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> The U.S. Election Assistance Commission says voting machines should be meticulously inventoried and kept under lock and key "in a tamper-proof location, prefe

> The U.S. Election Assistance Commission says voting machines should be meticulously inventoried and kept under lock and key "in a tamper-proof location, preferably within the election office." A tacit admission that election machines, after coming into contact with the wrong person, are no longer trustworthy. Meaning they were never trustworthy. But they keep being used for the massive advantages they provide over paper ballots and manual counting that make the trade-off worth it. Those advantages being...

jfengel 4y ago
Physical security is standard practice for computer systems. It's widely understood that somebody with physical access can make changes far beyond what anybody can do remotely. Those machines do have advantages, in terms of accessibility and clarity. Paper ballot design can tip elections -- most famously in 2000, and elsewhere. Is it worth the tradeoff? I don't know. But I do know that if you're not aware of the reason we're talking about it by now, I don't know that I can help.
- tarakat 4y ago
  > Paper ballot design can tip elections -- most famously in 2000, and elsewhere. Voting machines also suffer from myriad issues - e.g. unresponsive touchscreens. And there are countless paper voting systems without the issues of the 2000 election - in fact they are the norm. Framing this as an inherent problem of paper that can only be solved by computers is dishonest. > Physical security is standard practice for computer systems. It's widely understood that somebody with physical access can make changes far beyond what anybody can do remotely. My point exactly. No black box can be trusted. > Is it worth the tradeoff? Let me remind you that the tradeoff is having elections silently and near-undetectably [1] stolen, and sow enough justifiable doubt to destabilize a democracy. [1] Exit polls have been as much as 30% off, especially in smaller elections through which nearly all politicians must pass, and that just passes the buck to securing polls. To dispel any naive ideas that polls would tell us about tampering. And that's in countries where people can answer those polls with relatively little worry. Imagine the disparity if they feared a militia would find they voted wrong and execute them. That's not a hypothetical. Voting systems must be resistant to such circumstances, because they may befall your country as well.

jfengel 4y ago

Physical security is standard practice for computer systems. It's widely understood that somebody with physical access can make changes far beyond what anybody can do remotely. Those machines do have advantages, in terms of accessibility and clarity. Paper ballot design can tip elections -- most famously in 2000, and elsewhere. Is it worth the tradeoff? I don't know. But I do know that if you're not aware of the reason we're talking about it by now, I don't know that I can help.

tarakat 4y ago
> Paper ballot design can tip elections -- most famously in 2000, and elsewhere. Voting machines also suffer from myriad issues - e.g. unresponsive touchscreens. And there are countless paper voting systems without the issues of the 2000 election - in fact they are the norm. Framing this as an inherent problem of paper that can only be solved by computers is dishonest. > Physical security is standard practice for computer systems. It's widely understood that somebody with physical access can make changes far beyond what anybody can do remotely. My point exactly. No black box can be trusted. > Is it worth the tradeoff? Let me remind you that the tradeoff is having elections silently and near-undetectably [1] stolen, and sow enough justifiable doubt to destabilize a democracy. [1] Exit polls have been as much as 30% off, especially in smaller elections through which nearly all politicians must pass, and that just passes the buck to securing polls. To dispel any naive ideas that polls would tell us about tampering. And that's in countries where people can answer those polls with relatively little worry. Imagine the disparity if they feared a militia would find they voted wrong and execute them. That's not a hypothetical. Voting systems must be resistant to such circumstances, because they may befall your country as well.