Maker Pro
Maker Pro

OT? A solution to the e-voting machine problem

R

Rich Grise

Jan 1, 1970
0
I can't understand why no one has yet come up with the idea of
integrating a touch-screen voting machine with a ticket printer
from those Lotto machines.

The voter somehow identifies him/herself (for example my registration
card has a serial number I would type in) and votes on the touch screen -
you give them as many chances to back up and undo as there are potential
votes - maybe with a "record your vote" button at the bottom, and a "ARE
YOU SURE? THIS CANNOT BE CHANGED AFTER YOU PUSH THIS BUTTON" or anything
you want it to say.

Then, the machine prints out the choices on a paper ballot, a la lotto
ticket printers. This is also machine-readable, but there's paper if
the counting machine fails.

In fact, you could even use ballots like lotto playslips, but that kinda
obviates the use of machines in the first place. ;-)

I've written a letter to the Orange County Register, the closest to a
Libertarian paper California has, and said I'm available for the design
job if anybody wants to capitalize me. :)

If they print it, you guys will be the first to know, after the paper's
readership. ;-)

Cheers!
Rich
 
E

Eeyore

Jan 1, 1970
0
Rich said:
I can't understand why no one has yet come up with the idea of
integrating a touch-screen voting machine with a ticket printer
from those Lotto machines.

The voter somehow identifies him/herself (for example my registration
card has a serial number I would type in) and votes on the touch screen -
you give them as many chances to back up and undo as there are potential
votes - maybe with a "record your vote" button at the bottom, and a "ARE
YOU SURE? THIS CANNOT BE CHANGED AFTER YOU PUSH THIS BUTTON" or anything
you want it to say.

Then, the machine prints out the choices on a paper ballot, a la lotto
ticket printers. This is also machine-readable, but there's paper if
the counting machine fails.

Why don't they want it ?

Because then the repugnicans couldn't cheat.

Graham
 
C

Chucky

Jan 1, 1970
0
Actually....

The MAIN reason that paper receipts for votes are a BAD IDEA is that
then people could pay poor idiots to vote. The poor idiot would bring
in his printed receipt, the corrupt party official would check it, and
then the idiot would be paid for the vote. This is why printed vote
receipts are almost universally regarded as a bad idea by election
experts.

BTW, it is Democrats who have historically paid for votes, using cash,
booze, and in one recent case, crack cocaine. Please search the
newspaper archives if you don't believe me.
 
J

Jim Thompson

Jan 1, 1970
0
Why don't they want it ?

Because then the repugnicans couldn't cheat.

Graham

Graham, You are, without a doubt, the most ignorant piece of shit
walking the earth.

We use hard copy paper ballots here in Arizona. Tossed the hanging
chads and several other machine voting crap ideas years ago.

...Jim Thompson
 
M

martin griffith

Jan 1, 1970
0
I can't understand why no one has yet come up with the idea of
integrating a touch-screen voting machine with a ticket printer
from those Lotto machines.

The voter somehow identifies him/herself (for example my registration
card has a serial number I would type in) and votes on the touch screen -
you give them as many chances to back up and undo as there are potential
votes - maybe with a "record your vote" button at the bottom, and a "ARE
YOU SURE? THIS CANNOT BE CHANGED AFTER YOU PUSH THIS BUTTON" or anything
you want it to say.

Then, the machine prints out the choices on a paper ballot, a la lotto
ticket printers. This is also machine-readable, but there's paper if
the counting machine fails.

In fact, you could even use ballots like lotto playslips, but that kinda
obviates the use of machines in the first place. ;-)

I've written a letter to the Orange County Register, the closest to a
Libertarian paper California has, and said I'm available for the design
job if anybody wants to capitalize me. :)

If they print it, you guys will be the first to know, after the paper's
readership. ;-)

Cheers!
Rich

The problem for accurate voting using IT is quite trivial, but there
seems to be a problem of who owns the machine manufacturing companies.

If you can solve that you may possibly free the US, but get put in
Gitmo for your troubles

http://www.slate.com/id/2107388/


martin
 
E

Eeyore

Jan 1, 1970
0
martin said:
The problem for accurate voting using IT is quite trivial, but there
seems to be a problem of who owns the machine manufacturing companies.

I'm sure I voted online a year or two ago.

We were in a trial area.

Seemed sensible to me.

Graham
 
E

Eeyore

Jan 1, 1970
0
Chucky said:
Actually....

The MAIN reason that paper receipts for votes are a BAD IDEA is that
then people could pay poor idiots to vote. The poor idiot would bring
in his printed receipt, the corrupt party official would check it, and
then the idiot would be paid for the vote. This is why printed vote
receipts are almost universally regarded as a bad idea by election
experts.

Just leave off the candidate you voted for.

Graham
 
Why don't they want it ?

Because then the repugnicans couldn't cheat.

Virtually all voter fraud starts with crooked poll workers, including
the now famous Diebold hack (someone needs to swap out a cartridge at
exactly the right moment without getting caught). Even that will get
detected if the total vote count doesn't match. There are 2 paper
trails of the voter actually voting here.
If someone can come up with a counterfeit cartridge they can come up
with a phony printout tape to match the vote on that cartridge.
I think they should throw all the machines away and start with a blank
page. They should lose all that GUI interface and just use a paper
overlay on a machine with switches for the "vote". Then the whole
thing could be hard wired with no embedded code to hack. It should be
burning a ROM media and also printing a paper tape. Program this thing
with a patch panel or a PROM. The only fear with all of this
accountability is losing the idea of the secret ballot. You could
count backward down the printed tape and cross reference that to the
voter sign in sheet and figure out who voted for whom.
 
Actually....

The MAIN reason that paper receipts for votes are a BAD IDEA is that
then people could pay poor idiots to vote. The poor idiot would bring
in his printed receipt, the corrupt party official would check it, and
then the idiot would be paid for the vote. This is why printed vote
receipts are almost universally regarded as a bad idea by election
experts.

BTW, it is Democrats who have historically paid for votes, using cash,
booze, and in one recent case, crack cocaine. Please search the
newspaper archives if you don't believe me.
The "paper trail" they talk about is retained at the polling place.
Some machines in use now print a paper tape of the summary that you
can look at before the machine "eats" it. The problem is you might be
able to back track down the tape and figure out how people voted.
 
J

John Popelish

Jan 1, 1970
0
The "paper trail" they talk about is retained at the polling place.
Some machines in use now print a paper tape of the summary that you
can look at before the machine "eats" it. The problem is you might be
able to back track down the tape and figure out how people voted.

The machine needs to print a card that drops into a ballot
box with a seal on it. 1 for each machine. The voter gets
to view the card and approve it before it drops or discard
it and do over. The box to be opened and counted if there
is question about that machine's tally.
 
E

Eeyore

Jan 1, 1970
0
Virtually all voter fraud starts with crooked poll workers, including
the now famous Diebold hack (someone needs to swap out a cartridge at
exactly the right moment without getting caught). Even that will get
detected if the total vote count doesn't match. There are 2 paper
trails of the voter actually voting here.
If someone can come up with a counterfeit cartridge they can come up
with a phony printout tape to match the vote on that cartridge.
I think they should throw all the machines away and start with a blank
page. They should lose all that GUI interface and just use a paper
overlay on a machine with switches for the "vote". Then the whole
thing could be hard wired with no embedded code to hack. It should be
burning a ROM media and also printing a paper tape. Program this thing
with a patch panel or a PROM. The only fear with all of this
accountability is losing the idea of the secret ballot. You could
count backward down the printed tape and cross reference that to the
voter sign in sheet and figure out who voted for whom.

Sign in sheet ?

Over here we have a list of the electorate and your name gets crossed off when
you attend. There's no signing anything.

Graham
 
E

Eeyore

Jan 1, 1970
0
John said:
The machine needs to print a card that drops into a ballot
box with a seal on it. 1 for each machine. The voter gets
to view the card and approve it before it drops or discard
it and do over. The box to be opened and counted if there
is question about that machine's tally.

Sounds do-able.

Graham
 
D

Didi

Jan 1, 1970
0
The original idea of Rich is the most feasible one, I think.
You get the advantages of both systems: the data are available
electronically immediately, and you have the paper copy to control
the system.
Also, fraud control is improved; having the data immediately
available at a remote location will reduce the chances for fraud
at local level, and having the paper ballots locally will keep in check
global fraud attempts.
Electronic identification will obviously not suffer because of an
added ballot printout.
Why has the idea not yet materialized? Well, let's say we
accept nobody responsible has had the brains to think of it. Now Rich
has offered it publically so this excuse will be unusable next time...

Dimiter
 
H

Homer J Simpson

Jan 1, 1970
0
The original idea of Rich is the most feasible one, I think.
You get the advantages of both systems: the data are available
electronically immediately, and you have the paper copy to control
the system.
Also, fraud control is improved; having the data immediately
available at a remote location will reduce the chances for fraud
at local level, and having the paper ballots locally will keep in check
global fraud attempts.
Electronic identification will obviously not suffer because of an
added ballot printout.
Why has the idea not yet materialized? Well, let's say we
accept nobody responsible has had the brains to think of it. Now Rich
has offered it publically so this excuse will be unusable next time...

Another key thing is to design around a bog standard PC, adding just enough
special hardware to make it friendly. This could be a touch screen or a
special keyboard and display. That way they won't become obsolete - with no
parts to maintain them - because you can sell them off and replace them with
another PC when needed. Any count from the machines will be regarded as a
convenience only and the paper ballots will establish the official result.
The paper ballot can be machine readable but must also be human readable so
the voter can double check that his intentions are followed. The paper
ballots can be checked to ensure that the machine readable sections match
the English language printout.
 
H

Homer J Simpson

Jan 1, 1970
0
Sign in sheet ?

Over here we have a list of the electorate and your name gets crossed off
when
you attend. There's no signing anything.

As in Canada. Canada ran a complete Federal election, start to finish,
during the infamous Florida counting debacle. The counting was 99% done in a
day - all paper ballots and black pencils.
 
E

Eeyore

Jan 1, 1970
0
Homer said:
Another key thing is to design around a bog standard PC, adding just enough
special hardware to make it friendly. This could be a touch screen or a
special keyboard and display. That way they won't become obsolete - with no
parts to maintain them - because you can sell them off and replace them with
another PC when needed. Any count from the machines will be regarded as a
convenience only and the paper ballots will establish the official result.
The paper ballot can be machine readable but must also be human readable so
the voter can double check that his intentions are followed. The paper
ballots can be checked to ensure that the machine readable sections match
the English language printout.

The voting device could just be an intelligent terminal.

Graham
 
E

Eeyore

Jan 1, 1970
0
Homer said:
As in Canada. Canada ran a complete Federal election, start to finish,
during the infamous Florida counting debacle. The counting was 99% done in a
day - all paper ballots and black pencils.

Just like us. I guess you guys 'borrowed' it.

There's a couple of UK constituencies that race to be the first with a result
using this sytem. It takes them just a couple of hours !

Graham
 
Sign in sheet ?

Over here we have a list of the electorate and your name gets crossed off when
you attend. There's no signing anything.

Graham

In Florida you sign that sheet and show a pictrure ID. This year they
also filled out a card that you signed and that identified the machine
you used so they had a total of all ballots that should have been
registered on each machine.
 
Another key thing is to design around a bog standard PC, adding just enough
special hardware to make it friendly.

PCs are far to complicated and to easy to hack. There are THREE levels
of software in a PC, any of which could be hacked. Why do we need
anything near that complicated to count something as simple as a
couple dozen bits per ballot. You could build a purpose built chip
that would do this entirely in hardware for a buck a piece or less.
 
As in Canada. Canada ran a complete Federal election, start to finish,
during the infamous Florida counting debacle. The counting was 99% done in a
day - all paper ballots and black pencils.
About 30% of the counties in Florida that were contested used optical
scan ballots and a pencil. If you have lawyers in the process nothing
is that simple.
 
Top