Four California counties using electronic voting will have no paper backup

gogov.com ^ | Sept. 8, 2003 | KEVIN COUGHLIN

[BJungNan]

Recent findings suggest the machines -- sometimes called "DRE" machines for Direct Recording Electronic -- are prone to hacking, critics say. Tampering is hard to detect because companies making the machines are secretive about how they work, add the critics.

They prefer a more retro technology: Paper and ink.

Touch screen systems should spit out paper backups, so voters can verify on the spot if their votes were recorded properly, some contend. These paper tallies would be stored by election officials, to match against electronic results for recounts. Rep. Rush Holt (D-12th Dist.), a physicist, is pushing a bill to mandate "paper verification."

In California, some worry that next month's gubernatorial recall vote could be marred by a lack of paper backups.

Nearly 1.5 million Californians may cast ballots on touch screen machines. But in case of mischief or accidental deletions, valid recounts could be frustrated, some say, because four counties provide no paper backups for the machines.

[BJungNan]

No paper back up. Guess the Dems really don't want another Florida 2,000, where even their contortions with recount could not change the outcome. With no paper it will be so much easier for them to steal the election.

[CheneyChick]

Hmmm. Maybe Davis never really won last year.

[CheneyChick]

Weird. First it was the "paper" ballots that are flawed. Now they are complaining that they won't have those as backup to get the "real" numbers. I'm confused.

[Iconoclast2]

Unless we wake up and demand paper backup, we will never be able to tell who really won in any future elections. This is one of the last steps in destroying our Free Republic.

The major media has downplayed severe expert criticism of the voting machines, which in some cases appear to have been designed to allow meddling with the results.

[and the horse you rode in on]

Sooner or later, probably sooner, some hacker no one has ever heard of, living in his mothers basement, will be elected Governor or Senator, and there will be absolutely no legal way to prove it was not legitimate.

[dawn53]

I'm in Florida, our new touch screen voting machines have no paper back-up. We used them in the last election, they were easy, but it feels sort of weird to walk away and know there is no "paper record" of how you voted.

[EggsAckley]

I've been doubting the election of Davis ever since last November. He did not win by a landslide, just by a slim majority.

[CheneyChick]

That would explain the panic on the Left to stop this Recall. As Ann Coulter would say, the "diarrhea panic".

[brydic1]

I just heard on MSNBC that Los Angeles County now says they may not have the new electronic voting in place during 2004. Does that mean that California must set out the Demo Primary in March and maybe the Pres Election in Nov. Wouldn't that be wonderful.

[CheneyChick]

I just heard that Sandra Day O'Connor is out of the country and that Anton Scalia will be reviewing the ruling - via a friend - no source yet. Anyone have this?

[zeugma]

This paperless balloting is one of the greatest threats to our former republic. Once this becomes even somewhat widespread, voting will become even more worthless than it is now.

There has to be a way of validating the results.

[DoctorZIn]

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[CheneyChick]

Sandra Day O'Connor is out of the country and that Anton Scalia will be reviewing the ruling

It was on Rush.

[SpyGuy]

Sooner or later, probably sooner, some hacker no one has ever heard of, living in his mothers basement, will be elected Governor or Senator

No, that's not likely to ever happen (unless the Dems manage to convince the ignorant sheeple that Internet voting would be a good thing). A hacker is neither a god, nor a magician: he can't hack a computer program unless he can "physically" access that program (either in person, or via a remote connection). As long as the voting machines are stand-alone computing devices, or restricted to a secure, private network, then the hacker will not be able to get access to the code to play his mischief.

However, paperless electronic voting is fraught with danger and I am completely opposed to it. It's not the hackers we have to worry about, it's the people/companies that produce the machines and the code, as well as the election officials who program the voting options and monitor the results. Without a paper trail, it will be much too easy to alter the results with to way to audit them.

The reality is, with the size of our voting population, it is far too easy to fraudulently manipulate any election. It has been going on for years with the old system, and will only continue with greater efficiency using the new systems. Unfortunately, even if the new systems provided a paper trail, the fraud will continue and grow.

[and the horse you rode in on]

A hacker is neither a god, nor a magician: he can't hack a computer program unless he can "physically" access that program (either in person, or via a remote connection). As long as the voting machines are stand-alone computing devices, or restricted to a secure, private network, then the hacker will not be able to get access to the code to play his mischief.

And you really believe any programmer wouldn't bury a back door into any such network and firmware "just in case I have to save the nation from itself".
And you really believe no one else would ever find it?

And as you point out, this system makes it increadibly easy for the people counting the votes to get the count they want

[novacation]

I like punch cards. At least there is a record you can hold in your hand. It's too easy to mess up electronic votes, by mistake or fraud.

Tar and feather the 9th and Rosenbaum.This election must go forward. I'm optomistic Shelley will appeal.

[Shermy]

Touch screen systems should spit out paper backups, so voters can verify on the spot if their votes were recorded properly,

Suckers born every minute.

The paper "backup" is no backup at all, just a piece of paper with the verisimilitude of a paper ballot.

These "backups" can't be recounted, and aren't retained by the state. The "backup" is as much a guarantee of my vote being accurately recorded as the PR flack of the voting machine company telling me my vote counted.

[BJungNan]

Interesting about Los Angeles not being ready. What a mess. This one is going to go nationwide. 2004 will be a mess.

[supercat]

I like punch cards. At least there is a record you can hold in your hand. It's too easy to mess up electronic votes, by mistake or fraud.

Punch ballots can be easily gang-manipulated by someone with a long needle. Optical scan ballots are better; they'd be better still with two additions:

1. For each office, a "No candidate selected" option; vote-for-three races would also require "Only two candidates selected" and "only one candidate selected" ovals. Marking these options would make abundantly clear that the voter did not want to vote (or cast all possible votes) for that office. In states that allow for party-line voting, it would also provide a means by which someone could cast a party-line vote but abstain in particular races. In addition, if #2 below isn't used, it would allow abstaining voters to protect their ballots from manipulation.

2. To prevent "undervotes" from being falsified into votes, add a column at the end of the ballot where voters indicate the number of races they've not voted in. This column must be completed before a ballot can be accepted, but if a voter doesn't know how to count the counting machine will inform the voter of which number to mark.

To handle disabled voters, use a DRE-style machine which prints out a completed optical-scan ballot when the voter is done voting. The DRE-style machine won't do any vote counting; the optical-scan ballot will be added to the collection of other such ballots and counted along with them.

With these changes, optical-scan ballots would be a fraud-resistant method of voting. Without them, it's still pretty good. Too bad more places don't seem to favor it.

[truthkeeper]

I've been voting with punch card ballots my whole life. There's not a thing wrong with them. Only an idiot could mess one up. Plus it should be OUR responsibility to check the back of the ballot to make sure all the little tufts of paper are knocked off.

MUST we hold everyone's hand for everything??