Voting online

[Sifiso21031085]

What do you think about electronic electoral voting ?Is it trust worthy?

[stultuske]

what do you think about non-electronic electoral voting? is that trustworthy?

[Stuugie]

Nice counter stultuske. If humans could be removed from the voting system equation I would trust either forms of voting. However, we humans tend to want to tinker and eff things up and that wouldn't change from one way of voting to another.

[Ancient Dragon]

I think electronic voting has been proven to be even less reliable then paper voting either because of bugs in the electronic software or hackers. It wouldn't be difficult for a programmer to write the software which auto votes for a particular candidate regardless of who the voter intended. That is much more difficult to do with paper voting. Neither system is 100% reliable but I think paper voting is the more reliable of the two systems.

It would be nice if we could just vote on our smartphones or computers, but I doubt that will ever happen due to high probability of voter fraud.

[eddit] Here is an abstract of an article written a few years ago on this subject. Admittedly I have not read it all.

[Reverend Jim]

I think we need a dual system. The voter makes his/her selections on a computer monitor, then a ballot is printed with the selections clearly indicated. The voter reviews the printed ballot then either

1. presents it to a poll clerk to complain about a machine error, in which case the ballot is marked as invalid and the voter gets to vote again
2. presents it to a poll clerk to feed it into a vote counter

All printed ballots are kept in case a manual recount is called for.

[mike_2000_17]

The way I see it, if we can make online banking systems that we can trust (presumably), then we should be able to make an online voting system that we can trust.

[Stuugie]

I mostly agree with Mike.

[Reverend Jim]

Except that if you don't trust online banking then you can choose not to use it.

[Ancient Dragon]

And how about those few paople who don't have computers?

[vmanes]

Thus far, I have no faith in the electronic voting as presently implemented. There are too many demonstrated instances of faults in the systems, whether intentional or not. The lack of reliable and verifiable audit trails makes them suspect.

We have enough voter fraud in the USA with the various paper systems, electronic systems just make it easier to skew elections.

Maybe we need the purple ink used in Iraq?

[jwenting]

I think electronic voting has been proven to be even less reliable then paper voting either because of bugs in the electronic software or hackers. It wouldn't be difficult for a programmer to write the software which auto votes for a particular candidate regardless of who the voter intended

Several years ago that's exactly what happened in the Netherlands.
Hackers intent on showing the security problems with the voting machines broke in at the factory, stole a chipset, reprogrammed it to always vote for the same candidate, broke in at the national storage facility for the machines sitting there ready for upcoming elections, modified a machine, and got away without anyone noticing.

They didn't even have to change the software for the PCs used to control the voting machines and record the votes, but for good measure they did that as well.

And that's doing it the hard way...

As a result election law was changed from requiring the machines to requiring votes be the old fashioned way using a red grease pencil on paper.

Now the government is threatened with being decimated in the next election cycle and they've started rewriting the law to require those same machines be used again.......

[jwenting]

Maybe we need the purple ink used in Iraq?

it sure helps prevent people voting multiple times, not counting absentee voting of course, but won't prevent election fraud by those counting up the results (there's really no way at all to prevent that).

[Reverend Jim]

We have enough voter fraud in the USA with the various paper systems, electronic systems just make it easier to skew elections.

In spite of the claims from Republicans of massive voter fraud (used to justify disenfranchising people who skew Democratic), the only widespread fraud has been on the part of companies hired by the Republicans to disenfranchise people who skew Democratic and this is typically done at the time of voter registration, not at the polls themselves. However, other "fraud" does occur when (Republicans, again) do things like curtail early voting.

[Ancient Dragon]

Republicans aren't the only party guilty of that. Democrates are guilty as well, here in St Louis area a few years ago there were many dead people who voted Democrat. Seems that only happens when Republicans are winning.

[jwenting]

let's try to keep the partisan mudslinging out of this? Election fraud is of all times and all parties, all you end up doing is have shouting matches about "who does it more" which depends in part on what you consider election fraud to be, which some to extend to their political enemies running election campaigns and asking that voters show proof of their being allowed legally to vote at all.

[Stuugie]

I don't take sides when it comes to politics because my views of all politicians are the same. In saying that, when it comes to voter fraud, all I can say is George W. Bush.

That is all. ;)

[Ancient Dragon]

Wasn't it in Iraq when Saddam Hussein held free elections he got 100% of all the votes :)

[G_Waddell]

In Ireland they wasted millions of euro on electronic voting machines that ended up sitting in a warehouse unused. The problem was the press, IT professionals and eventually general public all spoke out because there was no real audit trail to prove non vote tampering and double voting BUT here's the rub if there was then people would come out a complain the ballot was no longer confidential!

[Reverend Jim]

The Help America Vote Act was passed after the 2000 election in which George Bush was elected by Fox News. That act created a bipartisan commission dedicated to making voting easier, the U.S. Election Assistance Commission. That commission would have two commissioners from each party. Republicans in Congress killed that commission by refusing to appoint or approve any commissioners.

Every voter ID law that has been passsed since 2000 has had the effect of making it more difficult for people who typically vote Democratic to register and vote.

North Carolina authorizes voter vigilantes, ends election day registration, cuts early voting and makes it harder to register.

The graveyard vote is repeatedly touted as widespread despite almost no evidence of it being a problem.

Texas is arguing that what it is doing is OK because it won’t be as bad as what its minorities faced in 1965 when the Voting Rights Act was adopted.

Texas (Republican) Attorney General and gubernatorial candidate Gregg Abbott is quoted as saying

“DOJ’s accusations of racial discrimination are baseless. In 2011, both houses of the Texas Legislature were controlled by large Republican majorities, and their redistricting decisions were designed to increase the Republican Party’s electoral prospects at the expense of the Democrats. It is perfectly constitutional for a Republican-controlled legislature to make partisan districting decisions, even if there are incidental effects on minority voters who support Democratic candidates.”

and

Even if violations occurred, they bear no resemblance to the “pervasive,” “flagrant,” “widespread,” and “rampant” discrimination that originally justified preclearance in 1965. See Shelby County, 133 S.Ct at 2629. Under Shelby County, bail-in could be a congruent and proportional remedy for intentional discrimination, but only in response to the kind ofever-changing discriminatory machinations that gave rise to the preclearance regime in the first place. Because nothing remotely like that has occurred in modern-day Texas, this Court cannot impose preclearance on Texas while remaining faithful to Shelby County and the constitutional principles on which it relies.”

Fliers in Virginia in 2008 told Democrats to vote on the wrong day, while fliers distributed in black neighborhoods in Milwaukee, Wisconsin in 2004 told residents they couldn't vote if anyone in their family had been convicted of a crime.

Man registering voters for GOP accused of tossing forms in trash.

Dems decry bogus robocalls. The calls told people to take a voter registration card and proof of home ownership to election stations on Wednesday.

Paul Schurick, the former campaign manager of the ex-Republican governor of Maryland, Bob Ehrlich, was convicted of ordering 2010 robocalls aimed at black voters implying they could stay home and "relax" because the Democratic candidate, Martin O'Malley, had already won.

A Texas Voter ID Law would accept a gun licence but not a student ID as acceptable ID to vote.

Pennsylvania Republican House Leader Mike Turzai (R-PA) admitted that Voter identification efforts are meant to suppress Democratic votes in the 2012 election.

Florida announced it was investigating a long-time GOP activist for voter registration fraud.

In-person voter fraud is so rare that eight years of the Bush administration ended in only a handful of prosecutions* and no evidence of an organized conspiracy to steal elections through in-person voter fraud, despite the fact that such conspiracies comprise the beginning and end of Republicans' interest in voting rights matters.

Florida Governor Rick Scott announced he would defy the Department of Justice and push forward with his purge of thousands of registered voters.

[veedeoo]

I can't possibly think of alternative ways for recount. What would be the reason for unclear results? I know parties who can't accept their defeat will probably say;

We found out that some online voters voted with a Dimpled Monitor and therefore we demand re-counting of the votes.

I rather stay with the chad, at least dimples are pretty visible if questioned. In fact, we can probably pushed it back a little to make it look like a dimple.

[Ancient Dragon]

in which George Bush was elected by Fox News

That never happened.

[Reverend Jim]

That never happened.

Yes. It did. While the other networks waited for official results, Fox News just went ahead and called it for Bush. The other networks decided to follow suit rather than risk falling behind by bothering to verify.

January 30 2012

South Carolina considering a bill from the conservative American Legislative Exchange Council (ALEC) to limit access to the ballot box. A nearly identical version of an ALEC voting bill is moving through the state Senate and comes on the heels of the U.S. Department of Justice (DOJ) blocking South Carolina's ALEC-inspired voter ID law as discriminatory against people of color.

November 1 2010

Dick Armey, who now heads the tea party funder Freedom Works, said falsely on Fox News that Democratic voting was up during early voting — because that’s when it’s easier to commit voter fraud. However, law enforcement statistics, reports from election officials and all the available research indicate that voter fraud is practically nonexistent.

October 18 2008

A firm hired by the GOP is accused of using petitions to trick people into switching party registration.

September 5 2013

Florida GOP-Led Voter Fraud Investigation Finds Nothing—Except GOP Fraud.

February 4 2012

Indiana's top elections official could lose his job and his freedom after jurors convicted him of multiple voter fraud-related charges on Saturday, leaving in flux the fate of one of the state's most powerful positions.

August 14 2012

A News21 analysis of 2,068 alleged election-fraud cases since 2000 shows that while fraud has occurred, the rate is infinitesimal, and in-person voter impersonation on Election Day, which prompted 37 state legislatures to enact or consider tough voter ID laws, is virtually non-existent.

October 29 2010

A Republican candidate for the U.S. House from Arizona this week claimed that his opponents are busing Mexicans over the border to vote illegally in Arizona. The secretary of state's office says they haven't seen any evidence of the sort.

October 19 2008

The head of a GOP backed group, Mark Anthony Jacoby of Young Political Majors (YPM), was arrested by the California State Election Fraud Taskforce and the Oxnard Police for committing voter registration fraud and perjury by lying on his own voter registration form.

Conservative pundit and airhead, Ann Coulter has committed voter fraud felonies on both Florida and Connecticut.

Many of the claims of voter fraud amount to a great deal of smoke without much fire. The allegations simply do not pan out according to this study from The Brennan Centre For Justice

[Ancient Dragon]

While the other networks waited for official results, Fox News just went ahead and called it for Bush.

How can you claim Fox elected Bush when what they did doesn't affect voting ?? You sound like you are still just pissed off because Bush was elected. Bad looser. Get over it. You need to pay more attention to Canadian politics instead of American politics where you have no say one way or the other. Of course US could always make Canada it's 51st state, then you could vote in American elections.

But we digress, lets get back on topic.

[Reverend Jim]

You need to pay more attention to Canadian politics instead of American politics where you have no say one way or the other.

Sort of like the average American voter. Bush only won because the supreme court stopped the recount.

Of course US could always make Canada it's 51st state

You guys planning on stepping in to "maintain the peace" when Quebec finally wins their referendum? Perhaps you consider poutine a weapon of mass destruction.

My concern with American style politics, like voter suppression and gerrymandering to rig elections is that what happens down south seems to work its way up north after about a ten year lag. Our current federal government has taken the first step by making changes to the elections act that will effectively neuter the agency that monitors the election process. Basically, our right wing is taking lessons from your right wing.

And I noticed that you didn't refute my substantiated examples of paranoia and fraud by members of the GOP. Nor did you provide comparable examples of abuses by the Democrats.

[Ancient Dragon]

It's all right here -- Bush would still have won had there been a recount. But this is 15 year-old news and not worth repeating.

[mike_2000_17]

Bush would still have won had there been a recount.

The problem with the 2000 Florida elections was not about the recount, but about the disenfranchisement of tens of thousands of primarily african-americans in Florida. This "error" won the election of Bush. And this "error" came from a private company who have since settled a lawsuit and effectively admitting to being responsible for the massive disenfranchisement that undoubtedly won the election for Bush.

And that issue was part of a coordinated afront on black votes, most likely coordinated by Bush's brother Jeb. Hard to prove, but very obviously so.

But this is 15 year-old news and not worth repeating.

Reminding people of the actions of criminals who conspired to overtly violate the US Constitution and take a piss on Democracy and everything Americans stand for.... yeah, that is worth repeating.

Heh heh. We just laugh at US elections over here. Although we have our own issues, the whole presidential campaigning, the money spent, amounting to the annual GDP of some countries is obscene. But that's what we've come to expect. Don't spend too much on improving our country as we won't have enough funding for the next campaign! Shame that improving the country means lining the pockets of campaign contributors after a successful result to those power brokers.

[Stuugie]

I'm a call it how I've always seen it, Bush was an idiot oil man that scratched and clawed his way to the top spot in America. There are too many instances where this is fact (being and idiot). See here or here. I find it shameful that a guy, whom if he didn't have daddy's money to back him, would have probably been a Jr High school drop out living in some Texas trailer park. It' amazing what money can do for a person.

As for people, like Canadians, watching our own politics and never-minding American politics, let's not forget the the US is a so called "super power" so all eyes are on America.

As entertaining as it is to poke fun at the American voting system, I fear that we've derailed the point of the thread to some extent.

Voting should be as easy as possible for the voter (at the point of voting) but the system should be as robust as possible to reduce the possibility of fraud as far as possible.

Looking at that, then usability may compromise security, while shoring up security may hamper accessibility. Remind anybody of momentum and position?

Is it the thrust of democratic elections that all eligible voters should be able to do so, or just the majority? Is that acceptable?
Also a computerised system may link the individual to a colour. Is that acceptable? Possibly if you live in certain countries. Don't vote or you could expect a midnight visit.

I love the idea of computerised voting, but the reality seems to be that it's a bad idea. We expect to be able to use our tablet/phone/PC to do everything these days. Perhaps not all expectations should be realised.

[Reverend Jim]

scratched and clawed his way to the top spot

I completely disagee. He's a spoiled rich snot who was handed everything he ever got. I forget who said it but the quote was "He's a guy who was born on third base and thinks he hit a home run."