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Simple Challenge to Electronic Voting Machines: Prove My Vote Was Counted Accurately

By Dave Johnson
Seeing the Forest

The California Secretary of State ordered tests on all the voting machines. They flunked. Most vote machines lose test to hackers, says the San Francisco Chronicle:

State-sanctioned teams of computer hackers were able to break through the security of virtually every model of California's voting machines and change results or take control of some of the systems' electronic functions, according to a University of California study released Friday.

The researchers "were able to bypass physical and software security in every machine they tested,'' said Secretary of State Debra Bowen, who authorized the "top to bottom review" of every voting system certified by the state.

Suppose they fix these "vulnerabilities? But o matter how much testing you do and bugs or vulnerabilities you fix there are going to be more - the ones we don't know about. That is how it is with computers.

Here's a simple test for election systems: "Prove it." What do I mean? Suppose you have a perfect voting machine and every possible security problem that anyone can think of is accounted for. The machine's code is carefully inspected. The hardware is working. So I go in and cast a vote, and they say, "Your vote was recorded accurately." I say, "Prove it."

They can't. So I'm not happy.

Or, imagine this test: You ask them to let you cast the only vote and then they count the votes. You cast a vote for 'A' but tell them that you cast a vote for 'B'. There is no way they can PROVE you did that. So no one has a reason to trust the "election" results.

Here is the answer - the only answer. After you cast your vote, a paper record of your vote is printed, you look at it, and you put it into a separate box. Now there is a way to PROVE how people voted.

You open the box, you count the ballots. You prove it.

The only solution to the voting machines problem is to print a paper ballot that the voter examines. If you have that system in place then it doesn't matter if the machine was hacked, or broken, or you made a mistake. With that piece of paper you have a way to double-check what the machine did. Without that piece of paper it doesn't matter how secure the machine is - because you can't prove it.

Dave Johnson is the founder and principal author at Seeing the Forest, a web magazine investigating how the right is beating the dems, where this article originally appeared. He is on the Board of Directors of Media Transparency and The People Choose 2006, is an advisor to The Philanthropy Network and a member of the Netroots Advisory Council of the Drum Major Institute.

Posted on August 01, 2007

Comments

I totally agree!!

Posted by: shpshftr at August 1, 2007 07:46 AM

I totally agree!!

Posted by: shpshftr at August 1, 2007 07:47 AM

I can't figure out why I have leave my house to vote. Everyone has busy lives, I think lack of time (or lack of making the time) is a major reason the voter turnout rate is so low.

Online banking, investing, shopping, etc. - all secure and accurate.

There are systems like http://www.pin.ed.gov/, that can be used to manage the 1 SSN = 1 Vote process and if you want a receipt... print it.

Posted by: Chad at August 4, 2007 03:39 PM

I think this is simplistic. Can the paper ballot system pass this test? The answer is no because you cannot even prove which ballot paper in the ballot box belongs to you. If you desire this proof which requires that you actually agree with the proof then you have to accept that secret balloting is essentially fraud prone. If I cannot associate your vote with you, there is no way to prove that you voted as you said you voted, that what you voted was what was recorded or that the final tally is correct. If however we are ready to accept mathematical proofs then may be cryptographically it is possible to provide the proof. Forget about the paper trail nonsense.

Posted by: James Agada at August 14, 2007 08:40 AM

James, I think yo miss a basic point. If, after you use an electronic machine, you are given a paper ballot which you can review and ascertain is correct, and then place that ballot in a box, you have redundancy and a paper record of the vote, even though it is mixed with the other ballots. And it can be coded so that if there is a question about your individual vote, it can be verified with the electronic record.

Posted by: Frank D. Russo at August 14, 2007 09:11 AM

Interesting Frank. Does anybody recall how many cases we have had where an individual voter has been able to ask voting authority to prove that his vote actually counted? It is political parties or candidates that challenge election results. And it is mainly a question of transparency and trust in the system. How do you ensure that the paper record remains after you have voted? What if the paper records were replaced, how would you know? Even if you have a receipt, if the corresponding vote is not in the box how do we know it is not you that faked the receipt? I think paper trails or receipts are assuming that these cannot be tampered with which I think is quite naive. If I have the resources and the willingness to subvert the electronic voting systems, I can do it quite easily with paper.

Posted by: james agada at November 19, 2007 01:17 PM

James: Don't you think it would be better to have both a paper and an electronic record?

Posted by: Frank D. Russo at November 19, 2007 01:45 PM

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