
Georgia says switching back to all-paper voting is logistically impossible - okket
https://arstechnica.com/tech-policy/2018/09/to-prevent-hacking-georgia-must-end-all-electronic-voting-activists-say/
======
djrogers
In the next 60 days, for the November 2018 election. And yes, that sounds
somewhat defensible.

The decision process that got them here, however, is wholly indefensible.

~~~
sshine
A society that can't prepare an election with analog ballots -- be it ballots
or pebbles -- is a democracy in distress.

------
specialist
Georgia's election administrators are simply wrong.

Printing more ballots is utterly feasible. The artwork is already prepared for
absentee ballots. If the current vendor can't or won't, there are plenty of
other printers who will happily take Georgia money and get the job done.

There are plenty of new ballot scanners. My own jurisdiction uses high speed
document scanners and matching software.

There are two real logistic issues.

Poll site-based tabulators vs central count. The gold standard is paper
ballots cast at poll sites and tabulated when the polls close. But election
integrity activists would likely prefer paper ballots tabulated downtown (just
like postal ballots) over continued use of the touchscreens.

Georgia has a lot of work to recover institutional knowledge for handling
paper ballots. Procedures, training, and so forth.

Fortunately, all but 4 other states have returned to paper ballots. Georgia
can just ask Alabama or North Carolina for their play books.

~~~
andrewflnr
> Georgia can just ask Alabama or North Carolina for their play books.

Not sure about the rest, but this seems naive. I'm guessing other states'
procedures will require extensive modification to be applicable in Georgia's
particular context. That alone would, realistically, take up the time to the
next election.

For the election after that, of course, they have absolutely no excuse.

~~~
jhallenworld
Maybe so, but should be able to borrow their ballot tabulating machines if
that's the issue.

~~~
andrewflnr
They're probably using them.

~~~
jhallenworld
Yeah, but not unreasonable for Georgia to have a one day delay.

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nickthemagicman
Within the mother lode, Lamb found on the center's website a database
containing registration records for the state's 6.7 million voters; multiple
PDFs with instructions and passwords for election workers to sign in to a
central server on Election Day; and software files for the state's ExpressPoll
pollbooks—electronic devices used by pollworkers to verify that a voter is
registered before allowing them to cast a ballot. There also appeared to be
databases for the so-called GEMS servers. These Global Election Management
Systems are used to prepare paper and electronic ballots, tabulate votes, and
produce summaries of vote totals.

The files were supposed to be behind a password-protected firewall, but the
center had misconfigured its server so they were accessible to anyone,
according to Lamb. "You could just go to the root of where they were hosting
all the files and just download everything without logging in," Lamb says.

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thomasfedb
Voting must not only _be_ fair, but also able to _be seen_ to be fair. Without
a BSc.

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tempodox
> ...modifying the voting process would be too expensive, too unwieldy, and,
> in the end, not worth it.

Wow. Government saying that securing a functioning democracy is “not worth
it”. Those people need to be voted out of office stante pede.

~~~
Spivak
See but you're just putting words in their mouth. Saying that paper ballots
are required for a functioning democracy seems like kind of silly.

chance of compromised digital ballots * cost of harm < cost of switching +
chance of compromised paper ballots * cost of harm

Are you really faulting government for being rational and pragmatic?

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em3rgent0rdr
What is needed is: [https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/End-to-
end_auditable_voting_sy...](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/End-to-
end_auditable_voting_systems)

------
mpettitt
Why is there a requirement for optical scanners? In other democratic
countries, the counting of ballots is still a manual process (e.g. UK
[https://theconversation.com/explainer-how-britain-counts-
its...](https://theconversation.com/explainer-how-britain-counts-its-
votes-41265) or Germany [https://www.dw.com/en/german-election-volunteers-
organize-th...](https://www.dw.com/en/german-election-volunteers-organize-the-
voting-and-count-the-ballots/a-40562388) ), which, while labour intensive,
seems to work. Are there particular reasons why it couldn't work in Georgia?

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delbel
Its logistically impossible because they wont be able to rig the outcome as
easily if there was a paper trail.

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nickthemagicman
I mean these people are supposed to be the guardians of our votes and
democracy and they're sounding corrupt.

Who watches the watchmen?

~~~
craftyguy
> Who watches the watchmen?

Elected officials, who are elected by the process that the 'guardians' are
guarding/implementing. Why would they want to change a system that they
succeeded in? It's an unbreakable circle.

~~~
a_imho
_It 's an unbreakable circle._

Surely there are referendums before pitchforks to change the election process?
A single voting that needs to succeed.

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TheCoelacanth
> Plus, even if the Peach State somehow could get enough paper ballots, it
> doesn't have enough optical scanners to read them.

I think they are mistaken. Georgia has approximately 20 million optical
scanners capable of reading ballots (population of 10.5 million, each
averaging a bit less than two working eyeballs).

~~~
Spivak
Great! Have everyone scan their own ballot and enter the results into the
spreadsheet for tallying -- crap we just invented digital voting.

What if voting machines left a paper trail that was audited by the voter
before submitting digitally and each precinct asynchronously counted their
paper ballots and corrected their digital number after the fact if there's a
discrepancy?

~~~
TheCoelacanth
Or just collect a group of people to count the ballots as has been done for
hundreds of years. Third-world countries that have suffered massive
destruction in wars manage to conduct elections just fine without the use of
any advanced technology. I'm pretty sure Georgia could manage just fine if
they cared to do so.

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ilaksh
To me going back to paper is not the answer to more fairness or security.
Maybe having a paper or other physical representation also would be a good
measure though. But to me this is largely about a distrust of technology as
much as anything.

As usual I am ready to accept your hate, downvotes and lectures about how
ignorant I am.

~~~
cmurf
It's not a distrust of technology, it's a distrust of for-profit companies,
insisting on using proprietary software, and refusing 3rd party, let alone
public, auditing. And that these companies fight against laws that try to
bring scrutiny to these products.

~~~
andrewflnr
It's definitely distrust of technology, and it's 100% justified in this case.
IMO the computer industry is simply not ready to provide the level of security
needed for elections. The factors you mention make it ten times worse, but it
was bad enough already.

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samgranieri
bullshit

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lowlevel
Bullshit.

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briandear
To be fair, paper ballots also have their problems, Kennedy likely won the
election because of ballot stuffing. However, I think it weird that we oppose
electronic voting because of security concerns but similarly aligned groups
oppose voter ID. If we cared about election integrity, we’d have a 100% photo
ID requirement with facial recognition along with using election ink on a
finger, along with tamperproor paper ballots. But I don’t think these groups
actually care about election integrity — they simply seek to delegitimize
election results for candidates and parties they don’t like. If their guy won,
there wouldn’t be any challenge. Donna Curling (and her husband,) the lead
plaintiff, has given over $48,000 to Democrat candidates, including
contributing the maximum to David Scott — a congressman who, despite running
unopposed in 2016, spent almost $1,000,000 in campaign funds on fancy DC
restaurants and other nonsense — especially ridiculous since he ran unopposed.
He literally just had to sit in a chair doing nothing and he would have won
his election. But he managed to spend more money than many candidates in
contested races. He may not have broken the law, but any reasonable person
might have reason to believe that there is even more nonsense inside his tent.

And yes, this is relevant because Scott, throughout his career has engaged in
highly questionable and potentially illegal campaign activities. Scott is also
a member of the highly corrupt Congressional Black Caucus who has featured a
veritable rogue’s gallery of unethical at best, illegal at worst members:
Corrine Brown (federal prison for fraud,) Chaka Farrah (convicted of 23
charges of racketeering and fraud,) Eddie Bernice Johnson ethics violations,)
Maxine Waters (multiple ethics violations due to involvement with OneBank,)
Alcee Hastings (impeached as a judge,) Sheila Jackson-Lee (Medicare fraud,)
Charlie Rangel (tax evasion,) Gwen Moore (ethical violations.)

David Scott also made the list of 25 most corrupt congressmen.

And the lead plaintiff is a major fundraiser for Scott.

If this Curling person actually cared about election integrity and ethics,
then why would she significantly support one of the most corrupt congressmen
in office?

David Scott, incidentally opposes voter ID laws and yet one of his biggest
supporters is worried about election machine hacking? While I am not a fan of
electronic voting, this entire case seems designed to deligitimize the
election. People like to cite that voter fraud isn’t a real problem, yet
election machine hacking also hasn’t been a proven problem either. So if voter
ID is unnecessary because “fraud doesn’t happen,” then hacking an election
machine seems even more unlikely — there hasn’t been a single proven case that
a voting machine has been hacked but there has been multiple occasions of
voter fraud. If we were trying to prevent election irregularities, then a
paper ballot along with strict voter ID seems completely reasonable; but the
Donna Curlings of the country don’t care about that. They care only that their
guy wins.

~~~
kss238
Voter ID disenfranchises the poor, otherwise I don't think anyone would have
an issue with voter id requirements.

~~~
briandear
But voter fraud disenfranchises everyone. Every single state has free ID
programs. We have campaigns to help people get food stamps (which incidentally
require ID,) but we can’t have similar programs to ensure everyone has ID? The
idea that we can’t get ID for the poor is just ridiculous. Even illegal
immigrants in California can get drivers licenses and they are far more
marginalized than poor American citizens in terms of access to services.

[https://www.vox.com/identities/2017/3/15/14909764/study-
vote...](https://www.vox.com/identities/2017/3/15/14909764/study-voter-id-
racism)

~~~
SeanLuke
> But voter fraud disenfranchises everyone.

What voter fraud are you referring to?

The type of voter fraud that IDs would counter is "in-person" voter fraud. The
amount of in-person voter fraud in the United States is extraordinarily
miniscule, effectively zero.

When states pass laws which intrude on liberties, they are generally required
to justify those laws with "compelling interest". With near-zero in-person
voter fraud there is no compelling interest on part of the state for voter ID
programs.

In 2016 North Carolina had one documented example of in-person voter fraud out
of 4.8 million voters. But the state still requires voter ID to counter "voter
fraud". This is absurd on the face of it -- it's transparently obvious that
North Carolina republicans (among others) are seeking voter ID as a mechanism
for suppressing the vote among various disadvantaged groups.

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andrewstuart
People should be able to vote from home using their phone.

~~~
dbdjfjrjvebd
The technology to do this in an acceptable manner does not exist.

~~~
Spivak
Sure it does, we're just making it more complicated for lofty ideals that
don't really matter in practice given absentee voting exists and is popular. I
think we have the technology for what is essentially a form submission app
tied to a database.

People would understand that voting online wouldn't be anonymous but I'm
willing to bet its a trade that many many people would be willing to make
because it's already how absentee voting works.

~~~
dbdjfjrjvebd
You are prepared to make compromises which we know threaten democracy. Things
like secret ballets are not a lofty ideal but a fundamental component of an
election. Non secret ballets instantly compromise an election's integrity.

Please study some history on elections before making dangerous suggestions.

------
ggferghghff
Why?

Anyways instead of paper ballots, use silver tokens with as many boxes as
there are candidates.

Then just weigh the boxes and don’t bother counting.

(A 1oz silver token would cost $30 to fake)

~~~
Klathmon
How would you prevent a corrupt voting offical giving silver-painted lead
tokens to anyone wearing a Democrat hat?

How would you verify that the weighing machine isn't tampered with?

Paper voting is simple, anyone can check a box. it's easy to secure, you can
have hundreds of people who all don't trust one another watching a ballot box
all day. And it's easy to verify, those same hundreds of people can all count
along when tallying.

Rich, poor, white, black, literate, illiterate, young, old. Everyone can
participate and can validate with a basic paper system, and you'll never
conveniently have broken machines or run out of tokens in some areas that
predominantly vote one way or the other.

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dj43nq
Surely some kind of linked list with fancy crypto smarts could make this whole
process less sucky?

~~~
thomasfedb
This joke isn't bad enough to be funny.

~~~
dj43nq
Still better than your snark. But blockchain could probably work.

~~~
mcny
I don't understand. Who can add new blocks? How does this work?

