5 ms·

In Praise of Chris Krebs

lukevp 6y ago
Well done on his part for taking a stand and asserting his organization’s beliefs. Disinformation and disenfranchisement in our election process is a quick ticket to an erosion of public confidence in an already tenuous electoral process. Whoever you voted for, whether they won or not should be decided within the constraints of the system, and it’s important for those in positions of power to respect that. I think improvements could be made with ranked choice, elimination of the electoral college, etc, but these institutions have served us fine so far. The voting system already has many levels of failsafes, and you can imagine that any opportunity for fraud or malfeasance would be exploited roughly equally by both sides.
- throw0101a 6y ago
  > Well done on his part for taking a stand and asserting his organization’s beliefs. They were not the "organization's beliefs", they were his. As David Frum observed: There are no institutions, only people. As we've seen over the last little while, once well-respected organizations stayed silent in light of bad behaviour, and/or various institutions have been packed with ill-willed individuals which then did inappropriate things.
kyrieeschaton 6y ago
In a political appointment, tweeting about how the election was "secure" in the very limited technical capacity you are equipped to evaluate (ie, no Evil Russian Hackers Hacking In), as opposed to the actual political point of contention (how many buckets-o-ballots were wheeled in at 4AM, how many mail-in ballots sold or confiscated and filled out by political operatives, etc), in a way guaranteed to become a talking point rather than conveying any useful information, makes you unfit to serve.
- loopz 6y ago
  Can anything of that be substantiated though, or is it just FUD (Fear, Uncertainty and Doubt)?
  - kyrieeschaton 6y ago
    There are sworn affidavits to that effect, as well as the documented 100% Biden vote batches (with no down-ballot votes) after the "pause" to determine how many were needed. In any other context the US State Department would be bemoaning "irregularities" and threatening sanctions.
    - zug_zug 6y ago
      No point saying that unless you're going to link a primary source (i.e. no youtube videos citing other youtube videos citing a tweet, but rather the affidavit itself, or videos of the 100% Biden vote batches, or the video of the person alleging they saw 100% Biden batches).
      - ecommerceguy 6y ago
        I'm not sure why the parent got flagged for removal but for years voting irregularities have been reported on. https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ckzzjlU39kc&feature=emb_logo https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ckzzjlU39kc&feature=emb_logo "In Georgia, primary election chaos highlights a voting system deeply flawed" - PBS
        gamblor956 6y ago
        The parent got flagged because it alleged falsities about the vote in the 2020 election. And the quote you're referring to was about Georgia's old voting system. https://www.pbs.org/newshour/show/in-georgia-primary-election-chaos-highlights-a-voting-system-deeply-flawed https://www.pbs.org/newshour/show/in-georgia-primary-electio... The new system replaces the purely electronic older system with a hybrid: tablets that physically mark a printed ballot (similar to California's new system). From the linked article: "The state spent more than $100 million to supply every county with so-called ImageCast machines made by a Canadian company, Dominion Voting Systems. They are ballot marking devices, meaning voters make selections on a touch screen, and ballots are printed with choices embedded in a Q.R. code and listed in plain English. The paper ballot is then scanned and counted." Voter's selections are literally printed in English text on the ballot, so they can be independently verified in the event of an audit.
benmmurphy 6y ago
The claim that it is the most secure in history is very trumpian in nature. There were a lot unique challenges this year that impacted the integrity of the election. I don't see why he couldn't have made the weaker claim that there is no evidence that electoral fraud changed the result.
- loopz 6y ago
  He can back up the assertion based on technicalities. It's all relative to earlier elections. Anyways, it's not possible to respond to Trump without being dragged down into the mud.
  - benmmurphy 6y ago
    Large scale absentee of mail in voting increases the opportunity for coercion and vote buying both which undermine the integrity of an election. The increase security from technical controls (more RLA, less DRE, etc) could be outweighed from the fundamental problems non-secret voting brings to the table. I don't think it is clear whether one outweighs the other and I think its optimistic to claim that this is the most secure election in history.
zug_zug 6y ago
The interesting thing is, I'm a huge fan of End-to-End auditable voting systems [1]. There's a ton of great work by very intelligent experts on a variety of options with different tradeoffs. I find it speaks volumes about motivations that nobody seems to have any interest in the topic. But really both sides should want it, the left should want it so there's even less basis for doubt in the future, the right should want it if they honestly believe there was irregularity. 1. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/End-to-end_auditable_voting_systems https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/End-to-end_auditable_voting_sy...
- loopz 6y ago
  It needs to allow secret votes though: Because of the importance of the right to a secret ballot, some E2E voting schemes also attempt to meet a third requirement, usually referred to as receipt freeness: No voter can demonstrate how he or she voted to any third party. Also, the more IT systems involved, the less people will be able to ascertain the process. Complex systems may have unknown and invisible weaknesses.
  - zug_zug 6y ago
    So that's referring to the fact that because you have objective proof of who you voted for, maybe somebody could coerce (i.e. use violence) you to show them that proof. That's a tradeoff. I think the current election, or even just how screwed up elections are in other countries, show that it's probably an order of magnitude more important to have faith the process is objectively right, than to worry about the coercion scenario, which seems pretty contrived to me.
    - benmmurphy 6y ago
      Large scale use of absentee ballots or mail in ballots also allows coercion of voters. Most of the E2E systems are designed so it's not possible for a voter to prove to a third party who they voted for.
    - pmyteh 6y ago
      The concern isn't only coercion, it's also vote buying (which was very common at least in the UK before the secret ballot). If you can take the money and then vote for someone else, retail vote purchase falls apart. The existence of postal voting has already cracked this one open a bit, though.
shoo 6y ago
One of the authors of this piece, Susan Hennessey, was briefly interviewed on The Economist's "checks and balance" US politics podcast this week [1]. Discussion with Hennessy starts about 26:45 in. As well as touching on Krebs' firing, Hennessy also discusses the difference between political appointees and career track public service roles, and efforts to "burrow" political appointees in career track roles where they could potentially persist after the current administration departs [2]. [1] https://open.spotify.com/episode/1sohQelvUPLRhADJnnXZm7 https://open.spotify.com/episode/1sohQelvUPLRhADJnnXZm7 [2] https://www.lawfareblog.com/how-did-trump-loyalist-come-be-named-nsa-general-counsel-and-what-should-biden-do-about-it https://www.lawfareblog.com/how-did-trump-loyalist-come-be-n...

Well done on his part for taking a stand and asserting his organization’s beliefs. Disinformation and disenfranchisement in our election process is a quick ticket to an erosion of public confidence in an already tenuous electoral process. Whoever you voted for, whether they won or not should be decided within the constraints of the system, and it’s important for those in positions of power to respect that. I think improvements could be made with ranked choice, elimination of the electoral college, etc, but these institutions have served us fine so far. The voting system already has many levels of failsafes, and you can imagine that any opportunity for fraud or malfeasance would be exploited roughly equally by both sides.

throw0101a 6y ago
> Well done on his part for taking a stand and asserting his organization’s beliefs. They were not the "organization's beliefs", they were his. As David Frum observed: There are no institutions, only people. As we've seen over the last little while, once well-respected organizations stayed silent in light of bad behaviour, and/or various institutions have been packed with ill-willed individuals which then did inappropriate things.

kyrieeschaton 6y ago

In a political appointment, tweeting about how the election was "secure" in the very limited technical capacity you are equipped to evaluate (ie, no Evil Russian Hackers Hacking In), as opposed to the actual political point of contention (how many buckets-o-ballots were wheeled in at 4AM, how many mail-in ballots sold or confiscated and filled out by political operatives, etc), in a way guaranteed to become a talking point rather than conveying any useful information, makes you unfit to serve.

loopz 6y ago
Can anything of that be substantiated though, or is it just FUD (Fear, Uncertainty and Doubt)?
- kyrieeschaton 6y ago
  There are sworn affidavits to that effect, as well as the documented 100% Biden vote batches (with no down-ballot votes) after the "pause" to determine how many were needed. In any other context the US State Department would be bemoaning "irregularities" and threatening sanctions.
  - zug_zug 6y ago
    No point saying that unless you're going to link a primary source (i.e. no youtube videos citing other youtube videos citing a tweet, but rather the affidavit itself, or videos of the 100% Biden vote batches, or the video of the person alleging they saw 100% Biden batches).
    - ecommerceguy 6y ago
      I'm not sure why the parent got flagged for removal but for years voting irregularities have been reported on. https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ckzzjlU39kc&feature=emb_logo https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ckzzjlU39kc&feature=emb_logo "In Georgia, primary election chaos highlights a voting system deeply flawed" - PBS
      - gamblor956 6y ago
        The parent got flagged because it alleged falsities about the vote in the 2020 election. And the quote you're referring to was about Georgia's old voting system. https://www.pbs.org/newshour/show/in-georgia-primary-election-chaos-highlights-a-voting-system-deeply-flawed https://www.pbs.org/newshour/show/in-georgia-primary-electio... The new system replaces the purely electronic older system with a hybrid: tablets that physically mark a printed ballot (similar to California's new system). From the linked article: "The state spent more than $100 million to supply every county with so-called ImageCast machines made by a Canadian company, Dominion Voting Systems. They are ballot marking devices, meaning voters make selections on a touch screen, and ballots are printed with choices embedded in a Q.R. code and listed in plain English. The paper ballot is then scanned and counted." Voter's selections are literally printed in English text on the ballot, so they can be independently verified in the event of an audit.

benmmurphy 6y ago

The claim that it is the most secure in history is very trumpian in nature. There were a lot unique challenges this year that impacted the integrity of the election. I don't see why he couldn't have made the weaker claim that there is no evidence that electoral fraud changed the result.

loopz 6y ago
He can back up the assertion based on technicalities. It's all relative to earlier elections. Anyways, it's not possible to respond to Trump without being dragged down into the mud.
- benmmurphy 6y ago
  Large scale absentee of mail in voting increases the opportunity for coercion and vote buying both which undermine the integrity of an election. The increase security from technical controls (more RLA, less DRE, etc) could be outweighed from the fundamental problems non-secret voting brings to the table. I don't think it is clear whether one outweighs the other and I think its optimistic to claim that this is the most secure election in history.

zug_zug 6y ago

The interesting thing is, I'm a huge fan of End-to-End auditable voting systems [1]. There's a ton of great work by very intelligent experts on a variety of options with different tradeoffs. I find it speaks volumes about motivations that nobody seems to have any interest in the topic. But really both sides should want it, the left should want it so there's even less basis for doubt in the future, the right should want it if they honestly believe there was irregularity. 1. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/End-to-end_auditable_voting_systems https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/End-to-end_auditable_voting_sy...

loopz 6y ago
It needs to allow secret votes though: Because of the importance of the right to a secret ballot, some E2E voting schemes also attempt to meet a third requirement, usually referred to as receipt freeness: No voter can demonstrate how he or she voted to any third party. Also, the more IT systems involved, the less people will be able to ascertain the process. Complex systems may have unknown and invisible weaknesses.
- zug_zug 6y ago
  So that's referring to the fact that because you have objective proof of who you voted for, maybe somebody could coerce (i.e. use violence) you to show them that proof. That's a tradeoff. I think the current election, or even just how screwed up elections are in other countries, show that it's probably an order of magnitude more important to have faith the process is objectively right, than to worry about the coercion scenario, which seems pretty contrived to me.
  - benmmurphy 6y ago
    Large scale use of absentee ballots or mail in ballots also allows coercion of voters. Most of the E2E systems are designed so it's not possible for a voter to prove to a third party who they voted for.
  - pmyteh 6y ago
    The concern isn't only coercion, it's also vote buying (which was very common at least in the UK before the secret ballot). If you can take the money and then vote for someone else, retail vote purchase falls apart. The existence of postal voting has already cracked this one open a bit, though.

shoo 6y ago

One of the authors of this piece, Susan Hennessey, was briefly interviewed on The Economist's "checks and balance" US politics podcast this week [1]. Discussion with Hennessy starts about 26:45 in. As well as touching on Krebs' firing, Hennessy also discusses the difference between political appointees and career track public service roles, and efforts to "burrow" political appointees in career track roles where they could potentially persist after the current administration departs [2]. [1] https://open.spotify.com/episode/1sohQelvUPLRhADJnnXZm7 https://open.spotify.com/episode/1sohQelvUPLRhADJnnXZm7 [2] https://www.lawfareblog.com/how-did-trump-loyalist-come-be-named-nsa-general-counsel-and-what-should-biden-do-about-it https://www.lawfareblog.com/how-did-trump-loyalist-come-be-n...