[ale] OT: man in the middle on diebold machines

Wed Sep 28 23:03:30 EDT 2011

As one who ~ 15-20 years ago was a poll manager in Gwinnett County (that
makes me a has been, I suppose) with the old "hanging chad" voting machines
and up to 2500 people in the precinct, a good percentage of whom voted
regularly (between 40%-60% IIRCl) I have to cast my vote for the paper
system. In 5 or 6 elections maybe as many as 8, we only had one case where
we couldn't make our counts come out correctly. We were off by one or two
votes cast as I recall. From my experience, with paper you basically need a
reliable chain of custody of the paper goods and COMPETENT and honest poll
workers (poll watchers are a valuable resource there) to be reasonably
confident of a fair and accurate election. However, with paperless
electronic, one mole, worm, rat or call he or she what you will and they
could definitely swing the elections.

The important thing isn't so much that the election is 100% accurate and
without fraud/error but that the frauds and errors are kept below the
threshold that would actually alter the outcome of the election. Hugh Hewitt
has a book entitled "If it's Not Close, They Can't Cheat." Now I haven't
read the book, but I do listen to his show regularly and his pointis pretty
much what I wrote above. If the election isn't close ,swinging it one way or
the other would be VERY difficult with paper ballots. It only takes 50% +1
to win the election,  but your best insurance is run a good campaign and
trounce your opponent. However, with the current electronic machines, we're
left to trust those in charge of the elections. By and large, I think we
can; from my experience, the people involved were contentious and largely
competent/well trained.  OTOH, people are human and for sure there will be
some elections tipped /stolen with rigged machines. But the biggest risk of
that is with close elections whichever method of voting is used.

On Wed, Sep 28, 2011 at 9:57 PM, Jim Kinney <jim.kinney at gmail.com> wrote:

> I like recycling the existing machines to paper print a ballot that is
> office = name legible and a machine name and timestamp stub for the voter to
> take home and display proudly.
> We know enough tech to be able to optically scan those ballots and can hand
> count them for verification.
> I can't begin to express the horror I feel at online voting proposals.
> On Sep 28, 2011 9:42 PM, "planas" <jslozier at gmail.com> wrote:
> > Hi
> >
> >
> > On Wed, 2011-09-28 at 21:00 -0400, Drifter wrote:
> >
> >> Some random thoughts on voter fraud with paper ballots:
> >>
> >> I actually spend nearly 30 years living in rural communities in Virginia
>
> >> and voting on paper ballots was the only option.
> >>
> >> The primary difference between fraud with paper ballots and fraud with
> any
> >> sort of machine, whether mechanical or electronic, is the difference
> >> between retail and wholesale. With paper ballots the effective maximum
> >> size of a precinct is 500 actual voters -- so maybe 600 or so on the
> >> rolls. Why? Because counting paper ballots is extremely time consuming.
> >> At the end of the count if the tally sheets do not agree, then the
> judges
> >> have to count the ballots all over again. Ouch!
> >> If one or more of the election judges is able to tamper with the tally,
> >> then the best they can do is compromise the voting of that one precinct.
>
> >> And the only way to tamper with the tally is to tamper with the
> individual
> >> ballots, which also takes time. (That's why I always marked my ballot
> with
> >> a pen and not the provided pencil.)
> >>
> >> Once voting machines are in use the fraud game changes radically. The
> >> precincts are larger -- much larger: 3,000 on the rolls is common. The
> >> much larger population of voters makes the fraud much harder to detect:
> >> Election judges no longer know every one by sight;
> >> which means it is easier to vote the graveyard, and for those so
> >> inclined to vote several times.
> >
> > When one registers to vote you must provide ID, which can forged. The
> > problem is that very rarely does the deputy registrar personally know
> > the person in any suburban or urban area. With the appropriate IDs and
> > little time, one could be registered in multiple precincts. Stuffing the
> > ballot box by this method has been done but requires many people to be
> > in on the fraud and only takes one to sing. Manipulating an electronic
> > file requires far few people maybe as few as 2 or 3. This would make the
> > fraud much harder to detect.
> >
> >> The shifting ratio of election judges to voters makes it easier to hide
> >> the fraud;
> >> The vote totals are larger making the fraud more likely to affect the
> >> election.
> >> Tampering with a few machines takes far less time than tampering with
> >> hundreds of paper ballots.
> >>
> >> So, yes; returning to paper ballots would significantly reduce the
> chance
> >> of an election being stolen through fraud. Are paper ballots going to
> >> reappear in urban areas? Nope.
> >>
> >> Electronic voting frightens me because for the first time voter fraud
> can
> >> now change the tally for an entire county or city. And the knowledge and
>
> >> skills of Michael Warfield or Bob Toxen are not needed. Any reasonably
> >> intelligent staffer in the Registrar's Office can be taught how to do
> it.
> >> Five minutes alone at the right terminal should be more than enough
> time.
> >> The only way to prevent this kind of fraud is, as Michael suggests, to
> >> require end-to-end verification and auditing confirmation.
> >>
> >> Sean
> >>
> >> -------------------------------------------------------
> >>
> >>
> >> On Wednesday, September 28, 2011 04:59:51 pm Michael H. Warfield wrote:
> >> > On Wed, 2011-09-28 at 15:38 -0400, Cameron Kilgore wrote:
> >> > > I still wonder the need to complicate and put at risk the
> reliability
> >> > > of our one measure of democracy. Paper ballots seem more reliable
> >> > > and less prone to a politician's whim.
> >> >
> >> > On that, we may have to agree to disagree.
> >> >
> >> > On one hand, there have certainly been sufficient examples of "hanging
> >> > chads" and misplaced bags of ballots and ballot count mismatches to
> >> > argue that paper ballots are neither reliable nor less prone to a
> >> > politician's will.
> >> >
> >> > OTOH, there have been proposals for voting protocols down through the
> >> > years which can insure authenticity and authorization while preserving
> >> > anonymity while still providing end to end verification and auditing
> >> > confirmation. I've seen some such proposed at security conferences
> >> > such as NDSS, Usenix Security Symposium, and RSA over the last decade
> >> > or so. We know how to do it right.
> >> >
> >> > The problem is that these protocols are "open" and, as such, can not
> be
> >> > held for ransom by companies wanting to leverage the maximum number of
> >> > tax dollars out of pockets for their proprietary solutions and they
> are
> >> > too good for those people who don't want something that good...
> >> >
> >> > We can agree that the current field of voting machines are an abysmal
> >> > and embarrassing lot of junk that should have been rejected out of
> hand
> >> > by anyone with any respect for the institution. Trouble is, that's not
> >> > those with the vested interests.
> >> >
> >> > Regards,
> >> > Mike
> >> >
> >> > > --Cameron <http://ghostfreeman.net>
> >> > >
> >> > >
> >> > > On Wed, Sep 28, 2011 at 3:34 PM, Geoffrey Myers
> >> > > <lists at serioustechnology.com
> >> > >
> >> > > > wrote:
> >> > > >
> >> > > > Anyone else catch this?
> >> > > >
> >> > > >
> >> > > >
> http://hardware.slashdot.org/story/11/09/28/0241201/man-in-the-midd
> >> > > > le-remote-attack-on-diebold-voting-machines
> >> > > >
> >> > > > --
> >> > > > Later, Geoffrey
> >> > > > Sent from my iPhone
> >> > > > _______________________________________________
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> >
> > --
> > Jay Lozier
> > jslozier at gmail.com
>
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