Yesterday there was a diary posted about how the machine I run is hackable .
http://www.dailykos.com/...
That diary contained two old videos , posted on youtube Sept 8th 2008 .
They claim to show that the machine I run has vulnerabilities .
Unfortunately some people believe the videos to be believable .
I as a person who has first hand experience with the machines can see the flaws with the arguments put forward in the videos .
1) They show a card machine , we don't use a card machine , the voter is not allowed to insert any card or anything else into the machine . So that is not a issue on the machine I run .
2) They show the machine being taken apart and no seals being broken .
On the machine I run that can not be done . There are seals that will be broken , seals were added such that that is not possible .
2.1) They show the memory card being taken . When I get the machine it is in a sealed shipping case . They can't get to the machine to take the card before the seals are broken on the shipping case . I check the seal's numbers and condition then I break the seals on the shipping case then I set up the machine and check all the seals on the machine to make sure that no one has messed with my machine . While voting is going on it would be very funny / hard to grab the card , I'll be standing there watching my machine . If during the day someone was to try and grab the card out of the machine they would have to mess up the seals on the machine . If I don't notice during the day that the seals are messed up , when I do the paperwork for the closing I will . The paperwork requires that I check the seals / write down the seal numbers . If I somehow miss that the seals are messed up , when the I return the machine they recheck the seals to make sure I haven't been messing with their machine .
2.2) The card isn't really all that important . The paper ballot that the voter has reviewed is what is important . The card could suffer a fatal flaw / get lost / stolen / replaced and we would still have the paper ballots that are in the printer/ballot box .
3) They show how they can insert a finger and turn off the machine without breaking the seal .
I say so what . Turning off the machine does nothing for stealing a vote .
4) They show that if they somehow got some vote flipping software into the machine , that the printout would show the vote being flipped . They rely on the voter not seeing the printout showing the flipped vote .
The problem is that if they set up their software to only flip a vote once and the voter does not notice it might work , but if they set up their software to do this more and the voters notice it happening more than once , that will show up on the paper . Multiple voided votes show that there is a problem . If the voided votes all show the same problem , that a great big red flag that there is a problem . There are a known number of voided votes to be expected . If the number of voided votes goes up , that's a big red flag .
5) They talk about walk aways . The percentage of walk away voters is so very small that hoping to flip the vote at the right time to catch the walk away is a long shot on a long shot . They can't flip every voters vote in the hopes of catching the walk aways , that will show on the tape . I as the person running the machine work right behind the machine , I listen to the noise / sounds / signals the machine puts out . If the voter tries to go before he or she is done , I am there to say hold on . So not only do they have to get the timing right to catch the walk away voter , the have to get the timing right to get me not catching the walk away .
If this really is a great big deal , we could say we will never cast the ballot of the walk away voter . We could reject all uncast ballots .
There are many other safety things I could go into ...
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The one I run .
If so, how can you say that unless you have audited one of those machines by counting the paper receipts and comparing them to the machines internal totals?
The paper printout is a ballot , the ballot is cast on paper . The paper ballot is what is counted . The internal number is nothing . The printer is sealed within a container , that container is the ballot box .
You are putting blind faith in a system that can be easily manipulated and corrupted.
Nope . You are mistaken .
I'll take my chances with that complicated paper ballot every day!
Oops , you just made it easier for me to mess with your vote .
Are you saying that you are 100% certain these machines are functioning correctly and properly counting the vote totals?
My machine does not count vote totals in any official way . The machine could say 1 or a million and it does not matter .
I know that my machine is working correctly because my voters say that it is printing out their votes correctly , only once they tell me the printout has correctly recorded their choices does the last button get pressed , the cast ballot button .
At the end of the night , the print out in the sealed ballot box gets returned to the election officials at the election office . The printout is on one or more rolls of paper . No individual ballot can be removed from the tape without the tape being torn , no individual vote can be changed on the tape without it showing . If a voter has "undervoted" no one can change that . The "overvote" will not be allowed by the machine .
With a traditional paper ballot , individual ballots can be "lost" , replaced , undervotes can be voted after the voter is gone , overvotes can be done to void the voters vote .
If you are worried about tricks being played , go for the machine I run , it has many advantages .
Running a machine and programming that machine are 2 very different things.
Programmers who never run the machine in real world voting are only programmers . Until they experience what is really going on ...
I'm guessing you are voting by mail .
So you might have a ballot or a copy of a ballot .
Make a list on your computer of everything on the ballot .
Make a list of what you are voting for or against and make a non vote for what you are not voting in .
President = Dan
Senator = Jane
Prop 1 = No
Prop 2 = yes
Prop 3 = no vote
Dog Catcher = Mitt
School bond = Yes
etc etc etc
Now print out that list .
That is your ballot on my machine , look it over and make sure that's an accurate printout of your choices , if it is then drop it in the box , if it is not accurate please redo it until it is correctly reflecting your choices .
Take your traditional ballot filled out , hold it next to the print out . Compare them . Can you see on the traditional ballot who you have and have not voted for as easily , as quickly ?
In the real world of my polling place , people have problems with filling out traditional ballots , undervotes , overvotes , non votes .
If they have filled out their ballots incorrectly and reviewed their votes incorrectly , and this happens over and over on every election I have worked , they are not getting their choices down on paper correctly .
The optical scanner I run will spitout some ballots it "sees" as problems . The ballot is handed back to the voter by the machine . A small printout has minimal info on the "problem" . It will not catch all mistakes .
The touch screen is much more helpful when people have problems voting . Before a voter can cast a ballot with undervotes , the machine asks the voter to say that they really do want to undervote . If the voter didn't want to undervote the machine will take them right to the spot on the ballot that was undervoted .
If someone tries to overvote the machine will stop and wait until the voter undoes the first vote before it will allow the 2nd vote .
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If a machine does not have a paper printout ,
don't vote on it .
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Now about the internal counter .
My machine does count votes .
At poll closing , it displays vote totals , it prints vote totals on the end of the roll of votes .
I copy down the numbers , the vote totals from the screen .
The machine records the votes , vote totals etc on an electronic card .
After the election officials count the votes on the paper roll they look to make sure the machine recorded the same numbers .
If the paper shows 50 votes for Don and 50 votes for Mary , the machine had better show that it counted 50 and 50 also . If the paper ballots cast are not recorded 100% accurately inside the machine a big red flag goes up .
Anything that does not line up 100% with what is on the paper ballots is a big clue that the machine has a problem ,
that a programmer has made a mistake or has done a crime .