6 ms·

What can I do to prevent my district from using electronic voting machines? With paper ballots, I know that there's no way my selection was changed before it w

What can I do to prevent my district from using electronic voting machines? With paper ballots, I know that there's no way my selection was changed before it was given to the poll worker (who is subject to public observation). With voting machines, I have no idea what the poll worker received.

gameswithgo 8y ago
experts have been advising governments to not use electronic voting machines unless they can print out a paper receipt since ~1997 and nobody has listened so good luck.
- craftyguy 8y ago
  Since all politicians operate reactively and not proactively with these sorts of things, it will take someone actually compromising an election and changing the outcome by manipulating vulnerable electronic voting machines before any action is taken. Even then, we'll probably just end up with a new model of electronic voting machine that fixes the one vulnerability used. So, good luck indeed.
  - sbenj 8y ago
    Actually, it will take someone actually compromising an election in a way that is unassailably and unquestionably broken. At that point the elected officials (who presumably have succeeded under the existing broken voting system) will rise up to fix the problem based on scientific evidence and their understanding of statistics. Thankfully we can be sure that our votes have not been compromised in the past and there are no actors in the system who might benefit from avoiding looking into possible compromises. Oh wait..
    - craftyguy 8y ago
      > At that point the elected officials (who presumably have succeeded under the existing broken voting system) will rise up to fix the problem based on scientific evidence and their understanding of statistics. What motivation do they have to fix a system that put them in office in the first place? (hint: none, there is no motivation)
      - sbenj 8y ago
        I thought references to scientific evidence and "understanding of statistics" made it sufficiently clear that I was joking.
        craftyguy 8y ago
        Yea I know you were joking, but I was highlighting a major problem with the current system we have: the only people who can fix it tend to benefit most from having it broken in their favor.
        boomboomsubban 8y ago
        The punchline should be "the Supreme Court," but I'm guessing it's "Russia."
- deleted 8y ago
  [deleted]
- bigpicture 8y ago
  I vote in Chicago, and our electronic voting machines print a paper receipt. The process is as follows: 1) Write your name and address on a piece of paper. 2) Hand it to the worker, who looks you up on the computer. 3) The worker writes your ward/precinct on the piece of paper and asks you to confirm and sign. 4) The ballot is loaded onto a smart card and given to you. 5) You choose any open voting machine and insert the smart card. 6) The voting machine presents your ballot and you press a button to confirm it is the correct one. 7) You do your voting. 8) The voting machine shows you all of your votes, screen by screen and you confirm them. 9) The voting machine prints your votes, page by page on a roll of paper (behind clear plastic) and you confirm them. 10) The voting machine asks if you are really, really sure and you confirm. 11) The smart card pops out of the machine and you drop it in a box on the way out. If you do early voting, you can only vote electronically. If you vote on election day, you can choose a paper ballot if you wish. Early voting is electronic only because you can vote anywhere in the city (if you work downtown you can do so on your lunch break no matter where in the city you live) and there are dozens of different ballots because we vote on things at the neighborhood level in addition to state and national candidates. Having paper ballots would be quite challenging.
  - britch 8y ago
    This really seems like the ideal. I don't understand places that don't use machines like this, it' not like Chicago/Illinois are rolling in money.
abakker 8y ago
start a company that makes paper ballot machines, generate some lucrative government contracts, and partnerships with many high profile paper mills. then, hire lobbyists to discuss the evils of electronic ballots with officials while golfing. Pretty much the only option.
- murph-almighty 8y ago
  Alternatively, protest by voting by mail and convincing everyone you know to do so.
krapp 8y ago
I hope you're not suggesting that your ability to observe poll workers means that paper ballot elections can't be rigged.
- dreamdu5t 8y ago
  How so? Ballots are cast in public, collected in public, and counted in public (not the case with mail-in or electronic voting). Anyone can participate and request any poll worker be removed. Of course voter intimidation is a threat, but that doesn't have anything to do with the process of casting and counting ballots.
- dsfyu404ed 8y ago
  It might not make it impossible but it sure makes them harder to rig at scale.
- Klathmon 8y ago
  That's the beauty of paper ballots! It's not impossible to change votes on an individual level, but all the attacks against it don't scale at all. How many votes do you need to sway an election? There are about 50 precincts in my county, which is one of 67 counties in my state. Even if you somehow manage to rig each precinct flawlessly, that's still a lot of people that have to know about the rigging, over a pretty large area, and not one of them can get caught or the whole thing is over. And if the elections are done right, there should be a number of people from the public at each precinct watching those ballot boxes all day, counting along when tallying votes, and ensuring nobody casts more than one vote or tampers with the box. Hell, you don't even need to speak english or have gone to high school to help secure an election like this, literally anyone can do it. Paper ballots don't break down, they don't have glitches, they don't require 24/7/365 security to prevent tampering, they don't require nearly as many ballot workers or helpers, they can't "underestimate" voter turnout and only have 2 machines in a precinct to make people not want to wait hours to vote, and they aren't going to be able to be hacked by one guy at the dock yard alone with a shipping container full of voting machines. It's not perfect, but it's a hell of a lot better than voting machines, mechanical or electronic.
dsfyu404ed 8y ago
Hack a federal election, publish a write-up. Enjoy your mandatory taxpayer funded retirement. Nothing will change until something scares people enough to make them take action.
- hackermailman 8y ago
  Don't even need to change the votes, a bad actor can simply gain a national platform by engineering some kind of DoS on voting day causing an expensive do over.
tunesmith 8y ago
Aside from something illegal like knocking over all your precinct's evoting machines domino-style, to force the precinct to issue paper provisional ballots instead, I think the proper remedy is to get seriously involved in your state's Secretary-Of-State election (or equivalent). It seems like there should be some sort of nationwide ActBlue campaign to specifically focus on whatever Sec-Of-State races are relevant for that election season.

gameswithgo 8y ago

experts have been advising governments to not use electronic voting machines unless they can print out a paper receipt since ~1997 and nobody has listened so good luck.

craftyguy 8y ago
Since all politicians operate reactively and not proactively with these sorts of things, it will take someone actually compromising an election and changing the outcome by manipulating vulnerable electronic voting machines before any action is taken. Even then, we'll probably just end up with a new model of electronic voting machine that fixes the one vulnerability used. So, good luck indeed.
- sbenj 8y ago
  Actually, it will take someone actually compromising an election in a way that is unassailably and unquestionably broken. At that point the elected officials (who presumably have succeeded under the existing broken voting system) will rise up to fix the problem based on scientific evidence and their understanding of statistics. Thankfully we can be sure that our votes have not been compromised in the past and there are no actors in the system who might benefit from avoiding looking into possible compromises. Oh wait..
  - craftyguy 8y ago
    > At that point the elected officials (who presumably have succeeded under the existing broken voting system) will rise up to fix the problem based on scientific evidence and their understanding of statistics. What motivation do they have to fix a system that put them in office in the first place? (hint: none, there is no motivation)
    - sbenj 8y ago
      I thought references to scientific evidence and "understanding of statistics" made it sufficiently clear that I was joking.
      - craftyguy 8y ago
        Yea I know you were joking, but I was highlighting a major problem with the current system we have: the only people who can fix it tend to benefit most from having it broken in their favor.
      - boomboomsubban 8y ago
        The punchline should be "the Supreme Court," but I'm guessing it's "Russia."
deleted 8y ago
[deleted]
bigpicture 8y ago
I vote in Chicago, and our electronic voting machines print a paper receipt. The process is as follows: 1) Write your name and address on a piece of paper. 2) Hand it to the worker, who looks you up on the computer. 3) The worker writes your ward/precinct on the piece of paper and asks you to confirm and sign. 4) The ballot is loaded onto a smart card and given to you. 5) You choose any open voting machine and insert the smart card. 6) The voting machine presents your ballot and you press a button to confirm it is the correct one. 7) You do your voting. 8) The voting machine shows you all of your votes, screen by screen and you confirm them. 9) The voting machine prints your votes, page by page on a roll of paper (behind clear plastic) and you confirm them. 10) The voting machine asks if you are really, really sure and you confirm. 11) The smart card pops out of the machine and you drop it in a box on the way out. If you do early voting, you can only vote electronically. If you vote on election day, you can choose a paper ballot if you wish. Early voting is electronic only because you can vote anywhere in the city (if you work downtown you can do so on your lunch break no matter where in the city you live) and there are dozens of different ballots because we vote on things at the neighborhood level in addition to state and national candidates. Having paper ballots would be quite challenging.
- britch 8y ago
  This really seems like the ideal. I don't understand places that don't use machines like this, it' not like Chicago/Illinois are rolling in money.

abakker 8y ago

start a company that makes paper ballot machines, generate some lucrative government contracts, and partnerships with many high profile paper mills. then, hire lobbyists to discuss the evils of electronic ballots with officials while golfing. Pretty much the only option.

murph-almighty 8y ago
Alternatively, protest by voting by mail and convincing everyone you know to do so.

krapp 8y ago

I hope you're not suggesting that your ability to observe poll workers means that paper ballot elections can't be rigged.

dreamdu5t 8y ago
How so? Ballots are cast in public, collected in public, and counted in public (not the case with mail-in or electronic voting). Anyone can participate and request any poll worker be removed. Of course voter intimidation is a threat, but that doesn't have anything to do with the process of casting and counting ballots.
dsfyu404ed 8y ago
It might not make it impossible but it sure makes them harder to rig at scale.
Klathmon 8y ago
That's the beauty of paper ballots! It's not impossible to change votes on an individual level, but all the attacks against it don't scale at all. How many votes do you need to sway an election? There are about 50 precincts in my county, which is one of 67 counties in my state. Even if you somehow manage to rig each precinct flawlessly, that's still a lot of people that have to know about the rigging, over a pretty large area, and not one of them can get caught or the whole thing is over. And if the elections are done right, there should be a number of people from the public at each precinct watching those ballot boxes all day, counting along when tallying votes, and ensuring nobody casts more than one vote or tampers with the box. Hell, you don't even need to speak english or have gone to high school to help secure an election like this, literally anyone can do it. Paper ballots don't break down, they don't have glitches, they don't require 24/7/365 security to prevent tampering, they don't require nearly as many ballot workers or helpers, they can't "underestimate" voter turnout and only have 2 machines in a precinct to make people not want to wait hours to vote, and they aren't going to be able to be hacked by one guy at the dock yard alone with a shipping container full of voting machines. It's not perfect, but it's a hell of a lot better than voting machines, mechanical or electronic.

dsfyu404ed 8y ago

Hack a federal election, publish a write-up. Enjoy your mandatory taxpayer funded retirement. Nothing will change until something scares people enough to make them take action.

hackermailman 8y ago
Don't even need to change the votes, a bad actor can simply gain a national platform by engineering some kind of DoS on voting day causing an expensive do over.

tunesmith 8y ago

Aside from something illegal like knocking over all your precinct's evoting machines domino-style, to force the precinct to issue paper provisional ballots instead, I think the proper remedy is to get seriously involved in your state's Secretary-Of-State election (or equivalent). It seems like there should be some sort of nationwide ActBlue campaign to specifically focus on whatever Sec-Of-State races are relevant for that election season.