Hacking Democracy

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Hacking Democracy ~ Chris Pirillo

I believe that the lowest tech, optically verifiable solution is best. The voting machine should present the name and picture of the candidates, the typical short summary of the ballot measure, etc. on the screen. It should provide a verification pass. It should not generate an electronic file. Rather, it should print a machine readable (by OCR) ballot scannable by mark sense machines that have been reliable for decades of SAT testing. The one addition is that the ballot should be printed on a carbonless form that produces two copies–one for the polling place, and one for the voter. No network requirement–take the mark sense paper ballots to be scanned in a central location under guard.
IMHO, it was a mistake to replace the old punch card machines that required the voter to pull a lever at the end after throwing a series of switches. It never seemed to take so long to count all those Hollerith cards. And to all those who want to vote by mail exclusively with no ID requirement, get over it. If you have to show ID to buy a pack of cigarettes or a six pack, and you have to go to the store to get them, why on earth would we ask less of the people who are “enfranchised” to select the governed. We can all be inconvenienced a little one day a year, and we can find enough buildings, volunteers and police to man the locations so that we all get a taste of democracy that day. A dip in purple ink on the index finger after voting wouldn’t hurt, either.

Definitely using open-source software would act a strong defense against tempering, may be I am being a bit too pessimistic but how would someone make sure if the correct software was burned on to the machines.

How does showing someone your code make your software *MORE* safe? Can someone explain how this falacy has come to be believed by our digirati?

Software becomes more safe by planning, due-diligence, and repeated attacks that force patching to make it better. Open-source or not doesn’t really matter. In fact, it might be less secure since a hacker can more easily identify his point of entry among a much larger (identified) attack surface.

This kind of thing just kills me.

See David Brin’s blog entry at:
http://davidbrin.blogspot.com/2006/11/more-laws-part-two-making-government.html
and the subsection THE POLITICAL REFORM ACT: Part One.

It’s silly that it has to be stated but voting and any associated equipment should belong to the American people and not ever be based on any private company’s anything. Open source, constantly reviewed open source, with a paper trail if at all. I’d prefer we just went with paper ballots as they are easily countable, easily verifiable and easy to secure properly. Go ahead, call me a Luddite, but that’s the way I’d prefer.

[...] Hacking Democracy ~ Chris Pirillo (tags: politics democracy) [...]

It’s hard to hack paper. You can steal some ballots but it’s harder to do fraud on a wider scale like computer based balloting, especially with reports from diebold engineers saying their machines are hackable and in some cases have been modified.

see the Sarasota Florida example “The group of nearly 18,000 voters that registered no choice in Sarasota’s disputed congressional election solidly backed Democratic candidates in all five of Florida’s statewide races, an Orlando Sentinel analysis of ballot data shows.”

http://www.orlandosentinel.com/news/local/state/orl-mvote2206nov22,0,1913349.story

Interestingly enough, your new nominee for sec of defence Robert Gates

“was on the board of directors of VoteHere, a strange little company that was the biggest elections industry lobbyist for the Help America Vote Act (HAVA). VoteHere spent more money than ES&S, Diebold, and Sequoia combined to help ram HAVA through. And HAVA, of course, was a bill sponsored by by convicted Abramoff pal Bob Ney and K-street lobbyist buddy Steny Hoyer. HAVA put electronic voting on steroids.”

http://www.freepress.org/departments/display/15/2006/2245

Given the fraud problems in the past I’m suprised that there’s not a stronger push by the public to ban electronic voting and switch to paper.

Computers are solution for many things but not for all things.

IT’S TOOOOOOO LATE NOW ,BUT I WONDER HOW ALL THOSE PEOPLE IN OHIO THINK ABOUT HOW THEIR VOTE WAS MANIPULATED IN THE 2004 VOTE FOR PRESIDENT .

” LOG LIVE DIEBOLD “

A paper hard copy is the only safe way to go. We should each have a voter ID #, just like we each have a social security #. This approach was suggested on the Bill Mahr show and Chris Mathews (hardball) shot it down with the argument that local alderman would be able to find out who the city workers voted for and fire or harrass those who didn’t vote for whom they were (wink,wink) told to. Mr. Mathews is right but he didn’t think it all the way through. By giving these alderman a way to find out who voted for whom, we would also be creating a way to catch these scoundrels who have been subverting our democracy long before the invention of electronic voting machines. This would make our democracy safer. It is just as important for “WE THE PEOPLE” to defeat the reason why most citizens do not vote….lack of a decent choice on the ballot. For those who claim that those who do not vote have no right to complain, I say they have more right to complain because when told they must choose between two crooks (politicians)….they gave the only honorable answer….NO!! It is time for a VALID third party. USAP (united stand against politicians)