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Just to clarify, voting machines are not used at all in Germany. The votes are made on paper ballots and counted entirely by hand. The software this is about i

Just to clarify, voting machines are not used at all in Germany. The votes are made on paper ballots and counted entirely by hand. The software this is about is for collecting the vote counts and transferring it to a central location, as far as I understand it. It's still a serious issue, but a quite different one to compromised voting machines.

r00fus 9y ago
"It's not the people who vote that count. It's the people who count the votes." (Joseph Stalin)" s/people/machines/ and you get the gist. Centralized tabulation machines are a ripe target for abuse.
- harry8 9y ago
  you have paper as the source of truth. Sample paper counts look them up in the aggregated computer count, if they don't match exactly invalidate the count and get the raw ballots. Really it is serious, but not so serious as when you have no paper as your source of truth, USA.
  - r00fus 9y ago
    So here's how I'm thinking the exploit could work: 1) fudge the tabulations so your candidate wins 2) if successful, then go back and bribe/hide/spoil the paper ballots. The goal is you often don't have to do #2 if either #1 is very successful (i.e., push the margin over the recount range) or if #1 is a complete failure (competitor won't care - he/she will have won anyway).
  - Amezarak 9y ago
    The US situation varies by state. Most states do have paper ballots. https://ballotpedia.org/Voting_methods_and_equipment_by_state https://ballotpedia.org/Voting_methods_and_equipment_by_stat...
_pmf_ 9y ago
> It's still a serious issue It's as least as serious, I think. More dangerous, too, since the regular people don't see that there is technology involved, as opposed to voting machines, where it's obvious that electronics are involved. But, conveniently, the block parties have adapted the narrative of the Evil Russian™ as scapegoat for everything that might go wrong.
- detaro 9y ago
  I'd say the fact that everyone involved in or using their right to monitor the counting process for a district can trivially detect tampering with its numbers is a pretty big win over intransparent voting machines.

r00fus 9y ago

"It's not the people who vote that count. It's the people who count the votes." (Joseph Stalin)" s/people/machines/ and you get the gist. Centralized tabulation machines are a ripe target for abuse.

harry8 9y ago
you have paper as the source of truth. Sample paper counts look them up in the aggregated computer count, if they don't match exactly invalidate the count and get the raw ballots. Really it is serious, but not so serious as when you have no paper as your source of truth, USA.
- r00fus 9y ago
  So here's how I'm thinking the exploit could work: 1) fudge the tabulations so your candidate wins 2) if successful, then go back and bribe/hide/spoil the paper ballots. The goal is you often don't have to do #2 if either #1 is very successful (i.e., push the margin over the recount range) or if #1 is a complete failure (competitor won't care - he/she will have won anyway).
- Amezarak 9y ago
  The US situation varies by state. Most states do have paper ballots. https://ballotpedia.org/Voting_methods_and_equipment_by_state https://ballotpedia.org/Voting_methods_and_equipment_by_stat...

_pmf_ 9y ago

> It's still a serious issue It's as least as serious, I think. More dangerous, too, since the regular people don't see that there is technology involved, as opposed to voting machines, where it's obvious that electronics are involved. But, conveniently, the block parties have adapted the narrative of the Evil Russian™ as scapegoat for everything that might go wrong.

detaro 9y ago
I'd say the fact that everyone involved in or using their right to monitor the counting process for a district can trivially detect tampering with its numbers is a pretty big win over intransparent voting machines.