Electronic Voting Takes it on the Chin

[Lemur]

Yet more problems with the Diebold Voting machines. I don't understand how we can create a secure ATM network, but we can't get a voting machine right? Very sad, possibly suspicious. Why can't we piggyback on the ATMs anyway? They're installed all over the nation, and they have very good security. Surely something could be worked out. They even give paper reciepts, something the current generation of e-voting machines can't master. Ugh.

Plagued by hardware defects, security vulnerabilities, and rapidly diminishing credibility, voting machine manufacturer Diebold has been dealt yet another setback as Alaskan state elections are hampered by problems with the company's products. Assorted issues with voting machines in seven precincts forced some election officials to manually count and upload votes. {...}

Despite a growing body of evidence of fraudulent behavior and defective products, Diebold continues to claim that its machines are secure and reliable when properly configured. Alaska's Division of Elections Director Whitney Brewster has stated that the current problems are not a result of fraudulence or tampering, and has attributed the machine failures to technological problems exclusively. Brewster feels that the vote counts are still accurate, but this latest voting machine meltdown serves as yet another glaring reminder of the risks that voting machine technology pose to the most time-honored tradition of American democracy, voting.

In tinfoil hat news, apparently the CEO of Diebold wrote a letter where he stated that he was "committed to helping Ohio [the state where Diebold is located] deliver its electoral votes to the president." Fetch me more tinfoil!

[drone]

This was my favorite piece, the Slashdot crowd had a field day with this one:

http://openvotingfoundation.org/tiki...hp?articleId=1

Spoiler Alert, click show to read: 

Diebold has made the testing and certification process practically irrelevant,. according to Dechert. If you have access to these machines and you want to rig an election, anything is possible with the Diebold TS — and it could be done without leaving a trace. All you need is a screwdriver.. This model does not produce a voter verified paper trail so there is no way to check if the voter.s choices are accurately reflected in the tabulation.

Open Voting Foundation is releasing 22 high-resolution close up pictures of the system. This picture, in particular, shows a BOOT AREA CONFIGURATION. chart painted on the system board.

The most serious issue is the ability to choose between "EPROM" and "FLASH" boot configurations. Both of these memory sources are present. All of the switches in question (JP2, JP3, JP8, SW2 and SW4) are physically present on the board. It is clear that this system can ship with live boot profiles in two locations, and switching back and forth could change literally everything regarding how the machine works and counts votes. This could be done before or after the so-called "Logic And Accuracy Tests".

A third possible profile could be field-added in minutes and selected in the "external flash" memory location, the interface for which is present on the motherboard.

This is not a minor variation from the previously documented attack point on the newer Diebold TSx. To its credit, the TSx can only contain one boot profile at a time. Diebold has ensured that it is extremely difficult to confirm what code is in a TSx (or TS) at any one time but it is at least theoretically possible to do so. But in the TS, a completely legal and certified set of files can be instantly overridden and illegal uncertified code be made dominant in the system, and then this situation can be reversed leaving the legal code dominant again in a matter of minutes.

These findings underscore the need for open testing and certification. There is no way such a security vulnerability should be allowed. These systems should be recalled.

What a farce. The fact that they can make a super-secure, traceable, and reliable ATM machine, and not give the same effort with a voting machine just highlights that fact that money is more important than freedom. I see two possibilities here, they either put these "features" in on purpose (for altering elections), or they produced an inferior product because it was for a non-competitive government contract. The whole malice v. stupidity thing.

[Papewaio]

ATMs aren't quite as safe as you are lead to believe. Accounts can be tampered with, just the cost of ATMs after the cost of topping up tampered accounts is cheaper for the banks then customer to staff interactions.

On top of that although you can see your money leave your bankaccount.

It would be very hard to track your vote in the pool. If it is a blind ballot how could you really prove the vote is yours and not ten other people assigned the same vote. So vote fraud would be easier then monetary fraud.

[Crazed Rabbit]

We should stick to actually going to polling spots and using paper votes, with absentee ballots only for the bed-ridden and military.

Crazed Rabbit

[Xiahou]

Yet more problems with the Diebold Voting machines. I don't understand how we can create a secure ATM network, but we can't get a voting machine right? Very sad, possibly suspicious. Why can't we piggyback on the ATMs anyway? They're installed all over the nation, and they have very good security. Surely something could be worked out. They even give paper reciepts, something the current generation of e-voting machines can't master. Ugh.

Other than what youve just highlighted what are these previous problems that have been documented? I dont recall hearing about anything with any meat to it- just lots of allegations.

I dont really see what's so different with the tampering talk when compared to paper ballots- it all comes down to the honesty of the poll workers. Your paper ballot could be tampered with far easier than an electronic one- they could just toss it and fill out a new one. At least with an electronic machine the poll workers would need to have some pretty significant technical knowhow to be able to tamper with results. Sure, paper reciepts seem like a good idea to me- but how do you, as an individual voter, have any idea if your vote isnt being changed? Having a peice of paper doesnt help much afaik. And if the paper is for recount purposes, arent we back to the poll workers again? If they'd tamper with voting machines, what's to stop them from fudging a recount?

[Lemur]

The issue, at least as I see it, is making the number of people involved in a conspiracy as large and visible as possible. Do I need to elaborate on why that is beneficial?

If you're not aware of problems with the Diebold voting machines, just Google "diebold recount," and read to your heart's contentment.

[edit]

A sample:

Problems with Alaska’s new touchscreen voting machines slowed election returns Tuesday and caused elections officials to hand count and manually upload vote totals from several precincts across the state.

Election coordinator Lauri Wilson said several Diebold touchscreen machines in Southeast Alaska, the Interior and near Nome did not upload their votes into the Division of Elections’ central computing system. The machines’ modems either did not get a dial tone or had other problems, Wilson said.

The votes from touchscreen voting machines in four Kodiak precincts had to be manually uploaded because the electronic ballots were required to be presented in more than one language, Wilson said.

[edit of the edit]

I dont recall hearing about anything with any meat to it- just lots of allegations.

Oh, I see. Since nothing's been settled in court, we should withhold judgement. I guess I'll ignore the computer scientists and side with you on this one, Xiahou. We should wait for smoke, rubble, and a settled insurance claim before we can reasonably discuss fire prevention.

[Xiahou]

Oh, I see. Since nothing's been settled in court, we should withhold judgement. I guess I'll ignore the computer scientists and side with you on this one, Xiahou. We should wait for smoke, rubble, and a settled insurance claim before we can reasonably discuss fire prevention.

Or to put it another way: It's not the facts of the case, but the seriousness of the allegations?

I Googled, as suggested, and read the first few results... I found nothing startling. I thought maybe you had something more concrete. I want secure, accurate voting as much as the next guy- but Im more concerned about non-citizens, felons, and corpses voting than I am about these accusations.

[lars573]

I'm so glad I live in a nation that makes me drag my lazy ass to a polling station and scribble and X by the circle marked NDP at a maximum of every 5 years.

[Claudius the God]

VOTERGATE
2004, (30 minutes)
Votergate is the investigative documentary film uncovering the truth about new computer voting systems, which allow a few powerful corporations to record our votes in secret.
http://musiccoop.org/votergate/voter...ovie_256kb.mov

[English assassin]

Having sat through a few more counts than is really healthy for any (approximately) normal person, poll fraud by tellers is pretty difficult in a paper based system. The main safeguard is that voted-on ballot papers are under multiple sets of eyes at all times. The main weakness that I can see in the way the UK does it is the moment when the ballot boxes are taken out of the polling station and shipped to the count in the backs of vans, which is probably when they are under least scrutiny, maybe only 2 people. But those two people would have to have access to blank but validated ballots to stuff in the boxes, (Ballot papers are validated at the moment of issue with a patterned hole punch which is only decided on just before the election) and they would need an accomplice in the polling station to alter the record of the number of ballots issued in that polling district. And any really significant deviation from the expected result (eg a polling district with say an 80% turn out when everyone else had 60%) would stand out, with all those lovely hard copy ballots to re-count and investigate.

I'm not saying its impossible but it would need a substantial number of people in the conspiracy. No doubt this is why electoral frauds in the UK have almost all put the fraud outside the voting system itself (mainly by party workers getting their hands on postal ballots for people who don't exist or won't otherwise vote.)

It does require a certain amount of tinfoil aound the temples to imagine that the possibilities for rampant fraud apparently implicit in these machines would ever be used, but on the other hand the possibilities for fraud implicit in the UK's relaxation of the rules on postal voting were exploited, oh, more or less instantly after the possibilities were created, so...

[Lemur]

Some kind hacker posted a video that appears to be step-by-step instructions on how to hack the Diebold voting machines. I'll watch it later, but I thought I'd share the link now. Tinfoil on!