No way. I don’t even think we should be using computers in polling places. When I cast my vote on a computer, I have absolutely no way of knowing what was actually written to the disk, and there’s no way to verify it after the fact. A recount is meaningless because it’s simply going to spit out the same numbers as the first time. Paper ballets, even if they’re machine scanned, can always be hand counted if there’s any question. And I say this as an IT professional.
My ideal method would be to use machine countable paper ballots, checked against a hand counted statistically valid random sample of the same ballots. If there’s a statistically meaningful difference, then you hand count everything.
Security is one field where lowering the cost of use is not always strictly better. Nobody should have to wait for hours to vote, but neither should the cost of an attempted vote be so low that somebody can successfully perform a brute-force attack to change the course of the election.
I would agree that the elimination of both those things would be good, but computerized voting does neither. Software can have mistakes or be hacked. Computerized ballots can be ambiguous.
A paper receipt proves nothing. It could print one thing on the receipt but store something different.
In some cases they do, and of course there are other checks and balances to most if not all such systems. I don’t know why people are so afraid of technology and so trusting of the old systems…I think it circles back to the fact that people are just terrible at risk assessment and a lot of folks are averse to anything that smacks of change.
[QUOTE=davidm]
When I cast my vote on a computer, I have absolutely no way of knowing what was actually written to the disk, and there’s no way to verify it after the fact.
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This is the equivalent of saying ‘I only use cash because I have no way of knowing what was actually written to disk and no way to verify it after the fact!’. The reality is that most electronic systems have transaction tracking logs and other ways of tracking and recording votes. And, of course, both parties, as well as the state/county voting officials, judges and adjudicators are there as well to watch and verify. I have no idea where the idea comes that this stuff is all completely opaque from everyone and no one knows or can know what’s happening.
What always puzzles me in these discussions is the seeming faith in the old ways, as if they were never open to nor abused, or as if the new systems are inherently worse or less transparent or more open to abuse. In my experience the old systems were rife with abuse, and the new systems much more closely scrutinized. Doesn’t mean they are perfect, but at a minimum there is no more voting fraud going on today than 100 years ago.
Well, in fact, a lot of places still use machines to count paper ballots. They are fed into a high speed machine and an adjudicator is present to look at and evaluate any ballots that fail the scan or otherwise have issues. This is along with representatives from both parties. But why do you think this is more secure? There is a whole logistics train to get the ballots from the voting places to where they are scanned, and I’ve personally seen ballots get misplaced, chains of custody be compromised, and all sorts of other issues wrt the paper ballots. And, of course, it’s freaking slow, time consuming and labor intensive to boot, especially when it’s a hot election (unlike this last one which was pretty limp). And do you know what happens when it takes a lot of time and the public has to wait? Why, there is a huge outcry and one or the other parties cries FOUL! and bitches in front of the media, who crucify the voting agency responsible for the slowness.
No. It is not the equivalent. It’s apples and oranges. Electronic purchases are not anonymous. You’ll know if money is missing from your account (at least you will if you’re paying attention and checking your account). You will not know if your vote is miscounted, regardless of how vigilant you are.
The reality is that all of those things can be hacked or buggy.
Yes, of course they can watch the electrons and count the bits as they’re written to the hard drive. :rolleyes:
It comes from knowikng something about computers and understanding the fact that there’s no magical connection between what goes on internally and what you see on the screen or printed on paper.
Nothing makes it inherently more secure. But the paper ballots are there as a backup if there’s any question and, as I said, you can back up the machine count with a proper random sampling and if there’s a discrepancy, do a full hand count.
[QUOTE=davidm]
No. It is not the equivalent. It’s apples and oranges. Electronic purchases are not anonymous. You’ll know if money is missing from your account (at least you will if you’re paying attention and checking your account). You will not know if your vote is miscounted, regardless of how vigilant you are.
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YOU will not know, perhaps, but someone will. That’s the point I’m making. You seem to think (despite your claim to be an IT person) that this is all magic and completely opaque to everyone. It’s not
And, of course, if you vote via paper, or colored rocks or anything else, YOU will STILL not know if your vote was counted or not. Your wonderful paper ballot could be forgotten in the trunk of some poll workers car (seen that happen) or otherwise lost through innocent or nefarious means and you’d never know. You will have to take it on faith that the elected officials, the appointed officials and the 2 major parties are keeping an eye on things and not letting the corruption get out of hand.
Well, the hacked thing is fairly unlikely in the elections I’ve been part of, if by that you mean hacked from the outside. Generally they are on closed loop networks. If by hacked you mean someone there could hack them, sure. You do realize that someone there could hack your paper or mechanical systems exactly the same way at exactly the same point, right? If by hacked you mean the software itself was or is tampered with before the election by the company making it, well, that’s what testing is for…and, of course, if caught that company would never, ever be allowed to sell it’s machines again and would be black listed from everyone, so I tend to have my doubts. YMMV of course.
In the same way they ‘watch’ each paper ballot or each ballot generated by the old analogue systems, yes. Which is to say that they don’t watch or track every vote no matter how the vote is being gathered. They can watch the paper receipts being printed out in those systems, or they can check the transaction log, however, with the newer systems.
You now all about that ‘programming’ stuff then, yes? And how data bases work? TTLs and the like? Because you actually seem to be thinking that it’s all magic black box stuff, to be honest, or that no one but you ever thought of ways to exploit or corrupt these systems…or tested to ensure they weren’t being corrupted.
A man (I assume) who has never been involved in a manual paper count I see. Yes, you can do it that way…and, in fact, some counties and states DO have paper backup. The thing is, all these backups are only as good as the people running them…and THAT is the actual flaw in all of this. Doesn’t matter what system you use if the people running it are corrupt them you are screwed regardless of whether you use paper ballots, digital systems or colored rocks. Happily, despite all the frettage from Republicans wrt illegal voters and Democrats wrt DIEBOLD!, by and large the corruption is pretty minimal. In my own experience, it all works pretty well, and usually it’s the humans involved who innocently fuck up that is the biggest problem. YMMV with your vast IT experience concerning voting and voting systems, of course.
The reality is that most electronic systems have transaction tracking logs and other ways of tracking and recording votes. And, of course, both parties, as well as the state/county voting officials, judges and adjudicators are there as well to watch and verify. I have no idea where the idea comes that this stuff is all completely opaque from everyone and no one knows or can know what’s happening.