The Soviets and Russians have inserted themselves into our political debate since the 50’s. All of it is intended to generate chaos, unrest and distrust. It now seems to be more effective because if us, not because of them.
Why can't we get a handle on voting equipment
- Thread starter Marvin the Martian
- Start date
The Soviets and Russians have inserted themselves into our political debate since the 50’s. All of it is intended to generate chaos, unrest and distrust. It now seems to be more effective because if us, not because of them.
and the Russians learned that from corporate interference in our elections.
why are we only concerned with foreign interference, (except Israeli i guess), but not so much by far better funded and effective interference from within.
We have laws against tampering with voting machines now. I guess this discussion is over then.
Face palm my ass. We have laws against murder and rape too. Maybe you think laws stopped both but I don’t.
There are laws against burglary. No need to lock your doors.
you don't stop election machine hacking by making it illegal.
you do so by making it non computer based in the first place.
because as you have so succinctly pointed out, if computer based, no way to stop them from being hacked, no matter how many laws against doing so you have..
what you can have though, is laws banning computer based voting machines.
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Your sarcasm is exactly my point. The effective antidotes to election tampering will not be found in more laws no matter how much the Democrats hate TRUMP! You guys politicize everything.
Do you believe our voting systems need securing? If so, what would you suggest be done? So far all I've seen you add to this discussion is snark.
Here is a long story about 5 voting systems and how they are easily penetrated. These were bought on the secondary market, in many cases the original admin password had never been changed and was freely available on the internet.
The biggest problem is that many systems create no paper trail. We have accountants here, is that a GAAP?
If course our voting systems need to be secure.
What additionally needs to be done is a technical question not to be found in politics. I am more familiar than the average person about what has been done to secure the process, at least in Colorado. I think the worry and hand-wringing is over stated. Some proposals mentioned here are now in place.
Russian influence is more about the campaign issues than actual vote counting. As I said, that isn’t news. All the tampering happened during the previous administration and the official position was that changing election results with tampering was highly unlikely. I tend to agree. Now the Dems need to answer why TRUMP! They have found one answer with the Russians and they ain’t letting go.
What do you mean by no paper trail? Most systems have a paper trail. Maybe all of them.
Can you give me the English version of your link? It’s jargon and what is’t jargon is gibberish. It doesn’t describe any voting system that I am aware of.
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Try ABC News.
I worked elections in Monroe County for 20 years. Our previous system would have no paper trail at all. The votes were stored in memory. At the end of the night, we would push a button and it would print out the candidate number and their vote total.
Shorter COH: I don't understand and it's your fault. (But I'll weigh in anyway.)
Did it count the voters? Was each transaction able to be looked at, or only gross numbers? How was the ballot displayed? Was it a touch screen? If so who put the ballot information into the machine? How were the votes from different machines tabulated? How were recounts performed?
A paperless touch screen does not mean no paper trail. The ones I know about can produce printed data in many different forms. But I agree, the best system is the paper ballot and optical scanner. I think that is used in the vast majority of jurisdictions. No system is full proof, and I’m not so sure that a touch screen is more prone to tampering than other systems.
The voter disability accommodations still use touch screens as one accommodation.
Right. That is a highly specialized endeavor. It doesn’t lend itself to politics.
Then why do you insist on making it a political question? The only thing political is the refusal to mandate stricter, more up-to-date technical security standards and assure the systems in place meet those standards. See the thread title: "Why can't we get a handle on voting equipment?" Could it possibly be politics?
The machine had buttons on the front next to the glass panels that showed the candidates. At the end of the night the inspector would tell the machine to print the totals. It would print on adding machine tape, candudate 1 - 27 votes. We would write them down on a tally sheet, both the D and the R judge recorded separately. We had to record all machines on the same sheet and add them up. We would cross check our totals with the other judge.
Recounts were literally making sure the machine's tally tape agreed withholds.
Now the machine may have had a running count somewhere in it. It was explained to me that it held onto votes in groups of five before recording them. It would randomize them and then record them. That way no one could remember CO voted 3rd and look at his votes. I do not know if it was written to paper or a drive. Either way it was useless, if the machine was infected it would record the wrong vote onto its paper or drive.
The machines were programmed by the election staff. They pretty much just had to tell it which numbers had candidates.
We would lock the machines up into cases when we were done. And the GOP inspector with the Democratic judge took the machines and a locked bank bag of the tape and the tally sheet back.
Sounds like the only tampering had to come from the inside, correct? External hacks weren’t possible?
I looked it up, I believe it was the Infinity. It had an rj45 port. From this Tennessee news story:
Ideally, Verified Voting recommends ythat Infinity’s exposed ports be covered with tamper-evident security seals. The Infinity does contain an exterior Ethernet-like communication port that “may or may not be sensitive.”
Why do external ports exist on voting machines? The memory card was beneath a sealed door, and we used the seals. We had to confirm the seals that were on it that we removed. Then we had to record the seals we put on. The old seals went into the bank bag.
And you can't think of any changes that have occurred in those 50 years that could be exploited to exacerbate the problem?
And even air tapped voting machines are connected. In some cases, they either are connected to a computer to be programmed or have firmware updated. That computer can be hacked specifically to introduce code to hit the voting machines. The famed Stuxnet was created to be passed along via flash drives. Any hack at the building corporation or voting office could introduce a stuxnet.
That is why all voting machines should be required to produce a paper ballot. The voter signs the ballot indicating they meant to vote for said candidates and deposits the ballot. Then audits happen to ensure at x% of precincts the paper and electronic agree. If they disagree, paper is canon.
I have been through IT security audits. It is not enough that I patch machines, for example, I have to confirm the patches and document. I have to document changes to the systems. I now spend as much time documenting as doing. All because we let accountants setup IT audit rules we now have less time working and more time writing. I do not understand how a REQUIRED paper trail as described above is even slightly controversial.
That is why all voting machines should be required to produce a paper ballot. The voter signs the ballot indicating they meant to vote for said candidates and deposits the ballot. Then audits happen to ensure at x% of precincts the paper and electronic agree. If they disagree, paper is canon.
I have been through IT security audits. It is not enough that I patch machines, for example, I have to confirm the patches and document. I have to document changes to the systems. I now spend as much time documenting as doing. All because we let accountants setup IT audit rules we now have less time working and more time writing. I do not understand how a REQUIRED paper trail as described above is even slightly controversial.
seems kind of redundant, since that's exactly what our 2 major parties do all day every day.
DIVIDE AND CONQUER,
the plan of the Ruskies to conquer us?
nope.
it's the plan of Wall St and the moneyed interests to keep everyone fighting 24/7/365, yr after yr, decade after decade, over social issues and home team party loyalty, while they buy off the senate and the house on both sides of the isle, all the regulators, the supremes, and the media.
forget liberal/conservative media when it comes to economic issues. ALL major media is a PR arm of Wall St, 100% owned and 100% funded by Wall St, and control not only every economic decision, legislative and regulatory, but also those entrusted to police the banks, the corps, the media, big healthcare, the arms complex, and control SCOTUS by controlling who gets nominated in the first place.
it's not some crazy coincidence that Joe Consumer or Joe Citizen NEVER wins at SCOTUS vs big money or big govt.
worrying about Russia influencing us, is like worrying about the fan speed of the air unit in your car, while driving through a category 5 hurricane in a convertible with the top down and no windshield.
maybe that's why all the sock puppets and all the media scream "Russia, Russia, Russia", all day every day, while the legislators and regulators cash their giant checks from Wall St, and only ask "how high", when Wall St says "jump".
pay no attention to that man behind the curtain.
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Forgotten among the concerns, wishes and hopes is the fact that election machines are selected and purchased at the county level - in Indiana among others - and not by the federal government. There are federal election statutes, but none which usurp the authority of state and local government with regard to election machinery/method of casting ballots, tabulation and locations/poll hours.
None of that precludes the Federal government from mandating standards for machines used in Federal elections.
You have described the swamp and one important reason why voting for Clinton was out of the question. The swamp is fighting back.
That may be the law now, I have not checked, but a lot of counties are still using 10 to 20 year old equipment because they cannot afford to update.
I thought you were talking about a locked door. As I’ve mentioned HAVA and regs issued under it sets out detailed requirements for maintaining machine security.
So are you saying all machines in use today have all ports behind locked doors? Because I really do not believe that is true.
Im saying all machines are required to be secured and not available for unauthorized access.
We are going to have to debate what secure means because people are buying voting systems with USB ports.
