Election Voting Machines

[EEVblog]

Given it's election day in the US, and that means (mostly?) electronic voting, let's talk voting machines.
Here Are two links I was sent on twitter:
http://www.politico.com/magazine/story/2016/08/2016-elections-russia-hack-how-to-hack-an-election-in-seven-minutes-214144



Note: Don't discuss the election here, seriously, I'll just delete your post if you do.

[CatalinaWOW]

As with all voting systems, physical security is the basis of accuracy.  Any part of the system that is automated opens the possibility for automated cheating, so any automation has to have a custodial trail.  Now you have to start balancing the threat vs the cost of thwarting the physical threat.  There is no such thing as perfect physical security, so things like locks and safes don't claim perfection, they only make claims about difficulty of breaking or time to break, or clear evidence that they have been broken.

The article on US voting seems to me to describe an initial naivety that is gradually being eroded, and very poor initial electronic voting methods that are largely replaced now with better (not perfect) approaches.  One advantage of the local control of US voting methods is that it makes hacking national elections much more complex.  Just identifying which kind of attack is appropriate in tens of thousands of precincts is a massive task.  Making the task that large makes attempts to suborn it much more likely to be detected.

[nctnico]

What more is there to say: voting machines where abandoned in the Netherlands in 2007:
https://edri.org/edrigramnumber5-20e-voting-machines-netherlands/

I think they even managed to play chess on a voting machine.

[lowimpedance]

What more is there to say: voting machines where abandoned in the Netherlands in 2007:
https://edri.org/edrigramnumber5-20e-voting-machines-netherlands/

I think they even managed to play chess on a voting machine.

What !... no roulette 

[Sal Ammoniac]

What !... no roulette 

Considering the two candidates we have to choose from in this election, we're all playing Russian roulette with six rounds loaded in the gun.

[sleemanj]

Numberphile had Ron Rivest do a couple relevant videos yesterday

[Homer J Simpson]

Voting should not be easy. It should take time and effort.

A person should be educated on the issues and the candidates. Understand the importance, privilege and consequence of their vote.

A lot of places in the world people don't have a choice or a say.

Voting by mail, machine or online to me diminishes the amazing thing that we have in representative democracies.  The ability to pick our leaders.

-k

[Cerebus]

Given it's election day in the US, and that means (mostly?) electronic voting, let's talk voting machines.

Note: Don't discuss the election here, seriously, I'll just delete your post if you do.

Aren't you just, kind of, shooting yourself in the foot here? Start a thread about electronic voting, on the eve of a big election,...

Anyway, voting machines. I'm a veteran of discussions about these, over a long time, with people who have given it a lot of thought including some of the big names in computer security. The conclusions to be reached are never technological but political, in the sense that what matters most requires laws to be made or changed.

Consider the US, that has probably made more use of electronic voting then anywhere else. The code inside most voting machines has never been independently reviewed and the manufacturers of these machines use intellectual property law and the DCMA to actively thwart any attempts to review them. There is no way that we, the voting public, can have any confidence in electronic voting unless, by law, these machines operation is open to public scrutiny. Until that hurdle is crossed there's little to be done.

[Brumby]

Given it's election day in the US, and that means (mostly?) electronic voting, let's talk voting machines.

Note: Don't discuss the election here, seriously, I'll just delete your post if you do.

Aren't you just, kind of, shooting yourself in the foot here? Start a thread about electronic voting, on the eve of a big election,...

Not at all.

I would have to say the intention is quite clear.  This thread has nothing to do with any influences on how a voter decides which way to cast their vote - it's all about the mechanism for recording them.

[Brumby]

Voting should not be easy. It should take time and effort.

A person should be educated on the issues and the candidates. Understand the importance, privilege and consequence of their vote.

I won't disagree with you - but this is digressing from the topic.

[jonovid]

E Voting is a bad idea. E Voting = Voting Fail.

even contacted australian electoral commission befor
abandoning the kids school project. for numerous reasons.
kid's can do other projects. just Not this one.
just like IOT it has many holes.  hacking an all paper system is harder to do.

text of how Oz E-Voting system works  text doc
answers to questions about the images. 
1 shows polling mainframe units and polling station electoral roll console operator units.
2 shows polling booth tablet computers inside rugged plastic clamshell case. with twin card readers.
note- this is incomplete with many missing images. splash screen.  how pages displayed as program runs. 
I have no more to add to this post.

[AntiProtonBoy]

If I'm designing an election machine, I will just use normal computers and conventional database, plus I will convince gov't to pass a law: whomever convicted with tampering with voting data will be sentenced death with no exception.

No offence mate, but I reckon that is a naive solution.

The best system is paper ballots and hand numbered. Physical votes are very difficult to tamper with. Also, large scale invalidation of votes due to systematic error is almost impossible.

[ez24]

In San Diego County, Calif., there is no connection between the voting system and the internet.  In the US, each local system would have to be tampered with inside the system.  So even if this were to happen the impact would be minor.  It would probably take millions of people to tamper and make a difference and it would be easier just to spend money on ads.

[zapta]

Paper ballots have their down side as well. The ballot stuffings in this videos seems to be organized, not a lone wolf.



At home we vote by mail. Very handy, you sit on your couch, check information and recommendation on the internet and fill in those 30 or so ballot questions, some very obscure about local issues. No need to stand in line.

[Kilrah]

Voting should not be easy. It should take time and effort.

A person should be educated on the issues and the candidates. Understand the importance, privilege and consequence of their vote.

Problem is that nowadays if it takes time and effort people won't do it.

[vodka]

Zapta , you put in doubled

http://www.dailymail.co.uk/news/article-3796116/Putin-s-party-sweeps-victory-Russian-elections-amid-evidence-vote-rigging-CCTV-catching-one-woman-stuffing-multiple-vote-slips-ballot-box.html

https://youtu.be/13PRLV2LfBc

[AntiProtonBoy]

err, why was my post deleted?

[Towger]

Voting machines also scrapped in Ireland.
There are a number of interesting  technical documents published on the system and it's numeras flaws and even counting bugs (Microsoft Access) discovered in it.   [edit] I believe still used in some American states.  I'll try a dig up links later.
In the end it was decided that when you factor in the number of uses (and we have lots of elections and referendums) storage costs (climate controlled), set up costs and maintenance it is cheaper to count by hand, so the system was never replaced.  Also both the politicians and media did not like electronic counting in the end.  It was more 'fun' and 'excitement' to count by hand, the counting is in large halls open to the public and various running tallies would be announced during the day as each box was opened and counted.

Edit link:
https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Electronic_voting_in_Ireland
http://www.wijvertrouwenstemcomputersniet.nl/images/9/91/Es3b-en.pdf

[vodka]

Voting machines also scrapped in Ireland.
There are a number of interesting  technical documents published on the system and it's numeras flaws and even counting bugs (Microsoft Access) discovered in it.  It was an American system and I believe still used there.  I'll try a dig up links later.
In the end it was decided that when you factor in the number of uses (and we have lots of elections and referendums) storage costs (climate controlled), set up costs and maintenance it is cheaper to count by hand, so the system was never replaced.  Also both the politicians and media did not like electronic counting in the end.  It was more 'fun' and 'excitement' to count by hand, the counting is in large halls open to the public and various running tallies would be announced during the day as each box was opened and counted.

Certain  if they have  conscripts

[JPortici]

Voting should not be easy. It should take time and effort.

true. true. true.
many of us, me included, think that there should be a test prior being authorized to vote in the following election/referendum...

a test that must be objective and not on opinions on the subject. like being able to cite passages from the constitution or when this or that related law was included or when that related to the vote in subject
for a simple reason. It's a democracy. everybody has the right to vote
but it's not right that the vote of an idiot that doesn't want to think for himself, doesn't want to get informed, doesn't care to understand what he's saying (after all, we're in the top ranks for functional illiteracy) has the same weight as the one from others who do care.
and i'm not saying that because i'm smart and the who think different are dumb. there has been times i voted the same as they did, that i had their same "opinion" but listening to their supposed reasons to do so was giving me an hearthache

Voting should not be easy. It should take time and effort.

quoting again to say: those alternative methods, albeit much less secure to me, should be present and be there for people who want but can't phisically go to the cabins. maybe they are too old or sick to move, but they too have a right to vote.

[VK3DRB]

The only reliable election voting machine is one that is not connected to any external network outside the polling booth. To prevent hacking, all data communications within the polling booth should be done using fibre-optics and possess intrusion detection mechanisms.

Even so any electronic voting machine will not stop Americans voting for a bully, sexual predator and racist as their leader. You can't use electronics to mitigate stupidity.

[iampoor]

No offence mate, but I reckon that is a naive solution.

I know that's virtually impossible, but the fear of being screwed up can deter people from committing such crime.

Severe consequences dont seem to currently deter criminals.

Didnt electronic voting machine have large issues in the 2000 presidential election? I was 7, but seem to recall that the vote were miscounted in some swing states. 

[AndyC_772]

A machine to just collect and count votes is pointless; it's solving a problem that simply doesn't need to be solved. Good riddance to them, along with the whole idea of using tech just for its own sake.

In other areas, technology has dramatically broadened the scope of information and content which is available to people. In moments, I can find news, videos, opinions and factual content on just about any subject I choose. The sheer variety is way beyond what traditional media was ever able to provide, and for better or worse, anyone at all is able to contribute.

Yet when it comes to electing our leaders, it's like the disruptive technologies from the last 10 years didn't happen. The choice is, for all practical purposes, still between option A and option B, and if they're both terrible choices then that's just too bad.

The same technology which allows anyone with something interesting or original to say to 'go viral' and become popular, has done nothing for our electoral options. Nowadays the people whose videos I watch most often aren't the 'conventional' presenters and celebrities who appear on broadcast television; they're people who make their own content on subjects I'm actually interested in.

What a shame, then, that I can't yet (meaningfully!) vote for people whose politics and opinions I actually agree with, rather than the ridiculously limited set of options that are typically available.

Over to you, technology.

[TerraHertz]

I'm opposed to electronic voting systems (for critical political use), for the same reason I think relying entirely on electronic copies of books is a bad idea.
As soon as anything exists entirely as electronic digits, the only way to be sure the information has not been tampered with, is to personally have complete end-to-end control of the data, and use strong encryption plus checksumming. Which in itself opens a complexity can of worms.
With electronic voting systems involving thousands of machines and a huge network for collecting and totalizing the results, there's no conceivable way to ensure honesty. Especially when the companies making and programming the machines are known to be partisan, and the groups publishing the results have no legal obligation to tell the truth (as is the case with US media corporations.)
Also, with no permanent physical record of individual votes, there's no possibility of meaningful recounts, or historical archiving of the original votes.
And lastly, without paper ballots there's no way for people to give informal input, such as write-in candidates, rude comments, rants, etc. This is actually a really serious lack, if you want to avoid an eventual violent revolution.

That America's voting system relies so much on electronic systems, should convince anyone with an understanding of how such machines work, that their true reason for existence is to enable vote fraud. Fraud which has been the norm for decades in US elections. Thanks Diebold and their kin.
See http://blackboxvoting.org/ and http://everist.org/archives/links/__Vote_fraud_USA_links.txt

There have been so many demonstrations of how the various machines can be easily rigged. Also many documented examples of them actually falsifying votes, both at the individual machine level and vote totalizing level.

One interesting aspect, is the 'vote flipping' issue. In which many people have been reporting (and posting videos of) them touching one screen box, and the machine selecting a different one. goog: 2016 election video vote flipping.
Example: http://everist.org/archives/links/vote_flip.webm  (webm uploads not allowed here.)
There are lots of similar around, I only saved one. But they don't stay online long, for some mysterious reason, ho ho.

The amusing thing about this, is every time that issue comes up in forums there are any number of sh posters insisting it's just some 'calibration error'. Right... which always just happens to switch votes the same way, in multiple districts with different candidates. Also, sorry, that doesn't wash technically. Touch screens are everywhere now; when was the last time you used an autoteller, office printer control screen, or cellphone, in which touch positioning was way off? So here we get two examples for the price of one: vote-rigging built into the machine software (proof electronic systems can't be trusted), AND forum paid shills and their talking point lists. You can bet if anyone posted a video of the flipping going the other way there'd be endless screaming about 'Russian government hacking the election.'
Which seems to be another talking point list item recently.

I've salvaged two junked office machines lately with touch screens. Both machines were filthy, had been out in the weather. Both touch screens worked perfectly.

Anyway, paper ballots, they are the only reliable way. There can still be ways to rig paper ballot elections, but it's much harder.
It could be possible to combine the two domains, paper and electronic, to get advantages of both (and some other benefits too.)
For instance, fill out paper ballot at polling day, and the ballot paper has these features:
 - A unique serial number, printed twice.
 - A comment box in which you can write or draw anything you like. This personalizes it for you, so you can recognize it later with no chance of fakery.
 - You tear off a slip with the serial number and keep it. Put the other part in the ballot box.
  (So the ballot slip is anonymous, but you can still find it in a database.)
Ballots then manually counted, with open public oversight.
Totals done manually, then posted (including all local counts and numbers on rolls), for the election result.
THEN the ballot papers are all fed through digitizers, and saved as actual images.
Then all OCR'd for the tick/number boxes. Second count done electronically. Compared to manual count.
If the two counts are not very close, and make a difference, recount manually and identify discrepancy causes.
But most importantly, put the entire database of ballot paper images online, indexed by serial number.
Result: people can check their ballot actually was counted.

That still leaves the problem of 'dead people voting', imaginary residents, and other ways faked ballots get into the system.

Another negative aspect of electronic voting machines, is the ridiculous cost and waste of materials, to design and build all the machines. That are only going to get used a very few times. Paper is much more resource efficient. Even that scan/OCR stage I suggested would be OK, since it could be done in bulk with just a few high speed machines.

[VK3DRB]

Voting machines can make things easier and faster. The trick is usability and simplicity. At our federal election (in this free country where it is a crime not to vote), there were too many candidates and the voting forms were longer than an election victory thank-you speech. At recent council elections, about 1.1 million people failed to vote. The government will reap million of dollars in fines. A voting machine has to be incredibly easy to use. It has to cater for imbeciles, old age pensioners, itinerants, Luddites, first-time voters, illiterates, politicians who boast they don't know how to use a laptop, and the general public who are technology literate. Furthermore it has to be quick. There is no sense having to read instructions for ten minutes on how to use it.

In addition, it should be largely hardware based. The more software in the system, the more chance of bugs but more importantly the less it will be trusted. People trust hardware (what you can see, feel) more than software.

It might be something as simple as a having a few buttons. Press the buttons in order or press the clear button. When done, press the "VOTE" button. This might also prevent the donkey vote (an invalid vote) that occurs here because almost every citizen aged 18 or over is forced to vote, even if there is no-one worth voting for as is often the case. Or the forms are just too complicated for some people. An electronic system might FORCE everyone to vote whether they want to or not. Donkey votes can be prevented, because you cannot draw rude pictures or have blank forms. The system can issue you an on-the-spot fine if you walk out of the polling booth without pressing the VOTE button.

So for the government an electronic voting system is in their interest. For those who don't trust politicians and don't want to vote, it might be a bad idea.

Incidentally, some years ago I heard of a study done by a PhD student in political science. He found that compulsory voting and optional voting tends to achieve the same outcome for the candidates.