20 ms·

Hi Hacker_9. In Texas, where I vote, the machines don't even print paper. We just have to trust that the machine correctly recorded our vote. The reasons for th

Hi Hacker_9. In Texas, where I vote, the machines don't even print paper. We just have to trust that the machine correctly recorded our vote. The reasons for the machines are, 1. cost cutting over manual counts, 2. profiteering by well connected companies, 3. And potentially making sure only the "right" votes count, although that part isn't proven. In California we were able to vote at home with a mail-in, paper ballot and I much prefer that.

erichocean 10y ago
> In California we were able to vote at home with a mail-in, paper ballot and I much prefer that. I guess you trust the mail service and the people on the receiving end to properly record your vote. I prefer the day of (also in CA), where you get to put it into the counting machine yourself—at least then I know it was counted at my polling place.
- sgk284 10y ago
  When you do mail-in voting, your ballot has a tab you pull off with a number on it. You can check on a government website whether or not your ballot was counted using this number (though it won't show how you voted).
- RandomInteger4 10y ago
  "At least then I know that I put it in a machine physically, which gave me psychological comfort, but no actual verification that my vote was counted." ^-- Fixed that for you. But seriously, at some point, unless everyone sticks around to watch everyone else's votes being counted, there has to be some level of trust with the system. The only thing we can do better is to make vote counting machines' code open sourced and have the code signed with a trusted Public Key Infrastructure of some sort.
  - saint_fiasco 10y ago
    In my country some people stick around in the voting place to watch how the votes are counted. As long as somebody from your preferred political party stays, you don't have to stick around. The paper system is very open source already. So open that even non-developers can understand it.
NumberCruncher 10y ago
>> In Texas, where I vote, the machines don't even print paper. We just have to trust that the machine correctly recorded our vote. This system just begs for being manipulated.
- sandworm101 10y ago
  >> This system just begs for being manipulated. Paper ballots are not immune from such concerns. The concept of votes being added or removed from a count isn't a new phenomena. So the standard should be whether or not the electronic means are better, rather than them being a perfect counting method.
  - NumberCruncher 10y ago
    Using paper ballots you can at least re-count the votes and validate the results of the election. With the electronic system like this you can not validate the results. Does it use an open source firmware? How can you make sure that there is no IF vote = Clinton AND random <= small error limit not making cheating oblivious THEN vote = Trump; line in the code?
    - lisivka 10y ago
      Yep, you can recount fake paper votes, but how you will distinguish fake votes from real ones? Remember, votes are anonymous, so you cannot track vote back to live being to ask. And even if you will be able to do so, live being can lie you about his vote, to protect himself, or just to not look dumb in eyes of others.
      - sandworm101 10y ago
        >>> ... but how you will distinguish fake votes from real ones? Easy. Serial numbers. Like any other anonymous system (paper money, raffle tickets etc) you assign a number to every valid ballot. Should the same number appear twice, or not appear, then you know something fishy is happening. Any extra fake ballots should be discovered, so long as the originals are not removed from the systems. Throw the numbers around randomly and creating undetectable fakes become very difficult.
HarryHirsch 10y ago
Mail-in ballots are the devil, they allow vote-buying. It happens with regularity that elections are annulled in ethnic enclaves in the UK over that. Elections don't have to be convenient, first of all they have to be safe.
- strathmeyer 10y ago
  In America we prefer the Clinton "walking around money" type of vote buying?
  - nindalf 10y ago
    > In America we prefer the Clinton "walking around money" type of vote buying? Is it just me or does this sentence not make sense?
    - mwfunk 10y ago
      It doesn't, it sounds like something that a Markov chain would say. It sounds vaguely critical of Clinton, but doesn't quite parse as English and is devoid of actual information or analysis. I fear that Markov chains aren't just a way to replicate things that people might say, but might actually model human cognitive processes in some way. :(
    - BoorishBears 10y ago
      It kind of makes sense to me, I think the poster is trying to say Clinton buys votes but in a way we prefer/tolerate. That way being "walking around money" in the sense of mingling with wealthy people at expensive events funded by other wealthy people in an attempt gain favor (and votes) from the people who can afford those events. I think it's being purposely dramatic, but the English (kind of) adds up.
      - tedunangst 10y ago
        That's not walking around money.
rikkus 10y ago
In the U.K. the ballot staff are volunteers and cheap/free venues are used (schools, church halls, etc.)
cwisecarver 10y ago
If we have to use machines why wouldn't we just source two machines from rival vendors. One machine takes the vote from the voter through whatever method, records the vote and prints a receipt that clearly states that voters choices. Machine two reads the receipt in front of the voter and keeps a second tally of votes. The two tallies are then compared at the end of the night.
- stuart78 10y ago
  Too logical ;)
- devdoomari 10y ago
  this with some crypto-sauce would be mixnet voting :)
- jasonlotito 10y ago
  For starters, cost. Now you have to buy two machines for every single machine you buy. It also means taking up more room. Now, instead of fitting 10 machines in a single space, you can only fit 5, creating even longer lines. This also increase the chances of failures. A single machine failing means both machines in the pair fail. So, you've gone from 10 machines to 5 pairs of machines for twice the cost. You guy from a single machine putting you down to 90% original capacity (assuming 10 machines) where as a single machine brings you down to 80% capacity (40% of original capacity). Not to mention the additional level of confusion and potential for errors. All of this so you can buy two machines from two different vendors who might, in the end, still have ties via investors.
  - agumonkey 10y ago
    All good points, maybe there could be one testing machine per area or zipcode instead of one per room. People wouldn't know which voting booth would be tested. If the test pass potential false positive are still there, but you at least a quantifiable bit of error catching and restricted scoping. Cost still up for sure, but maybe people wouldn't mind paying a bit more instead of 100% for trust in the system. Would probably even motivate some to vote.
pfranz 10y ago
(I'm not defending the method you describe from Texas where there's no physical proof to audit against) I was listening to something specifically talking about California counting mail-in ballots. They said California took longer than most states because it's big, it has liberal laws about eligibility (counting provisional ballots) and citizens are pretty sloppy about filling in mail-in ballots. They described coffee and spaghetti stains obscuring the choice. They will fill out "clean" ballots in pairs with their best guess. I'm sure that's a small number of ballots. When I've voted in person they deliberately have me feed my ballot into a machine to confirm it was valid.

erichocean 10y ago

> In California we were able to vote at home with a mail-in, paper ballot and I much prefer that. I guess you trust the mail service and the people on the receiving end to properly record your vote. I prefer the day of (also in CA), where you get to put it into the counting machine yourself—at least then I know it was counted at my polling place.

sgk284 10y ago
When you do mail-in voting, your ballot has a tab you pull off with a number on it. You can check on a government website whether or not your ballot was counted using this number (though it won't show how you voted).
RandomInteger4 10y ago
"At least then I know that I put it in a machine physically, which gave me psychological comfort, but no actual verification that my vote was counted." ^-- Fixed that for you. But seriously, at some point, unless everyone sticks around to watch everyone else's votes being counted, there has to be some level of trust with the system. The only thing we can do better is to make vote counting machines' code open sourced and have the code signed with a trusted Public Key Infrastructure of some sort.
- saint_fiasco 10y ago
  In my country some people stick around in the voting place to watch how the votes are counted. As long as somebody from your preferred political party stays, you don't have to stick around. The paper system is very open source already. So open that even non-developers can understand it.

NumberCruncher 10y ago

>> In Texas, where I vote, the machines don't even print paper. We just have to trust that the machine correctly recorded our vote. This system just begs for being manipulated.

sandworm101 10y ago
>> This system just begs for being manipulated. Paper ballots are not immune from such concerns. The concept of votes being added or removed from a count isn't a new phenomena. So the standard should be whether or not the electronic means are better, rather than them being a perfect counting method.
- NumberCruncher 10y ago
  Using paper ballots you can at least re-count the votes and validate the results of the election. With the electronic system like this you can not validate the results. Does it use an open source firmware? How can you make sure that there is no IF vote = Clinton AND random <= small error limit not making cheating oblivious THEN vote = Trump; line in the code?
  - lisivka 10y ago
    Yep, you can recount fake paper votes, but how you will distinguish fake votes from real ones? Remember, votes are anonymous, so you cannot track vote back to live being to ask. And even if you will be able to do so, live being can lie you about his vote, to protect himself, or just to not look dumb in eyes of others.
    - sandworm101 10y ago
      >>> ... but how you will distinguish fake votes from real ones? Easy. Serial numbers. Like any other anonymous system (paper money, raffle tickets etc) you assign a number to every valid ballot. Should the same number appear twice, or not appear, then you know something fishy is happening. Any extra fake ballots should be discovered, so long as the originals are not removed from the systems. Throw the numbers around randomly and creating undetectable fakes become very difficult.

HarryHirsch 10y ago

Mail-in ballots are the devil, they allow vote-buying. It happens with regularity that elections are annulled in ethnic enclaves in the UK over that. Elections don't have to be convenient, first of all they have to be safe.

strathmeyer 10y ago
In America we prefer the Clinton "walking around money" type of vote buying?
- nindalf 10y ago
  > In America we prefer the Clinton "walking around money" type of vote buying? Is it just me or does this sentence not make sense?
  - mwfunk 10y ago
    It doesn't, it sounds like something that a Markov chain would say. It sounds vaguely critical of Clinton, but doesn't quite parse as English and is devoid of actual information or analysis. I fear that Markov chains aren't just a way to replicate things that people might say, but might actually model human cognitive processes in some way. :(
  - BoorishBears 10y ago
    It kind of makes sense to me, I think the poster is trying to say Clinton buys votes but in a way we prefer/tolerate. That way being "walking around money" in the sense of mingling with wealthy people at expensive events funded by other wealthy people in an attempt gain favor (and votes) from the people who can afford those events. I think it's being purposely dramatic, but the English (kind of) adds up.
    - tedunangst 10y ago
      That's not walking around money.

rikkus 10y ago

In the U.K. the ballot staff are volunteers and cheap/free venues are used (schools, church halls, etc.)

cwisecarver 10y ago

If we have to use machines why wouldn't we just source two machines from rival vendors. One machine takes the vote from the voter through whatever method, records the vote and prints a receipt that clearly states that voters choices. Machine two reads the receipt in front of the voter and keeps a second tally of votes. The two tallies are then compared at the end of the night.

stuart78 10y ago
Too logical ;)
devdoomari 10y ago
this with some crypto-sauce would be mixnet voting :)
jasonlotito 10y ago
For starters, cost. Now you have to buy two machines for every single machine you buy. It also means taking up more room. Now, instead of fitting 10 machines in a single space, you can only fit 5, creating even longer lines. This also increase the chances of failures. A single machine failing means both machines in the pair fail. So, you've gone from 10 machines to 5 pairs of machines for twice the cost. You guy from a single machine putting you down to 90% original capacity (assuming 10 machines) where as a single machine brings you down to 80% capacity (40% of original capacity). Not to mention the additional level of confusion and potential for errors. All of this so you can buy two machines from two different vendors who might, in the end, still have ties via investors.
- agumonkey 10y ago
  All good points, maybe there could be one testing machine per area or zipcode instead of one per room. People wouldn't know which voting booth would be tested. If the test pass potential false positive are still there, but you at least a quantifiable bit of error catching and restricted scoping. Cost still up for sure, but maybe people wouldn't mind paying a bit more instead of 100% for trust in the system. Would probably even motivate some to vote.

pfranz 10y ago

(I'm not defending the method you describe from Texas where there's no physical proof to audit against) I was listening to something specifically talking about California counting mail-in ballots. They said California took longer than most states because it's big, it has liberal laws about eligibility (counting provisional ballots) and citizens are pretty sloppy about filling in mail-in ballots. They described coffee and spaghetti stains obscuring the choice. They will fill out "clean" ballots in pairs with their best guess. I'm sure that's a small number of ballots. When I've voted in person they deliberately have me feed my ballot into a machine to confirm it was valid.