Online Voting in Michigan

[RedEagle]

http://www.detnews.com/2003/politics/0310/14/a01-297592.htm

Tuesday, October 14, 2003

Online vote triggers worry
State Dems aim to spur caucus turnout; critics fear the digital divide
By Charlie Cain / Detroit News Lansing Bureau

LANSING -- Despite substantial criticism -- including fears of hackers and the silencing of minority voters -- Michigan Democratic leaders are holding to their plan to allow Internet voting in the Feb. 7 caucus that will select a presidential favorite.

The plan, which is being challenged by seven of the nine Democratic presidential hopefuls, would for the first time allow Michigan voters to use the Internet in a public election. Arizona, the only other state to try online voting, used it in the 2000 Democratic presidential primary -- and saw turnout increase more than six-fold over 1996. ..............


What proponets site is ease- not accuracy, fraud prevention, ....

And the SERVE project is Microsoft based and vulnerable to attacks before encryption and when downloaded to the counties. Plus, military votes go to servers in the Pentagon. Plus, they told us at a meeting it was vulnerable to insider fraud.

I urge everyone to write/call/fax/email and tell Michigan Dems what a montrous idea this is.

And Dean had better get a clue. There's nothing wrong with telling supporters that he advocates WISE use of the Internet- and that's not voting on it.

You can't audit an Internet election. If you want the other party picking your candidate- or another country, hey, vote by Internet!

Only the biggest names in computer science and security warn against Internet voting.

But gee, the military contractors like it......

[Eloriel]

1. Everybody better get a clue

But yes, Dean too.

I think it's time we start flooding the blog with articles. Whadya think?

Eloriel

[NewYorkerfromMass]

4. Yes Dean sure as hell needs to get a clue

and "YES" votes to the poll on that news item who offer gems such as these comments:

"Absolutely! It is degrading to run the gaunlet of candidates and helpers handing out literature. It is also slow and cumbersome in the polling room just to get to the booth. There is no reason why todays technology can't make it easier and secure to vote online. As far as hackers or others trying to mess with the program. Make it a felony and prosecute them!"

"Yes! And it's about time we started doing this. It's the 21st century, but in some places we're still using 1970's voting technology. If we can do our banking online, buy, sell, trade Stocks online, we certainly can vote online!!!!!!!"

Of course it's not all bad: "If you can't stop spam, how are you gonna stop the fixing of elections???

http://info.detnews.com/techtalk/lettersindex.cfm?forum=techtalk&topic=Click_on_a_candidate

[onebigbadwulf]

2. Speaking of fraud...

How about addressing the current vote machine fraud before criticizing future possible voting fraud??

[ParanoidPat]

5. It's one and the same.....

....and goes by the name BLACK BOX VOTING! :evilfrown:
How about addressing BOTH by joining us in the fight? email [e-mail] :)

[dsc]

3. What Dean actually said

is he wishes to hear more about this before he decides if it is or isn't a good idea. Frankly, I think that when we don't know much about something, and the first time this was posted we surely didn't, we should give the benefit of the doubt to something that was unamimously agreed to. I am no computer expert by any stretch of the imagination. But I do think the Michigan Democratic state central committee should be trusted until it is proven otherwise to have the best interest of its party at heart. I would like to see some rational discussion of the security issues here.

[hedda_foil]

6. I'm sure they do have the best interests of the party at heart, but ...

They don't have a clue about the total lack of security involved in internet voting. This is a disaster waiting to happen and we don't want to wait until Lieberman is the surprise winner of the internet caucus voters to get the Michigan Democrats, Dean (and Clark for that matter) to understand that this is anything BUT a good idea.

[Mairead]

7. " I would like to see some rational discussion of the security issues"

Before we get into that, let's just point out the 'digital divide'. It was talked about in another thread here recently (perhaps still actively). The divide is real, and internet voting is guaranteed to privilege whites over people of color, and the wealthy over the poor. Is that desirable? Is that in any way desirable, or even acceptable?

As to the security issues, they're simple: unless (a) you have a list of people who are allowed to vote in your election, and (b) you also can positively identify each person at the other end of the connection, and (c) can positively assure that the vote that person sends is the vote you receive (i.e., that it's not being hijacked in the middle somewhere), and (d) you have a way to confirm to the voter that it happened correctly, then you don't have acceptable security.

Now, the Michigan party might have a list of every registered Dem as of the time of the vote, but I doubt it. And they might have a way to receipt for each vote. What I would be willing to bet on, however, is that they have neither (a) a way to positively identify each person trying to vote, nor (b) a guaranteed secure pathway from voter to 'ballot box'. Modern browsers support secure-socket layer encryption, so voters with modern browsers are probably okay on (b). Voters with older systems running older software would not be. And the only way to solve for (a) is administratively complex and not something they will have done.

[NewYorkerfromMass]

11. It's "soft" racism, or classism at best

no doubt about it. minorities and poor people would be at a disadvantage.

[ComerPerro]

8. FREEP this election!!!!

Oh, yeah, online voting.

Great fucking idea.

Jesus Jumping Christ.

[ScreamingMeemie]

9. This was a subject we discussed at the last meet up I was at...

Dean is going to be at a brunch here this weekend, and I know a couple of people who plan to bring it up.

[seemslikeadream]

10. DOD starts secure internet registration and voting

demonstration for 2004 election.

The Federal Voting Assistance Program (FVAP), in conjunction with states and counties, have begun conducting a large registration and voting demonstration for the 2004 election. The Congressionally mandated project is called SERVE, which stands for Secure Electonic Registration Voting Experiment.

Thousands of absentee uniformed services personal, their dependents, nad overseas U.S. citizens have the opportunity to register to vote and cast thier ballots from any Windows-based computer Internet access, anywhere in the world.

The Federal Voting Assistance Program is an element of the Department of Defense.

http://www.serveusa.gov/public/aca.aspx

There are ten states who will be participating in this project and they include Arkansas, Florida, Hawaii, Minnesota, Ohio, North Carolina, Pennsylvania, South Carolina, Utah, and Washington

VeriSign tapped to secure Internet voting

VeriSign announced Monday that it will provide key components of a system designed to let Americans abroad cast absentee votes over the Internet

The contract was granted by consulting firm Accenture, which is working with the U.S. Department of Defence on a voting system know as the SERVE.

http://zdnet.com.com/2100-1105_2-5083772.html

[dsc]

12. Can we please stop lying when discussing this

Post after post here and in the other threads pretend that this proposal to allow internet voting was done with no other methods of voting. In the very same proposal there is a mail in option. And you don't even have to go get the ballot you can call to get one. Which means, despite the outright lying posts to the contrary, that if you are a poor black person who has never seen a computer you can still vote just as easily as a white person with the fastest computer ever invented. You don't have to leave your house. You don't have to do anything but call a phone number, fill out a ballot, and put the ballot where your mail carrier will mail it for you. If you are going to discuss this issue please do so honestly. I put this here only due to there being several utterly dishonest posts elsewhere in this thread.

[RedEagle]

13. Can Other Options Overcome a Hacked Internet Vote?

"Other options are not exactly at the center of the discussion. OK, people have other options. Can people voting by those other options overcome a hacked Internet vote?

You can't claim the election will be all right because other voting options are available. People who don't have a clue, who are PR'd to death on technology, are going to use the Internet.

Someone, somewhere, will take advantage of that.

And how will you prove it if it happens?

Someone could elect Dame Edna as the Democratic nominee, and although it would look phony, if voted by Internet, there is no way to prove is isn't legit. So Dame Edna would be pretty obvious, but a Kerry win over Dean, say, would not be. Who knows what the real tally might be? How do you audit it?

There will not be enough votes via other methods, especially if they are Touch Screens without a voter verified paper ballot, to overcome any vote fixing via Internet, should it occur.

Black box voting is about VOTE COUNTING IN SECRET. Same scam applies for the Internet as for Touch Screens. Except with the Internet, it's just that much easier and the whole world can play with an election.

The top Internet security experts are adamently against it.

[dsc]

14. I agree on the security issues

my point is this and one other thread say it is classist and racist to support his proposal and that is just plain lying.

[Mairead]

15. You know, your partisanship has become mindless, and thus disgusting

From having used both methods in different contexts, I can tell you with complete certainty that your 'just as easily' is either a demonstration of your woeful, willful ignorance, or a lie.

This is not 'separate but equal', dsc, this is 'separate and unequal'. You should take shame for your desperate partisanship.