# Assuage my paranoia. Explain to me why I should have faith in E-voting machines **URL:** \ **Category:** Great Debates\ **Created:** [October 23, 2006, 4:33am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/assuage-my-paranoia-explain-to-me-why-i-should-have-faith-in-e-voting-machines/377532 "2006-10-23T04:33:24Z")\ **Posts on this page:** 20\ **Page:** 7
**Author:** ![XT](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/xt/32/456_2.png) [@XT](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/XT)\ **Post date:** [October 26, 2006, 3:27am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/assuage-my-paranoia-explain-to-me-why-i-should-have-faith-in-e-voting-machines/377532/121 "2006-10-26T03:27:41Z")
[QUOTE=elucidator] As for the undependability of exit polls…hell, if you had voted for Bush, wouldn’t you lie about it? [/QUOTE] Had I voted for Bush I’d need to shoot the guy I buy drugs from… -XT ---
**Author:** ![E-Sabbath](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/e/e19adc/32.png) [@E-Sabbath](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/E-Sabbath)\ **Post date:** [October 26, 2006, 3:55am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/assuage-my-paranoia-explain-to-me-why-i-should-have-faith-in-e-voting-machines/377532/122 "2006-10-26T03:55:21Z")
[QUOTE=Cheesesteak] Neat, can YOU do it? [/QUOTE] It can be done with a hotel minibar or office furniture key and a USB flash drive. Once the program is written, and I believe it has been, if it leaks into the rest of the world, then it becomes trivially easy to do it. ---
**Author:** ![Weirddave](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/w/919ad9/32.png) [@Weirddave](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Weirddave)\ **Post date:** [October 26, 2006, 6:02am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/assuage-my-paranoia-explain-to-me-why-i-should-have-faith-in-e-voting-machines/377532/123 "2006-10-26T06:02:00Z")
[QUOTE=E-Sabbath] It can be done with a hotel minibar or office furniture key and a USB flash drive. Once the program is written, and I believe it has been, if it leaks into the rest of the world, then it becomes trivially easy to do it. [/QUOTE] Trivially easy to do to a Diebold machine? Maybe. Hell, from what I’ve seen, I’ll even say probably. The problem here is still one of volume, there are tens or hundreds of thousands of machines in each state, the sheer logistics of hacking any sizable percentage of them without being detected somewhere along the line strikes me as highly unlikely. And before someone brings up the fact that Florida Had a vote difference of about 500 votes in 2000, and that changing 250 of them would not be a very big undertaking, that margin of victory was completely unprecedented, by an order of magnitude. I looked it up and posted it in another thread a few months back, the closest vote in Fl. since WWII before 2000 still had a difference of 50,000 votes. Those are the minimum kind of numbers you’d have to set out to change if you hoped to successfully change the outcome of an election (and I think that for you to plan to be successful without a doubt you’d need to change two or three times that many). Doing all that-without being detected in any way, shape or form by anybody- is a task that would require dozens if not hundreds of people, and it just doesn’t seem to me to be a likely scenario. ---
**Author:** ![rjung](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/r/45deac/32.png) [@rjung](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/rjung)\ **Post date:** [October 26, 2006, 6:20am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/assuage-my-paranoia-explain-to-me-why-i-should-have-faith-in-e-voting-machines/377532/124 "2006-10-26T06:20:19Z")
[QUOTE=Weirddave] The problem here is still one of volume, there are tens or hundreds of thousands of machines in each state, the sheer logistics of hacking any sizable percentage of them without being detected somewhere along the line strikes me as highly unlikely. [/quote] You wouldn’t need to hack all of them; just the ones with a tendency to go Democrat. And since those precincts tend to get fewer voting machines anyway – to make folks give up and leave after being told they need to wait hours to vote – that makes the job even easier. Just because _you_ don’t think it’s feasible doesn’t mean it isn’t. ---
**Author:** ![XT](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/xt/32/456_2.png) [@XT](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/XT)\ **Post date:** [October 26, 2006, 6:31am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/assuage-my-paranoia-explain-to-me-why-i-should-have-faith-in-e-voting-machines/377532/125 "2006-10-26T06:31:14Z")
[QUOTE=rjung] Just because you don’t think it’s feasible doesn’t mean it isn’t. [/QUOTE] The converse, of course, is also true…and to my mind at least, more plausable. YMMV. -XT ---
**Author:** ![E-Sabbath](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/e/e19adc/32.png) [@E-Sabbath](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/E-Sabbath)\ **Post date:** [October 26, 2006, 11:29am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/assuage-my-paranoia-explain-to-me-why-i-should-have-faith-in-e-voting-machines/377532/126 "2006-10-26T11:29:13Z")
Again, you don’t have to hack all the machines. Just certain significant ones. Say, ten to twenty in one state. It’s very possible. I’m certainly not saying it was done, I’m saying that it’s quite doable. But they’re such crap as it is, it’d also be undetectable, and the hacking you do may be lost in their general tendency to blow up. In Ohio, blow out one machine in each of ten precincts, and everything goes to Bush. Or Kerry. ---
**Author:** ![Cheesesteak](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/cheesesteak/32/3694_2.png) [@Cheesesteak](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Cheesesteak)\ **Post date:** [October 26, 2006, 12:16pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/assuage-my-paranoia-explain-to-me-why-i-should-have-faith-in-e-voting-machines/377532/127 "2006-10-26T12:16:14Z")
[QUOTE=E-Sabbath] It can be done with a hotel minibar or office furniture key and a USB flash drive. Once the program is written, and I believe it has been, if it leaks into the rest of the world, then it becomes trivially easy to do it. [/QUOTE] Whoa! You need to break into each voting machine? Physically? Here I was thinking some nerd could do it from his momma’s basement. Now we apparently need the Mission Impossible crew to visit a few hundred voting machines and alter them without being detected even once. Frank, the 2004 election/poll discrepencies were widespread and impacted numerous states with a variety of voting machines and expected outcomes. A small team hitting two dozen machines, and changing the vote enough to matter, will be completely obvious. ---
**Author:** ![Weirddave](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/w/919ad9/32.png) [@Weirddave](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Weirddave)\ **Post date:** [October 26, 2006, 12:50pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/assuage-my-paranoia-explain-to-me-why-i-should-have-faith-in-e-voting-machines/377532/128 "2006-10-26T12:50:36Z")
[QUOTE=rjung] You wouldn’t need to hack all of them; just the ones with a tendency to go Democrat. And since those precincts tend to get fewer voting machines anyway – to make folks give up and leave after being told they need to wait hours to vote – that makes the job even easier. [/QUOTE] :rolleyes: Yea! And we can use the black helicopters to get from one polling place to the next in no time! [QUOTE=E-Sabbath] Again, you don’t have to hack all the machines. Just certain significant ones. Say, ten to twenty in one state. It’s very possible. I’m certainly not saying it was done, I’m saying that it’s quite doable. But they’re such crap as it is, it’d also be undetectable, and the hacking you do may be lost in their general tendency to blow up. In Ohio, blow out one machine in each of ten precincts, and everything goes to Bush. Or Kerry. [/QUOTE] I just don’t think that hacking a couple dozen machines would be anything but a waste of time. Even “closely contested” elections usually have a difference of tens of thousands of votes, you’d have to plan to switch that many or the whole thing would be a waste of your time and a huge risk. I have to get to the dentist right now, but when I get back I’ll try and dig up what I said about this before, see if you find my logic compelling. ---
**Author:** ![Mehitabel](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/m/8797f3/32.png) [@Mehitabel](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Mehitabel)\ **Post date:** [October 26, 2006, 2:20pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/assuage-my-paranoia-explain-to-me-why-i-should-have-faith-in-e-voting-machines/377532/129 "2006-10-26T14:20:28Z")
I don’t get how there could be long lines at polling places anyway, unless there were new ID regs or anything (in NY, it’s illegal to even ask for any kind of ID at the polls; you show all that when you register). The Big Hulkin’ Gray Machines o’ Freedom are alloted by population, and while each electoral district is _supposed_ to consist of about 750 households, bigger precincts get more machines. The Board knows exactly how many people voted at each machine and district and allots machines accordingly. Other places don’t do this? While I also shudder at the apparent hackability of these machines, I’d like to know exactly _when_ the hackers would do it. In NYC each machine has a table in front of it with staff; even as inattentive as we occasionally get, nobody could wander from machine to machine doing his mojo without getting arrested. If there’s any tampering done with the machines before they arrive, we find it out when we open them, since they have the total number of votes cast on it before they arrive. ---
**Author:** ![Diogenes\_the\_Cynic](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/d/e99b99/32.png) [@Diogenes\_the\_Cynic](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Diogenes_the_Cynic)\ **Post date:** [October 26, 2006, 2:42pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/assuage-my-paranoia-explain-to-me-why-i-should-have-faith-in-e-voting-machines/377532/130 "2006-10-26T14:42:24Z")
Even if we set aside the issue of tampering, there’s still the issue of glitches and non-conspiratorial fuck-ups. ---
**Author:** ![Weirddave](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/w/919ad9/32.png) [@Weirddave](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Weirddave)\ **Post date:** [October 26, 2006, 2:52pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/assuage-my-paranoia-explain-to-me-why-i-should-have-faith-in-e-voting-machines/377532/131 "2006-10-26T14:52:41Z")
OK, I found what I posted before. It’s about Florida in 2000 and the likelihood of an organized conspiracy: > [@me](#): > > There is a perfectly simple and logical explanation for what happened, and I’ve given it: Elections are not perfect. Nothing run by falible human beings is. Instead, you would have us believe that, amongst other things, the Republican party knew before the election that: > > Al Gore would not carry his home state, making Fl crucial. > Florida would be so closely contested that a few thousand votes would make a difference one way or the other, (Just FYI, since WWII, the closest Florida presidential election was in 1964 and there was still a difference of 43,000 votes between the two candidates, at the time over 2% of the vote. The difference in 2000 was .01% of the vote) > That they could selectively manipulate these few thousand critical votes in just selected counties by using the police to intimidate voters into not voting, running out of ballots for Democratic voters (but presumably not Republicans), disenfranchise specific people who were going to vote for Gore, (again presumably somehow they knew how these people were going to vote beforehand), trick Gore voters into voting for Buchannan and God knows what else, all of this without one single shred of evidence coming to light that they had done so, even six years down the line. > > Frankly, as a theory it stinks. Most conspiracy theories do. The only way it is in any way more likely than the simple explanation of human error is if one is looking for a reason to feel persecuted… > Say you are a Republican, and you decide you want to manipulate the vote to favor George Bush, and you have the means to do so (somehow). Since 1948, the closet election in Florida was in 1964 when the difference was 2% of the votes. Even if you thought that the 2000 race was going to be twice as tight, what you would need to do is disenfranchise 1% of the voters (60,000 Gore supporters). I’ll allow that you could target your efforts towards heavily Democratic districts, but to be even so, you’re going to knock out some Bush votes too. You want some margin of error, I’ll assume, so lets say that you assume of all the voters you disenfranchise, 2/3 will be Gore supporters, and 1/3 will be Bush supporters. That means that you have to disenfranchise 80,000 voters, in just a few select areas, without being detected, for your plan to have even an outside chance of succeeding. Madness! I haven’t seen even the most ardent conspiracy theorist make claims on that scale, and how you could begin to even dream that you could keep tampering on that scale secret is beyond me. Why, then, would you set out to disenfranchise just a few thousand people when history tells you that doing so would likely have had no effect on the outcome of the election, and the cost if you were caught would be enormous? It is not a logical position to hold, particularly when what did happen is something that can easily be explained by human error (which includes a few scattered individuals who might have done something shady on their own hook) Frankly, the size of the conspiracy required continues to be, to me, the biggest argument against widespread, organized tampering. It just doesn’t see possible to pull it off without being detected in the fishbowl world of modern American politics. Of course, if anyone presents proof of widespread, organized tampering, then I will of course admit that I’m wrong on this issue (but I’ll be right too, because they wouldn’t have gotten away with it. 😛 ). What I want most of all is an honest election. ---
**Author:** ![spazattak](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/s/8e8cbc/32.png) [@spazattak](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/spazattak)\ **Post date:** [October 26, 2006, 3:14pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/assuage-my-paranoia-explain-to-me-why-i-should-have-faith-in-e-voting-machines/377532/132 "2006-10-26T15:14:19Z")
[QUOTE=Weirddave] Trivially easy to do to a Diebold machine? Maybe. Hell, from what I’ve seen, I’ll even say probably. The problem here is still one of volume, there are tens or hundreds of thousands of machines in each state, the sheer logistics of hacking any sizable percentage of them without being detected somewhere along the line strikes me as highly unlikely. And before someone brings up the fact that Florida Had a vote difference of about 500 votes in 2000, and that changing 250 of them would not be a very big undertaking, that margin of victory was completely unprecedented, by an order of magnitude. I looked it up and posted it in another thread a few months back, the closest vote in Fl. since WWII before 2000 still had a difference of 50,000 votes. Those are the minimum kind of numbers you’d have to set out to change if you hoped to successfully change the outcome of an election (and I think that for you to plan to be successful without a doubt you’d need to change two or three times that many). Doing all that-without being detected in any way, shape or form by anybody- is a task that would require dozens if not hundreds of people, and it just doesn’t seem to me to be a likely scenario. [/QUOTE] If these things are networked to a central location, all it takes is 1. That’s the big issue with electronic voting when there’s a network involved. Once one system is compromised they’re all compromised. ---
**Author:** ![spazattak](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/s/8e8cbc/32.png) [@spazattak](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/spazattak)\ **Post date:** [October 26, 2006, 3:22pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/assuage-my-paranoia-explain-to-me-why-i-should-have-faith-in-e-voting-machines/377532/133 "2006-10-26T15:22:17Z")
This seems relevant: [How to steal an election by hacking the vote](http://arstechnica.com/articles/culture/evoting.ars) ---
**Author:** ![E-Sabbath](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/e/e19adc/32.png) [@E-Sabbath](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/E-Sabbath)\ **Post date:** [October 26, 2006, 4:47pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/assuage-my-paranoia-explain-to-me-why-i-should-have-faith-in-e-voting-machines/377532/134 "2006-10-26T16:47:46Z")
That’s my little baby, Spaz. All you need to do is compromise one, and you can chain-compromise many. It just depends on where you are in the chain of events. For example, there was a unapproved, stealth-upgrade to the Diebold boxes in Maryland just before the election. What if I was one of those techies, and had a little present, as I traveled from machine to machine? Or what if I got access to just _one_ of the machines, with a virus, before the techies got to it? Bam. All gone. Or, what if I wanted to compromise, say, Democrat heavy regions? A little effort, and you can visibly crash them. “I don’t know, it just locked up.” and destroy the records of a poling location. Or, even, access just one in a region that reports early, and spread the virus from it to the tabulating software. Blow it out, modify it… Once you get physical access, the machine is in the hands of the hacker. This access can happen before, during, or after the election. The specific schemes vary, some depending on collusion, some on probability, and some on outright criminality on Diebold’s part. (We can’t verify the code, we can’t be _sure_ it isn’t effed up, and from the way the machines behave, I’m pretty sure it is. (Though perhaps not on purpose. It’s just seriously effed up.) That’s why the paper trail is essential. And open and viewable code. So we know that when a vote is recorded, it is recorded properly. It’s not hard to design! And none of these techniques will be any less effective than the voter invalidation techniques in Florida. Even the hardest case, where I have to get ten people to physically do it, during the election? I can crash ten voting machines in heavily Democratic regions late at night, wipe their records. Not a problem at all. 1,000 people using one machine over a day? Yeah. Easy. Heck, I just have to make the votes off those machines unreliable, find a way to make them report 800,000 votes, that works just as well. Knowing it’s WinCE, I’m pretty sure I could pull that off from the restricted input, might not even need to pry open anything. Criminal as hell, but I know exactly how I’d do it. ---
**Author:** ![spazattak](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/s/8e8cbc/32.png) [@spazattak](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/spazattak)\ **Post date:** [October 26, 2006, 4:53pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/assuage-my-paranoia-explain-to-me-why-i-should-have-faith-in-e-voting-machines/377532/135 "2006-10-26T16:53:49Z")
hah! You’re hannibal? Small world… I’ve been reading ars for like 10 years. ---
**Author:** ![gonzomax](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/g/e8c25b/32.png) [@gonzomax](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/gonzomax)\ **Post date:** [October 26, 2006, 5:04pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/assuage-my-paranoia-explain-to-me-why-i-should-have-faith-in-e-voting-machines/377532/136 "2006-10-26T17:04:19Z")
[QUOTE=Mehitabel] I don’t get how there could be long lines at polling places anyway, unless there were new ID regs or anything (in NY, it’s illegal to even ask for any kind of ID at the polls; you show all that when you register). The Big Hulkin’ Gray Machines o’ Freedom are alloted by population, and while each electoral district is _supposed_ to consist of about 750 households, bigger precincts get more machines. The Board knows exactly how many people voted at each machine and district and allots machines accordingly. Other places don’t do this? While I also shudder at the apparent hackability of these machines, I’d like to know exactly _when_ the hackers would do it. In NYC each machine has a table in front of it with staff; even as inattentive as we occasionally get, nobody could wander from machine to machine doing his mojo without getting arrested. If there’s any tampering done with the machines before they arrive, we find it out when we open them, since they have the total number of votes cast on it before they arrive. [/QUOTE] You deliberately put less machines in a heavy democratic voting area. There were areas last election with 7 hour waits to vote.Many just went home. My wife and I have been poll workers for many years. Last presidential election after the polss closed they told us to go home. They had people for the final tallies. My wife was presinct chair. She has never been sent home before the final count was finished. Add that to removing names from the polling sheets before the election. Changing poll locations at the last minute and you have people who are more interested in winning than a fair election. ---
**Author:** ![Cheesesteak](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/cheesesteak/32/3694_2.png) [@Cheesesteak](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Cheesesteak)\ **Post date:** [October 26, 2006, 5:06pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/assuage-my-paranoia-explain-to-me-why-i-should-have-faith-in-e-voting-machines/377532/137 "2006-10-26T17:06:57Z")
[QUOTE=E-Sabbath] I can crash ten voting machines in heavily Democratic regions late at night, wipe their records. Not a problem at all. 1,000 people using one machine over a day? Yeah. Easy. Heck, I just have to make the votes off those machines unreliable, find a way to make them report 800,000 votes, that works just as well. Knowing it’s WinCE, I’m pretty sure I could pull that off from the restricted input, might not even need to pry open anything. Criminal as hell, but I know exactly how I’d do it. [/QUOTE] This is certainly a lovely way to handle a completely obvious tampering. My plan, using the old mechanical machines everyone loves, is to go into a polling place after hours with a bunch of sledge hammers and bash the machines into junk. See how insecure the old methods are? Fixing the election with them is like taking candy from a baby. I don’t even have to know a thing about how they work. Seriously, how dumb are the Canadians? Any idiot could “hack” a ballot box by stealing the thing. At least our electronic machines require a bit of skill to tamper with. Sheesh! ---
**Author:** ![spazattak](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/s/8e8cbc/32.png) [@spazattak](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/spazattak)\ **Post date:** [October 26, 2006, 5:11pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/assuage-my-paranoia-explain-to-me-why-i-should-have-faith-in-e-voting-machines/377532/138 "2006-10-26T17:11:51Z")
I’m trying to figure out whether or not that actually deserves a response. ---
**Author:** ![black\_rabbit](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/b/f19dbf/32.png) [@black\_rabbit](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/black_rabbit)\ **Post date:** [October 26, 2006, 5:13pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/assuage-my-paranoia-explain-to-me-why-i-should-have-faith-in-e-voting-machines/377532/139 "2006-10-26T17:13:18Z")
[QUOTE=xtisme] I’ve said in several threads that a paper trail is ok. Personally, I think it smacks of being a neo-luddite, but I can see that there are a number of folks who are just uncomfortable with the whole concept of electronic voting…so I say put the damn paper trail in already. [/QUOTE] That’s funny, because I see the _most_ opposition to non-verified electronic voting coming from the [communities that are _more_ familiar with technology](http://arstechnica.com/articles/culture/evoting.ars/1) than the average person. I’ve got a background in Unix systems and network security, and _I’m_ uncomfortable with it. [QUOTE=Weirddave] Frankly, the size of the conspiracy required continues to be, to me, the biggest argument against widespread, organized tampering. It just doesn’t see possible to pull it off without being detected in the fishbowl world of modern American politics. [/QUOTE] Your confidence is entirely unfounded. I - just one person - could put my employer most of the way out of business in less time than it took me to type this post. What makes you so certain that it would require a vast conspiracy to change votes? You may consider that a request for a cite. As that article I linked to above rather succinctly puts it; > [@](#): > > So what if I told you that one highly motivated and moderately skilled bad apple could cause hundreds of millions of dollars in damage to America’s private sector by unleashing a Windows virus from the safety of his parents’ basement, and that many of the victims in the attack would never know that they’d been compromised? Before the rise of the Internet, this scenario also might’ve been considered alarmist folly by most, but now we know that it’s all too real. If you’re not familiar with the mechanisms of vote-stealing or the problems with the Diebold machines in particular, that article presents a clear explanation in non-partisan layman’s terms. Sorry Dio. ---
**Author:** ![black\_rabbit](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/b/f19dbf/32.png) [@black\_rabbit](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/black_rabbit)\ **Post date:** [October 26, 2006, 5:20pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/assuage-my-paranoia-explain-to-me-why-i-should-have-faith-in-e-voting-machines/377532/140 "2006-10-26T17:20:14Z")
Huh. Just missed the exchange between spaz and E-Sabbath. Good article! [Previous page](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/assuage-my-paranoia-explain-to-me-why-i-should-have-faith-in-e-voting-machines/377532.md?page=6) [Next page](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/assuage-my-paranoia-explain-to-me-why-i-should-have-faith-in-e-voting-machines/377532.md?page=8)