Election Security Proposal

[Striek]

I just don't get it. Us backwards cancucks are stil using paper ballots with big X'es for the vote and real, bona fide ballot boxes to vote with. And yet, we have never faced a fraud allegation like Americans have. I have no doubt that a paper ballot system is incredibly insecure, as it would be ridiculously easy to simply cast two ballots in there with minimal planning, but somehow, we don't have these problems. Maybe it's because we simply don't defraud democracy and then complain about its vital signs.

This leads me to believe that it is not in fact how we vote that determines the validity and honesty of an election. Since I doubt that where, when, or on what we vote has any effect, this only leaves one possibility - why we vote.

I do not have an answer which could explain the differences between why Canada (and perhaps the rest of the world) and America votes. But I see it as the only reasonable explanation for the fraud experienced in the United States, as opposed to here. Although Berkely may have decleared the voting machines to be the most insecure boxes ever made, I doubt a cardboard ballot box can hold water to them.

So perhaps it is not your voting system, but your electoral system as a whole that needs to be redesigned to prevent voter fraud?

[fractal.design]

I think more there attitudes.

But personally, I feel all is lost for US democracy (and has been since I can remember)
I say, bring on the downfall.

[MoonWolf]

The us has a problem that it has a 2 party system.

I can not REALLY see the difference between them, maybe im to much of an outsider.

They simply look like two big party's that want to be the rulers. Everything in your election is centered around the presidential candidates and mudslinging. There is only red or blue. Democrat or republican.

How democratic are the democrats.
How much are the republicans trying pushing towards a republic system.

Its really a your with us or with them idea. And what is up with this states vote and then the guy that had the most votes in said state get the whole state systems. Sounds pretty whack to me.

And then you are suprised when there is fraud.

Btw. I think holland has been using electronical voting systems for some time now without any big frauds. dont know how they work precisely.

[jinxy]

The original post, deals with cost from a purely business point of view. If this was the only consideration, countries like the UK would never have created a national health service.

The cost of creating a secure electronic voting system would be a one off cost. Maintenance is another thing.

So perhaps, if applying your, risk, cost, formula, raises questions for you. It may be interesting to look at the long term implications. Is there a saving in manpower, paper and setup, in the long run? Is it possible to obtain a more accurate vote count? After all, computers are far better than man at doing tedious tasks, like counting.

Security is not just about cost, it's about a whole lot of different things to different people.

[gore]

Be a Libertarian like me, then you know how it feels to really get ass raped each election. What happened to my guy this election?.... OH YEA HE WAS IN ****ING JAIL.

[Tim_axe]

Public/Private Key Pairs...?

Idealy everyone would have their own private key and bring it to the booths. Then a single public/private key pair is generated per election and the public key is provided to the voting booth/presincts so they can record the votes so that only the central site can compile them...

But signing the vote (with their key pair) might give away the voter's identification...so some sort of other way to sign it based on other information would need to be devised. It would have to also make it impossible to drop votes. I guess each voting site could have a key pair and it might be possible to sign the data with that pair (and the vote can't be decoded since the key pairs are different). So somehow each prescint would be held responsible for the votes they submit.

At least this is sort of the track I'm led to think may be possible. Of course if the information is tampered with before it is encrypted (which is entirely possible) you're SOL...and if the votes are recorded to some other media there may be problems, etc...

Cheers.

[catch]

Some major things you all are forgetting:

Each district pays for their own system, consequently there is no single system that will be adopted. Clearly poor areas cannot afford, and rural areas are less interested in some fancy pants system with private keys and god knows what.

A verifiable hard copy must exist.

The vote must not be traceable to a single voter.

Half the population doesn't care if the election is stolen, so they feel they have nothing to gain by paying for security.

Security is not just about cost, it's about a whole lot of different things to different people.

Security is no more than cost avoidance. Is it cheaper to eat the loss or to secure something? Anything else is merely a misunderstanding of cost. It is like the question, "How much is a human life worth?" Clearly the answer is not "infinite" otherwise it would be perfectly reasonable to dump all the money in the world to keeping a single person on life support alive, consequently there must be a definable cost. You may now like the idea, unfortunately it is a universal principal of risk management.

cheers,

catch

[Tiger Shark]

Catch does bring up an interesting point regarding half the population not caring about the election being stolen......

But then what we are really talking about is the cost of freedom. Without a properly run and verifyable election procedure from start to finish then you no longer have a democratic process, (forget about the electoral college for those of you who want to make a political discussion out of this - take it to Cosmos or chit-chat where it belongs). What you have is a monarchy with the richest and most powerful playing King. At that point even those that _think_ they won have actually lost - maybe not today - but in a few years time certainly.

While it still comes back to the question of what the general public will pay for a truly democratic process the question still remains - What is the cost of freedom? The apathetic masses don't really care because they can't see past their noses let alone the monarchy that may present itself 10 years down the road.

While it might seem like a good idea to build computerized machines to take, tally and report votes I'm afraid I have to revert to an old adage of mine.... Sometimes there are no technological solutions to an administrative problem. I believe this is one of those issues. Leave the system alone. Make people get off their asses and go to the precinct to vote. Make them take their card and cast their ballot and then employ/use volunteers to count those ballots. For the forseeable future it is:-

1. Probably more cost effective
2. Less prone to accusation of fraud
3. Less able to be compromised in a way that is not discoverable, (thus allowing for conspiracy theories)
4. It has an auditable paper trail that does not conflict with any other "trail"
5. People, (excluding those in Palm Beach County Fl.), already understand it and aren't intimidated by it.
6. It is affordable by all constituencies in the US
7. It has worked for a few hundred years.

All of which, it seems to me, is, in the end, beneficial for democracy in the US.

Catch, recommend that, for security and therefore cost reasons, that the system remain as it is.... and see what they say..... I have $5 says they want this "solution" for the same reason Oakland County here wants to go entirely wireless... To look trendy regardless of the cost and insecurity.... When you present them with a more effective solution to their "perceived" problem they will stop conversing with you....