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I wonder what an ideal solution might look like. I kind of envision the Federal government funding a small organization overseeing an open source "election soft
by CobrastanJorji 4y ago
I wonder what an ideal solution might look like. I kind of envision the Federal government funding a small organization overseeing an open source "election software" system, which would be run on some sort of well-defined stock hardware. The government would periodically pay for the hardware and software combination to be audited against a variety of attacks. The machines would produce standardized audit logs, published as openly as possible (someone smarter than me should figure out whether it's safe or good to publish the times or votes or the votes themselves. I'm leaning towards yes to both, but I'm concerned that you could figure out someone's vote if you knew the timestamps of the individual votes). Security researchers could purchase the hardware, install the software on it, and analyze it on their own. Then you'd do the same thing for the vote tabulators or whatever hardware and software exists asides from the voting machines themselves.
Then I think about what might look like a nice halfway point. Voting machine software is still written by companies, but we require that all software running on a voting machine be published and hermetically reproducible. They don't have to take pull requests, they still own it, but we should be able to open one up and be 100% sure that the software running on it is exactly what they've documented.
- rgrieselhuber 4y agoPaper
- autoexec 4y agoPaper really is the best hardware platform for voting. Scantron results are nice because they are fast, so people can find out results quickly, but they are also able to be verified against the physical record which is far more important.
- pjmorris 4y agoPaper ballots counted in public is the strongest system we've found so far.
- hedora 4y agoIf you aren't convinced that paper is the right choice, look at exit poll vs official tally studies for US presidential elections starting in 2000. It turns out that the discrepancies are almost always in districts without paper trails, and always favor one party. Unsurprisingly, the discrepancies favor the party that keeps blocking federal voting machine standards.
- nimbius 4y agomake it a highly promoted position in the space force. we did this with AEGIS stuff and the navy, as well as SPAWAR and SCC software, and it was generally quite successful. release early and often, and always AGPL3. consider pull requests to be a civic minded thing and recognize courageous and hard working citizens who find security bugs and flaws in the code.
- danielheath 4y agoIn Australia, the senate vote-counting software is written by the AEC. It's closed source and they've fought FOI requests to get access. All we have been able to find out is that it's written in visual basic 6. https://www.theguardian.com/world/2014/jul/04/aec-threatens-to-have-foi-applicant-declared-vexatious-after-two-requests https://www.theguardian.com/world/2014/jul/04/aec-threatens-...
- buscoquadnary 4y agoWell you can tell that it isn't an Atlassian product, because you can know the results within a week. If they used an Atlassian product the total count page would return right around the same time the next election started.
- rmason 4y agoWere you aware that Konnech has an Australian subsidiary? It's right on their website. Doesn't mention specific clients there or total number of employees. I am a East Lansing local so I spent some time today on their website ;<). https://konnech.com.au https://konnech.com.au - it appears to not be responding now
- airtonix 4y ago
- CrazyPyroLinux 4y ago> All we have been able to find out is that it's written in visual basic 6. That alone should already tell you everything you need to know...