voting machine tampering
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Today's NYT had an OpEd by Bob Herbert on voting problems and issues.
Perhaps those concerned progressives involved in IT, computers, complexity and software should investigate electronic voting and its inherent weaknesses that allow both unintentional and intentional errors. Perhaps the UN should send election observers for the US elections. Paul Paryski Santa Fe -------------- next part -------------- An HTML attachment was scrubbed... URL: /pipermail/friam_redfish.com/attachments/20061106/f1b3d001/attachment.html |
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Perhaps the leading national figure on the security of voting machines is
Michael Shamos, a PhD computer scientist and attorney who is on the faculty at Carnegie Mellon. See his testimony http://www.house.gov/science/hearings/ets04/jun24/shamos.pdf and his vita http://euro.ecom.cmu.edu/people/faculty/mshamos/index.shtml. On 11/6/06, PPARYSKI at aol.com <PPARYSKI at aol.com> wrote: > > Today's NYT had an OpEd by Bob Herbert on voting problems and issues. > Perhaps those concerned progressives involved in IT, computers, > complexity and software should investigate electronic voting and its > inherent weaknesses that allow both unintentional and intentional errors. > Perhaps the UN should send election observers for the US elections. > > Paul Paryski > Santa Fe > > ============================================================ > FRIAM Applied Complexity Group listserv > Meets Fridays 9a-11:30 at cafe at St. John's College > lectures, archives, unsubscribe, maps at http://www.friam.org > > -- George T. Duncan Professor of Statistics Heinz School of Public Policy and Management Carnegie Mellon University Pittsburgh, PA 15213 (412) 268-2172 -------------- next part -------------- An HTML attachment was scrubbed... URL: /pipermail/friam_redfish.com/attachments/20061106/644a6c13/attachment.html |
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The Freakonomics guys said at one time that we need to be clear about
the natural errors within any system, and when the vote is closer than that error value, decide on what to do about a "tie" rather than fretting about chads, hackers, broken machines and so on. Basically voting like any other process is imperfect and trying to make it more accurate will never chase all the error out. That said, statistically interesting systematic errors should be revealing, I think. -- Owen Owen Densmore http://backspaces.net |
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The NY Times op-ed piece by Conley that Paul references above also makes the
point that counting is a statistical process. Unfortunately this is a red herring - yes it's an effect but it is swamped by the other systemic abuses. Here's a paragraph from a Rolling Stone piece ( http://www.rollingstone.com/news/story/10432334/was_the_2004_election_stolen ): The reports were especially disturbing in Ohio, the critical battleground > state that clinched Bush's victory in the electoral college. Officials there > purged tens of thousands of eligible voters from the rolls, neglected to > process registration cards generated by Democratic voter drives, > shortchanged Democratic precincts when they allocated voting machines and > illegally derailed a recount that could have given Kerry the presidency. A > precinct in an evangelical church in Miami County recorded an impossibly > high turnout of ninety-eight percent, while a polling place in inner-city > Cleveland recorded an equally impossible turnout of only seven percent. In > Warren County, GOP election officials even invented a nonexistent terrorist > threat to bar the media from monitoring the official vote count. > These are not statistical anomalies; these are not analogous to the errors in counting Conley's "pennies in a jar". These are bad people doing bad things and getting away with it. Robert On 11/6/06, Owen Densmore <owen at backspaces.net> wrote: > > The Freakonomics guys said at one time that we need to be clear about > the natural errors within any system, and when the vote is closer > than that error value, decide on what to do about a "tie" rather than > fretting about chads, hackers, broken machines and so on. > > Basically voting like any other process is imperfect and trying to > make it more accurate will never chase all the error out. > > That said, statistically interesting systematic errors should be > revealing, I think. > > -- Owen > > Owen Densmore http://backspaces.net > > > > > ============================================================ > FRIAM Applied Complexity Group listserv > Meets Fridays 9a-11:30 at cafe at St. John's College > lectures, archives, unsubscribe, maps at http://www.friam.org > An HTML attachment was scrubbed... URL: /pipermail/friam_redfish.com/attachments/20061106/eac9e60f/attachment.html |
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I was impressed that when I voted on Friday (Colorado has early voting),
that the touch screen was attached to a printer that printed out each of my responses. This was not present when voting in 2004; sure... its still possible to mess with the system, but the print out provides a bit more confidence on the part of the voter. Michael Gizzi On 11/6/06, Robert Holmes <robert at holmesacosta.com> wrote: > > The NY Times op-ed piece by Conley that Paul references above also makes > the point that counting is a statistical process. Unfortunately this is a > red herring - yes it's an effect but it is swamped by the other systemic > abuses. Here's a paragraph from a Rolling Stone piece ( > http://www.rollingstone.com/news/story/10432334/was_the_2004_election_stolen > ): > > The reports were especially disturbing in Ohio, the critical battleground > > state that clinched Bush's victory in the electoral college. Officials there > > purged tens of thousands of eligible voters from the rolls, neglected to > > process registration cards generated by Democratic voter drives, > > shortchanged Democratic precincts when they allocated voting machines and > > illegally derailed a recount that could have given Kerry the presidency. A > > precinct in an evangelical church in Miami County recorded an impossibly > > high turnout of ninety-eight percent, while a polling place in inner-city > > Cleveland recorded an equally impossible turnout of only seven percent. In > > Warren County, GOP election officials even invented a nonexistent terrorist > > threat to bar the media from monitoring the official vote count. > > > > These are not statistical anomalies; these are not analogous to the errors > in counting Conley's "pennies in a jar". These are bad people doing bad > things and getting away with it. > > Robert > > > On 11/6/06, Owen Densmore <owen at backspaces.net> wrote: > > > > The Freakonomics guys said at one time that we need to be clear about > > the natural errors within any system, and when the vote is closer > > than that error value, decide on what to do about a "tie" rather than > > fretting about chads, hackers, broken machines and so on. > > > > Basically voting like any other process is imperfect and trying to > > make it more accurate will never chase all the error out. > > > > That said, statistically interesting systematic errors should be > > revealing, I think. > > > > -- Owen > > > > Owen Densmore http://backspaces.net > > > > > > > > > > ============================================================ > > FRIAM Applied Complexity Group listserv > > Meets Fridays 9a-11:30 at cafe at St. John's College > > lectures, archives, unsubscribe, maps at http://www.friam.org > > > > > ============================================================ > FRIAM Applied Complexity Group listserv > Meets Fridays 9a-11:30 at cafe at St. John's College > lectures, archives, unsubscribe, maps at http://www.friam.org > > An HTML attachment was scrubbed... URL: /pipermail/friam_redfish.com/attachments/20061106/ef9a0e1c/attachment.html |
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In reply to this post by Paul Paryski
On 11/6/06, PPARYSKI at aol.com <PPARYSKI at aol.com> wrote:
> Today's NYT had an OpEd by Bob Herbert on voting problems and issues. > Perhaps those concerned progressives involved in IT, computers, complexity > and software should investigate electronic voting and its inherent > weaknesses that allow both unintentional and intentional errors. Perhaps > the UN should send election observers for the US elections. The UN tried in 2004 and the US refused to let them in. -- Giles Bowkett http://www.gilesgoatboy.org |
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Won't the electronic voting at least provide a hope for analysis,
especially of "irregularities"? -- Owen Owen Densmore http://backspaces.net |
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In reply to this post by Robert Holmes
Robert Holmes wrote:
> These are not statistical anomalies > Provided our officials and organizations are involved, you can be sure whatever happens is a necessary result of sound leadership and sociality. Now please return to your regularly scheduled CSI Miami followed by the local TV news. It's getting late, don't forget to close your blinds and lock up! |
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In reply to this post by Owen Densmore
Not really no. About 30% of the installed machines are the Diebold
touch-screen model that does NOT give you a printout. There's no paper trail and absolutely no way to check that what the person voted for is what the machine recorded. In addition, Diebold won't release source code because it's proprietary. And the Independent Testing Authority refuses to release details of its test program. And anyway, in some states ITA testing is voluntary - vendors only need to provide a letter that their machines are capable of passing the tests. So from a computer science or security perspective, how robust do you think this system is? Robert On 11/6/06, Owen Densmore <owen at backspaces.net> wrote: > > Won't the electronic voting at least provide a hope for analysis, > especially of "irregularities"? > > -- Owen > > Owen Densmore http://backspaces.net > > > > > ============================================================ > FRIAM Applied Complexity Group listserv > Meets Fridays 9a-11:30 at cafe at St. John's College > lectures, archives, unsubscribe, maps at http://www.friam.org > An HTML attachment was scrubbed... URL: /pipermail/friam_redfish.com/attachments/20061107/e3dd4e80/attachment-0001.html |
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The National Academies, which did a preliminary study on this, think
the systems are very vulnerable to fraud, much of it undetectable. Two kinds of problems: the technological ones, where voting machines can be hacked--wirelessly or otherwise, and tampered with. The social problems: like school boards, each local voting authority has its own rules, so no one-program-fits-all exists (or can exist). Poll watchers and workers are mostly political sinecures, and such people, often elderly and not well educated, can barely manage the technology they have, let alone anything more sophisticated. On Nov 7, 2006, at 10:22 AM, Robert Holmes wrote: > Not really no. About 30% of the installed machines are the Diebold > touch-screen model that does NOT give you a printout. There's no paper > trail and absolutely no way to check that what the person voted for is > what the machine recorded. In addition, Diebold won't release source > code because it's proprietary. And the Independent Testing Authority > refuses to release details of its test program. And anyway, in some > states ITA testing is voluntary - vendors only need to provide a > letter that their machines are capable of passing the tests. > > So from a computer science or security perspective, how robust do you > think this system is? > > Robert > > On 11/6/06, Owen Densmore < owen at backspaces.net> wrote:Won't the > electronic voting at least provide a hope for analysis, >> especially of "irregularities"? >> >> ???? -- Owen >> >> Owen Densmore?? http://backspaces.net >> >> >> >> >> ============================================================ >> FRIAM Applied Complexity Group listserv >> Meets Fridays 9a-11:30 at cafe at St. John's College >> lectures, archives, unsubscribe, maps at http://www.friam.org > > ============================================================ > FRIAM Applied Complexity Group listserv > Meets Fridays 9a-11:30 at cafe at St. John's College > lectures, archives, unsubscribe, maps at http://www.friam.org Om sarwa prani hitangkaram...(May all that breathes be well.) Balinese farmer's prayer -------------- next part -------------- A non-text attachment was scrubbed... Name: not available Type: text/enriched Size: 2336 bytes Desc: not available Url : /pipermail/friam_redfish.com/attachments/20061107/56978285/attachment.bin |
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In reply to this post by Michael Gizzi-2
The touch-tone screens were down in suburban Chicagoland as of 6:15 this morning (and the number for the help desk was continuously busy) but we also had the option of voting with paper ballots in suburban Cook County, which Marjorie and I exercised.) Chicago proper hired a college student (trained) as equipment manager for each precinct, which seems like a good idea. Some of my students told me that their precincts (Kane County--next to Cook County where Chicago is located) just shut down entirely.
Chris Newman ________________________________ From: [hidden email] on behalf of Michael Gizzi Sent: Mon 11/6/2006 6:48 PM To: The Friday Morning Applied Complexity Coffee Group Subject: Re: [FRIAM] voting machine tampering I was impressed that when I voted on Friday (Colorado has early voting), that the touch screen was attached to a printer that printed out each of my responses. This was not present when voting in 2004; sure... its still possible to mess with the system, but the print out provides a bit more confidence on the part of the voter. Michael Gizzi On 11/6/06, Robert Holmes <robert at holmesacosta.com> wrote: The NY Times op-ed piece by Conley that Paul references above also makes the point that counting is a statistical process. Unfortunately this is a red herring - yes it's an effect but it is swamped by the other systemic abuses. Here's a paragraph from a Rolling Stone piece ( http://www.rollingstone.com/news/story/10432334/was_the_2004_election_stolen ): The reports were especially disturbing in Ohio, the critical battleground state that clinched Bush's victory in the electoral college. Officials there purged tens of thousands of eligible voters from the rolls, neglected to process registration cards generated by Democratic voter drives, shortchanged Democratic precincts when they allocated voting machines and illegally derailed a recount that could have given Kerry the presidency. A precinct in an evangelical church in Miami County recorded an impossibly high turnout of ninety-eight percent, while a polling place in inner-city Cleveland recorded an equally impossible turnout of only seven percent. In Warren County, GOP election officials even invented a nonexistent terrorist threat to bar the media from monitoring the official vote count. These are not statistical anomalies; these are not analogous to the errors in counting Conley's "pennies in a jar". These are bad people doing bad things and getting away with it. Robert On 11/6/06, Owen Densmore < owen at backspaces.net <mailto:owen at backspaces.net> > wrote: The Freakonomics guys said at one time that we need to be clear about the natural errors within any system, and when the vote is closer than that error value, decide on what to do about a "tie" rather than fretting about chads, hackers, broken machines and so on. Basically voting like any other process is imperfect and trying to make it more accurate will never chase all the error out. That said, statistically interesting systematic errors should be revealing, I think. -- Owen Owen Densmore http://backspaces.net ============================================================ FRIAM Applied Complexity Group listserv Meets Fridays 9a-11:30 at cafe at St. John's College lectures, archives, unsubscribe, maps at http://www.friam.org ============================================================ FRIAM Applied Complexity Group listserv Meets Fridays 9a-11:30 at cafe at St. John's College lectures, archives, unsubscribe, maps at http://www.friam.org |
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In reply to this post by Robert Holmes
> So from a computer science or security perspective, how robust do you think
> this system is? It's laughably bad. As has been said before: the software that runs inside Las Vegas slot machines is better written, better controlled, better monitored. Likewise the hardware. I recall reading that Nevada gambling police arrest insider fraudsters on a fairly regular basis--proof that their system works. The most clever I read about was a fellow who inserted code into the programming that watched for a certain sequence of line (coin) plays... after the sequence, it jack-potted. ~~James http://www.turtlezero.com (JA-86) On 11/7/06, Robert Holmes <robert at holmesacosta.com> wrote: > Not really no. About 30% of the installed machines are the Diebold > touch-screen model that does NOT give you a printout. There's no paper trail > and absolutely no way to check that what the person voted for is what the > machine recorded. In addition, Diebold won't release source code because > it's proprietary. And the Independent Testing Authority refuses to release > details of its test program. And anyway, in some states ITA testing is > voluntary - vendors only need to provide a letter that their machines are > capable of passing the tests. > > So from a computer science or security perspective, how robust do you think > this system is? > > Robert > > On 11/6/06, Owen Densmore < owen at backspaces.net> wrote: > > Won't the electronic voting at least provide a hope for analysis, > > especially of "irregularities"? > > > > -- Owen > > > > Owen Densmore http://backspaces.net |
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Yeah, this kind of trickery is relatively easy to prove, catch, and
prevent. There are plenty of modern countries conducting elections without fraud, and I'm sure some of them are using machines. In fact I think India is. The problem isn't in the machines per se. On 11/7/06, James Steiner <gregortroll at gmail.com> wrote: > > So from a computer science or security perspective, how robust do you think > > this system is? > > It's laughably bad. As has been said before: the software that runs > inside Las Vegas slot machines is better written, better controlled, > better monitored. Likewise the hardware. > > I recall reading that Nevada gambling police arrest insider fraudsters > on a fairly regular basis--proof that their system works. > > The most clever I read about was a fellow who inserted code into the > programming that watched for a certain sequence of line (coin) > plays... after the sequence, it jack-potted. > > ~~James > http://www.turtlezero.com > (JA-86) > > On 11/7/06, Robert Holmes <robert at holmesacosta.com> wrote: > > Not really no. About 30% of the installed machines are the Diebold > > touch-screen model that does NOT give you a printout. There's no paper trail > > and absolutely no way to check that what the person voted for is what the > > machine recorded. In addition, Diebold won't release source code because > > it's proprietary. And the Independent Testing Authority refuses to release > > details of its test program. And anyway, in some states ITA testing is > > voluntary - vendors only need to provide a letter that their machines are > > capable of passing the tests. > > > > So from a computer science or security perspective, how robust do you think > > this system is? > > > > Robert > > > > On 11/6/06, Owen Densmore < owen at backspaces.net> wrote: > > > Won't the electronic voting at least provide a hope for analysis, > > > especially of "irregularities"? > > > > > > -- Owen > > > > > > Owen Densmore http://backspaces.net > > ============================================================ > FRIAM Applied Complexity Group listserv > Meets Fridays 9a-11:30 at cafe at St. John's College > lectures, archives, unsubscribe, maps at http://www.friam.org > -- Giles Bowkett http://www.gilesgoatboy.org |
voting machine tampering
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In reply to this post by Michael Gizzi-2
I voted late in morning in Santa Fe. Our paper ballot had candidates on one
side, bond issues on the other. We filled in a circle with a ballpoint pen. After filling the ballot, we took it to a guy who instructed us to feed the ballot into a scanner/reader. I did so, and the ballot disappeared. Not knowing that it scanned both sides on one pass, I waited a moment for it to pop back out so I could feed it to capture the other side. I said the to guy, "What about the other side?" He panicked. "You mean you didn't fill it out?" he said. When I assured him I had, he was quite visibly relieved. "Boy, if you hadn't, it sure would have messed up the system." Seems to me it should have been his job to visually check it before telling me to feed it in, but.... My long-winded point, though: I bet that, at least in New Mexico, there may be a larger-than-expected discrepancy between the number of votes cast for candidates and the votes cast on the bond issues. If so, that might not mean any skulduggery was involved. PS: I just received my sixth or seventh call in 24 hrs from my "new" best friend, Gov. Bill Richardson reminding me, this time, that the polls are closing in a few hours. I do hope someone is doing a "how long until they hang up" analysis to try an determine an aggravation threshold. -tom On 11/6/06, Michael Gizzi <mgizzi at mesastate.edu> wrote: > > I was impressed that when I voted on Friday (Colorado has early voting), > that the touch screen was attached to a printer that printed out each of my > responses. This was not present when voting in 2004; sure... its still > possible to mess with the system, but the print out provides a bit more > confidence on the part of the voter. > > Michael Gizzi > > J. T. Johnson Institute for Analytic Journalism -- Santa Fe, NM USA www.analyticjournalism.com 505.577.6482(c) 505.473.9646(h) http://www.jtjohnson.com tom at jtjohnson.us "You never change things by fighting the existing reality. To change something, build a new model that makes the existing model obsolete." -- Buckminster Fuller ========================================== -------------- next part -------------- An HTML attachment was scrubbed... URL: /pipermail/friam_redfish.com/attachments/20061107/1dbbca1b/attachment.html |
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I was quite surprised that when I voted using this system, the
machine actually reported that I had voted for and against an amendment (I had filled in the wrong bubble by mistake and figured I could at least burn my vote on this issue by filling in the other bubble -- perhaps a wrong headed move but really the amendment wasn't that important to me either way). The machine however informed me of this issue and spit out my ballot, at which point the minder asked what was wrong I told him I had intentionally voted this way and he said no problem and proceeded to place my ballot in a spoiled ballot envelope after instructing me to fold it up. Then gave me a new ballot to fill out. I like that the machine was checking for such errors...but I wish it was easier to change my vote after making such a mistake-- electronic voting may have let me undo a vote more quickly. But I do think a paper ballot should be produced by the machine--I would like a physical trace of my vote to persist to allow for recounts. The idea of a purely electronic recount is absurd--what is it going to recount? How could it come up with a different answer from before? With paper at least in principle I could review the document before casting as I did on saturday... --joshua On Nov 7, 2006, at 4:54 PM, J T Johnson wrote: > I voted late in morning in Santa Fe. Our paper ballot had > candidates on one side, bond issues on the other. We filled in a > circle with a ballpoint pen. After filling the ballot, we took it > to a guy who instructed us to feed the ballot into a scanner/ > reader. I did so, and the ballot disappeared. Not knowing that it > scanned both sides on one pass, I waited a moment for it to pop > back out so I could feed it to capture the other side. > > I said the to guy, "What about the other side?" He panicked. "You > mean you didn't fill it out?" he said. When I assured him I had, > he was quite visibly relieved. "Boy, if you hadn't, it sure would > have messed up the system." > > Seems to me it should have been his job to visually check it before > telling me to feed it in, but.... > > My long-winded point, though: I bet that, at least in New Mexico, > there may be a larger-than-expected discrepancy between the number > of votes cast for candidates and the votes cast on the bond > issues. If so, that might not mean any skulduggery was involved. > > PS: I just received my sixth or seventh call in 24 hrs from my > "new" best friend, Gov. Bill Richardson reminding me, this time, > that the polls are closing in a few hours. I do hope someone is > doing a "how long until they hang up" analysis to try an determine > an aggravation threshold. > > -tom > > On 11/6/06, Michael Gizzi <mgizzi at mesastate.edu> wrote: > I was impressed that when I voted on Friday (Colorado has early > voting), that the touch screen was attached to a printer that > printed out each of my responses. This was not present when voting > in 2004; sure... its still possible to mess with the system, but > the print out provides a bit more confidence on the part of the voter. > > Michael Gizzi > > > > ========================================== > J. T. Johnson > Institute for Analytic Journalism -- Santa Fe, NM USA > www.analyticjournalism.com > 505.577.6482(c) 505.473.9646(h) > http://www.jtjohnson.com tom at jtjohnson.us > > "You never change things by fighting the existing reality. > To change something, build a new model that makes the > existing model obsolete." > -- Buckminster > Fuller > ========================================== > ============================================================ > FRIAM Applied Complexity Group listserv > Meets Fridays 9a-11:30 at cafe at St. John's College > lectures, archives, unsubscribe, maps at http://www.friam.org -------------- next part -------------- An HTML attachment was scrubbed... URL: /pipermail/friam_redfish.com/attachments/20061107/4e4458ea/attachment-0001.html |
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