Election Voting Machines - Page 1
Forum section: electronics / general

author: EEVblog
author_rank: Unknown
timestamp: November 09, 2016, 12:36:52 am
content: Given it's election day in the US, and that means (mostly?) electronic voting, let's talk voting machines.Here Are two links I was sent on twitter:http://www.politico.com/magazine/story/2016/08/2016-elections-russia-hack-how-to-hack-an-election-in-seven-minutes-214144Note: Don't discuss the election here, seriously, I'll just delete your post if you do.

author: CatalinaWOW
author_rank: Super Contributor
timestamp: November 09, 2016, 12:58:36 am
content: As with all voting systems, physical security is the basis of accuracy. Any part of the system that is automated opens the possibility for automated cheating, so any automation has to have a custodial trail. Now you have to start balancing the threat vs the cost of thwarting the physical threat. There is no such thing as perfect physical security, so things like locks and safes don't claim perfection, they only make claims about difficulty of breaking or time to break, or clear evidence that they have been broken.The article on US voting seems to me to describe an initial naivety that is gradually being eroded, and very poor initial electronic voting methods that are largely replaced now with better (not perfect) approaches. One advantage of the local control of US voting methods is that it makes hacking national elections much more complex. Just identifying which kind of attack is appropriate in tens of thousands of precincts is a massive task. Making the task that large makes attempts to suborn it much more likely to be detected.

author: nctnico
author_rank: Super Contributor
timestamp: November 09, 2016, 01:10:06 am
content: What more is there to say: voting machines where abandoned in the Netherlands in 2007:https://edri.org/edrigramnumber5-20e-voting-machines-netherlands/I think they even managed to play chess on a voting machine.

author: lowimpedance
author_rank: Super Contributor
timestamp: November 09, 2016, 01:18:54 am
content: Quote from: nctnico on November 09, 2016, 01:10:06 amWhat !... no roulette

author: Sal Ammoniac
author_rank: Super Contributor
timestamp: November 09, 2016, 01:22:56 am
content: Quote from: lowimpedance on November 09, 2016, 01:18:54 amConsidering the two candidates we have to choose from in this election, we're all playing Russian roulette with six rounds loaded in the gun.

author: sleemanj
author_rank: Super Contributor
timestamp: November 09, 2016, 01:30:43 am
content: Numberphile had Ron Rivest do a couple relevant videos yesterday

author: Homer J Simpson
author_rank: Super Contributor
timestamp: November 09, 2016, 01:41:54 am
content: Voting should not be easy. It should take time and effort.A person should be educated on the issues and the candidates. Understand the importance, privilege and consequence of their vote.A lot of places in the world people don't have a choice or a say.Voting by mail, machine or online to me diminishes the amazing thing that we have in representative democracies. The ability to pick our leaders.-k

author: Cerebus
author_rank: Super Contributor
timestamp: November 09, 2016, 01:58:00 am
content: Quote from: EEVblog on November 09, 2016, 12:36:52 amAren't you just, kind of, shooting yourself in the foot here? Start a thread about electronic voting, on the eve of a big election,...Anyway, voting machines. I'm a veteran of discussions about these, over a long time, with people who have given it alotof thought including some of the big names in computer security. The conclusions to be reached are never technological but political, in the sense that what matters most requires laws to be made or changed.Consider the US, that has probably made more use of electronic voting then anywhere else. The code inside most voting machines has never been independently reviewed and the manufacturers of these machines use intellectual property law and the DCMA to actively thwart any attempts to review them. There is no way that we, the voting public, can have any confidence in electronic voting unless, by law, these machines operation is open to public scrutiny. Until that hurdle is crossed there's little to be done.

author: Brumby
author_rank: Unknown
timestamp: November 09, 2016, 02:36:12 am
content: Quote from: Cerebus on November 09, 2016, 01:58:00 amNot at all.I would have to say the intention is quite clear. This thread has nothing to do with any influences on how a voter decides which way to cast their vote - it's all about the mechanism for recording them.

author: Brumby
author_rank: Unknown
timestamp: November 09, 2016, 02:42:10 am
content: Quote from: Homer J Simpson on November 09, 2016, 01:41:54 amI won't disagree with you - but this is digressing from the topic.

author: jonovid
author_rank: Super Contributor
timestamp: November 09, 2016, 02:48:38 am
content: E Voting is a bad idea. E Voting = Voting Fail.even contacted australian electoral commission beforabandoning the kids school project. for numerous reasons.kid's can do other projects. just Not this one.just like IOT it has many holes. hacking an all paper system is harder to do.text of how Oz E-Voting system works text docanswers to questions about the images.1 shows polling mainframe units and polling station electoral roll console operator units.2 shows polling booth tablet computers inside rugged plastic clamshell case. with twin card readers.note- this is incomplete with many missing images. splash screen. how pages displayed as program runs.I have no more to add to this post.

author: AntiProtonBoy
author_rank: Frequent Contributor
timestamp: November 09, 2016, 04:03:33 am
content: Quote from: blueskull on November 09, 2016, 03:52:39 amNo offence mate, but I reckon that is a naive solution.The best system is paper ballots and hand numbered. Physical votes are very difficult to tamper with. Also, large scale invalidation of votes due to systematic error is almost impossible.

author: ez24
author_rank: Super Contributor
timestamp: November 09, 2016, 04:15:23 am
content: In San Diego County, Calif., there is no connection between the voting system and the internet. In the US, each local system would have to be tampered with inside the system. So even if this were to happen the impact would be minor. It would probably take millions of people to tamper and make a difference and it would be easier just to spend money on ads.

author: zapta
author_rank: Super Contributor
timestamp: November 09, 2016, 05:00:58 am
content: Paper ballots have their down side as well. The ballot stuffings in this videos seems to be organized, not a lone wolf.At home we vote by mail. Very handy, you sit on your couch, check information and recommendation on the internet and fill in those 30 or so ballot questions, some very obscure about local issues. No need to stand in line.

author: Kilrah
author_rank: Unknown
timestamp: November 09, 2016, 05:08:22 am
content: Quote from: Homer J Simpson on November 09, 2016, 01:41:54 amProblem is that nowadays if it takes time and effort people won't do it.

author: vodka
author_rank: Frequent Contributor
timestamp: November 09, 2016, 05:16:55 am
content: Zapta , you put in doubledhttp://www.dailymail.co.uk/news/article-3796116/Putin-s-party-sweeps-victory-Russian-elections-amid-evidence-vote-rigging-CCTV-catching-one-woman-stuffing-multiple-vote-slips-ballot-box.htmlhttps://youtu.be/13PRLV2LfBc

author: AntiProtonBoy
author_rank: Frequent Contributor
timestamp: November 09, 2016, 05:25:18 am
content: err, why was my post deleted?

author: Towger
author_rank: Super Contributor
timestamp: November 09, 2016, 05:41:41 am
content: Voting machines also scrapped in Ireland.There are a number of interesting technical documents published on the system and it's numeras flaws and even counting bugs (Microsoft Access) discovered in it.  I believe still used in some American states. I'll try a dig up links later.In the end it was decided that when you factor in the number of uses (and we have lots of elections and referendums) storage costs (climate controlled), set up costs and maintenance it is cheaper to count by hand, so the system was never replaced. Also both the politicians and media did not like electronic counting in the end. It was more 'fun' and 'excitement' to count by hand, the counting is in large halls open to the public and various running tallies would be announced during the day as each box was opened and counted.Edit link:https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Electronic_voting_in_Irelandhttp://www.wijvertrouwenstemcomputersniet.nl/images/9/91/Es3b-en.pdf

author: vodka
author_rank: Frequent Contributor
timestamp: November 09, 2016, 05:50:06 am
content: Quote from: Towger on November 09, 2016, 05:41:41 amCertain if they have conscripts

author: JPortici
author_rank: Super Contributor
timestamp: November 09, 2016, 06:29:19 am
content: Quote from: Homer J Simpson on November 09, 2016, 01:41:54 amtrue. true. true.many of us, me included, think that there should be a test prior being authorized to vote in the following election/referendum...a test that must be objective and not on opinions on the subject. like being able to cite passages from the constitution or when this or that related law was included or when that related to the vote in subjectfor a simple reason. It's a democracy. everybody has the right to votebut it's not right that the vote of an idiot that doesn't want to think for himself, doesn't want to get informed, doesn't care to understand what he's saying (after all, we're in the top ranks for functional illiteracy) has the same weight as the one from others who do care.and i'm not saying that because i'm smart and the who think different are dumb. there has been times i voted the same as they did, that i had their same "opinion" but listening to their supposed reasons to do so was giving me an hearthacheQuote from: Homer J Simpson on November 09, 2016, 01:41:54 amquoting again to say: those alternative methods, albeit much less secure to me, should be present and be there for people who want but can't phisically go to the cabins. maybe they are too old or sick to move, but they too have a right to vote.

author: VK3DRB
author_rank: Super Contributor
timestamp: November 09, 2016, 07:20:52 am
content: The only reliable election voting machine is one that is not connected to any external network outside the polling booth. To prevent hacking, all data communications within the polling booth should be done using fibre-optics and possess intrusion detection mechanisms.Even so any electronic voting machine will not stop Americans voting for a bully, sexual predator and racist as their leader. You can't use electronics to mitigate stupidity.

author: iampoor
author_rank: Frequent Contributor
timestamp: November 09, 2016, 07:37:20 am
content: Quote from: blueskull on November 09, 2016, 04:08:58 amSevere consequences dont seem to currently deter criminals.Didnt electronic voting machine have large issues in the 2000 presidential election? I was 7, but seem to recall that the vote were miscounted in some swing states.

author: AndyC_772
author_rank: Super Contributor
timestamp: November 09, 2016, 08:35:07 am
content: A machine to just collect and count votes is pointless; it's solving a problem that simply doesn't need to be solved. Good riddance to them, along with the whole idea of using tech just for its own sake.In other areas, technology has dramatically broadened the scope of information and content which is available to people. In moments, I can find news, videos, opinions and factual content on just about any subject I choose. The sheer variety is way beyond what traditional media was ever able to provide, and for better or worse, anyone at all is able to contribute.Yet when it comes to electing our leaders, it's like the disruptive technologies from the last 10 years didn't happen. The choice is, for all practical purposes, still between option A and option B, and if they're both terrible choices then that's just too bad.The same technology which allows anyone with something interesting or original to say to 'go viral' and become popular, has done nothing for our electoral options. Nowadays the people whose videos I watch most often aren't the 'conventional' presenters and celebrities who appear on broadcast television; they're people who make their own content on subjects I'm actually interested in.What a shame, then, that I can't yet (meaningfully!) vote for people whose politics and opinions I actually agree with, rather than the ridiculously limited set of options that are typically available.Over to you, technology.

author: TerraHertz
author_rank: Super Contributor
timestamp: November 09, 2016, 08:37:01 am
content: I'm opposed to electronic voting systems (for critical political use), for the same reason I think relying entirely on electronic copies of books is a bad idea.As soon as anything exists entirely as electronic digits, the only way to be sure the information has not been tampered with, is to personally have complete end-to-end control of the data, and use strong encryption plus checksumming. Which in itself opens a complexity can of worms.With electronic voting systems involving thousands of machines and a huge network for collecting and totalizing the results, there's no conceivable way to ensure honesty. Especially when the companies making and programming the machines are known to be partisan, and the groups publishing the results have no legal obligation to tell the truth (as is the case with US media corporations.)Also, with no permanent physical record of individual votes, there's no possibility of meaningful recounts, or historical archiving of the original votes.And lastly, without paper ballots there's no way for people to give informal input, such as write-in candidates, rude comments, rants, etc. This is actually a really serious lack, if you want to avoid an eventual violent revolution.That America's voting system relies so much on electronic systems, should convince anyone with an understanding of how such machines work, that their true reason for existence is to enable vote fraud. Fraud which has been the norm for decades in US elections. Thanks Diebold and their kin.Seehttp://blackboxvoting.org/andhttp://everist.org/archives/links/__Vote_fraud_USA_links.txtThere have been so many demonstrations of how the various machines can be easily rigged. Also many documented examples of them actually falsifying votes, both at the individual machine level and vote totalizing level.One interesting aspect, is the 'vote flipping' issue. In which many people have been reporting (and posting videos of) them touching one screen box, and the machine selecting a different one. goog: 2016 election video vote flipping.Example:http://everist.org/archives/links/vote_flip.webm(webm uploads not allowed here.)There are lots of similar around, I only saved one. But they don't stay online long, for some mysterious reason, ho ho.The amusing thing about this, is every time that issue comes up in forums there are any number ofshposters insisting it's just some 'calibration error'. Right... which always just happens to switch votes the same way, in multiple districts with different candidates. Also, sorry, that doesn't wash technically. Touch screens are everywhere now; when was the last time you used an autoteller, office printer control screen, or cellphone, in which touch positioning was way off? So here we get two examples for the price of one: vote-rigging built into the machine software (proof electronic systems can't be trusted), AND forum paid shills and their talking point lists. You can bet if anyone posted a video of the flipping going the other way there'd be endless screaming about 'Russian government hacking the election.'Which seems to be another talking point list item recently.I've salvaged two junked office machines lately with touch screens. Both machines were filthy, had been out in the weather. Both touch screens worked perfectly.Anyway, paper ballots, they are the only reliable way. There can still be ways to rig paper ballot elections, but it's much harder.It could be possible to combine the two domains, paper and electronic, to get advantages of both (and some other benefits too.)For instance, fill out paper ballot at polling day, and the ballot paper has these features:- A unique serial number, printed twice.- A comment box in which you can write or draw anything you like. This personalizes it for you, so you can recognize it later with no chance of fakery.- You tear off a slip with the serial number and keep it. Put the other part in the ballot box.(So the ballot slip is anonymous, but you can still find it in a database.)Ballots then manually counted, with open public oversight.Totals done manually, then posted (including all local counts and numbers on rolls), for the election result.THEN the ballot papers are all fed through digitizers, and saved as actual images.Then all OCR'd for the tick/number boxes. Second count done electronically. Compared to manual count.If the two counts are not very close, and make a difference, recount manually and identify discrepancy causes.But most importantly, put the entire database of ballot paper images online, indexed by serial number.Result: people can check their ballot actually was counted.That still leaves the problem of 'dead people voting', imaginary residents, and other ways faked ballots get into the system.Another negative aspect of electronic voting machines, is the ridiculous cost and waste of materials, to design and build all the machines. That are only going to get used a very few times. Paper is much more resource efficient. Even that scan/OCR stage I suggested would be OK, since it could be done in bulk with just a few high speed machines.

author: VK3DRB
author_rank: Super Contributor
timestamp: November 09, 2016, 08:46:21 am
content: Voting machines can make things easier and faster. The trick is usability and simplicity. At our federal election (in this free country where it is a crime not to vote), there were too many candidates and the voting forms were longer than an election victory thank-you speech. At recent council elections, about 1.1 million people failed to vote. The government will reap million of dollars in fines. A voting machine has to be incredibly easy to use. It has to cater for imbeciles, old age pensioners, itinerants, Luddites, first-time voters, illiterates, politicians who boast they don't know how to use a laptop, and the general public who are technology literate. Furthermore it has to be quick. There is no sense having to read instructions for ten minutes on how to use it.In addition, it should be largely hardware based. The more software in the system, the more chance of bugs but more importantly the less it will be trusted. People trust hardware (what you can see, feel) more than software.It might be something as simple as a having a few buttons. Press the buttons in order or press the clear button. When done, press the "VOTE" button. This might also prevent the donkey vote (an invalid vote) that occurs here because almost every citizen aged 18 or over is forced to vote, even if there is no-one worth voting for as is often the case. Or the forms are just too complicated for some people. An electronic system might FORCE everyone to vote whether they want to or not. Donkey votes can be prevented, because you cannot draw rude pictures or have blank forms. The system can issue you an on-the-spot fine if you walk out of the polling booth without pressing the VOTE button.So for the government an electronic voting system is in their interest. For those who don't trust politicians and don't want to vote, it might be a bad idea.Incidentally, some years ago I heard of a study done by a PhD student in political science. He found that compulsory voting and optional voting tends to achieve the same outcome for the candidates.

author: TerraHertz
author_rank: Super Contributor
timestamp: November 09, 2016, 08:53:44 am
content: Quote from: AndyC_772 on November 09, 2016, 08:35:07 amYeah, agreed, it's pathetic. Personally I consider myself officially disenfranchised, and can actually document it.http://everist.org/NobLog/20160629_broken_pipe_dreams.htm#voteQuoteCIL - Citizen Initiated Legislation. This would be very interesting to try. Some kind of social media-like proposal and trending scheme, totally online. With proposals making it to 'hot' then being batched together in paper ballots in regular cycles, not too often. Would be a cool way for people to learn by mistakes. Not too bad, if the system could respond quickly, and education was improved a lot. Still wouldn't need any special electronic voting machines.Heck, if it worked maybe we could do away with elected politicians and centralized governments altogether. What a dream.

author: EEVblog
author_rank: Unknown
timestamp: November 09, 2016, 09:10:34 am
content: Quote from: TerraHertz on November 09, 2016, 08:37:01 amI saw a video of this and it's just incredible. How the hell does that technically happen?If that happened just a few times it should have been an automatic recall and dump that system, just like the Samsung Note 7.

author: Brumby
author_rank: Unknown
timestamp: November 09, 2016, 09:15:20 am
content: Quote from: VK3DRB on November 09, 2016, 08:46:21 amAn invalid vote is aninformalvote. It does not get counted.A 'donkey vote' is when the voter just numbers the squares sequentially from top to bottom. This is a formal vote and, as such, is counted. There is enough of this kind of voting that candidates really want to get on the top of the ballot paper, to pick up those votes from people who either don't understand the system or couldn't be bothered.

author: Kilrah
author_rank: Unknown
timestamp: November 09, 2016, 10:46:16 am
content: Quote from: EEVblog on November 09, 2016, 09:10:34 amSimply a badly calibrated touchscreen. For some weird reason it seems to happen often, I can't count the number of times I've used ticket dispensers and other random booths where I had to tap 2cm away from the intended target to get them to sense the correct field.

author: rt
author_rank: Regular Contributor
timestamp: November 09, 2016, 11:10:23 am
content: Quote from: TerraHertz on November 09, 2016, 08:37:01 amI would overall agree with the advantages of paper ballots and automatically counting them with public oversight of all steps.My only disagreement with the above is on removing a receipt from the polling booth. It is not a secret ballot if you bring anything out than can be tied to your vote (including having matching serial numbers or taking photos of your ballot). The result would be coercion and vote-buying.Instead the only item that the voter should be able to remove is a printed receipt with a one-way hash of their vote which cannot be tied to their specific vote.They would then ideally be able to verify via another one-way function that their votes were counted correctly by comparing with a hash of hashes of all votes included.Anything that breaks the secret ballot will create more problems than it solves.rt

author: julian1
author_rank: Frequent Contributor
timestamp: November 09, 2016, 11:55:57 am
content: A paper ballot probably costs 5c to print. So you have to wonder what the cost savings are.The goal of election management should be a transparent process. And with paper that's easily achieved - monitors for each party can scruitinize the handling as well as the counting. It's also a repeatable process with the possibility of a recount.In comparison - current voting machines don't even have their code open-sourced and available for review.

author: nctnico
author_rank: Super Contributor
timestamp: November 09, 2016, 01:19:43 pm
content: Quote from: TerraHertz on November 09, 2016, 08:37:01 amIIRC this was also one of the reasons the voting machines in the NL got abandoned. It is hard to keep a physical trail of the input in a pure digital system. Printing slips has been suggested as well but that had problems with keeping the votes 100% anonymous.

author: rrinker
author_rank: Super Contributor
timestamp: November 09, 2016, 01:46:54 pm
content: Quote from: AntiProtonBoy on November 09, 2016, 04:03:33 amTell that to Florida in 2004. It is apparently beyond a great many people to actually punch a hole in a piece of paper. The thing about the US is every state is different. There are different types of electronic machines in use, as well as various forms of paper ballots. Here we have electronic machines, but not complex touchscreen ones. They are quite simple. There are large squares where the candidate's names are marked off, each with a pushbutton and an LED that lights when you press the button for that square. At the bottom is a big green button you press after you have made your selections, which records your vote.I'm old enough that when I first reached voting age, we had the old mechanical machines, where you entered the booth, pulled a large lever that closed the privacy curtain as well as reset all the selections, and then there were small levers by each candidate's name that were mechanically interlocked so you couldn't pick 2 people for the same office (except in cases where it was something like judges where you might have to pick 3 from a pool of 7 candidates). When you were satisfied with your selections, you pulled the big lever the other way, which recorded your vote, reset all the levers, and opened the curtain. These machines were common everywhere, at least in my state, to the point that they had small practice models so you could learn how it worked in school - they actually taught us how to use the voting machine.

author: R005T3r
author_rank: Frequent Contributor
timestamp: November 09, 2016, 02:18:42 pm
content: Quote from: AndyC_772 on November 09, 2016, 08:35:07 amWhat about a e-voting machine tampered as it tracks personal information and the vote itself? Wouldn't be that great for government to know exactly who has a preference for them? My concerns about voting is privacy: vote should always remain a secret.Anyway, I've decided to not to vote anymore else: it is not worth the time and the effort... In my country I think that every step forward (or backward) is done, it will end up in a single thing: systemic failure.... It's only a matter of time before everything comes down...

author: MT
author_rank: Super Contributor
timestamp: November 09, 2016, 03:13:12 pm
content: Quote from: blueskull on November 09, 2016, 03:52:39 amEh! Why even bother building a voeting machine at all? Just kill anyone who tries to vote, so much more efficient!

author: madires
author_rank: Super Contributor
timestamp: November 09, 2016, 03:25:09 pm
content: If you want to learn about security issues of electronic voting machines, there are several talks from Defcon, Blackhat and other conferences at YouTube. Just a few days ago a security company released a recent hack for a common machine used in the US:https://www.cylance.com/cylance-proves-voting-machine-vulnerabilities

author: retrolefty
author_rank: Super Contributor
timestamp: November 09, 2016, 03:44:11 pm
content: Quote from: zapta on November 09, 2016, 05:00:58 amBeen voting this way for decades. But then some political paranoia's will say what makes you so sure your mail in ballot really got delivered and counted.

author: Nozzer
author_rank: Contributor
timestamp: November 09, 2016, 05:04:49 pm
content: Quote from: vodka on November 09, 2016, 05:16:55 amThis, like many other videos of fraud in the Russian Presidential Elections appears on a pro-Tea Party website, full of conspiracy hypotheses. It reminds me of all those doctored videos on YouTube by people claiming 9/11 never happened or was a CIA/Bush conspiracy. There were many horrors witnessed by those in NY that day that the media never showed, horrors familiar to those who have done military service and seen what happens to humans when subject to extreme blast caused by burning fuel.It also reminds me of similarly doctored images etc made by the former Soviet regimes in the former USSR. But I suppose conspiracy theorists worldwide have taken Josef Göbells assertion to heart, that if you lie often enough, people will believe you.

author: donmr
author_rank: Regular Contributor
timestamp: November 09, 2016, 06:12:01 pm
content: If you want serious review and oversight, look at the gambling industry. The Nevada Gaming Commission (US) has a long list of rules and requirements for machines including field testing, access restrictions and reviews of any upgrades.

author: Kilrah
author_rank: Unknown
timestamp: November 09, 2016, 07:52:22 pm
content: Quote from: blueskull on November 09, 2016, 03:52:39 amThat sounds like Russian Roulette to me, but with 5 of the 6 carts fitted.One bug in your software? "Tampering". Bye.

author: Rick Law
author_rank: Super Contributor
timestamp: November 10, 2016, 02:34:26 am
content: Quote from: Nozzer on November 09, 2016, 05:04:49 pmThe concern about voting machine tempering should not be brushed of as conspiracy video alone. Dead people voting have been documented many times, so concerns about tempering is entirely justified.Who one voted for is suppose to be secret. This makes creating a trail ever more difficult. As such, the voting machines needs to have a quality of inspiring confidence. Looking at it, it should say - "Yup, trust me, I am doing it right". The voting machines in my State convey exactly the opposite - "I am like a black hole and you go no idea what I will do with your vote."This is what I would do if I am king for a day:Part 1: Standardize to machine-readable format first- Vending machines were common before the 1960's so UI is familiar to most. That may be a good UI to imitate.- Big button(s) of photo(s) of the person(s) to vote for. Plural here since you may be voting for multiple things.- It has to feedback to the user (a print out) on what the votes are.- A two-part tear-off. Drop one part into a to-count-box and keep the other part.- Both parts should have both printed text of the vote(s) and machine-readable representation.Part 2: Build trust and counting- A scanner should be available at the polling station. The voter could (if they like to) walk to a scanner to ensure it is correct. (ie: plan text print match bar codes and match your votes)- Keep one part and drop the other part in the box and done.- Later, the ballots could be counted, the results can be entered into the system plus email/fax,the email/fax will be electronically send and electronically validated at the other end to matchthe numbers that was entered into the system.- A signed/certified hard-copy would be send to the appropriate office(s) for the record.Then, the boxes scanned ballots can be sealed and locked. In case if there is any recounts or issues, they are available for checking. If you have visited casinos, you might have seen high speed paper-money counters that counts and sorts. Adopting/implementing it for vote counting purpose should not be hard and thus making the counter/sorter easier to accept both in cost and trust.With proper extra tracking+validation info such as serial number, poll station number, time of vote on the printed ballot, one can readily track down if improper thing occurred (such as scanned vote != printed text vote). When fraud is easily caught, and who/where the crime was committed, it is much less likely to happen.If the machines and process worked perfect, cost (within reason) doesn't matter so much. It would be worth it if it can make fraud much harder to do.

author: Brumby
author_rank: Unknown
timestamp: November 10, 2016, 02:39:32 am
content: If you want to make a secure system - don't focus on how it has this feature or that feature. Don't sit there and think it's the greatest thing since sliced bread. Don't trust the design team, consultants and engineers...Work out how to beat it.Better yet .... offer a 14 year old $10,000 iftheycan.

author: Rick Law
author_rank: Super Contributor
timestamp: November 10, 2016, 03:43:17 am
content: Quote from: Brumby on November 10, 2016, 02:39:32 amI am not sure what you are trying to say. We all know that anything can be beat.So I am not sure if you are emphasizing something or introducing another thought?

author: Cerebus
author_rank: Super Contributor
timestamp: November 10, 2016, 11:05:56 am
content: Quote from: Rick Law on November 10, 2016, 02:34:26 amFail at the first hurdle. It's a secret ballot so that Razors from the Mafia can tell you how to vote, but he can't prove how you voted and thus have a basis for chopping your toes off. If you have a receipt with your votes tabulated Razors is now in charge of the fate of your toes, all ten of them.

author: Brumby
author_rank: Unknown
timestamp: November 10, 2016, 11:14:26 am
content: Quote from: Rick Law on November 10, 2016, 03:43:17 amJust offering a different perspective on the development approach.Don't just design something that you believe is excellent, covering all known weaknesses. Throw an independent, motivated party up against it ... they might just discover some attack vectors that were never considered.

author: Rick Law
author_rank: Super Contributor
timestamp: November 10, 2016, 05:41:18 pm
content: Quote from: Cerebus on November 10, 2016, 11:05:56 amHmmm... You are right. There has to be a feedback that is safe.I suppose just single slip, and you drop it in after you verified the votes corresponds to your vote. After that point, it is tracked by serial numbers that (hopefully) is secured from unauthorized access - and definitely note stored on the private server of the head of the election commission.