26
votes
I bought used voting machines on eBay for $100 apiece. What I found was alarming.
Link information
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- Authors
- Brian Varner, Issie Lapowsky, Brian Barrett, Emily Dreyfuss, Lily Hay Newman, Clive Thompson, Brendan Koerner
- Word count
- 1256 words
The worst part is that electronic voting doesn't even offer significant benefits to the voter. We get all of these drawbacks, but you still have to physically go to some polling place, wait in line, and it all takes about the same amount of time as with older punch card designs. If you want to improve accountability and voter participation, follow the leads of states like Colorado and Washington, and switch to universal mail-in ballots.
As an aside, does anyone else think that it is absolutely insane that the construction of voting machines is contracted out to private corporations rather than being done in house?
This article would be absolutely alarming if it was in any way surprising. As it is, I read that in a state of disappointed resignation. Surely incompetence plays a large role in the state of our voting systems, but I feel pretty confident they're defective by design at least in part. Oh well. I'll go and vote anyway. I lose nothing by doing so, however the system is compromised. I believe the main element of control that bad actors have over the elections is apathy and other indirect means. It's most likely that their direct control over the elections is statistical in nature - a few percentage points here and there. And if it's worse than that ... well, I still lose nothing by voting, and it's worth a shot.
Are mail-in ballots generally more tamper-resistant? I'm aware they have upsides when it comes to voter turnout and ability to make an informed vote. But I'm almost as skeptical that my vote would count if I mailed it in, as I am that my vote will count if I go to the location. I suppose it depends on how the state processes them, no?
Mail-in ballots are certainly more tamper resistant than many forms of electronic voting. For instance, in Georgia, there is no paper trail left by voting machines; everything is recorded only digitally. And when information is subpoenaed, servers have the mysterious tendency of wiping themselves.
Whether or not they're more secure than in person paper ballots is a harder question, but I would say that if you're using dedicated ballot drop off boxes, as is common in states that use mail-in voting, it's probably about the same. Somewhat less secure if you're just putting them in your mailbox, but mail tampering is already highly illegal, and changing enough ballots one-by-one to steal the election, when the consequences of even a single discovery are so severe, seems like an unlikely avenue to pursue compared to other forms of voter suppression.
Alright, cool. Thanks for the thorough response!
Seems like things haven't changed much since 2004 (PDF) http://avirubin.com/vote.pdf