like this: Pretend the machine is a person in a secure room only they are in, and only they know the contents of. You approach a window, tell them your vote. They say it back and optionally hand you a piece of paper. Then, in that room, they do whatever they want, and the final tally, winner of the election is determined by whatever they did in the room. Voters have no chain…
Why not have paper ballots that can be read by a machine? It doesn't get around the issue entirely, but you can always look at the physical ballots for a recount. It's a lot harder to tamper with an election at scale when you need to handle physical ballots. Or just abandon electronic voting entirely. Ireland tried electronic voting, but scrapped it for just these reasons. You could even keep the ballots in a machine…
They ALL have a known vulnerability. Works like this: Pretend the machine is a person in a secure room only they are in, and only they know the contents of. You approach a window, tell them your vote. They say it back and optionally hand you a piece of paper. Then, in that room, they do whatever they want, and the final tally, winner of the election is determined by whatever they did in the room. Voters have no chain…
Why not have paper ballots that can be read by a machine? It doesn't get around the issue entirely, but you can always look at the physical ballots for a recount. It's a lot harder to tamper with an election at scale when you need to handle physical ballots. Or just abandon electronic voting entirely. Ireland tried electronic voting, but scrapped it for just these reasons. You could even keep the ballots in a machine…
The one significant improvement I would prefer in this process is verifying on the optical-scan machine's screen which options you have voted for, with the option to retrieve your ballot and fix it if anything shows up wrong.
Criticisms of the underlying hardware/software aside, my intuitive answer to the headline question is "because governments are buying them." Perhaps the esteemed Senators should undertake a short naval-gazing exercise and ask "how could there only be three major players in such a lucrative segment, each selling ancient hardware and crappy software products?" I'm going to go out on a limb and guess at the answer to th…
They don't actually have any influence in the purchase decisions, as it's a state matter. Machines are bought by local governments, with varying state regulations on what can be purchased depending on the state in question. Most machines were paid for by local jurisdictions with a mix of federal funding (HAVA), and in some cases, state funds for part of the cost. Some states have uniform systems; others do not.[0] On…
Earlier quoted context omitted.
In the US voting machine decisions are also a very local decision. So even if it was a party decision... it really would have to be very local party decisions. Often times national party decisions in the US do not translate into local action even by folks in the same part as obviously things change on the ground.
The federal government could set certain minimum standards for voting machines used in federal elections. That would effectively set the standard for all elections since I can't imagine any local governments could justify a set of machines for federal elections and a different set for local.
Earlier quoted context omitted.
The problem with public vote records is that people may be incentivized financially or coerced via threat to vote a certain way. The bad actor in this situation can verify with public record if the victim followed through. Somehow I think this is less of a threat than our "black box" vote tallies, but it is valid.
Precisely! I think electronic voting records are wrong. We should use paper ballots, and Counting them electronically with something simple and robust like Optical scan works really well. Let the statisticians run some Audits and we can be really confident. My state does that. Oregon.