WTF! Civil Rights Commission calls on * to convene a Black Box Forum...

An absolutely great article. Bev, this one's for you..

http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/articles/A42085-2003Aug10.html

Plugging Into Voting Insecurities
Study of Electronic Devices Shakes Some States' Trust
By Brigid Schulte
Washington Post Staff Writer
Monday, August 11, 2003; Page A01


The Virginia State Board of Elections had a seemingly simple task before it: Certify an upgrade to the state's electronic voting machines. But with a recent report by Johns Hopkins University computer scientists warning that the system's software could easily be hacked into and election results tampered with, the once perfunctory vote now seemed to carry the weight of democracy and the people's trust along with it.

An outside consultant assured the three-member panel recently that the report was nonsense.

"I hope you're right," Chairman Michael G. Brown said, taking a leap of faith and approving Diebold Election System's upgrades. "Because when they get ready to hang the three of us in effigy, you won't be here."

Since being released two weeks ago, the Hopkins report has sent shock waves across the country. Some states have backed away from purchasing any kind of electronic voting machine, despite a new federal law that has created a gold rush by allocating billions to buy the machines and requiring all states to replace antiquated voting equipment by 2006.

EDITED BY ADMIN: COPYRIGHT

The article infers that it is a difficult choice who to believe in this situation. Which is not the case.

There are the computer scientists, who understand the nuances of security, and then there are the company-men who are competing to be the lowest bid in cash-strapped states/counties.

The scientists want the code to verify it's safe. Companies, such as Diebold want to protect their copyrights so they can make a profit.

It is clear that the interests of these voting machine manufacturers do not run parallel to those of the public good. They want us to have faith in their systems without providing us with the evidence that we need to verify that the system is secure. That should set off all the alarms.

No source code, no contract.

It should be a deal breaker and if you're in a county adopting these electronic voting machines, you should write to every public official that you can find an address to about this, because it is as serious as it sounds.

and Welcome to DU ....

You have it ABSOLUTELY right .... Diebold's 'interests' run counter to that of the public good: .. and it is IMPERATIVE that the public good is preserved over the desires of a private concern in such issues so basic to democracy ....

This comment: ...

"The computer scientists are saying, 'The machinery you vote on is inaccurate and could be threatened; therefore, don't go. Your vote doesn't mean anything,' " said Penelope Bonsall, director of the Office of Election Administration at the Federal Election Commission. "That negative perception takes years to turn around." "

This is NOT what they are saying: .. they are NOT saying "DONT GO VOTE" ....

They .... WE ..... are saying "GET IT RIGHT ! ..... FIX it ... and fix it NOW ..... "

These statements intending to denigrate the Johns Hopkins report and those who authored it has taken the same false tone .... the same non sequiturs and strawman fallacies ...

STOP LYING ! .... and make SURE that voting is honest and fair ....

Even People that purchase a porno film get a RECEIPT! Paper trail..

Jesus Bev, you're costing these guys MILLIONS!

Great job!

are you speaking from experience symbolman? :evilgrin:

(Though true about the pr0n, my friend!)

A reciept that a voter can take home is simply not good enough. No way would that facilitate a recount - and people should demand numerous recounts across the country after any upcoming election using DRE machines, as a way to apply pressure, focus attention on the issue (between Iran/NK war drums and the wholesale collapse of the economy), and check the system.

Heck, even a paper ballot dropped into a box after a voter casts a vote and approves the printed reciept is still not good enough. I mean, maybe I have stock in tin foil or something, but couldn't the votes still be gimmicked after approval of said reciept? The only way to check that would, again, be a recount.

Enough to make my head hurt.

Here's how you have an approval system.

As the ballot info is being entered (after the voter
presses "GO"), the info is combined with a random
number created by the time of day plus some other
number which contains info from the previous ballot
cast. Including the previous ballot info creates
a CHAIN of computation.

The voter gets a receipt with his random number
and the random number of the previous voter.
Those random numbers are created by a one-way
encryption (like the UNIX password system). That
system saves only encrypted passwords. It recognizes
legit passwords by passing them thru encryption and
comparing to the result. Having the encrypted result
is useless, because you can't run the algorithm
backwards.

So, the voter has this encrypted info.

After the election, the list of consecutive random
encrypted numbers is placed on line. The voter enters
his number anonymously. The system shows him where
his vote was cast, the time of day, and the previous
voter's random number.

It that info does not tally with the voter's receipt,
he calls the police.

Comments from non-geeks are appreciated.

arendt

Great thoughts! I can see it, very helpful explanation. Thanks! :)

1) Doesn't verify the vote: Checking that YOUR vote was correctly tallied does nothing whatsoever to verify that the total number of votes is correct. Once again, they are saying "look over here" while the real magic happens elsewhere -- in the totals.

Your system does nothing to prevent electronic ballot box stuffing, for example. (These new systems are designed to merge with the voter registration databases, and the same players are maintaining those databases. So...You find the registered voters who didn't show up to vote and they end up in the electronic database along with legitimate voters...interspersing them throughout the day. Remember that sign-in is going to be electronic, not check-marks on a paper, so we will never see who signs in to vote and when.)

2) Transparency: Any solution that requires voters to trust in a system of bits and bytes they cannot see is not sufficiently transparent. Elections are of the people, by the people, and for the people, not "of the computers programmers..."

3) Cost: These machines already have printers in them. Let's do some numbers: A LARGE urban precinct has perhaps 2,100 voters come in. And that's a big one. Such a precinct will usually have seven touch screens (one for every 300 people, approximately.) Yes, it's true, after all the hoopla you buy a $4,000 machine (and a $1000 service contract) just to register the votes of 300 people (2100 divided by 7 = 300 people per machine). The cost of paper for 2,100 copies, a whole precinct, is about $15.00. For easy math, let's say it is $21.00 -- that's a penny a vote.

The cost of the overly complicated, non-transparent VoteHere system, which they don't make publicly available (for obvious reasons) is said to be around $5.00 per vote. I can hardly believe that figure, but it is the only one I've been able to find anywhere. It is not verified.

Um, lessee...$21 vs. $10,000.

We have a right to know how much VoteHere charges Sequoia for the software and we have a right to know, up front, any and all ongoing fees and "vote verification" costs.

4) Simplicity: It's hard for someone to make a "software programming error" when all you have to do is put ballots in a box. The VoteHere solution involves cryptography, database maintenance, everyone has to have access to the Internet (now that's an elitist approach) --

I have an idea: LET'S JUST PRINT THE BALLOT AND PUT IT IN A BALLOT BOX!!!

Why are we seeing so much resistance to the simple and inexpensive concept of just putting PAPER IN A PRINTER?

Bev Harris
Black Box Voting

I agree that it's a great article. I'm sure Rove isn't too happy about word getting out about these machines but I don't hold out much hope for things getting corrected by the next election. That in no way diminishes the importance of the press in covering this story though. It is serving an important roll in planting the idea (voter fraud) into the heads of the American people. That way, when they do use these machines to steal the next election and we have some results like in the last election (candidates winning by the exact same count 18181 for example) the people will not be so brain dead this time. And hopefully they will react with a vengeance instead of a whimper like in 2000.

TruthIsAll, what are you doing up so late. :-)

Zhade, I guess there would have to be spot random recounts to act as a deterrent. Maybe that would work.

http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/articles/A42085-2003Aug10.html

See the A01 - three little letters that mean a great deal out there in the print biz... plus it's on the washingtonpost.com homepage...

Way to go bev!! Sympathetic article too... not alarmist by any means but hits all the right notes. Bends over backwards to be even handed but ends with a kicker quote...

One para struck me from the sidebar... "Arlington and Fairfax counties use older electronic equipment but are negotiating to buy Advanced Voting Solutions' latest wireless touch-screen machines. "

Are negotiating to buy wireless machines!!!!

Now that's a great idea. Not.

(I mistakenly thought I was quick off the mark in noticing this and posted a new thread... ooops...)

they had opposed the Holt bill's requiring a paper trail, for similar reasons as the League of Women Voters.

Maybe the LWV will reconsider now, too. Have they responded to the Johns Hopkins report?

"The report has brought square into the mainstream an obscure but increasingly nasty debate between about 900 computer scientists, who warn that these machines are untrustworthy, and state and local election officials and machine manufacturers, who insist that they are".

Like Bush telling Albert Einstein that e=mc^2 is unproven.

Per DU copyright rules
please post only 4
paragraphs from the
news source.

Thank you.


NYer99
DU Moderator

Kick