They should start with Rand Waltzman's presentation at DEFCON (link above). In sum, USGOV is still totally unprepared for information warfare ops ongoing and intended.
About 1/2 through this video the content is the best I've ever watched from DEFCON, period.
There's a part where Rand says he was asked to provide questions for the congressional Facebook hearing. He said he was shocked when his questions were not used and instead "stupid" questions were asked. I'm not sure if he meant this sarcastically or not, but isn't it clear, especially to someone like Rand being an expert in disinformation and related areas, that the questions were likely deliberately not asked? I'm not sure why he was shocked.
No, it isn't. However, let's assume it is. If you don't pay your (separate and presumably uncontroversial) federal taxes, you become a felon and legally disenfranchised. It becomes clear this is all a minor accounting detail.
Do we have any evidence that non-citizens voting is an actual problem, or are you just spreading FUD?
The GP has linked some well sourced articles about how voter ID laws have been used for primarily racist purposes in the US. Do you have any evidence that supports another narrative?
Racist? Where the hell does that come from? Why would any particular race not be able to produce legal documentation confirming their identity at a poll booth?
This is not a difficult topic, nor is it a very nuanced one; voter ID laws in the United States are and have been overwhelmingly racist. The answers to your questions are very much easily at hand, and we don't need to argue in ignorance. I understand it can be frustrating to see evidence that you are unprepared for; yet in order to have substantive conversations, we must be ready for such evidence, and consider it when it is present.
I'm willing to have an earnest, extended conversation with you. On the other hand, you are immediately unwilling to personally support the basic premise of your proposed argument.
This is very curious; perhaps you are a dishonest actor with a knowingly unsound argument. (This is my natural and rational suspicion, please take no offense!)
11% of U.S. citizens – or more than 21 million Americans – do not have government-issued photo identification.
These voters are disproportionately low-income, racial and ethnic minorities, the elderly, and people with disabilities. Such voters more frequently have difficulty obtaining ID, because they cannot afford or cannot obtain the underlying documents that are a prerequisite to obtaining government-issued photo ID card.
I grew up in a poor, predominantly black inner-city. I and everyone I knew had an ID card, if not just to buy alcohol.
People who don't participate in our society enough to acquire basic documentation required for not living on the streets are overwhelmingly not interested in voting (this accounts for a sliver of the roughly half of the nation that didn't bother to participate in the last presidential election.) If you have the means and will to visit a poll booth, you have it to get an ID, unless there are legitimately disqualifying circumstances. If you believe this isn't the case, you should be lobbying explicitly to get these people ID's more easily, not to remove the requirement at the poll booth. This documentation is already required for virtually everything else; these (hypothetical) people need your help.
Yes, I've heard this bromide for a very long time -- my whole life, really.
It's an outrageous lie.
The only people it disenfranchises are those who would seek to stuff the ballot with illegal votes. Think of how many people it ENABLES by not having Voter ID.
That issue is not discussed in these articles, it's just dismissed as there not being any evidence. Wow, great reporting! Zero zilch nada? Not a scrap?
Do you think some of these journalists would do their job and look for some? It's not really hard to find. Look, I found one! I bet there's more, too.
If your argument is that Voter ID disproportionately affects "minorities and people of color" then I would say you should re-evaluate the way you think about these people.
I spent many years in some of the harshest places in the Bronx and I can tell you that the issues people face in these communities are not issues about getting government IDs.
Moreover, would not the voice of minorities and people of color be MOST at risk? Shouldn't we do everything we can to make sure their votes are not canceled by illegal voting?
PS, here is a short list of other countries that have Voter ID.
That's just propaganda based on speculation about what the "other side" intends with voter ID laws. People want voter ID laws so that non citizens can't vote. This is the reason why many developed countries around the world have some form of voter ID.
Of course the desires of a few obscure people are irrelevant to the actual merits of voter ID. There are some Democrats who support immigration because they hate white people and want to "Brown" the country. Does that mean immigration is automatically a bad thing? Of course not.
Policies must be judged on their merits, not the reasons people support them.
The discussion over paper vs. electronic ballots tends to miss many of the largest issues in election security. DHS is correct in pointing out that we need a focus on the larger landscape of election support infrastructure. Notably, electronic pollbooks are a very important part of the voting system which cannot readily be replaced with a non-digital solution. Simply switching to paper ballots reduces the problem, but does not by any means eliminate it.
Calls for paper ballots also tend to get muddled up in the realities of how ballots are counted. When paper ballots are used, they are virtually always still counted by computer using an OMR. A precinct tabulating solution, which is widely used in the US right now, simply moves the OMR from the central election office out into the polling place, and is broadly equivalent from a security perspective to what most people would call a "pure paper" solution except that the environmental exposure of the OMRs is higher because of their presence in field voting locations. However, security measures used to protect centralized OMR in jurisdictions without precinct tabulators are not necessarily any better than OMRs out in the field. In fact, precinct tabulators are generally built with significantly improved anti-tamper mechanisms compared to the older central tabulators. These measures aren't perfect of course, but it is a matter of tamper seals, cryptographic signatures, and audit tapes used by precinct tabulators as compared to absolutely no anti-tamper measures in many centralized tabulators used by jurisdictions with what many people would call "completely non-digital" voting.
While it is possible to tally the ballots by hand without the assistance of OMR, and there are organizations which advocate for this, it is an extremely expensive proposal and it's actually fairly hard to argue that it is superior to a well operated OMR approach - even in the case of hand-tallying of ballots, audit recount should still be performed to ensure accuracy and integrity in the (recently recruited online, poorly paid, minimally trained, and very hurried) election officials.
Digital records kept by precinct tabulators are audited using the paper ballots. These machines read and retain the voter's original ballot for later inspection. if the ballot is machine-marked (done for voters with certain sensory/mobility limitations) the paper copy is produced for the voter's (or assister's) inspection prior to tabulation.
This is perhaps the #1 misunderstanding of electronic voting technology that I encounter and frustrates me endlessly: the most widely used electronic voting method in the US, precinct tabulators, are a paper-ballot based system. The only change from the "traditional" approach to voting in the US is that the OMR is moved from the county elections office to the precinct polling place, which simplifies handling of the paper ballots. The paper ballots remain the "source of truth" and are retained for audit, the machine just tabulates the ballots immediately after the voter turning them in, instead of a courier delivering the ballot box to the central office for tabulation. Precinct tabulators include multiple safeguards against tampering which are far from perfect but reasonably effective against most common attacks - ultimately the safeguard against tampering is the same as it always has been, that the ballot box must be kept under watch of sworn election officials to protect the integrity of the paper ballots. Exact handling of the ballot boxes vary by jurisdiction, in this state they are entrusted to the state court system for retention for several years and can be retrieved and opened for auditing by order of a judge.
Risk models for precinct tabulators are generally ballot stuffing, tampering with software in the supply chain, tampering with election configuration, or tampering with an individual OMR, such as in the polling place (this is by far the case that gets the most attention, even the security community seems to have largely not noticed the first three). Ballot stuffing is generally prevented by use of a machine "unlock" procedure (using a cryptographic token in the most common system) and review of the paper audit tape against the pollbook and/or voting permits generated by the pollbook (number of ballots on tape must match number of issued permits and the number of voters recorded as voted by the pollbook, these are independent checks in my jurisdiction although they should always be equivalent - checking both ways is actually a means of auditing the pollbook). Tampering with individual tabulators is relatively easily discovered by auditing the ballots using a different machine, which is the normal recount process in this jurisdiction. Tampering with tabulator configuration (likely by compromise of the election management system used to program the machines) can be detected by inspecting the paper audit tapes which include the machine configuration, which is normally conducted by a university political science department in this jurisdiction. This political science department also inspects the audit tape totals to audit the central office tabulation where the machine counts are added.
Tampering with tabulator software in the supply chain is by far the most difficult and concerning case. In every case I have ever seen, tabulators are never connected to the internet. However, they are connected to a configuration system which may be internet connected, and could offer a (not easy but possible) route to tampering with their software. It is more likely that such tampering would occur prior to delivery of the machine or perhaps during storage. If done carefully it could be very difficult to detect by any audit method except for a hand-count of ballots. In this jurisdiction and, according to NCSL in the majority of US states, a hand-count is performed on a subset of ballots as part of the normal post-election audit process, and should detect this type of tampering unless the effect is very small.
To be clear, some direct recording electronic or DRE machines are a major concern because there is no paper ballot for...
Hand tallying of paper is used in Australia and works quite well. Sure, elections are expensive, but any change of government is. Better to do it once properly, than have an entire administration plagued by tampering accusations.
It also creates great temp jobs. Whenever there is an election the AEC (Australian Electoral Commission) puts out ads for jobs on the day. The requirements (and they check this!) are that you cannot be affiliated with a party, and cannot have a public history of being involved in politics etc. You get paid a great casual hourly rate, and you can either by a polling official on the day (usher, handing out ballots), or a vote counter at night. Or if you've done it before you can be a supervisor. Each political party is allowed to appoint one scrutineer to watch the counting per-polling place to make sure that it is fair. To my knowledge there has never been an accusation of cheating or tampering in this system.
Hand-counting certainly is possible, and there are places in the US where it is still the regular process. However, besides the high cost of bringing on a sufficient number of temp employees (additionally complicated by the typical requirements that ballots be counted under supervision of both major parties), it's a real concern on the mind of election officials that hand counting is appreciably less accurate than automated tabulation. It's possible to multiply count ballots (e.g. count each batch twice and average results) but the general attitude is that ballot counts must be absolutely correct and any discrepancy prompts a complete recount. This results in a need to have each ballot individually entered by two people and compared one-for-one... the process is quite time consuming even for the relatively small number of ballots that are hand-counted in this jurisdiction due to damage that prevents the tabulators accepting them.
Finally, there is the simple problem that the voter is not able to see their ballot tabulated "before their eyes," which is standard enough in most US jurisdictions that voters can get frustrated or worried if it isn't the case (e.g. due to a provisional ballot where the registration must be investigated before it can be tabulated, something that is thankfully becoming uncommon due to same-day voter registration). Once you're used to casting your ballot and "waiting for the ding and green light," it's a bit worrying to see it just stuffed in a canvas pouch.
This definitely isn't a problem that can't be overcome, but I think to some extent comes down to the culture of election administration, which is that everything must be absolutely correct to the individual ballot, and as much as possible should be done directly in the polling place (since that's where most of the independent observers/challengers/scrutineers are located).
Or they hand you a pen with disappearing ink. You'd have to use your own pen to prevent that. But how can it be trusted by the government that your pen hasn't been replaced?
Here in the UK we still use paper and pencils and while you can still mess with individual votes it isn't something that scales... not like running a DB query:
UPDATE tbl_Vote SET Candidate = [The one that paid us the most] WHERE State = [State Name]
when viewed from a sludge-money lens (a la the F35) electronic voting and election security seem largely working as intended:
- we know paper works (Canada/UK) so there must be an ulterior motive for pushing on tech solution so hard
- money gets sent to various entities under the guise of tech, security, freedom, etc. (contracts for voting machines, contracts for software, etc.). this basically gives some limited air cover for transfer of funds to entities
- it nicely feeds into itself: defensive work always needs to keep up with (real or imagined) offensive threats so basically unlimited amounts can be spent without too much eye rolling
- it is basically a get out of jail free card for both political parties in the future: "elections were hacked" is bipartisan and can be a useful tool to defeat/deny access to popular party outsiders on both parties, as opposed to a genuine candidate blowing up the system (Sanders?)
- any foreign entity can be conveniently used if e.g. need to get a quick war going to distract the plebs from, say, medical parasitism or offshoring jobs
Judging from Iowa, I imagine that some primary Sanders wins will claim to have been hacked by Russians. Democratic Party operatives were already doing false flag “Kremlin” stuff during the Doug Jones race in Alabama:
>>- we know paper works (Canada/UK) so there must be an ulterior motive for pushing on tech solution so hard
Works sure, efficient no, and largely one of the reason for low participation rates (though far from the only)
That said none of the "tech" solutions that simply replace paper ballots at a polling place with a Touch Screen at a polling place would be what I desire from a "tech" solution to voting
The rest of your points are largely true, though on the money never discount the power of incompetence when it comes to government, they way government contracts are "awarded" attracts the most incompetent people in any industry for if they were competent they would not need government contracts
How is it not efficient? Elections Canada figures out how to count ballots in a few hours. 95% of the work of putting on an election is setting up, and running the polling stations. Using an electronic system is not going to make that 95% any easier.
The only thing that would make it easier, is purely mail-in ballots, like in Washington State.
> and largely one of the reason for low participation rates (though far from the only)
It is not efficient for the people voting. More than 1 election I simply skipped because I did not want to find my polling place, stand in line, and then vote
Take this up with your government - electronic voting systems isn't the solution for this... making a huge deal over states when they cut the number of polling places is. It is super depressing that AZ[1] wasn't rung through the wringer by public outrage over their polling place shenanigans in the last election - both winners and losers should care about the accessibility of voting.
Also it's about time for election day to become a national holiday - as a former Vermonter I always enjoyed participating in Town Meeting Day, giving people a day off to participate in government is a strictly good thing.
It is important to keep in mind that using what is often called a "voting convenience center" model where a voter can appear at any precinct instead of only their own precinct essentially requires the use of a computerized pollbook, since the pollbook needs to be kept in sync across all locations to prevent double-voting at two locations. This isn't much of a difference since computer pollbooks are already nearly universal, but the computer pollbook is a risk surface for election interference that's largely overlooked by the public discussion - I think it's a major mistake that the public discussion focuses essentially only on the voting tabulation itself when often the supporting systems (pollbook, election management system, communications) are far more poorly secured. Defects in them tend to be easier to detect since there is less of an element of secrecy, but consider the chaos that could be caused by a malicious actor simply taking the pollbook offline, or the subtle manipulation that might go unnoticed if a malicious actor gained access to the pollbook and invalidated the voter registrations of people in an area and demographic making them likely to vote for a particular party... if the right number of people were chosen, you might be able to influence the outcome of the election without invalidating so many people's registrations that the election administrator can't wave it off as people who thought they were registered and weren't. This could be especially effective if you targeted an economically disadvantaged group which tend to have a harder time with their voter registrations anyway due to frequent address changes.
Move to Washington and mail it in. But to be honest, you have an obligation as a citizen to do whatever you have to do to vote and I’m not too sympathetic to people without a disability saying it’s too hard to get out of the house when I see other people standing outside in the cold and rain for hours to do it.
I don't think that's helpful, especially when your country goes out of its way to make the process difficult and discourage participation, which the US has certainly been guilty of in the past.
There are some pretty hard, potentially unsolvable, problems around electronic voting around guaranteeing the ability to vote and guaranteeing the accurate record of voting - these problems aren't unique to electronics but paper & person systems have pretty good ways to protecting against system abuse by being incredibly inconveniently distributed, having known actors that can face legal pressure, relying on our existing social systems to increase the difficulty in compromising the system and, lastly, having thinking components that can act in isolation to solve problems independently including those we can't anticipate.
"Tech" exacerbates those issues while not offering a lot in exchange, the big two I can think of is accessibility (which, honestly, look at Washington state's system for a counterpoint there - though it is limited in how many states are that good) and quick vote tallying.
I just don't see the point - have automatic counting machines, allow tech to help inform voters (provide a blurb on the candidates or dedicate a gov't organization to providing some structured data around political stances), allow easy confirmation of registration and auto-enroll eligible voters... just... keep the ballots dead simple.
Keep in mind that mail-in ballots are counted by centralized OMR which generally provide the voter less assurance that their vote was successfully tabulated than a precinct tabulation system. For example, a mail-in ballot that is erroneously marked or overvoted (too many choices in a race) may need to be simply discarded for that question, while a precinct tabulator will reject such a ballot and return it to the voter for correction or to be spoiled (replaced). Mail-in voting systems also generally use a permit system to allow voters to check online that their ballot was received, but the need to maintain a secret ballot means that permits (actually the outer envelope usually) and ballots are separated at tabulation and so mail-in voters have less assurance that their ballot actually made it to the tabulator than voters in precinct tabulation jurisdictions where they insert it themselves.
All of this said, the convenience and accessibility of mail-in voting is extremely beneficial and so an ideal solution may be a hybrid arrangement in which voters have the option of mailing in their ballots or submitting them for immediate tabulation at a precinct or early polling location. This system actually exists in several states although the "mail-in option" tends to actually be an extension of absentee voting (basically, you are allowed to vote absentee by mail even if you just want your ballot sent to your own house inside of the jurisdiction), but awareness of the mail-in voting option could be significantly improved.
Agreed, I see a lot of "if Estonia can do online voting, why can't we?" When I talk to some of these people, who work in the SV as software engineers, I realize not everyone has a wide ranging context on security and privacy. Not everyone religiously attends or watches DEFCON presentations...
There is also a continuous push to make results available faster, basically instantly. The media is as guilty as everyone else here. Like we can't wait for a few days for results.
Lastly reducing the amount of total paid workers and volunteers in the field to reduce costs likely looks like a shiny object in many managers eyes.
> not everyone has a wide ranging context on security and privacy
Hey, it sounds like you just came up with an excellent screening question for interviewing potential software developers for any project with security and/or privacy requirements.
"Do you think electronic voting is a good idea?" A "yes" answer would suggest strongly that the candidate does not have a deep understanding of software security and privacy issues.
UK and Canada are parliamentary systems so most ballots are one page. Most of those are just a single question with one selection permitted.
In the US the ballot I get in my polling place depends on where I live and sometimes what party I am registered with. My ballot will likely be different than the next person in line. That ballot is many pages with numerous questions per page. And for about half of the questions I am permitted more than one selection.
Machines are a good aid here for this system. Verifiable paper tallies are good for election security though.
What you describe is not that different from Australia's preferential system afaict, aside from people at one district potentially having different ballots.
Australian ballots are not always simple, and you vote for your local representative so each district has a different one. Often you will have multiple ballots to complete, and some have the choice between above or below the line voting (where above you select some preferences and below you select all preferences, where all may be over 100 boxes).
Parties often hand out small leaflets outside the voting locations with instructions for above the line voting, which is typically a list of around 6 preferences in order.
Despite this, voting in Australia is done with paper, and we have live coverage with real-time counts on election night. Paper works quite well, computers really aren't necessary.
Australia is always a curveball! I've wondered how a precinct counts those ballots, especially if some people vote below the line. I hope someone with experience comments here.
Thanks, I'm still confused but it seems in essence before counting they make an educated guess of the two likely winners and first count with that in mind and only do a more complicated tally if it ends-up mathematically possible for one of the others to still come-out on top.
This is one of the very weird things about the US system, that somewhere in reconstruction the parties were effectively nationalised and allowed to use state-run election infrastructure.
The concept of "registered for party X" doesn't exist in European systems. The state has no business running internal party affairs, they can select their own candidates.
This situation can be remarkably complex. In my county of around half a million people there can be over five hundred distinct ballot types in some elections. The underlying reason for this is election consolidation, in which elections held by different authorities using different voting districts are all combined into one ballot for the voter's convenience.
For example, in many areas the school district legally conducts separate elections based on separate precincts. But, no one is excited to take a separate trip to the polling place just for the school district election, which results in very low turnout. To improve turnout and save money, the school district questions are combined onto the same ballot as the municipal election - but two voters in the same municipal election precinct may be in different school district precincts. Imagine how this challenge multiplies as you add soil and water conservation districts, judicial districts, economic development areas, county issues, etc.
In Canada voters at the same polling place get the same ballot only because there are enough polling places that local district seats will always be larger than polling catchment areas.
Last election I walked into my polling place six minutes before my bus was supposed to arrive right out front and caught my bus.
Skimping on costs when it comes to elections is pretty silly - it makes sense to make sure there isn't rampant corruption but people have enough reasons not to vote that adding inconvenience to the list can be quite discouraging.
In the US voting occurs during a workday and so there is a significant push towards 'voting convenience' or 'non-precinct voting' where a voter may appear at any polling place instead of only at their designated precinct. This is a huge advantage for voters but requires that ballots be either selected from a large supply or printed on-site for each voter. This effectively requires the use of a computerized pollbook.
The additional problem with election security is distinguishing between the parts of the corruption that are local, protected and untouchable; the parts done by foreign actors at the behest of the local untouchables; and the parts done by foreign actors on their own initiative against the local elites.
Introduction of electronic voting in the US was primarily motivated by the Help America Vote Act of 2002 which required that election authorities more effectively accommodate the needs of voters with sensory and mobility needs. Previously used election methods were generally inoperable by individuals with such disabilities unless they had a second person enter their votes for them, which is considered a compromise of the right to a secret ballot. Electronic voting systems offer extensive accessibility modes designed for voters who are vision impaired and/or have limited mobility, such as reading the ballot aloud and supporting a sip/puff or two-paddle input device. As I discuss in more length in another comment it is quite possible to meet these needs using a paper ballot system (by use of a ballot marking machine or BMM which may be integrated into the tabulator), but direct recording electronic (DRE) systems are less expensive to operate and in some cases purchase. So, unfortunately, many election authorities, forced by HAVA to replace their equipment on an extremely limited budget, opted for the cheapest option. These election authorities now cannot afford a complete replacement of their voting systems and so may be "locked in" to a DRE system by their vendor.
To improve US elections administration, it is imperative to address the severe funding limitations faced by most election authorities that may leave them little or no choice over the methods they use.
Interesting that the DHS response to all 3 points is that they concur, but for all 3 points the resolution the Department points to is a document called the #Protect2020 Strategic Plan, which will supposedly be released on Feb 14th.
Is that actually enough time for the guidance within to be implemented?
Elections are managed by the states and, in some states, almost all aspects are deferred to the counties. There is currently no standardized framework for elections system security on a national level and it is difficult to implement one for political reasons. DHS has moved in the direction of producing guidance, but it is my hope that a mandatory framework can be introduced.
There is every incentive in the world to do whatever one wants to our elections right now. It's a free-for-all of bad, patchwork technologies, zero oversight, and a political establishment that is openly encouraging nation state interference.
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[ 0.50 ms ] story [ 139 ms ] threadThey should start with Rand Waltzman's presentation at DEFCON (link above). In sum, USGOV is still totally unprepared for information warfare ops ongoing and intended.
About 1/2 through this video the content is the best I've ever watched from DEFCON, period.
There's a part where Rand says he was asked to provide questions for the congressional Facebook hearing. He said he was shocked when his questions were not used and instead "stupid" questions were asked. I'm not sure if he meant this sarcastically or not, but isn't it clear, especially to someone like Rand being an expert in disinformation and related areas, that the questions were likely deliberately not asked? I'm not sure why he was shocked.
https://youtu.be/cruh2p_Wh_4?t=5
https://youtu.be/qLe9CW_jSw4
https://youtu.be/mRZS-w36IvQ
1. Voter ID 2. Paper ballot electronically counted, paper stored as backup for any disputes or recounts. 3. No digital / computerized voting machines.
https://www.nytimes.com/2016/09/17/us/some-republicans-ackno...
https://www.theguardian.com/us-news/2019/dec/21/trump-advise...
The GP has linked some well sourced articles about how voter ID laws have been used for primarily racist purposes in the US. Do you have any evidence that supports another narrative?
This is not a difficult topic, nor is it a very nuanced one; voter ID laws in the United States are and have been overwhelmingly racist. The answers to your questions are very much easily at hand, and we don't need to argue in ignorance. I understand it can be frustrating to see evidence that you are unprepared for; yet in order to have substantive conversations, we must be ready for such evidence, and consider it when it is present.
This is very curious; perhaps you are a dishonest actor with a knowingly unsound argument. (This is my natural and rational suspicion, please take no offense!)
Or are there conditions here you're omitting that distinguish heroism from banditry? I say I am entitled to my franchise, sir!
https://fivethirtyeight.com/features/what-we-know-about-vote...
11% of U.S. citizens – or more than 21 million Americans – do not have government-issued photo identification.
These voters are disproportionately low-income, racial and ethnic minorities, the elderly, and people with disabilities. Such voters more frequently have difficulty obtaining ID, because they cannot afford or cannot obtain the underlying documents that are a prerequisite to obtaining government-issued photo ID card.
https://www.aclu.org/other/oppose-voter-id-legislation-fact-...
Some Republicans Acknowledge Leveraging Voter ID Laws for Political Gain
https://www.nytimes.com/2016/09/17/us/some-republicans-ackno...
People who don't participate in our society enough to acquire basic documentation required for not living on the streets are overwhelmingly not interested in voting (this accounts for a sliver of the roughly half of the nation that didn't bother to participate in the last presidential election.) If you have the means and will to visit a poll booth, you have it to get an ID, unless there are legitimately disqualifying circumstances. If you believe this isn't the case, you should be lobbying explicitly to get these people ID's more easily, not to remove the requirement at the poll booth. This documentation is already required for virtually everything else; these (hypothetical) people need your help.
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Voter_Identification_laws#Norw...
I would make a note that a majority of the Nordic countries like Sweden, Norway, and Iceland ALL require some form of ID when voting.
Some of them even have compulsory national IDs, obviously that changes the dynamics of the situation entirely.
And they also don't have the 24th amendment.
I would bet the number of voters who are disenfranchised there is > 0
It's an outrageous lie.
The only people it disenfranchises are those who would seek to stuff the ballot with illegal votes. Think of how many people it ENABLES by not having Voter ID.
That issue is not discussed in these articles, it's just dismissed as there not being any evidence. Wow, great reporting! Zero zilch nada? Not a scrap?
Do you think some of these journalists would do their job and look for some? It's not really hard to find. Look, I found one! I bet there's more, too.
https://www.realclearpolitics.com/video/2016/10/18/project_v...
If your argument is that Voter ID disproportionately affects "minorities and people of color" then I would say you should re-evaluate the way you think about these people.
I spent many years in some of the harshest places in the Bronx and I can tell you that the issues people face in these communities are not issues about getting government IDs.
Moreover, would not the voice of minorities and people of color be MOST at risk? Shouldn't we do everything we can to make sure their votes are not canceled by illegal voting?
PS, here is a short list of other countries that have Voter ID.
Mexico India Greece Argentina Canada Brazil
https://www.nytimes.com/2016/09/17/us/some-republicans-ackno...
Policies must be judged on their merits, not the reasons people support them.
Calls for paper ballots also tend to get muddled up in the realities of how ballots are counted. When paper ballots are used, they are virtually always still counted by computer using an OMR. A precinct tabulating solution, which is widely used in the US right now, simply moves the OMR from the central election office out into the polling place, and is broadly equivalent from a security perspective to what most people would call a "pure paper" solution except that the environmental exposure of the OMRs is higher because of their presence in field voting locations. However, security measures used to protect centralized OMR in jurisdictions without precinct tabulators are not necessarily any better than OMRs out in the field. In fact, precinct tabulators are generally built with significantly improved anti-tamper mechanisms compared to the older central tabulators. These measures aren't perfect of course, but it is a matter of tamper seals, cryptographic signatures, and audit tapes used by precinct tabulators as compared to absolutely no anti-tamper measures in many centralized tabulators used by jurisdictions with what many people would call "completely non-digital" voting.
While it is possible to tally the ballots by hand without the assistance of OMR, and there are organizations which advocate for this, it is an extremely expensive proposal and it's actually fairly hard to argue that it is superior to a well operated OMR approach - even in the case of hand-tallying of ballots, audit recount should still be performed to ensure accuracy and integrity in the (recently recruited online, poorly paid, minimally trained, and very hurried) election officials.
This is perhaps the #1 misunderstanding of electronic voting technology that I encounter and frustrates me endlessly: the most widely used electronic voting method in the US, precinct tabulators, are a paper-ballot based system. The only change from the "traditional" approach to voting in the US is that the OMR is moved from the county elections office to the precinct polling place, which simplifies handling of the paper ballots. The paper ballots remain the "source of truth" and are retained for audit, the machine just tabulates the ballots immediately after the voter turning them in, instead of a courier delivering the ballot box to the central office for tabulation. Precinct tabulators include multiple safeguards against tampering which are far from perfect but reasonably effective against most common attacks - ultimately the safeguard against tampering is the same as it always has been, that the ballot box must be kept under watch of sworn election officials to protect the integrity of the paper ballots. Exact handling of the ballot boxes vary by jurisdiction, in this state they are entrusted to the state court system for retention for several years and can be retrieved and opened for auditing by order of a judge.
Risk models for precinct tabulators are generally ballot stuffing, tampering with software in the supply chain, tampering with election configuration, or tampering with an individual OMR, such as in the polling place (this is by far the case that gets the most attention, even the security community seems to have largely not noticed the first three). Ballot stuffing is generally prevented by use of a machine "unlock" procedure (using a cryptographic token in the most common system) and review of the paper audit tape against the pollbook and/or voting permits generated by the pollbook (number of ballots on tape must match number of issued permits and the number of voters recorded as voted by the pollbook, these are independent checks in my jurisdiction although they should always be equivalent - checking both ways is actually a means of auditing the pollbook). Tampering with individual tabulators is relatively easily discovered by auditing the ballots using a different machine, which is the normal recount process in this jurisdiction. Tampering with tabulator configuration (likely by compromise of the election management system used to program the machines) can be detected by inspecting the paper audit tapes which include the machine configuration, which is normally conducted by a university political science department in this jurisdiction. This political science department also inspects the audit tape totals to audit the central office tabulation where the machine counts are added.
Tampering with tabulator software in the supply chain is by far the most difficult and concerning case. In every case I have ever seen, tabulators are never connected to the internet. However, they are connected to a configuration system which may be internet connected, and could offer a (not easy but possible) route to tampering with their software. It is more likely that such tampering would occur prior to delivery of the machine or perhaps during storage. If done carefully it could be very difficult to detect by any audit method except for a hand-count of ballots. In this jurisdiction and, according to NCSL in the majority of US states, a hand-count is performed on a subset of ballots as part of the normal post-election audit process, and should detect this type of tampering unless the effect is very small.
To be clear, some direct recording electronic or DRE machines are a major concern because there is no paper ballot for...
http://rbrua3v80lj2rulsf7iqfnpmf.wpengine.netdna-cdn.com/wp-...
It also creates great temp jobs. Whenever there is an election the AEC (Australian Electoral Commission) puts out ads for jobs on the day. The requirements (and they check this!) are that you cannot be affiliated with a party, and cannot have a public history of being involved in politics etc. You get paid a great casual hourly rate, and you can either by a polling official on the day (usher, handing out ballots), or a vote counter at night. Or if you've done it before you can be a supervisor. Each political party is allowed to appoint one scrutineer to watch the counting per-polling place to make sure that it is fair. To my knowledge there has never been an accusation of cheating or tampering in this system.
Finally, there is the simple problem that the voter is not able to see their ballot tabulated "before their eyes," which is standard enough in most US jurisdictions that voters can get frustrated or worried if it isn't the case (e.g. due to a provisional ballot where the registration must be investigated before it can be tabulated, something that is thankfully becoming uncommon due to same-day voter registration). Once you're used to casting your ballot and "waiting for the ding and green light," it's a bit worrying to see it just stuffed in a canvas pouch.
This definitely isn't a problem that can't be overcome, but I think to some extent comes down to the culture of election administration, which is that everything must be absolutely correct to the individual ballot, and as much as possible should be done directly in the polling place (since that's where most of the independent observers/challengers/scrutineers are located).
UPDATE tbl_Vote SET Candidate = [The one that paid us the most] WHERE State = [State Name]
- we know paper works (Canada/UK) so there must be an ulterior motive for pushing on tech solution so hard
- money gets sent to various entities under the guise of tech, security, freedom, etc. (contracts for voting machines, contracts for software, etc.). this basically gives some limited air cover for transfer of funds to entities
- it nicely feeds into itself: defensive work always needs to keep up with (real or imagined) offensive threats so basically unlimited amounts can be spent without too much eye rolling
- it is basically a get out of jail free card for both political parties in the future: "elections were hacked" is bipartisan and can be a useful tool to defeat/deny access to popular party outsiders on both parties, as opposed to a genuine candidate blowing up the system (Sanders?)
- any foreign entity can be conveniently used if e.g. need to get a quick war going to distract the plebs from, say, medical parasitism or offshoring jobs
https://thegrayzone.com/2019/01/23/how-new-york-times-scott-...
Works sure, efficient no, and largely one of the reason for low participation rates (though far from the only)
That said none of the "tech" solutions that simply replace paper ballots at a polling place with a Touch Screen at a polling place would be what I desire from a "tech" solution to voting
The rest of your points are largely true, though on the money never discount the power of incompetence when it comes to government, they way government contracts are "awarded" attracts the most incompetent people in any industry for if they were competent they would not need government contracts
as the old saying goes...
If you can... do
If you cant.. Teach
If you cant teach... Work for the government
How is it not efficient? Elections Canada figures out how to count ballots in a few hours. 95% of the work of putting on an election is setting up, and running the polling stations. Using an electronic system is not going to make that 95% any easier.
The only thing that would make it easier, is purely mail-in ballots, like in Washington State.
> and largely one of the reason for low participation rates (though far from the only)
Canada has a 5-15% higher voter turnout rate.
It is not efficient for the people voting. More than 1 election I simply skipped because I did not want to find my polling place, stand in line, and then vote
I want a Polling Place free Voting system
Also it's about time for election day to become a national holiday - as a former Vermonter I always enjoyed participating in Town Meeting Day, giving people a day off to participate in government is a strictly good thing.
1. https://www.azcentral.com/story/news/politics/elections/2016...
They have many polling places, enough that queues aren’t more than a few minutes at the most.
They don’t make the polling places deliberately hard to get to.
They hold elections on a weekend or a public holiday so the flow evens out over the course of the whole day.
Take some responsibility for your country.
1000000000000% disagree, I have zero obligations to society, if I did I would not be a free person, I would be a servant
"Tech" exacerbates those issues while not offering a lot in exchange, the big two I can think of is accessibility (which, honestly, look at Washington state's system for a counterpoint there - though it is limited in how many states are that good) and quick vote tallying.
I just don't see the point - have automatic counting machines, allow tech to help inform voters (provide a blurb on the candidates or dedicate a gov't organization to providing some structured data around political stances), allow easy confirmation of registration and auto-enroll eligible voters... just... keep the ballots dead simple.
I know someone in the industry who thinks software voting will solve the issues. It’s not ulterior motives; People actually believe it will help.
All of this said, the convenience and accessibility of mail-in voting is extremely beneficial and so an ideal solution may be a hybrid arrangement in which voters have the option of mailing in their ballots or submitting them for immediate tabulation at a precinct or early polling location. This system actually exists in several states although the "mail-in option" tends to actually be an extension of absentee voting (basically, you are allowed to vote absentee by mail even if you just want your ballot sent to your own house inside of the jurisdiction), but awareness of the mail-in voting option could be significantly improved.
There is also a continuous push to make results available faster, basically instantly. The media is as guilty as everyone else here. Like we can't wait for a few days for results.
Lastly reducing the amount of total paid workers and volunteers in the field to reduce costs likely looks like a shiny object in many managers eyes.
Hey, it sounds like you just came up with an excellent screening question for interviewing potential software developers for any project with security and/or privacy requirements.
"Do you think electronic voting is a good idea?" A "yes" answer would suggest strongly that the candidate does not have a deep understanding of software security and privacy issues.
In the US the ballot I get in my polling place depends on where I live and sometimes what party I am registered with. My ballot will likely be different than the next person in line. That ballot is many pages with numerous questions per page. And for about half of the questions I am permitted more than one selection.
Machines are a good aid here for this system. Verifiable paper tallies are good for election security though.
Australian ballots are not always simple, and you vote for your local representative so each district has a different one. Often you will have multiple ballots to complete, and some have the choice between above or below the line voting (where above you select some preferences and below you select all preferences, where all may be over 100 boxes).
Parties often hand out small leaflets outside the voting locations with instructions for above the line voting, which is typically a list of around 6 preferences in order.
Despite this, voting in Australia is done with paper, and we have live coverage with real-time counts on election night. Paper works quite well, computers really aren't necessary.
https://www.aec.gov.au/voting/counting/
This is one of the very weird things about the US system, that somewhere in reconstruction the parties were effectively nationalised and allowed to use state-run election infrastructure.
The concept of "registered for party X" doesn't exist in European systems. The state has no business running internal party affairs, they can select their own candidates.
For example, in many areas the school district legally conducts separate elections based on separate precincts. But, no one is excited to take a separate trip to the polling place just for the school district election, which results in very low turnout. To improve turnout and save money, the school district questions are combined onto the same ballot as the municipal election - but two voters in the same municipal election precinct may be in different school district precincts. Imagine how this challenge multiplies as you add soil and water conservation districts, judicial districts, economic development areas, county issues, etc.
Last election I walked into my polling place six minutes before my bus was supposed to arrive right out front and caught my bus.
Skimping on costs when it comes to elections is pretty silly - it makes sense to make sure there isn't rampant corruption but people have enough reasons not to vote that adding inconvenience to the list can be quite discouraging.
There's no need to hack the votes themselves if you can just get a list of opposition voters and just cancel their registrations, for example: https://www.theguardian.com/us-news/2019/dec/28/georgia-voti...
To improve US elections administration, it is imperative to address the severe funding limitations faced by most election authorities that may leave them little or no choice over the methods they use.
Here's the reality: the electronic voting systems are being put in place because they are so easily hackable.
Is that actually enough time for the guidance within to be implemented?
I am deathly afraid for our elections this year.