Please critique my proposed policy to ensure an honest vote

[Foxfyre]

You want Biden forever?

There is no way the 2020 election can be constitutionally overturned without creating a constitutional crisis that would plague us for decades if not generations. That is why I don't fault Pence for certifying the congressional vote.

What the Jan 6 protest was all about until a few idiots decided to start a riot was to convince Congress to delay that certification until the investigations and audits could be completed. But when Congress refused to do that, Pence was right not to override their will. Were millions who didn't vote for Biden convinced Biden was the legitimate winner? No. But the will of Congress was to certify and that makes Biden the legal winner and that's that. It would also be a huge problem if Congress refused to certify an election if they didn't like the outcome.

But we need election systems and processes in place where pretty much nobody will question the outcome. That is far more true since the Reagan and Bush 41 days when the vote was so overwhelmingly for the Republican that there was no question of the people's will.

By the Clinton elections, margins had narrowed significantly but were still decisive enough as to the winner even though he never got a majority of the vote. But some of us are old enough to remember 2000 with the clock ticking down while counters in 4 Florida counties used magnifying glasses to examine ballots for dimples and hanging chads in a second recount until the Supreme Court had to stop the process so that Bush could organize his cabinet and that election could be certified. (Millions of Democrats never conceded that Bush won that election.)

We need a system and process in place so that there is no question by anybody of who the winner is.

 

[Flopper]

Please define what you mean by "voting machines"?

If you mean touch screen machines (I'll call these Type A) where the voting takes place, they have to be programmable because the number of candidates, offices, and votes for initiatives change from event to event. These can't be PROMs as they are variables. Now, from what I understand these types of machines are becoming rarer and rarer as most jurisdictions have gone to paper ballots that are scanned.

The other type of "voting machine" is a machine used for paper ballots and functions as a tabulator (I'll call these Type B). The ballot is scanned, the darkened circles are read optically and the results tabulated. This has become, by far the most common type of "voting machine". However here again the functionality can't be hardcoded into a PROM because the who/what changes from voting event to voting event.

Now with both types of machines, prior to elections they have to go through an update process (to code the candidates and apply and software upgrades), then they go through an extensive testing cycle where test votes are made based on the voting method (Type A or Type B). I'm not talking push one button here either, I'm talking hundreds and hundreds of Type A votes and stacks of various ballots for scanning for Type B machines. A machine has to pass these tests to be certified to use during the upcoming election cycle.

Just FYI...

WW

Paper ballot scanners, your Type B machines are becoming the most popular machines because you have two records of the vote, the paper ballot itself and electronic record which is created by the scanner so if one is destroyed, you have the other. When polls are closed paper ballots are batched and sent to the counting center and the counts are downloaded from the ballot scanners to a disk and sent separately. I believe most centers rescan the ballots and compare the results to disks sent from polling places.

After the polls close the machine are sealed and sent to secure warehouse. The vote counts are still in the machine and will remain until they are cleared. So even if the disks and ballots are destroyed or compromised, the votes can still be pulled from the machines.

Today the programing of the scanners is done by feeding either a coding sheet or a sample ballot into the scanner which tells the scanner where the bubbles are that are to be counted. Counting is hardwired into the machine so the programmer has no control over the counting and can not shift votes from one candidate to another. After every machine is programed they are certified by running sample ballots through them.

 

[Flopper]

Interesting...Thanks!

But it strikes me that these machines have to have an external port to update & reprogram them. That makes it possible to hack. Even with extensive testing, they could be hacked after testing or even during the election.

Installing a new PROM for every election would be possible. It would be very difficult to pull the PROM out and replace it with a fraudulent PROM. If the PROMs were serialized and encrypted, fraudulent a PROM could be easily discovered.

I don't believe that the 2020 elections were 'stolen', but anything that increases security would be good.

The counting process is automatic and built into the machine. The person that programs the machine for different ballots just feeds the location of the bubbles to be marked by voter. I remember when we used scanners to process surveys the only thing that ever changed was surveys. We didn't do any real programming. We just scanned a form that had the locations of all bubbles and the names of item names.

 

[Flopper]

My daughter, in the military, has to have what they call a CAC card (Common Access Control?) to be able to use computer systems.

Not only does it allow for controlled access to the computer, such control cards limit the ability of what an individual "can do" with the computer. This type of thing can be a chipped credit card style or a "fob" plugged into a port.

The advantage is that it not only can control what can be done with the device, each card/fob is unique allowing for the tracking of who, did what, when. Control access to the devices AND control access to the cards/fobs greatly enhances security.

Security footage shows Georgia county Republican chair, election official present during breach of voting equipment

Security video from a rural county in Georgia shows local election and Republican Party officials were present when voting equipment was accessed in what the secretary of state's office calls an unauthorized breach.

www.pbs.org

By tracking who, what, where, when - along with video surveillance - it even makes it more difficult for election officials to "hack" the machines.

WW

The scanners they are selling today do not require any programing by the user. You just put the machine in program mode and scan a ballot or survey. The machine finds the location of bubbles and the name of the item and saves the information and that all you need to do. The user has no control over the counting process. The programmer has no control over the counting process.

 

[Foxfyre]

The scanners they are selling today do not require any programing by the user. You just put the machine in program mode and scan a ballot or survey. The machine finds the location of bubbles and the name of the item and saves the information and that all you need to do. The user has no control over the counting process. The programmer has no control over the counting process.

What guarantee can you give the voter that the scanner accurately records and/or tabulates the votes? What guarantee can you give the voter that the machine did not malfunction? What guarantee can you give the voter that the machine was not maliciously programmed to produce certain numbers sufficient that no recount would be allowed? How could a poll watcher verify that the ballot was counted and recorded exactly as it was filled out?

Why would a properly supervised hand count, results provided to the poll watchers, an iron clad chain of custody, not be the most reliable system with the least possibility of error? Why are so many opposing paper ballots and hand counting?

 

[Flopper]

Was thinking about this. But given how many service personnel there are and how many are likely to need to use the computer systems for something, unless a problem is reported I wonder if anybody ever checks who uses the machines or if a computer is compromised? Fairly often we are notified by somebody that a computer system has been hacked or some such and credit card numbers or personal information of users may be compromised. The reason we all have firewalls and other security on our computers and why Microsoft does so many security updates is because people somewhere are constantly trying to break into computer systems. And many of these are searching for some vulnerability that allows them to bypass security.

I read that in 2014 hackers linked to Russia broke into the U.S. State Department's email system and so infected it they had to remove it from the internet until it could be cleaned up and resecured. If determined hackers can do that, there is reason to believe they would be looking for ways to mess with our elections as well.

Issuing voter registration cards in case of malfunction or compromise of computerized election rolls and also requiring Photo ID to obtain a paper ballot, along with the other proposed safeguards, would be very reassuring to millions that their vote would most likely be counted exactly as they voted.

There are roughly 1.3 million active duty military personnel and even if every one was married and had their wives with them on base, given that they come from all 50 states, if every vote was compromised or somehow tampered with, it would be unlikely to make a huge difference in most elections. And I don't think anybody believes all those votes are fraudulent.

Almost all hacking you read about is on machines that are available on the retail market. Is it possible to hack voting machines and scanners. Of course there is because there has never been a computer that can't be hacked. Likewise there has never been hacking that could not have been prevented. It all boils down to how much security you want knowing that the more security the higher the cost and the more difficult it will be access and use the system.

The real danger of an election being stolen is small local elections. Stealing an election for president would be nearly impossible because you would have to know how many votes to steal and exactly where to steal them prior to the election and then how you are going steal them without getting caught.

 

[scruffy]

The scanners they are selling today do not require any programing by the user. You just put the machine in program mode and scan a ballot or survey. The machine finds the location of bubbles and the name of the item and saves the information and that all you need to do. The user has no control over the counting process. The programmer has no control over the counting process.

lol

You are extremely gullible.

A zillion people have access to and control over the technology.

And worse yet, the technology fails all by itself. Here's just ONE example from ONE county, that they happened to pick up on because they had other problems and were doing an audit.

Forensic auditors find shocking 68% error rate in one Michigan county’s votes

The personnel of Allied Security Operations Group — a team of defense, military, Secret Service and intelligence professionals, led in part by an academic from Harvard with expertise in business and technology — just found the Dominion Voting System in Antrim County, Michigan, for the 2020...

www.washingtontimes.com

I don't happen to agree with the conclusions drawn by these people but the data speaks for itself.

A 68.05% error rate is THREE ORDERS OF MAGNITUDE above the FEC's allowable limit. That's either machine malfunction or human fucktardry, and in this case the machines were working except it looked like they were deliberately rejecting ballots - and all you have to do to do that, is change the alignment s little. Drop the machine on the floor. Kick it a couple of times. It'll still work, but it won't work right.

 

[Foxfyre]

Almost all hacking you read about is on machines that are available on the retail market. Is it possible to hack voting machines and scanners. Of course there is because there has never been a computer that can't be hacked. Likewise there has never been hacking that could not have been prevented. It all boils down to how much security you want knowing that the more security the higher the cost and the more difficult it will be access and use the system.

The real danger of an election being stolen is small local elections. Stealing an election for president would be nearly impossible because you would have to know how many votes to steal and exactly where to steal them prior to the election and then how you are going steal them without getting caught.

Millions of votes or at least hundreds of thousands of votes were cast in the last presidential election with zero ability to know whether they were legitimately cast or not. I do think it quite possible under the systems used in 2020 to steal an election whether that favor a Republican or Democrat.

I want the most reliable, verifiable, and trusted system and process possible so that will never happen again.

 

[Flopper]

What guarantee can you give the voter that the scanner accurately records and/or tabulates the votes? What guarantee can you give the voter that the machine did not malfunction? What guarantee can you give the voter that the machine was not maliciously programmed to produce certain numbers sufficient that no recount would be allowed? How could a poll watcher verify that the ballot was counted and recorded exactly as it was filled out?

Why would a properly supervised hand count, results provided to the poll watchers, an iron clad chain of custody, not be the most reliable system with the least possibility of error? Why are so many opposing paper ballots and hand counting?

Simply stated hand counting of 153 million ballot with an average of at least 50 to more 100 items items to be tallied on each ballot mean we would have to hand count a minimum 7.6 billion voter selections. Such a count would be more inaccurate, more costly, and less secure than what we are doing now. No Secretary State in the country would certify such an election. Of course that would not matter because we would not have the election certified until well after inauguration date.

 

[Flopper]

Millions of votes or at least hundreds of thousands of votes were cast in the last presidential election with zero ability to know whether they were legitimately cast or not. I do think it quite possible under the systems used in 2020 to steal an election whether that favor a Republican or Democrat.

I want the most reliable, verifiable, and trusted system and process possible so that will never happen again.

Please explain how you would steal a presidential election when you don't know the vote counts in any states and you don't know which states will be swing states.

 

[Flopper]

Not really. It can all come down to one swing state, and a few hundred harvested ballots can make the difference.

But how do you know which state will be the swing state since that depends on the vote in that state and other states. Also keep mind that the number of votes you steal in the county or precinct plus the number cast there has to be less that number registered. If not the election will not be certified.

 

[Foxfyre]

Simply stated hand counting of 153 million ballot with an average of at least 50 to more 100 items items to be tallied on each ballot mean we would have to hand count a minimum 7.6 billion voter selections. Such a count would be more inaccurate, more costly, and less secure than what we are doing now. No Secretary State in the country would certify such an election. Of course that would not matter because we would not have the election certified until well after inauguration date.

Then maybe there shouldn't be 50 to 100 items on a ballot. Larger precincts and county seats with more ballot options will of course need more poll workers and more poll watchers. I can assure you there are plenty of volunteers for both having worked the last election myself and that was in a metropolitan area. In small town precincts you may not have more than a few hundred voters if that and there will be far fewer ballot options so that a few people can tally the votes within an hour or two or less.

Virtually every European country and Canada distrusts voting machines and votes via paper ballots and those ballots are hand counted. I cannot believe the USA is not able to figure out how to do that.

 

[scruffy]

Simply stated hand counting of 153 million ballot with an average of at least 50 to more 100 items items to be tallied on each ballot mean we would have to hand count a minimum 7.6 billion voter selections. Such a count would be more inaccurate, more costly, and less secure than what we are doing now. No Secretary State in the country would certify such an election. Of course that would not matter because we would not have the election certified until well after inauguration date.

Let's talk about what we CAN do.

Foxfyre do you know about PKI ?

It's a security protocol. It's used for encrypted email and things like that.

We'll, it STARTED that way, but the principle of it is much more general.

So like, we have this machine, it counts ballots. How does it know what it's counting? In most cases the answer is, it doesn't. And, when it connects to the aggregator, how does it know what it's connecting to? Again, it probably doesn't - unless there's a protocol in place to authenticate the connection.

So, if two parties want to exchange email securely, the first step is to authenticate each other. PKI is a way of doing that privately and securely. In a way it's like an abstracted version of the hardware fob we were talking about earlier.

The important part is in the way the keys are exchanged. And, the method depends on a "personal identifier", kind of like a PIN, say, a magic number or word only you know.

So like, this method can actually be used by mail. And it's WAY more secure than a signature. It's also more expensive. But it works.

 

[Foxfyre]

Please explain how you would steal a presidential election when you don't know the vote counts in any states and you don't know which states will be swing states.

They know which states are the swing states and they know which states/precincts are pretty much a shoo in for any given political party. Nancy Pelosi once said in some California districts Democrats could successfully run a ham sandwich or in a New York Democrat district like AOC you could run a glass of water and it would win. You don't see the vote in California, Oregon, Washington being a problem or the vote questioned in deep red states. But those states where the vote is likely to be close are the swing states and both political parties concentrate mostly on them.

 

[Kondor3]

1. create a Federal technological and administrative infrastructure to facilitate all elections that take place ( municipal, township, country, stated, federal, etc.)

2. create a Federal -level collection of laws to regulate all elections that take place, including appropriate enforcement and investigative and certification roles

3. require that all jurisdictions at all levels utilize the Federal infrastructure and standards and guidelines and laws to conduct their elections

The States have had 240- ish years to get it right and they're still screwing it up... time to take it out of these incompetent hands and shift it to a higher level.

Make it a mixture of in-person and high-tech (voting online) and mail-in balloting with relatively foolproof multi-factor authentication, secure systems, etc.

As part of the Federal administrative infrastructure, create a cabinet -level Department of Elections and provide stringent Congressional oversight.

Make it a heavy-sentence -caliber Federal felony to cheat or attempt to subvert the system.

 

[scruffy]

Millions of votes or at least hundreds of thousands of votes were cast in the last presidential election with zero ability to know whether they were legitimately cast or not. I do think it quite possible under the systems used in 2020 to steal an election whether that favor a Republican or Democrat.

I want the most reliable, verifiable, and trusted system and process possible so that will never happen again.

I propose a 3 factor authentication.

Voter selected identifier

Government issued magic number

SSN (the whole thing, not just the last 4 digits). Every person born in the United States has one. Every naturalized citizen has one. The banks have SSN keyed databases going back 40 years, and they're accessible by the government. And, the banks care - they're not going to loan you any money unless they can identify you. The government should care at least as much, about the vote.

Three factors is not "quite" six sigma, it's about 1 part in 1000. But it's a heckuva lot better than signatures which are 90% at best

 

[scruffy]

1. create a Federal technological and administrative infrastructure to facilitate all elections that take place ( municipal, township, country, stated, federal, etc.)

2. create a Federal -level collection of laws to regulate all elections that take place, including appropriate enforcement and investigative and certification roles

3. require that all jurisdictions at all levels utilize the Federal infrastructure and standards and guidelines and laws to conduct their elections

The States have had 240- ish years to get it right and they're still screwing it up... time to take it out of these incompetent hands and shift it to a higher level.

Make it a mixture of in-person and high-tech (voting online) and mail-in balloting with relatively foolproof multi-factor authentication, secure systems, etc.

As part of the Federal administrative infrastructure, create a cabinet -level Department of Elections and provide stringent Congressional oversight.

Make it a heavy-sentence -caliber Federal felony to cheat or attempt to subvert the system.

Good set of ideas. There is a lot of merit in many of them.

It is possible to have FedGov define and enforce "standards" without actually interfering in the state by state voting

 

[Lisa558]

But how do you know which state will be the swing state since that depends on the vote in that state and other states. Also keep mind that the number of votes you steal in the county or precinct plus the number cast there has to be less that number registered. If not the election will not be certified.

You don’t. That’s why you focus in the half-dozen or so most likely to turn the election, focus your harvesting efforts there by fanning out in the Democrat areas, and halting the count across all five or six states until you can being in the Plan B ballots.

 

[WorldWatcher]

The scanners they are selling today do not require any programing by the user. You just put the machine in program mode and scan a ballot or survey. The machine finds the location of bubbles and the name of the item and saves the information and that all you need to do. The user has no control over the counting process. The programmer has no control over the counting process.

Thank you.

WW

 

[Foxfyre]

Let's talk about what we CAN do.

Foxfyre do you know about PKI ?

It's a security protocol. It's used for encrypted email and things like that.

We'll, it STARTED that way, but the principle of it is much more general.

So like, we have this machine, it counts ballots. How does it know what it's counting? In most cases the answer is, it doesn't. And, when it connects to the aggregator, how does it know what it's connecting to? Again, it probably doesn't - unless there's a protocol in place to authenticate the connection.

So, if two parties want to exchange email securely, the first step is to authenticate each other. PKI is a way of doing that privately and securely. In a way it's like an abstracted version of the hardware fob we were talking about earlier.

The important part is in the way the keys are exchanged. And, the method depends on a "personal identifier", kind of like a PIN, say, a magic number or word only you know.

So like, this method can actually be used by mail. And it's WAY more secure than a signature. It's also more expensive. But it works.

I do know about PKI and I also know it isn't foolproof. According to the master programmer I know who I consult about these things, once PKI is corrupted by poor key management practices, it is pretty impossible to restore the integrity and too often you can't know whether or not it has been compromised.

I don't pretend to understand how all that works, but he basically confirms that humankind has never invented any machine, electronic device, or computerized system that cannot be screwed up by the incompetent or deliberately sabotaged or compromised. PKI adds a significant layer of protection to security, but is not 100% foolproof.

And since voters don't know who does the programming for any computer, machine, or whatever, there will always be questions of whether their votes will be counted accurately and honestly.

I still say paper ballots and hand counting with proper and bipartisan supervision is the best way to go.

Flopper suggested it would take too long on really long ballots with lots and lots of items. Maybe split up the ballots with the key names--President, Congress, Governorships, legislators, constitutional amendments--on one page that would be counted, tallied, and reported as soon as reasonable. Then all the judges and lesser offices on the second page--most run opposed or simply receive a vote of confidence--would be counted and reported second. And all the bond issues, referendums, initiatives etc. on the third page counted last or maybe the second day. There is always a way to work things out.


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