And that's why electronic voting can't really be a thing beyond an electronic typewriter. Physical access to a computer will always be more susceptible.
And that's why electronic voting can't really be a thing beyond an electronic typewriter.
Physical access to a computer will always be more susceptible.
They may have meant that even having physical access to voting machines an attacker should be insufficient to tamper with votes or the voting machines. Such as DECON's Voting Machine Hacking Village:
They may have meant that even having physical access to voting machines an attacker should be insufficient to tamper with votes or the voting machines. Such as DECON's Voting Machine Hacking Village:
The results were sobering. By the end of the conference, every piece of equipment in the Voting Village was effectively breached in some manner. Participants with little prior knowledge and only limited tools and resources were quite capable of undermining the confidentiality, integrity, and availability of these systems, including:
● The first voting machine to fall – an AVS WinVote model – was hacked and taken control of remotely in a matter of minutes, using a vulnerability from 2003, meaning that for the entire time this machine was used from 2003-2014 it could be completely controlled remotely, allowing changing votes, observing who voters voted for, and shutting down the system or otherwise incapacitating it.
● That same machine was found to have an unchangeable, universal default password – found with a simple Google search – of “admin” and “abcde.”
● An “electronic poll book”, the Diebold ExpressPoll 5000, used to check in voters at the polls, was found to have been improperly decommissioned with live voter file data still on the system; ...
Moreover, a closer physical examination of the machines found, as expected, multiple cases of foreign-manufactured internal parts (including hardware developed in China), highlighting the serious possibility of supply chain vulnerabilities.
Unfortunately, I would bet not. I don't believe there's anyone left in the Republican party that really cares about this sort of thing. I really hope I'm wrong, but it seems like they've fully...
Unfortunately, I would bet not. I don't believe there's anyone left in the Republican party that really cares about this sort of thing. I really hope I'm wrong, but it seems like they've fully made the transition to a truly radical organization. I mean, there's a group of people who tried to overthrow the government 8 months ago who are now being supported by high level elected officials.
The bigger problem in my mind is the outsized power this minority holds due to decades of gerrymandering, taking control of state level governments, and our incredibly lopsided model of senate representation. I have no idea how you counter those things.
My father, for example, refuses to accept the idea that the Republican party is hypocritical at best, and malicious at worst. He will always see it through the rose-colored lens of when they were...
My father, for example, refuses to accept the idea that the Republican party is hypocritical at best, and malicious at worst.
He will always see it through the rose-colored lens of when they were in power during his rise to economic prosperity in the 80's and 90's, and the rhetoric they espewed then, regardless of what has happened since.
You think so? Sadly what the last 4 years have shown me is that the are no repercussions and corrupt Republican politicians can get away with anything, including some pretty heinous sexual crimes,...
You think so? Sadly what the last 4 years have shown me is that the are no repercussions and corrupt Republican politicians can get away with anything, including some pretty heinous sexual crimes, which their conspiracies rail against day and night.
Yeah, I do. I get what people are saying here, but I think we're making different points. First, there's a difference between support for Trump and support for the Republican party. I live in a...
Yeah, I do. I get what people are saying here, but I think we're making different points.
First, there's a difference between support for Trump and support for the Republican party. I live in a very liberal area of the country. There are plenty of conservatives here, but they tend not to be highly religious conservatives. They're the Republicans that didn't vote for Trump in the latest election, for example. I think previously they could kid themselves and say, "OK, Trump's a moron, but he's out of office now, so things are going to go back to normal." The Republican party needs those people to maintain its nearly ~50% of voting populace. As more shit like this story unfolds, I think more of those moderates are starting to think, "Here we go again. Another Q-Anon conspiracy in our ranks. How much longer is this going to keep affecting our party?" And as they elect people like Marjorie Taylor Greene, who are outwardly racist and literally calling for the murder of their colleagues, I think they're going to start losing the moderates. Maybe I'm wrong, and I'm willing to accept that might be the case. But at some point, something's going to give.
So yeah, your conspiracy-minded uncle will remain Republican till he dies. But there are a fair number of people who won't. I can't predict the future, but seeing the constant stories like this makes me wonder. When sitting Republican politicians in Arizona are calling their party's own "election investigation" fraudulent, it's clear that there's a rift starting.
Colorado officials said Thursday that a local county clerk allowed an unauthorized person into a secure facility during an annual upgrade to the county's election equipment software, compromising the equipment.
The Mesa County clerk, Tina Peters, could be in legal trouble. She's currently at a conference led by a prominent election conspiracy theorist.
These are ballot counting machines, not full on digital voting-- we use paper ballots in Colorado. I don't think we've ever used fully electronic voting here. Granted, my family has always voted...
These are ballot counting machines, not full on digital voting-- we use paper ballots in Colorado. I don't think we've ever used fully electronic voting here. Granted, my family has always voted by mail since even before it was universal (I've literally voted in an actual polling place once in my life, when I moved a couple weeks before Election Day), so I'm not 100% sure if it used to be electronic at all.
As a non-American, the problem IMO is your electoral system requires these crazy ballots which in turn require vote-counting machines to count them efficiently. Here, a ballot is a small piece of...
As a non-American, the problem IMO is your electoral system requires these crazy ballots which in turn require vote-counting machines to count them efficiently.
Here, a ballot is a small piece of paper with 2-5 names on it, their associated party, and a circle beside each of them for your 'X' to mark your choice. Ballots are hand counted by election officials and scrutineers from various parties can watch and easily verify the process.
The problem with electronic voting or electronic vote-counting is the room they give these conspiracy theories to exist. Hand counted ballots don't have the same problem.
Given that the clerk in question is also accused of straight up not counting ballots, I don't think hand counting would fix the rot in Mesa County, or do much to dissuade the conspiracy theorists....
Given that the clerk in question is also accused of straight up not counting ballots, I don't think hand counting would fix the rot in Mesa County, or do much to dissuade the conspiracy theorists.
And our ballots are hand-countable, the article even mentions hand counting as an option for Mesa County in their next elections. They're fundamentally the same as what you described, just with the addition of voter initatives/referenda/constitutional amendments and ones referred to the voters from the state legislature. Those provisions have been in place since the state constitution was ratified here, in an era when all elections were handcounted by necessity, so it's not as if the addition of some yes/no questions makes it untenable to count them by hand.
What do you think is easier to scrutineer, the counting of this or this? Of course its possible for bad actors to try and inject distrust into even a well-formed process but the more simple or...
What do you think is easier to scrutineer, the counting of this or this?
Of course its possible for bad actors to try and inject distrust into even a well-formed process but the more simple or straight forward that process is the less credible that becomes.
I know it's just a different style, but to my American eyes I honestly distrust the super simplifed look of those Canadian ballots more-- it looks like something they'd give children as a way to...
I know it's just a different style, but to my American eyes I honestly distrust the super simplifed look of those Canadian ballots more-- it looks like something they'd give children as a way to explain how voting works to me. Do they give you a booklet with each race/initiative on its own page then? Or do you not directly vote on anything besides MPs/mayors/city councilors up there?
The American ballot is easy to just scan for boxes, the text is largely irrelevant beyond a title for a recount. I don't see why our Scantron-style ballots (which, at least for us Americans, is a near-universal thing used in schools for tests) would be the source of conspiracies themselves, when they've been this way since before the current election conspiracies existed.
I for one would be utterly unwilling to sacrifice the elements of direct democracy we do have in exchange for a Fisher-Price looking ballot. The conspiracists would latch on to something about those too, in all likelihood.
And that's why electronic voting can't really be a thing beyond an electronic typewriter.
Physical access to a computer will always be more susceptible.
Wait, wouldn’t it actually be preferable if physical access was the only way there could be security compromises?
They may have meant that even having physical access to voting machines an attacker should be insufficient to tamper with votes or the voting machines. Such as DECON's Voting Machine Hacking Village:
This is yet another story that sounds like a bad sitcom plot. These sorts of actions are going to haunt the Republican party for years to come, I bet.
Unfortunately, I would bet not. I don't believe there's anyone left in the Republican party that really cares about this sort of thing. I really hope I'm wrong, but it seems like they've fully made the transition to a truly radical organization. I mean, there's a group of people who tried to overthrow the government 8 months ago who are now being supported by high level elected officials.
The bigger problem in my mind is the outsized power this minority holds due to decades of gerrymandering, taking control of state level governments, and our incredibly lopsided model of senate representation. I have no idea how you counter those things.
My father, for example, refuses to accept the idea that the Republican party is hypocritical at best, and malicious at worst.
He will always see it through the rose-colored lens of when they were in power during his rise to economic prosperity in the 80's and 90's, and the rhetoric they espewed then, regardless of what has happened since.
You think so? Sadly what the last 4 years have shown me is that the are no repercussions and corrupt Republican politicians can get away with anything, including some pretty heinous sexual crimes, which their conspiracies rail against day and night.
Yeah, I do. I get what people are saying here, but I think we're making different points.
First, there's a difference between support for Trump and support for the Republican party. I live in a very liberal area of the country. There are plenty of conservatives here, but they tend not to be highly religious conservatives. They're the Republicans that didn't vote for Trump in the latest election, for example. I think previously they could kid themselves and say, "OK, Trump's a moron, but he's out of office now, so things are going to go back to normal." The Republican party needs those people to maintain its nearly ~50% of voting populace. As more shit like this story unfolds, I think more of those moderates are starting to think, "Here we go again. Another Q-Anon conspiracy in our ranks. How much longer is this going to keep affecting our party?" And as they elect people like Marjorie Taylor Greene, who are outwardly racist and literally calling for the murder of their colleagues, I think they're going to start losing the moderates. Maybe I'm wrong, and I'm willing to accept that might be the case. But at some point, something's going to give.
So yeah, your conspiracy-minded uncle will remain Republican till he dies. But there are a fair number of people who won't. I can't predict the future, but seeing the constant stories like this makes me wonder. When sitting Republican politicians in Arizona are calling their party's own "election investigation" fraudulent, it's clear that there's a rift starting.
https://www.denverpost.com/2021/08/23/mesa-county-clerk-tina-peters-big-lie-mike-lindell/
https://coloradosun.com/2021/08/26/mesa-county-tina-peters-hiding/
https://www.gjsentinel.com/news/western_colorado/ethics-complaint-filed-against-peters/article_72044d64-076a-11ec-89b7-27038ea66872.html
TL;DR: She's hiding from authorities, likely with the Pillow guy.
If Australia can use instant-runoff voting with paper ballots then there's not really a decent excuse for digital votes in the USA.
These are ballot counting machines, not full on digital voting-- we use paper ballots in Colorado. I don't think we've ever used fully electronic voting here. Granted, my family has always voted by mail since even before it was universal (I've literally voted in an actual polling place once in my life, when I moved a couple weeks before Election Day), so I'm not 100% sure if it used to be electronic at all.
As a non-American, the problem IMO is your electoral system requires these crazy ballots which in turn require vote-counting machines to count them efficiently.
Here, a ballot is a small piece of paper with 2-5 names on it, their associated party, and a circle beside each of them for your 'X' to mark your choice. Ballots are hand counted by election officials and scrutineers from various parties can watch and easily verify the process.
The problem with electronic voting or electronic vote-counting is the room they give these conspiracy theories to exist. Hand counted ballots don't have the same problem.
Given that the clerk in question is also accused of straight up not counting ballots, I don't think hand counting would fix the rot in Mesa County, or do much to dissuade the conspiracy theorists.
And our ballots are hand-countable, the article even mentions hand counting as an option for Mesa County in their next elections. They're fundamentally the same as what you described, just with the addition of voter initatives/referenda/constitutional amendments and ones referred to the voters from the state legislature. Those provisions have been in place since the state constitution was ratified here, in an era when all elections were handcounted by necessity, so it's not as if the addition of some yes/no questions makes it untenable to count them by hand.
What do you think is easier to scrutineer, the counting of this or this?
Of course its possible for bad actors to try and inject distrust into even a well-formed process but the more simple or straight forward that process is the less credible that becomes.
I know it's just a different style, but to my American eyes I honestly distrust the super simplifed look of those Canadian ballots more-- it looks like something they'd give children as a way to explain how voting works to me. Do they give you a booklet with each race/initiative on its own page then? Or do you not directly vote on anything besides MPs/mayors/city councilors up there?
The American ballot is easy to just scan for boxes, the text is largely irrelevant beyond a title for a recount. I don't see why our Scantron-style ballots (which, at least for us Americans, is a near-universal thing used in schools for tests) would be the source of conspiracies themselves, when they've been this way since before the current election conspiracies existed.
I for one would be utterly unwilling to sacrifice the elements of direct democracy we do have in exchange for a Fisher-Price looking ballot. The conspiracists would latch on to something about those too, in all likelihood.