Pentagon Scraps Internet Voting System

[BJCooperIT]

It seems security experts issued a scathing report to the U.S. Pentagon regarding their own software security:

http://story.news.yahoo.com/news?tmpl=story&cid=528&e=2&u=/ap/20040206/ap_on_el_ge/internet_voting

Who is operating in a vaccuum, the Pentagon's IT experts or the vendor?

^{Beware of false knowledge; it is more dangerous than ignorance. ~George Bernard Shaw}
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[theoxyde]

Since there presently isn't a non-internet voting system that securly accomplishes the task, I'm not sure that electronic voting would be any less secure than older methods. I think it is the capacity for a comprimised system (however hard it may be to comprimise) to commit fraud on a massive level that scares me (and most others).

Don't get me wrong... I completely believe that an electronic, and even an internet-based voting system is possible, it just doesn't exist yet. That is probably because the people most qualified to design such a system are among the many voices that are saying we shouldn't do it.

 

[DrJavaJoe]

Voting should not be done on a whim while setting at home having a few beers. If people can't be bothered to send in an absentee ballot or take the short walk to the polling place why would they bother putting any thought into the issues or who to vote for? I can just see it now millions of young people log on and elect Ozzy.

"Two strings walk into a bar. The first string says to the bartender: 'Bartender, I'll have a beer. u.5n$x5t?*&4ru!2[sACC~ErJ'. The second string says: 'Pardon my friend, he isn't NULL terminated'."

 

[sleipnir214]

It's not a matter of disinterest or laziness. Trying to vote while stationed overseas in the military can be a trying process:

http://www.worldnetdaily.com/news/article.asp?ARTICLE_ID=15585

I voted absentee in the 1988 U.S. federal election from Germany while in the Army. My federal election absentee form, I think, was counted.

In 1987, my state held elections in which I tried unsuccessfully to vote. My absentee ballot, mailed well in advance of the deadline (the day of the election in my state) never made it to my local voter registrar.

I'm willing to consider anything which can make it easier for the men and women of the Armed Forces to vote. But that system must be trustworthy. Whatever the question is, SERVE was not the answer.

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[BJCooperIT]

sleipnir204: SERVE?

Had I wanted to debate the ifs of the topic, I would have started the thread in the ethics forum. Those who serve should be the first to have a say in an election. Their lives are affected every day by the decisions made by elected officials. They should go to the head of the voting line.

What I was trying to ask with regard to allowing the military to vote on the internet was:
Who persuaded the Pentagon that now was the time that internet voting could be accomplished with absolute security? OR Who jumped the gun and wasted taxpayer dollars?

As of now IT cannot control the spreading of a virus, the problem of spam, and the destructiveness of hackers. As indicated in the forum title, maybe internet voting can be accomplished in the next 5 years, but I cannot foresee it happening in the next 18 months. Technology just is not there, yet. Surely someone in the military's IT could have pointed this out sooner?

^{Beware of false knowledge; it is more dangerous than ignorance. ~George Bernard Shaw}
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[sleipnir214]

BJCooperIT:
You're taking me to task on my comments, but you're not going to comment on "while having a few beers"? Interesting.



All:
Why was this thing so long in being killed? Ask your U.S. congresscritter. The Pentagon does not exist in a political vacuum, particularly in those situations where it has to interface with the the civilian world. This article from DefenseLink from June 2003 (

http://www.defenselink.mil/news/Jun2003/n06162003_200306162.html)

has an interesting clause which opens one paragraph: "Mandated by Congress".

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[BJCooperIT]

sleipnir204,
Did I take you to task? Thought I was agreeing on the need for accurately counting absentee military ballots. I was simply asking what you meant by SERVE. Now that have I re-read the article (and read your link), I see that SERVE stands for the intended system (Secure Electronic Registration and Voting Experiment).

With regard to drinking and voting, I did not even consider it until I read DrJavaJoe's post. There used to be (still are?) laws that closed the bars on election day, but that never kept someone from drinking at home and then swerving down the road to cast their vote. It should be discouraged, but it cannot be prevented.

"Mandated by Congress" is an interesting issue. In 2002 voters in Florida adopted a admendment to reduce the size of public school classrooms and specifed a deadline for when it was to occur. The legislature is only now trying to adopt an admendment to obtain the estimated $517,401,411 it will take to achieve it. Those same voters are not interested in higher taxes. My point is just because we want it, doesn't mean we can get it. Perhaps the money is not there, or in this case, the technology is not ready.

^{Beware of false knowledge; it is more dangerous than ignorance. ~George Bernard Shaw}
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[BJCooperIT]

I mean amendment, of course.

^{Beware of false knowledge; it is more dangerous than ignorance. ~George Bernard Shaw}
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[DrJavaJoe]

It's not easy to stand in front of the polling place and prevent voters from casting their votes but shutting down the power, denial of service attacks, fake links to your polling place or maybe viruses that kill your internet connection on the day of the election, much easier. Talk about disenfranchised voters.

I would like to reiterate my biggest problem with internet voting. Anyone who has seen Jay Leno's "Man in the Street", for god sake these people don’t know who the current President is, do we really want these people casting votes. I’m not saying to deny them the right to vote, but hell let’s not drive them to the polls.


"Two strings walk into a bar. The first string says to the bartender: 'Bartender, I'll have a beer. u.5n$x5t?*&4ru!2[sACC~ErJ'. The second string says: 'Pardon my friend, he isn't NULL terminated'."

 

[sleipnir214]

BJCooperIT:
Had I wanted to debate the ifs of the topic, I would have started the thread in the ethics forum. sounded like being taken to task.


DrJavaJoe:
Speaking as someone who comes from the southern U.S., I can state that there were attempts made to keep undesirables from voting. They were called Jim Crow laws.

But SERVE was not designed to allow everybody in the country to vote. It was intended to allow U.S. citizens overseas to vote. You know...like the people studying at Oxford as Rhodes Scholars, U.S. ambassadorial staff, and military personnel. To the best of my knowledge, SERVE was never intended to be used generally. It might have served as a test-bed for technologies to be used in larger programs, but those larger programs were outside the scope of the project.


All:
I think SERVE could have worked. Just not as a system by which any person could attempt to vote from the Internet. The idea could be very useful if you think of it as a way to extend a polling place to a convenient location. Thus you can have the devices operate in controlled locations on non-public networks.

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[BJCooperIT]

sleipnir214: Sorry, missed putting All after my "SERVE?" question to you. Definitely not directed at you, just an attempt to discuss what was on my mind.

^{Beware of false knowledge; it is more dangerous than ignorance. ~George Bernard Shaw}
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[BJCooperIT]

Michigam Democrats proceed with online voting:

http://story.news.yahoo.com/news?tmpl=story&cid=528&e=2&u=/ap/20040206/ap_on_hi_te/virtual_voting

^{Beware of false knowledge; it is more dangerous than ignorance. ~George Bernard Shaw}
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[chiph]

The problem with electronic voting is that all the steps needed to protect a vote from being tampered with also need to protect the anonymity of the voter. This is a tough problem -- how you determine that someone is who they say they are, but then allow them to cast an anonymous vote?

With the paper-based systems (optical-mark recognition, punch-cards, etc), this was easy, as you gave each voter a ballot that had no personally identifyable information on it. They then cast their vote (permanently altered the ballot in some way) and fed it to the ballot box to be tallied.

The trouble is, with an electronic system, how do you (the voter) make sure your electronic ballot correctly reflects your choices? They're just bits in a memory circuit -- you can't just look at it and tell that your vote was recorded correctly. The electronic tally software could be tampered with (or in the case of the Diebold system, just have been badly written) to cast everyone's vote for Buchannan. ;-)

If we as a country do decide to continue experimenting with electronic voting, I would like to see :
[ul][li]Source code publically available for inspection[/li]
[li]Something like Nevada's Gaming Board to inspect machines[/li]
[li]Sealed machines and EPROMs (no input ports that can flash the firmware!)[/li]
[li]Receipts for the voters[/li]
[li]Low-power hardware with internal battery backup, so it can run for 8-10 hours with no utility power[/li]
[li]Write-once, read-many media for recording votes[/li][/ul]Chip H.


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[theoxyde]

There are more than just technical issues to solve with computerized voting. There are numerous social issues as well that have to be conquered, not to mention political agendas. As secure as such a system would have to be, I would seriously doubt that any system that sophisticated could be designed by committee.

Regarding "Internet" voting, there is entirely too much potential for abuse of that type of system. The advantage of having to go to a polling place is so that you can cast your vote without being coerced. I personally think absentee ballots should be done away with, but that won't ever happen in our "society of convenience".

I don't know where computerized voting is heading, but I'm fairly certain it is the wrong way. Why? Because the "right" way is too difficult -- for the designers, politicians, and voters.

 

[sleipnir214]

I disagree that having a discrete paper trail is necessary. My state, Louisiana, uses mechanical voting machines which tally votes but do not record each individual voter's actual choices. I don't see where a paper trail is necessary unless you're using Australian-style preference voting, so long as the overall system can be trusted to accurately tally votes.

The problem with SERVE is that it tries to use the internet as its backbone. With [D]DoS attacks, man-in-the-middle tinkering, and the problems trying to deterministically identify an anonymous user on the internet, the project is destined to be untrustworthy.

I think, though, that as a standardized infrastructure for electronic devices in standard polling places, most of the problems with the system could be easily fixed by simply having the machines use a network that is hardware-separated from the internet. They could not be used by people at home, but they could be used at predefined polling places.

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TANSTAAFL!!

 

[pl12987]

The problems with e-voting are not just potential errors, but potential fraud as well. Sometimes it is hard to tell the difference...but there are a LOT of problems. Go to

http://www.blackboxvoting.org

and verifiedvote.org and learn about what has gone on....

Jeff

 

[jwenting]

we've had electronic voting machines in the Netherlands for about a decade now and the government has never said there were problems with fraud (but then, aren't they the ones who'd be comitting the fraud?)

Just because you're paranoid doesn't mean they're not after you.

Of course the Gore adherents tried to subvert mechanical voting in 2000 by changing invalid ballots so they'd pass as Gore votes so mechanical voting is also not free from fraud (plus ballots can go mysteriously missing).