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So, we know there are vulnerabilities in electronic voting machines, both sides are accusing the other of fraud, and now you are making an annecdote in favor of

So, we know there are vulnerabilities in electronic voting machines, both sides are accusing the other of fraud, and now you are making an annecdote in favor of unsecured polling sites? I’m glad you had a good experience, but I’m very skeptical. Edit: it seems lots of people can disagree but no one can make an argument this is safer or more reliable in practice.

burlesona 8y ago
I would actually say that the decentralized and distributed nature of the polling places, combined with the well-designed voting machinery, gave me more confidence that orchestrating voter or electoral fraud would be profoundly difficult. From my experiences in other states, I would say it’s very possible to systematically lower voter turnout by making the process laborious, in part by having only a small number of polling places that you need to drive across town to access, and then by having long lines to vote (because so many people have to use the same polling place). Given a choice between the two I personally would favor the decentralized model.
- chrisco255 8y ago
  How would you avoid something like the debacle in Broward County, Florida where boxes of ballots were found post election day? What prevents that when random people are running the show?
  - ianai 8y ago
    Property tracking is a solved problem. Simply chose a model based on budget.
  - deleted 8y ago
    [deleted]
  - shereadsthenews 8y ago
    That never happened except in the Fox News alternaverse. https://www.miamiherald.com/news/politics-government/election/article221484265.html https://www.miamiherald.com/news/politics-government/electio...
- SlowRobotAhead 8y ago
  It is absolutely not decentralized though. It’s spaced out collection, still centralized accounting. All you are doing is allowing for more potential issues between collection and transport by having an insecure position up front.
kevin_nisbet 8y ago
I suspect it's missing details, but I think this can be implemented in a fairly trustworthy way, using technology as an aid, but not the primary record of the election. I think in a previous topic on HN, someone described his experience in one of the states way better. I'm describing what I remember, which may not be completely accurate: You take the paper ballots, and you split them into lots. Each lot is passed through at-least two voting counter machines, and a recount is triggered if either machine produces a different result. Random lots are manually hand counted, to ensure they produce the same results as the voting machines. To me, this makes the electronic counting extremely tamper resistant, as tampering with a subset of machines will very likely produce a discrepancy against other machines that is detectable. Or if the entire fleet of machines has been tampered with, this becomes apparent with the manual counts. As for the machine at the poll, the initial scan can just be a best practice, that before the ballot is submitted can indicate to the voter if the ballot scans OK, leaving an opportunity to correct. Of course, this is just on the counting side, all sorts of additional best practices are needed to ensure the paper ballots are transported securely, aren't lost or tampered with, are stored securely if a recount is needed, etc. And each step has scrutineers, even if the polling station is in someone's garage.
- jacques_chester 8y ago
  Just count all the votes by hand with scrutineers watching the counters. It's really as simple as that. Just count the damn votes by hand.
- dmckeon 8y ago
  Several mark/sense systems (paper ballot marked by voter, then scanned by/for voter in their presence) have the capability to record vote counts to multiple local magnetic storage devices. At the end of the election period, poll workers would secure the scanned paper ballots and the magnetic cartridges, and mail one set of mag. carts. to the state elections officer, and carry the paper ballots and the other set of mag carts to the local (city or county) elections office. The second set of mag carts provide the “election night” results. A local protocol & set of procedures cross-check the carts and the number of paper ballots and the number of voters who appeared to vote at each location/precinct. The first set of mag carts provide a cross-check and a backup copy. (A small number of exhausted elections officials will incorrectly put both sets of carts in a mail box, and hilarity will ensue.) Election operations in the US have a long and complicated history. Reinventing elections as a greenfield _de novo_ exercise without considering most of the complexities that have grown up around them is appealing, like most big rewrites. Poorly-implemented electronic voting should be viewed with honest suspicion, IMHO.

burlesona 8y ago

I would actually say that the decentralized and distributed nature of the polling places, combined with the well-designed voting machinery, gave me more confidence that orchestrating voter or electoral fraud would be profoundly difficult. From my experiences in other states, I would say it’s very possible to systematically lower voter turnout by making the process laborious, in part by having only a small number of polling places that you need to drive across town to access, and then by having long lines to vote (because so many people have to use the same polling place). Given a choice between the two I personally would favor the decentralized model.

chrisco255 8y ago
How would you avoid something like the debacle in Broward County, Florida where boxes of ballots were found post election day? What prevents that when random people are running the show?
- ianai 8y ago
  Property tracking is a solved problem. Simply chose a model based on budget.
- deleted 8y ago
  [deleted]
- shereadsthenews 8y ago
  That never happened except in the Fox News alternaverse. https://www.miamiherald.com/news/politics-government/election/article221484265.html https://www.miamiherald.com/news/politics-government/electio...
SlowRobotAhead 8y ago
It is absolutely not decentralized though. It’s spaced out collection, still centralized accounting. All you are doing is allowing for more potential issues between collection and transport by having an insecure position up front.

kevin_nisbet 8y ago

I suspect it's missing details, but I think this can be implemented in a fairly trustworthy way, using technology as an aid, but not the primary record of the election. I think in a previous topic on HN, someone described his experience in one of the states way better. I'm describing what I remember, which may not be completely accurate: You take the paper ballots, and you split them into lots. Each lot is passed through at-least two voting counter machines, and a recount is triggered if either machine produces a different result. Random lots are manually hand counted, to ensure they produce the same results as the voting machines. To me, this makes the electronic counting extremely tamper resistant, as tampering with a subset of machines will very likely produce a discrepancy against other machines that is detectable. Or if the entire fleet of machines has been tampered with, this becomes apparent with the manual counts. As for the machine at the poll, the initial scan can just be a best practice, that before the ballot is submitted can indicate to the voter if the ballot scans OK, leaving an opportunity to correct. Of course, this is just on the counting side, all sorts of additional best practices are needed to ensure the paper ballots are transported securely, aren't lost or tampered with, are stored securely if a recount is needed, etc. And each step has scrutineers, even if the polling station is in someone's garage.

jacques_chester 8y ago
Just count all the votes by hand with scrutineers watching the counters. It's really as simple as that. Just count the damn votes by hand.
dmckeon 8y ago
Several mark/sense systems (paper ballot marked by voter, then scanned by/for voter in their presence) have the capability to record vote counts to multiple local magnetic storage devices. At the end of the election period, poll workers would secure the scanned paper ballots and the magnetic cartridges, and mail one set of mag. carts. to the state elections officer, and carry the paper ballots and the other set of mag carts to the local (city or county) elections office. The second set of mag carts provide the “election night” results. A local protocol & set of procedures cross-check the carts and the number of paper ballots and the number of voters who appeared to vote at each location/precinct. The first set of mag carts provide a cross-check and a backup copy. (A small number of exhausted elections officials will incorrectly put both sets of carts in a mail box, and hilarity will ensue.) Election operations in the US have a long and complicated history. Reinventing elections as a greenfield _de novo_ exercise without considering most of the complexities that have grown up around them is appealing, like most big rewrites. Poorly-implemented electronic voting should be viewed with honest suspicion, IMHO.