Australian Voting Software Goes Closed Source 567
From Diebold's last-minute installation of uncertified software updates on its touch-screen election machines in California (leading to decertification of the company's machines in several California counties) to ethically troublesome relationships between politicians and the companies whose machines count the votes that determine their employment, the possible benefits of electronic voting seem swamped at the moment by objections (from simply prudent to caustically cynical) to its security and integrity.
Within the world of electronic voting, though, eVACS (for "Electronic Voting and Counting System") has been a rare success story both for open source development methodology and for the benefits that electronic voting can offer. The first generation of eVACS (running on Debian Linux machines) was developed starting in March 2001 in response to a request for bids by the Australian Capitol Territory Electoral Commission (ACTEC), and it was done on a budget of only AUS$200,000.
(The Australian Capitol Territory includes Australia's capitol city, Canberra, as well as surrounding suburbs and Namadgi National Park.)
Besides a respectable list of features driven by ACTEC's initial requirements (like support for 12 voting languages, and audio support for blind voters), eVACS has an advantage not enjoyed by many electronic voting systems: it's been successfully, uneventfully used to gather votes in a national election. The election in which it played a part went smoothly, and the eVACS system itself functioned as hoped.
This year, though, ACTEC asked Software Improvement to update the code for future elections, and Software Improvement decided to go them one better -- or, in the eyes of open source enthusiasts, one worse. The notes Ritchie was provided to deliver announced a change to the process under which the code is released; specifically, a switch from an open source license to something the company calls "controlled open source."
According to Software Improvement, simply releasing election-machine code under a liberal license such as the GPL is undesirable for two reasons: it means a loss of the company's intellectual property, and unfettered access could lead to a compromise of the voting system, if a determined cracker could find and exploit flaws in the code. (Software Improvement has not supplied any examples to show that this has happened, however.)
The company's use of "open source" would find little support from organizations like the Free Software Foundation or the Open Source Initiative. Software Improvement's idea of software openness is rather limited. Claiming that open source development is insufficient, even inimical to creating trust in election systems, the company now says that portions of eVACS's codebase will be released only to approved analysts, and in encrypted form, to enable viewing only for auditing purposes, rather than code contribution. Repeated viewings would be reported to the company, and only a limited number of views would be permitted before the code would self-destruct.
After delivering the prepared presentation, Ritchie took a few minutes to react to the changes it announced.
"Six hours ago, while I was reading through this on the plane," said Ritchie, "I was infuriated to read what it actually says."
Ritchie, though, is a computer-literate political science student at the University of California - Davis, and behind the Open Vote Foundation. He said he's decided to resume the project represented on that site, started with the intent to fork and bring to the U.S. the first generation, GPL'd version of eVACS.
"A long time ago, I read the first news report about Diebold, wondered why we didn't have open source election software for our voting machines. Eventually, I found out that Australia had apparently beaten us to it. It seemed like a good thing; the eVACS system was developed and released as GPL code, it was checked and rechecked by computer science people and all kinds of election officials. I said, 'Why don't we bring this to the U.S.? It's GPL, let's do it.'"
So he started the nonprofit Open Vote Foundation to bring the software to the U.S., specifically to California. Ritchie went to the meeting at the California Attorney General's office which resulted in decertification of Diebold machines in that state's 2004 election process, and his involvement in the fight against Diebold's secret-source voting machines is what led him to the open source eVACS; now he finds that the restrictions on the formerly GPL software are "even worse that that on MS's shared source. To call that open source is a bit dishonest."
"As of 6 hours ago," he said, "I've decided to start that again. It's not that hard; I mean how hard is it to say 'add one to this vote'? ... I remembered my old plan, and thought 'Let's take the old Australian code, fork it, and work from that -- and that is still an option. This is the great thing about open source software. If the old lead developer goes insane, you can always fork it, right?"
His opening line? (Score:4, Funny)
Re:His opening line? (Score:4, Funny)
"To vote against the incumbent, hit the monkey!"
Re:His opening line? (Score:5, Informative)
Jesus Christ on an electric moped, it's not a Seinfeld quote, it's not a quote from some fictional movie, the line "The dingo's got my baby!" and the movie it was drawn from ( "A Cry in the Dark", iirc ) were based around a real case - that of Lindy Chamberlain.
This case was a total societal clusterfuck here in Australia. Half of the population believed in her story, and the other half thought she was full of it. Lindy ended up being found guilty of murder, and locked away for four years - after which her conviction was overturned ( and many people are still not convinced ).
To give you an idea of just how deeply this event has graved itself into the national psyche, I was four months old when it happened, and even I can tell you the name of the baby in question ( Azaria ). I guess the closest comparison Americans could make would be the kidnapping of the Lindbergh baby, although even that's not a real good fit.
It's not really that funny! Bleah!
When is civil disobedience justified? (Score:5, Insightful)
Remember, Americans: Bring your voter registration card, and a sledgehammer for Diebold. They are stealing our freedom to vote, the very democracy over which so much blood has been spilled, and the corrupted political process is encouraging it via awarded contracts and almost silent acquiescence.
This crosses political affiliations and affects all Americans. I strongly believe that this must be stopped it by all means necessary or we will lose the ability to collectively affect the policies of our country, no matter how small your individual voice might be. This is zealous, without a doubt, but not all zealotry is bad. "Extremism in the defense of liberty is no vice." And some things are too important to wait upon the justice system to work, even when it does. Sometimes men must take justice into their own hands.
Live free or die.
Re:When is civil disobedience justified? (Score:5, Informative)
Make sure your vote counts: make them count it by hand!
jaz
Re:When is civil disobedience justified? (Score:4, Insightful)
How do you know whether it was counted? How do you know how they counted it? There was a thing in the news the other day about a postcard that was about 20 years late. It fell behind a machine, and when the machine was moved 20 years later, it was found and forwarded by the post office. If your card falls behind a desk and doesn't get found until too late to be counted, how do you know?
There is absolutely no verification whatsoever in today's non-electronic voting systems. So how is it a bad thing when electronic voting is no worse than the current system?
And no, I'm not playing devil's advocate. I can conceive of multiple ways for there to be verification while retaining anonymity with electronic voting that will not work with paper voting. So if you want your vote to count (and you want to know if your vote counted) you should be against paper voting and for electronic voting. Just make sure they don't let Diebold do it.
MUST be out of the country for absentee: NOT SO! (Score:3, Interesting)
Donno where you live, but in Virginia, for instance, that is SO NOT true. There is a whole list of reasons that are OK, from being away at school to being out of town on business to just having a long workday.
For Virginia's rules, visit: http://www.sbe.state.va.us/Election/AbsenteeVoting /absente1.htm [state.va.us]
Many states have similar rules; a quick trip to you state's web site will get you the scoop...
Re:you MUST be out of the country for absentee (Score:3, Informative)
In Hawaii, they make it pretty simple:
"Any person registered to vote may cast an absentee ballot."
http://www.state.hi.us/elections/voteab.html [state.hi.us]
Re:you MUST be out of the country for absentee (Score:3, Interesting)
Politicians might claim [rpi.edu] that this is illegal, but the courts have said otherwise. In New York, for example, you only need to be living there 30 days before an election to vote (as long as you don't vote anywhere else).
Re:When is civil disobedience justified? (Score:4, Interesting)
What? How does it work in the US now? Here over in Europe you normally randomly pick Joe Schmo's for that job, normally in group of 5-10. Statistically there is almost always one that will blow the whistle.
Counting absentee ballots. (Score:3, Informative)
Absentee ballots are counted. Period.
In some jurisdictions they're counted before the polls close and their count goes out immediately after closing time, before the rest of the votes are counted. In others they might not show up on the count for days. But they DO get counted.
Re:When is civil disobedience justified? (Score:3, Funny)
Re:When is civil disobedience justified? (Score:2)
And how the heck is the above post flamebait? Extreme, yes, but it's a half-way reasoned post. Now I'm OT. Oh well.
Re:When is civil disobedience justified? (Score:5, Insightful)
"Civil disobedience"? I do not think that means what you think it means.
Time to take a few hours and (re)read your Thoreau and Ghandi; damaging voting machines has NOTHING to do with civil disobedience, despite how cool you think that phrase sounds.
Re:When is civil disobedience justified? (Score:2, Funny)
When Voting Machines Go FPS (Score:3, Funny)
"Yes, destroying the voting machines in not civil disobedience... turning them into a beowolf cluster to play Doom 3 on, now that is civil disobedience."
Except you'd be in a tight deathmatch, frag your opponent with a headshot from behind for the final kill, but somehow you'd end up on the ground headless and they'd be doing the victory dance.
Re:When is civil disobedience justified? (Score:4, Informative)
Destroying voting machines is about as violent as standing on a boat and throwing bales of tea into a harbor.
Re:When is civil disobedience civil disobedience? (Score:4, Informative)
It's really pretty practical actually; it's impossible to get somebody all riled up for social change, put a sledgehammer in their hands and tell them "Now, that's *ONLY* for the voting machines. No hitting!" Witness the French "Revolution": once you tell Jimmy Rebel "go forth and smash!" he rarely stops where you want him to.
jaz
Re:When is civil disobedience justified? (Score:5, Insightful)
The flip side of this, of course, is that you'd be unilaterally deciding to deny a large group of people the opportunity to cast a ballot, and possibly voiding an entire election. It's always hard to make an objective determination of where to engage in civil disobedience, but I'd urge you make extremely damn well sure in your own mind about when voting machine vulnerabilities justify your deciding for all of us that we'd be better off with no voting at all.
Certainly if you walk into my polling place and start smashing machines with a sledgehammer, you'll be leaving on a stretcher. I wouldn't count on everyone immediately recognizing you as the hero of freedom that you see yourself as.
Re:When is civil disobedience justified? (Score:3, Insightful)
This is because e-voting adds complexity to the system without actually bringing any benefit to it. It does not make it substantially easier to vote - larger print on the ballots would probably do more in that direction. It does not make it harder to defraud the voters. Since it removes the most convenient audit trail, it makes it easier.
I would prefer
Re:When is civil disobedience justified? (Score:5, Insightful)
Re:When is civil disobedience justified? (Score:5, Insightful)
"Extremism in the defense of liberty is no vice."
An opinions only, not truths. And, one I don't share.
"Sometimes men must take justice into their own hands."
Feel free to come on down to our voting country and try to take something into your own hands. Just don't whine and complain when you have your ass handed to you be people who aren't taking kindly to your presumption that you should determine that they shouldn't vote.
Re:When is civil disobedience justified? (Score:5, Interesting)
If someone created stickers that said something simple such as "How do you know this machine recorded your vote correctly", or something of that sort, then distributed those to people who would go into the voting booths and affix these stickers to the machines or voting booth walls or what not.
Would that get a stir out of people? How would John Doe going into the booth and seeing this colorful sticker asking the simple question react?
Granted, this would be a 'too late' type of situation, and I urge people to speak out ahead of time (I've already wrote my election officials, have you?). But what sort of reaction would this have at the booths...suddenly people questioning the machines, at the time of voting?
Just a question that I felt like tossing out:)
Re:When is civil disobedience justified? (Score:3, Funny)
Re:When is civil disobedience justified? (Score:5, Informative)
The Machine operator looks inside the machine after each voter, time allowing, to see if they have left any literature or stickers. You will get caught, with near 100% certanty. The proof will be that the sticker wasn't there before you entered, and its there after you left. That's grounds to ask you to wait until a police officer arrives, or to look up your name in the voter registration and report you if you flee. It is a felony in my state, and a felony under Federal law. You do NOT have a great position. If you start so much as raising your voice while accusing us of "bullying" or "threatening" you, you will be creating a situation that may intmidate other voters present, and the couts will be notified that you continued after being warned, and the election comission will seek multiple charges. If you raise a fist to denounce my 'bullies" you will be charged for intimidating an official as well. All the fun of behaving like a fool, WITH the nasty fear of serving 75 years before possibility of parole thing!
It is also definitely not civil disobedience. There is a line 100 feet in front of the building. Stand 101 feet out, right next to the marker, and you can hold up a big poster that asks "How do you know these machines are honest?", all you want. Pass out flyers too, but if you do, please tell people NOT to display them inside the polling place or leave them in the machines. If it's a hot day, I'll probably bring you and everyone else out there a lemonade apiece, but you'll have to stand there next to the rest of the spokesmen for and against various candidates and issues. Given that you have a right to do it that way, there's no need for doing it the wrong way.
Re:When is civil disobedience justified? (Score:3)
You talk big, but you don't know what the hell you're saying. Sounds like our current President.
Re:When is civil disobedience justified? (Score:2)
Re:When is civil disobedience justified? (Score:5, Funny)
Oh, wait...
Re:When is civil disobedience justified? (Score:5, Insightful)
I don't remember who said this: The difference between a patriot and a traitor is success.
Re:When is civil disobedience justified? (Score:2)
Re:When is civil disobedience justified? (Score:2)
In Canada, there are multiple parties, and as long as a party gets one seat, they get to influence how things run. It's not uncommon for a minority government (where the winning Prime Minister's party holds less than 51% of the seats) to be overruled by two (or more) smaller parties combining their vot
Re:When is civil disobedience justified? (Score:2, Insightful)
Re:When is civil disobedience justified? (Score:2)
John Kerry seems to agree with me at least 50% of the time. Of course he also disagrees with me the other 50%, and it's on the same issue...
Ok, this could be a problem.
To choose or not to choose... (Score:3, Insightful)
Positions for important issues
George Kerry
1.Supports war in Iraq, will add more troops if needed.
2. Strongly supports the Patriot Act
3. Supports Big government spending on various nanny state programs
John Bush
1.Supports war in Iraq, will add more troops if needed.
2. Strongly supports the Patriot Act
3. Supports Big government spending on various nanny state programs
As you can see George Kerry is certainly a
Re:When is civil disobedience justified? (Score:2)
Yean, like only Republicans disenfrancise voters.... oh, wait, you're right, Democrats have only enfranchised dead voters before.
That being said. I distrust diebold machines not because I believe diebold is evil, but because they appear to have been totally incompetent in creating an adaquately working system for electronic voting. Give me paper and pencil anyday.
Also, the safer civil disobedience route would be to generate a large
Re:When is civil disobedience justified? (Score:5, Insightful)
If you don't vote, however, you really have no right to complain about the way things work. This is a democracy after all, even if it has its share of problems, and individuals can work to change things, even if they aren't 100% successful.
Re:When is civil disobedience justified? (Score:2, Interesting)
same thing here.... (Score:4, Insightful)
Anyway, with this article, I still think computerised voting is totally unnecessary, we just plain don't need it, don't need the cost, it is BILLIONS of dollars nationwide, we don't need computers to add simple sums at the precinct level,so just say *no*, no open source, no closed source, no source at all.
Some things computers are good for, others are an expensive hindrance. "Ohh shiny" and "we are in the computar age" don't cut it, computerised voting is "gadgets for gadgets sake", and someone's profits for the hardware and software, not because it's needed. Voting results should be reviewable with any set of biological eyeballs, anything else will be blackbox voting. It's bad enough with the stupid mechanical machines, we don't need anything beyond paper and pen, and a locked wooden box with a slit in the top to receive the ballots, and that's it.
Want to make it more fair? Institute at least a 24 hour voting period, and do the "ranking" method of voting, and have a "no one" option as well.
Re:When is civil disobedience justified? (Score:3, Interesting)
Uh, NO.
A) We don't live in a democracy.
B) All the options on the ballot are unacceptable.
Why should I vote again?
Re:When is civil disobedience justified? (Score:5, Informative)
B) How do you know? Have you seen the Nov 2 ballot? I sort of doubt it. You know which 2 major party candidates will be on the presidential ballot, and that's probably about it.
People who don't at least vote (if not become more politically-involved) can whine all they want about the state of affairs (freedom of speech), but they should stop short of expecting anyone to actually listen to them, much less make the changes non-voters whine about.
There's more to voting than one presidential election every 4 years; voting in the local (city / county / state) elections every year will have much more immediate and obvious effects, because in these smaller elections your vote carries a lot more weight.
Re:When is civil disobedience justified? (Score:4, Insightful)
I won't join the Republican Party, or the Democratic Party, because that would mean I endorse their stranglehold on the American election system. So tell me again: How can my vote (any vote!) have weight?
Unless you're one of the very few actual *members*, you don't really join a party, you register as affiliated with a party. As to the weight of your vote, if you really dislike one party or another, register as affiliated with that party, and then vote for the weakest candidate(s) in the primaries belonging to *your* party. You're allowed to vote for anybody in the general election, so you've doubled the weight of your vote.
So tell me again: Where is the value in my vote?
To me, it seems that if you don't (at least) vote for the lesser of two evils, you've abdicated one of your most basic rights as a citizen and all your rights to complain about the people in power. If you don't vote, don't bitch. You are still entitled to bitch about the people you voted for.
Most elections are local, and from those elections come our future national representatives. Many local elections are decided by a few votes. A recent election here for city council was decided by two votes. If the defeated candidate had managed to get his wife and one other person to vote for him, we'd have a different council. :) That candidate is young and has political ambitions which could include national office, and he'll be back in the next election.
If you want your vote to have any value at all, then use it. If you want to increase the value of your vote, then do your homework and plan how to use it. Finally, if you have an issue you're enthused about, communicate that to people you know, and perhaps give some apathetic people a reason to vote. Again, you've multiplied your vote. You won't always win. That's not a reason to give up. If you don't vote, you are voting for the status quo. I don't care if you're a right-wing reactionary, a left-wing ultra-liberal, or a slashdot-wing libertarian, just do your homework, get stoked about some issue or candidate, and VOTE. The alternative is Not Good (TM) for the country.
Comment removed (Score:4, Insightful)
Re:When is civil disobedience justified? (Score:3, Insightful)
Have you ever actually voted? Because if you had, you would probably know that there are usually various referendums and "vote of the people" items on the ballot that affect you directly and have nothing to do with any political candidate or party (except that they were proposed by one/many). For example municipal bond proposals and tax rates are often added to the ballot.
Re: (Score:3, Insightful)
Re:When is civil disobedience justified? (Score:5, Insightful)
Re:When is civil disobedience justified? (Score:5, Insightful)
More eyes will catch bad/illegal code (Score:5, Insightful)
More eyes checking on the code will find these problems faster than the machinations of a private corporation. Factor in corporate bias and the potential for 'back door' code is immense.
As cited, the CA elections showed how unusable the current offerings of e-machines are.
The only criteria is if it is easy to use, traceable, and accurate.
Re:More eyes will catch bad/illegal code (Score:3, Insightful)
And one of the criteria of a successful election is that the votes be untraceable to the voter. It's still a mystery to me, and one of the sources of skepticism to many others.
Re:More eyes will catch bad/illegal code (Score:3, Insightful)
It's a mystery to you why some people would want to avoid vigelantes and the death penalty over voting for the "wrong" candidate?
Re:More eyes will catch bad/illegal code (Score:2)
I've read some pretty good solutions, but none of them were that convincing to me. The best that I can remember involved simply tallying the number of people who votes (no anonymity) and comparing to the number of votes (with anonymity). There's no way to tie the vote to the person, but you can definitely compare the numbers. And validate or invalidate b
Re:More eyes will catch bad/illegal code (Score:5, Interesting)
In the olden days, people would sell their vote for money. It wasn't until I believe the 1850's or 1860's that we had an anonymous voting system. In an odd coincidence, we imported the Austrialian method back then too!
Before the 1860's you wrote in the name of the candidate you wished to vote for. In small enough precinects, you could literally know everyones handwritting. Before that, you actually walked into the town capital building, and announced your vote in a loud clear voice the the people in charge of keeping track.
Each candidate would have a witness there keeping track of who voted which way, and could then pay off the people who they bought a vote from.
As the other response said, I'd imagine that the first whites to vote for a black in Georgia probably didn't make it too far out of the voting booth before getting harrassed. Unless there was an anonymous system.
Kirby
Know thy vote counter (Score:5, Interesting)
Re:Know thy vote counter (Score:2, Informative)
Fork it. Absolutely. But someone will care? (Score:5, Insightful)
I just hope some government will understand that it's NECESSARY for such software to be FULLY Open Source, to guarantee democracy. How can I trust a device I don't know what is REALLY doing with my votes?
(And if someone is scared by the fact someone can maliciously change the program in the local voting machines just before the election...well,it's enough for THAT election to use a freezed code with a definite SHA1 or MD5 checksum...isn't it?)
Re:Fork it. Absolutely. But someone will care? (Score:2, Insightful)
A closed source voting system is the same as the vote counting that goes on behind closed doors.
You just have to hope that those in charge of either method are competent and trustworthy.
Re:Fork it. Absolutely. But someone will care? (Score:2)
As for your check, how can you verify, in the voting booth, that the program running is really the one in the rom, and not one in microcontroller memory
you know, we just changed the controller from XX12587 with the XX12588, all the rest is the same. We just forget to tell you the XX12588 start from internal rom, and you checked the external one
The solution is simple... (Score:4, Insightful)
What amuses me. . . (Score:5, Interesting)
I'm a little shocked, however, that more professed conservatives haven't spoken out against the new systems. To hear some of them tell it, the Democratic Party practically invented vote fraud, so you'd expect that they'd be much more suspicious of unverifiable, untrackable voting systems. But none of them seem to have anything to say on the matter - or have I not been looking in the right place?
Re:What amuses me. . . (Score:5, Insightful)
Haven't you ever heard the saying "when I die, bury me in Chicago so I can keep voting" ? The Democrats did invent modern-day vote fraud, getting all sorts to vote for them: dead people, illegal immigrants, and in one California case, over 120 people in alphabetical order with identical handwriting signing the voter roll. I found it particularly ironic that Al Gore's team in the Florida recount included Daley, who is from ... CHICAGO!
BTW, the reason that the conservatives aren't screaming bloody murder about unauditable electronic voting is that the chairman of Diebold is a Republican who has pledged to help re-elect George Bush.
-paul
Re:What amuses me. . . (Score:2)
this is exactly the reason i think that most people opposed to electroni
Re:What amuses me. . . (Score:3, Informative)
I have yet to see a proposal for post-election voter verification that does not have some gaping huge hole for coercion. And that, boys and girls, is why the voting process itself must be so trustworthy. Something just "feels right" about dropping a piece of paper into a locked ballo
Re:What amuses me. . . (Score:3, Insightful)
If you had only gone to see Fahrenheit 9/11, instead of relying on Limbaugh and O'Really to tell you whether it's good or not (use your own judgment for Pete's sake) you would have seen that considerable effort was made, and you wouldn't dare make that accusation.
Those efforts were made in vain.
Re:What amuses me. . . (Score:2)
I confess that our electronic voting machines, which have been in use at least the 14 years I have voted in La., are still working just fine, thank you. Amazingly enough, both liberals and conservatives, Democrats and Republicans (and even the odd independent or three - and they get VERY odd down here) have been elected with them.
That said, I don't really see the advantage of electronic voting machines, myself. Paper and Pen ballots, and immutable pro
Diebold conspiracy theories (Score:5, Interesting)
But then I had the opportunity to speak with some senior managers from the company, who told me that, in fact, virtually the entire company was united behind dropping the electronic voting machines. They didn't trust the codebase (which was developed by a company Diebold acquired), felt the issue needed to be more deeply researched than it had been, and believed the bad publicity was hurting Diebold's reputation for security and reliability in its cash-management business.
But CEO Walden O'Dell disagrees. Virtually single-handedly, he has kept the e-voting project alive despite the vocal opposition of virtually everyone involved with it. When I asked the managers why they thought O'Dell was so strongly behind the project, their answers were blunt: "Politics."
If that's how management inside Diebold thinks, perhaps there's something to the conspiracy types after all....
- Watchful Babbler
Why not an AVM? (Score:3, Interesting)
That's not the voter's problem.
and unfettered access could lead to a compromise of the voting system, if a determined cracker could find and exploit flaws in the code.
Or it could lead to anyone in the community blowing the whistle on propriatary back doors or the poor coding practices of the developers or....
These arguments are completely backwards.
how hard is it to say 'add one to this vote'?
Why not model these voting machines after ATM's? Every registered voter starts out with a single vote per election. Accounts are credited and debited and everyone is accountable... Automatic Voting Machine anyone?
Re:Why not an AVM? (Score:3, Interesting)
Sounds good to me- ATMs keep paper records in the background (even when you choose not to get a receipt, listen closely and you'll here the "bllaurp" of a dot matix printer going off for a line for every transaction). To preserve vote privacy, your "account" to be debited or credited would only
Re:Why not an AVM? (Score:5, Funny)
You know you're right. I wonder where we could find an ATM company? They have the knowledge and skills. I wonder where we could find one of those [diebold.com]. They'd be really good at it.
Re:Why not an AVM? (Score:3, Informative)
ATM's don't require anonymity. They require the opposite. And any given transaction only affects one person (well, more than one for a joint account, and I suppose the bank might count as yet another). Consider the likelihood that an ATM would be acceptable if all the money were tossed into one big pool, and noone was allowed to know just who p
Opting out not possible with Open Source (Score:5, Insightful)
Even making motions toward open source without going all the way can result in "pseudo-forking" (I'm posting this from a Gnome desktop which was originally created in response to the original licensing terms of the Qt library upon which KDE was based).
It will be very interesting to see what the next few decades bring to the table in terms of open source business practices. I envision a sort of corporate ethics evolving around the benefits and dangers of open source development, and this can only be a healthy process. Much as I think RMS took leave of his senses in the mid-90s (who didn't), I have to say that he nailed it when he decided that the GPL would have the power to change the software industry. I doubt that any other legal tool has been able to so profoundly shape the future of business since the anti-trust laws of early last century.
Specifications? (Score:5, Insightful)
What language is it written in?
Where is the source kept?
What platforms does it run under?
MoveOn.org is sponsoring a petition drive to urge U.S. voters to demand voter-verified paper ballots that can be audited and recounted if necessary. This is the ONLY solution.
A SECRET ballot means that the association between a specific person and a specific vote cast is vital to democracy. Doing otherwise can very easily lead to vote buying ("I'll pay you $x for proof you voted for my candidate!").
We need a specifications document laying out the requirements for this software, which platforms it runs on, etc.
We also need a copy of the existing code to (a) have a place to start from, (b) provide us something to look at and thus give us ideas for development methodologies, (c) give us a point of reference to use when lobbying congressmen, etc.
This must be on a paper trail so I know who I voted for. Election monitors (the people, one from each party, who literally looked over the shoulders of the people counting ballots in Florida) need to be able to verify the count afterwards in some statistically valid way.
Insane... (Score:5, Interesting)
Yep. However, getting the politician's buy-in on certifying the fork will be problematic:
On the one hand, we have academia and open source developers pushing their idea. (Politicians aren't real comfortable around smart people or people with multiple piercings)
On the other hand, we have a group of respectible business men pushing their idea. (Politicians can relate to business men because they wear the same suits and ties, and many of them were business men themselves at one point or another)
Who is going to win? Hmmmm....
Is there any sort of open source lisence (Score:2)
SI arguments: YECH! (Score:3, Insightful)
"According to Software Improvement, simply releasing election-machine code under a liberal license such as the GPL is undesirable (because) ... unfettered access could lead to a compromise of the voting system, if a determined cracker could find and exploit flaws in the code."
Let's see: the audited access assures that no cracker can ever see the code, right?
And besides -- if we can't see the three-card-monte-man's hands, he can't cheat us?
The only argument that holds water is the IP/profit explanation I skipped in the quote above.
yech!check out GVI (Score:2)
i don't understand this election software stuff (Score:3, Interesting)
i don't understand how it could be this expensive, exchange rates be damned, whatever
i don't see why this voting software needs to be so complicated? wouldn't some linux/*bsd/windows/mac/beos/atari/xbox/gamecube/d
the romans and greeks used rocks or sticks or whatever the fuck they could find on the ground, and voting worked. 1500 years later and it has to be so complex?
where did these software engineers go to school? have they never heard of occam?
Re:i don't understand this election software stuff (Score:4, Informative)
If you think you can create a secure, national scale voting system that you'd trust your country's future to in two man-years, I invite you to try. The experience will be educational. You might also gain some insight into why programmers notoriously underestimate how long things will take.
Regardless of whether you create a system in that time frame that you think you can trust, I can guarentee you I won't trust it.
One hint: While you've heard of "Occam" (although you seriously misapply it here), politicians haven't. Take a good, long look at the next ballot sometime, and don't forget multiple languages and assorted other sundry details that will start sucking your time like you wouldn't believe.
You sound like you're still in school. It gets harder in the real world, you know. ++votes isn't gonna cut it...
Re:i don't understand this election software stuff (Score:3, Insightful)
Calculating the outcome is not as simple as "max(...)".
Why not take 5 minutes to find out what exactly the software does before deciding that you are so much smarter/productive than the people who created it in the first place.
Remember to include things like independent code audits...
Don't destroy the machines.... (Score:2)
The machines are screwed up, and the election gets tossed. Plus, only a minor election gets screwed up so it would be easier to re-hold the election.
Sorry, but this is stupid (Score:3, Insightful)
There is only one issue, and that's hardcopy records. No voting machine should be all electronic. It should spit out a receipt that tells you exactly how you voted. One copy to the voter, one copy goes into a sealed box.
In short, if any cheating occurs, we know immediately. Who cares how the software is developed? The only question is whether it can be verified after the fact.
Re:Sorry, but this is stupid (Score:3, Informative)
Re:Sorry, but this is stupid (Score:3, Insightful)
"Intellectual Property" says it all... (Score:5, Insightful)
Since when is the process by which we elect our leaders the 'property' of anyone except the citizenry? If a company wants to 'own' a process like that, fine, I just think that is obviously opposite that of a democratic, transparent process.
Surely, most people have an attention span long enough to grasp that simple concept.
Manual punch cards are the least worst (Score:3, Interesting)
You manually put holes in a card, and drop it into a locked ballot box. Someone has to do a lot of dirty work to make that box disappear, or alter the cards. Plus there are no ink marks that can be erased or smeared or whatever. (Don't forget to remove any hanging chads, lest an evil soul tries to glue it back in place)
Also, paper does not have source code.
If voting machines were Open Source... (Score:5, Funny)
The eventual system will work very well and be extremely stable, but by the time it is in widespread use the developers will have started on Version 2.0, which is a total rewrite from the ground up (they now feel they understand the problem much better, and can see that the original API needs to be redesigned). So Version 2.0 is totally incompatible with Version 1.0, and much confusion ensues as States try to decide which "standard" to go with.
Meanwhile, Microsoft comes out fast and dirty with Microsoft Vote and although it doesn't work too well at first (version 1.0 has a glitch where everyone who's first name begins with "L" is deleted), it works "well enough" and with the buckets of money that MS dumps on the States for new MS-compatible hardware, they quickly gain dominance in the market.
The Open Source projects try to shift their focus to work with the MS hardware, chasing Microsoft's lead and running into a brick wall with the closed XML format that is encrypted and depends on hardware DRM to work.
Apple brings out the iVote, which is a small device that lets you simply plug into an Apple voting machine anywhere and vote quickly and easily. Plus, it works. And quite a few people buy it and rave about how great it is, but because only Apple is allowed to make the actual voting machines, very few of them get manufactured and as a result the iVote falls into betamax territory.
In the end, everybody uses MS Vote and complains about how closed it is, the Open Source crowd eventually gets their act together and comes out with a fantastic system that kicks butt but nobody cares any more, and that was that for the United States of America, thanks and goodnight.
Worthless unless I compile and install it myself! (Score:4, Insightful)
Paper trail is the only way, open or closed source doesn't matter. If I can walk away with a record of my vote, I'll be happy. If you added a little cash register printer and a roll of tape inside the machine and spot-audit one percent of the machine results, I'll be even happier.
But if I can use an ink marker to make an indelible mark on a piece of paper, and have the paper counted physically by a dozen people, I'll be completely happy.
Paper! Ink! It works!
This whole sorry saga reminds me of a brutally frank piece of advice my Systems Analysis lecturer gave to the class.
"Give your client a number of possible designs for the system. If we were completely honest, one of those designs might be for a purely manual process. But we're computer people, so of course we only provide computer-based solutions."
I still don't understand... (Score:5, Insightful)
Problem:
Present a list of voting choices in any number of languages, in audio for those who are blind, give them an opportunity to change their vote if they made a mistake, give them a second (and a third) chance to confirm their vote, and then make sure that their vote is counted.
It sounds like a great application for computers. After all, multi-lingual GUIs are common and practical, and computers give you the chance to change your mind before you finalize the vote.
Solution:
Use the computer to format the ballot, so that you don't have to have different versions for every language, and so that the voter can confirm and reconfirm the votes before finally committing them to a paper ballot. The computer then "fills in " the ovals on the ballot, eliminating improperly filled or inadequately filled circles, at which point the voter can look at the paper and quadruple check that he voted for the right people, and put that ballot into a "dumb" optical scanner that JUST COUNTS. Nothing to tamper with, nothing to worry about - you could have 5 terminals to every counter, which would save money over the current system and would still guarantee (actually enhance) the accuracy of the vote.
It's almost like somebody DOESN'T WANT the vote to be counted properly.
Open voting consortium & Voter verified receip (Score:4, Informative)
One real problem with eVACS is that, to my knowledge, it doesn't produce voter-verified receipts yet (please let me know if I'm wrong). Thankfully, the new OSS/FS site identifies this as one of the first things to be added. As noted by places such as the verified voting site [verifiedvoting.org], voter verified receipts are a critical need. In fact, I'd argue that only the counted paper ballots should actually count, and make sure that the vote-creating and vote-counting systems are separate (using some sort of standard representation on the paper, so that you can have different groups re-implement each side).
Vote counting must remain labour-intensive (Score:5, Insightful)
Open Source is desirable, but is not in itself a panacea. For example, impeccable code could be published, but something entirely different could be installed.
That is not to say that a paper system prevents dubious outcomes. It's just that they are more likely to come to light, and be contested (as far as a supreme court, maybe...)
Forking for US version won't help that much (Score:4, Insightful)
So looking at the system might yield some good ideas about how to organise the system (in particular how the sequence of voting and authentication is handled), but I don't think all that much code could be reused.
My thoughts... (Score:3, Insightful)
And how to acertain that those running the system did or did not bias or effect the results in some way?
Maybe electronic voting isnt such a good idea at all? Maybe the safer option is to stick with a paper based situation that cannot easily be fudged ? (that is not to say that a paper based system is also not open to fudging...)
Whatever way, and whatever flaws, the public should have unfettered access to every part of the process at least to the extent that nothing is hidden. Open source and closed source are just as open to abuse as is a paper based system. As much of it remains examinable the better in my opinion.
Nick...
Opportunity to bring the issue into the public ? (Score:3, Interesting)
Unlike most countries, voting is actually compulsory in Australia. If you don't vote in a federal or state election, and you don't have a good reason, you get fined. If you refuse to pay your fine, then you have to answer to a court. If you keep on refusing to accept some form of penalty, then eventually you get sent to jail.
If even a small number of people were to refuse to vote in an election, on the basis that they thought the election process was not transparent, and then subsequently wound up in jail, this would be bound to generate media interest. It would get the issue out in the open where the public could hear the issues involved and think about it. Who knows, maybe it could even attract international attention ?
Copyright and Licensing (was Re:Uh... GPL?) (Score:3, Informative)
According to the story text, the GPL-based version is being forked, and (hopefully) brought to the US. So, the fact that the initial version of the code was GPL is protecting its availability.
The original copyright-owners of the code have the right to change licenses -- whether to or from GPL or any other license. The "viral GPL" argument has to do with people other than the original author attempting to close the source-code for a product. If your product contains GP
Re:Uh... GPL? (Score:2, Interesting)
Under the GPL, the original writers stil hold their copyrights. By modifying the code, they submit to the terms of the GPL, but what they write is still theirs. And if the original writer wants to do away with the GPL on a GPL-licensed work, he can contact the other authors, and since they each all hold unencumbered copyrights to their own works, a closed version may be made.
Even if they cannot get permission
Re:"how hard is it to say 'add one to this vote" (Score:4, Interesting)
The counting of the votes is easy, and a well-solved problem. The vast majority of the work goes toward making sure those votes are counted with perfect accuracy (i.e. that the simple interface never "glitches" about sending the correct vote to the counter), and in securing the device against tampering with the vote count or interface before, during, and after the election.
It is exactly because of the potential problems that a printed, hand-countable, voter-verifiable paper audit trail should be an essential part of any e-voting rules.
Re:"how hard is it to say 'add one to this vote" (Score:5, Insightful)
The error checking means they can't just say "Our machines gave us 10 billion votes for Bush and 1 billion votes for Gore." Esepecially cause there are not 10 billion americans.
They do things like this:
x votes on this machine every hour total, y votes for candidate A, z votes for Candidate B, w votes for none of the above.
And Diebold does all of this error checking in INCREDIBALLY BAD WAYS.
For example, they do error checking on original data, but make copies of the data. If the original is verified as accurate they approve the COPY, even if the copy is different from the original.
ANd of course there is all the security, which Diebold ignores. They put in back doors, use standard keys/passwords that apply to all the machines they make instead of unique ones (Would you buy a house that had a key that matched every other one on your street???
The simple truth is there is NO excuse for not using paper copy to double check any electronic voting machines except that the republicans are afraid of re-count votes.
They would rather risk election fraud then risk a recount.
The machines are NOT safer or in any way less likely to have bad counts, they have in fact been tested and found to in some cases generate MORE bad votes then optical machines.
Appropos lyrics(Violent Femmes)Re:That can be good (Score:2)
I got a machine
And I took over the world
In one weekend
I took over the world
With my machine
I did it because
I was looking for a project
And it was either
Take over the world or learn French
So I took over the world
And next weekend
I can learn French
I got a machine
And I took over the world
But nothing changed
That wouldn't be fair
Re:The original American way... (Score:3, Funny)
Everyone get back! I've got a 25-pack of decaf Irish Breakfast, and I'm not afraid to use it!!
*dunk dunk dunk*
Umm... Did anyone bring cream and sugar?
Typical Microsoft code... (Score:3, Insightful)
Re:eVOTING? Bah thats simple! (Score:3, Funny)
This must be the code used 4 years ago: In the case of a tie, it gives the victory to Bush!
Re:Trust the machines (Electoral College) (Score:3, Insightful)
And any state can chose to do this. If you want it in your state, ask for it. Or (if you have initiative in your state), file an initiative and start getting signatures.
However, the winner-take-all nature of most states' choice of electors is part of the original compromise that led to the electoral