
XKCD: Voting software - tiborsaas
https://xkcd.com/2030/
======
shirro
It isn't that software engineers are bad at their jobs. Information and matter
happen to have very different properties when it comes to resisting
modification and showing evidence of tampering at our current level of
technology. It isn't that electronic voting systems can't be made more
resistant to tampering. The problem is that if tampering is possible it seems
more likely to succeed with an electronic system than it would exposing a
large number of human agents modifying paper ballots.

I live in a country with compulsory voting and paper ballots and we have
proportional voting in one house and we still manage to get a concession
speech within a few hours typically. If it ain't broken... I don't see what is
gained from taking human observers out of the loop and hiding everything under
the skirts of a computer system with a sign saying "trust us".

~~~
bcaa7f3a8bbc
Another important difference is computer systems themselves are inherently
general purpose [0], unlike a physical machine - An airplane cannot be
subverted to calculate the GDP of the United States, but all Turing machines
are created equal. Another difference is computer systems are generally open
to unpredictable external inputs [0], unlike a physical machine - An airplane
is not needed to be designed under the assumption that an adversary would use
weather modification to destroy it.

[0] Unless specialized designs are used explicitly in hardware and software,
similar to those which are found in embedded industrial control systems, which
removes these uncertainties to a large extent. But they are rarely used in
practice because of its difficulties and cost.

As Bruce Schneier written in _Cryptography Engineering_ ,

 _One of the biggest differences between security systems and almost any other
type of engineering is the adversarial setting. Most engineers have to contend
with problems like storms, heat, and wear and tear. All of these factors
affect designs, but their effect is fairly predictable to an experienced
engineer. Not so in security systems. Our opponents are intelligent, clever,
malicious, and devious; they’ll do things nobody had ever thought of before.
They don’t play by the rules, and they are completely unpredictable. That is a
much harder environment to work in._

 _Many of us remember the film in which the Tacoma Narrows suspension bridge
wobbles and twists in a steady wind until it breaks and falls into the water
[1]. It is a famous piece of film, and the collapse taught bridge engineers a
valuable lesson. Slender suspension bridges can have a resonance mode in which
a steady wind can cause the whole structure to oscillate, and finally break.
How do they prevent the same thing from happening with newer bridges? Making
the bridge significantly stronger to resist the oscillations would be too
expensive. The most common technique used is to change the aerodynamics of the
bridge. The deck is made thicker, which makes it much harder for the wind to
push up and down on the deck. Sometimes railings are used as spoilers to make
the bridge deck behave less like a wing that lifts up in the wind. This works
because wind is fairly predictable, and does not change its behavior in an
active attempt to destroy the bridge._

 _A security engineer has to take a malicious wind into account. What if the
wind blows up and down instead of just from the side, and what if it changes
directions at the right frequency for the bridge to resonate? Bridge engineers
will dismiss this kind of talk out of hand: ‘‘Don’t be silly, the wind doesn’t
blow that way.’’ That certainly makes the bridge engineers’ jobs much easier.
Cryptographers don’t have that luxury. Security systems are attacked by clever
and malicious attackers. We have to consider all types of attack._

[1]
[https://upload.wikimedia.org/wikipedia/commons/transcoded/f/...](https://upload.wikimedia.org/wikipedia/commons/transcoded/f/f2/Tacoma_Narrows_Bridge_destruction.ogv/Tacoma_Narrows_Bridge_destruction.ogv.480p.webm)

~~~
ryandrake
I don’t know if I agree with this reasoning. Bridges are at risk of being
destroyed by any attacker with a truck full of dynamite. Do they defend
against this in their designs? Do we blame the bridge engineer if someone
destroys it? Do we blame the airplane builder when someone shoots a missile at
it and it blows up? Software is one of those few practices where we blame the
builder for being careless when the product is deliberately and maliciously
attacked.

------
jcranmer
Here's the thing about voting. There are basically three kinds of fraud: fraud
in counting votes (what independent monitors are meant to solve), fraud in
casting votes (what voter ID is meant to solve), and fraud in inducing votes
(such as voter intimidation). Unsurprisingly, in practice, almost all of the
problems that actually occur with legitimate democracies, and even most of
them in sham democracies, is with the last category of fraud. People who freak
out about the insecurity of voting machines worry about the first two kinds of
issues, and generally ignore the latter part.

~~~
detaro
How do voting machines help with the latter part?

~~~
mcherm
One example is that a voting machine (depending on how it is built) can either
provide or fail to provide secrecy for the voter. If the fact that a voter
cast a vote is public knowledge but HOW they voted is well concealed, then
certain kinds of induced votes ("vote for the right guy or I'll beat you up
afterward") are not possible.

~~~
detaro
What specific attack scenario that works for paper ballots fails with a voting
machine?

------
tomatotomato37
I know this is mostly over how important it is not to have anything
voting/democracy related fail horribly, but going after the comment in the
fourth panel what exactly happened to our field that we can't generally be
trusted to make something that works? Is it just "Move fast and break things"
in action?

~~~
sacado2
Here, the problem is we can't trust users to not try to break the system. When
I buy a plane, I don't want the plane to crash. When I buy a voting machine,
I'll do everything I can to break it so as to earn more votes than I deserve.

It's a rare case of a system its main customer _does_ want to be able to
break.

Now, of course we can make things that work. Airplanes and elevators _are_
computing devices too, after all. But a working software is as expensive as a
working airplane. People don't want their word processor to cost millions of
dollars. OpenOffice is free, MS word is a few bucks, what do you expect?

~~~
timr
_" Now, of course we can make things that work. Airplanes and elevators are
computing devices too, after all."_

Funny you should say that. Yesterday, the _buttons_ for our elevators crashed.
Nobody could hail elevators on the touch-screen thing. Because software. Name
the last time an actual elevator crashed.

~~~
dragonwriter
> Name the last time an actual elevator crashed.

They do it like every day, if, as is the case for software, you use “crash” to
mean “experience a sudden and complete cessation of operation.”

They also do crash in the rather more extreme physical sense occasionally,
e.g., [https://www.thehindu.com/news/cities/Delhi/3-injured-in-
elev...](https://www.thehindu.com/news/cities/Delhi/3-injured-in-elevator-
crash/article24028343.ece)

~~~
joveian
There was an incident with someone using an elevator here in Portland, Oregon,
a few years ago, IIRC not a sudden stop at the end at least but too rapid
movement leading to an actual heart attack. It is rare in the US for elevator
users to be harmed but not that rare for maintinance workers to be harmed; it
is actually a fairly dangerous profession.

IMO, it is actively harmful to blame the software industry as a whole for
voting machines being horrible since however bad most software is there are
parts of the industry that can produce software as reliable as bridges and
elevators and those are the parts of the industry that should be used for
voting machines even if the rest of the industry was quite a bit better. It is
only for political reasons that voting machines are unreliable.

------
GuiA
As a software engineer I have some vague notions of why voting software is a
slippery slope to get on; but can anyone sum up the main arguments/ELI5 why we
can trust avionics or elevator software to an acceptable level of confidence,
but not voting software?

~~~
yongjik
Because voting softwares don't solve any real problem while creating a horde
of its own. Voting is a _solved problem_. Paper ballot is a perfect technology
once you introduce optical readers, and when in doubt, you can _always_ re-
count everything again. Sneaking in a false vote requires getting past
multiple parties watching the ballot box (and each other) 24/7.

In the recent regional election of South Korea, there was a district where the
winner won by a single vote. The runner-up appealed the decision, took the
ballots to the overseeing committee, and the committee re-examined individual
contested ballots and decided one of the ballots previously considered invalid
should count for the second person, making it a tie and (according to some
tie-breaking rules) changing the winner.[1]

You can't get that kind of transparency with voting software. It's worse in
every way.

[1] Link (in Korean):
[http://news.jtbc.joins.com/html/712/NB11663712.html](http://news.jtbc.joins.com/html/712/NB11663712.html)

~~~
TooBrokeToBeg
> Because voting softwares don't solve any real problem while creating a horde
> of its own

It solves some problems that have been introduced over time in most election
systems. Primarily, time to count/verify, ease of access and verifiability. To
say that paper doesn't have these problems shows a lack of understanding or a
willful intent to mislead. The boxes of uncounted votes from the Bush/Gore
election
([https://www.theacru.org/horace_cooper_bush_v_gore_redux/](https://www.theacru.org/horace_cooper_bush_v_gore_redux/))
were a watershed moment that could have affected change beyond the locality.

> Paper ballot is a perfect technology once you introduce optical readers, and
> when in doubt, you can always re-count everything again.

There are weaknesses with transport or tampering the same as any mechanical
recording or electronic recording.

It's important to narrow the intent of a typical modern voting system, with
"should haves" rather than hand waving away useful tools.

* Votes should have only been counted from voting membership (registered voters, for example).

* The intent (choices)/member information should have confidence that this data is opaque to inspection without a private/public key respectively. Yes, voters would have to generate their own, as that's an attack vector.

* A voting member should have the ability to track that the vote was counted at all in a given race via a reversible process, which would necessarily include the public and private key.

> You can't get that kind of transparency with voting software.

You can, but the US wont. It's an important distinction that is patently
obvious.

Today, most vote tracking systems are electronic, although the ballot was
paper. What's the point of half the process being paper? The US government is
too inefficient, demotivated, and lacking the impetus to retrain the populace
to make any system that is reliable.

~~~
yongjik
> To say that paper doesn't have these problems shows a lack of understanding
> or a willful intent to mislead.

Of course using paper doesn't magically solve away your problems. The point is
that paper-based systems without these problems do exist in the world and
they've been successfully used for decades. You just have to copy the
successful ones.

Or, put another way, if your government is too incompetent to run paper-based
ballots, using electronic system won't make them suddenly competent either.

> There are weaknesses with transport or tampering the same as any mechanical
> recording or electronic recording.

The really really really nice thing about paper is that the required size of
the attack gets proportionally large as stakes get higher. If you try really
hard, you can probably sneak a few votes and change one of the twenty town
council members, but does anyone care? On the other hand, to hack a
presidential election you will have to exchange at least a thousand boxes or
so. With a thousand co-conspirators. While everyone is watching.

...And if you're worried about organized gangs replacing a thousand ballot
boxes on your election day, you have more problems than voting systems.

> What's the point of half the process being paper?

That it works. Technology is not meant to be cool; it's meant to work.

~~~
TooBrokeToBeg
> if you're worried about organized gangs replacing a thousand ballot boxes on
> your election day, you have more problems than voting systems.

The US certainly does. Should we throw up our hands and call it a non-issue? I
don't think so.

------
z3phyr
In India, its actually very hard and time consuming to accurately count around
a billion paper votes. Paper votes kind of do not scale. Also India used to
face a lot of incidences of booth capturing[1] which came to a stop after
EVMs.

[1][https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Booth_capturing](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Booth_capturing)

~~~
AndrewDucker
Of course paper scales. Because if you have more people then you have more
people to count the votes. In the UK every vote count happens with observers
from the local area, in a semi-public manner.

The process is very simple, and hard to manipulate, because the observers
(from all sides) ensure it.

~~~
JdeBP
The point of xem mentioning booth capturing is that it is the practice of the
"observers" from one side forcibly ejecting the observers from the other sides
and then proceeding to rig the ballot.

~~~
AndrewDucker
And in that case you need to have police involved.

And if your response there is that the police will help one side against the
other then your problem is massive corruption, and no technological solution
will fix your voting problems (other than members of the public having the
ability to record it and then make it public).

~~~
z3phyr
The process of Booth Capturing happened during the ballot, not the counting.
It was actually a very serious problem of rigging which vanished after the
introduction of EVMs

Before the introduction of EVMs, there was a massive problem of "Illegal
Votes" due to illiteracy (for most part). That vanished to because pressing
buttons is absolute and intuitive.

I get where you are coming from though. Ideally, civilized behavior and rule
of law should reign supreme, but a populace cannot be educated and society
reformed with a single button. And we cannot forsake democracy "until the rule
of law reigns us". We must find the middle ground

There were impeding cases of rigging with paper ballots anyway and people did
not trust the people who counted during the paper ballot time. Everything's
the same. Now people do not trust the machines.

~~~
Klathmon
> That vanished to because pressing buttons is absolute and intuitive.

Are you really implying that pushing a voting machine button is more intuitive
and "absolute" than using a pencil to mark a box on a piece of paper?

Have you seen these voting machines? The ones I've used before in PA were
wildly complicated, and while I was there waiting to vote 2 different people
had to call someone in to help them vote correctly.

>people did not trust the people who counted during the paper ballot time

The beauty of a well run paper ballot system, is that if you don't trust the
counters, you can go count along with them. If you don't trust someone to not
tamper with the box, you can go watch it all day. If you think the "other
team" is trying to pull one over on you, you can get all of your friends to go
down and watch the box all day, and count along. It doesn't matter their age,
their primary language, their knowledge or the amount of schooling they went
to, everyone capable of voting is capable of verifying those votes.

I personally am not arguing that it's impossible to rig a paper ballot system,
just that it's significantly more costly (to the point that it would probably
be easier to just run for the position legally if you are going to sink that
much money into it), and it's magnitudes harder to get away with.

Let's look at florida, a state with a population of about 20 million. In 2016
9.4 million votes were cast. Let's look at one county, st. johns county. There
were 136,000 votes cast in that county across about 46 precincts. So let's
assume even distribution and say about 3000 votes cast per precinct.

In order to sway the election in one county, in one state, in one election,
you would need to pay off or threaten around 46 people, probably a lot more.
And you'd have to make sure that not one of them makes a mistake or "comes
clean", and that nobody in any of the precincts you are trying to rig will sit
around and decide to watch the process and blow the whistle at the first sign
of something shady. And even if you were able to sway that county, you have
another 66 in florida alone, and another 3000 or so across the rest of the
country.

Now I know a "smart" way to rig would only touch "swing states", and would be
smart with where they spend their money and time on to maximize the impact,
but you are still talking about thousands of people all across the country.

If there were impending cases of rigging, they were found because it's
monumentally difficult to cover up something on that scale.

~~~
JdeBP
> _Have you seen these voting machines?_

It's a fairly safe assumption that a person from India, where EVMs have been
in widespread use since the late 1990s, with the first fully-EVM general
election almost a decade and a half ago in 2004, has seen an electronic voting
machine. (-:

Ironically, the argument that you make about how hard it is to rig a paper
election _is exactly the same_ as the argument that the supporters of EVMs and
the ECI make about how hard it is to rig the EVM system. It claims that there
are roughly 1.5 million machines that one would have to tamper with, randomly
assigned to voting stations (which one would have to predict ahead of time),
and monitored by canditates' electoral agents and the police all of whom you
would have to threaten/bribe. You're both making the same argument.

------
tabtab
The Space Shuttle software was some of the most reliable software ever
written. However, it was expensive and time-consuming. In practice, few want
to wait and/or pay for such. Related: [https://www.fastcompany.com/28121/they-
write-right-stuff](https://www.fastcompany.com/28121/they-write-right-stuff)
and
[http://wiki.c2.com/?IsThereEverGoingToBeSufficientEconomicIn...](http://wiki.c2.com/?IsThereEverGoingToBeSufficientEconomicIncentiveToDoSoftwareRight)

~~~
earenndil
Ironically enough, voting software being accurate will arguably save more
people's lives than space shuttle software being accurate, it's just less
visceral and immediate so people care less.

------
ihucos
Blockchain only solves one part of the problem. All end devices are not
secure. My mother keeps clicking on funny ads and single hardware components
may be compromised.

------
merraksh
No technology (aerospace engineering, building engineering, voting machines)
is 100% resilient as long as there is an entity with tools, money, and
knowledge to bring it down. I guess the comparison holds here because voting
machines can be approached by said entity in a remote fashion, unlike an
aircraft or an elevator.

~~~
mcherm
That is true, but the XKCD cartoon is pointing out that there is a fundamental
difference here.

In aerospace or elevators, the experts say that what we have is really quite
safe, although a determined adversary could potentially cause harm.

In voting machines, the experts say that what we have is fundamentally UNSAFE,
and that a half-hearted effort from a bright college student could bring it to
its knees.

That difference should DEEPLY concern the people who run elections.

~~~
JdeBP
It has deeply concerned the people who contribute to the RISKS Digest. Since
Volume 2 in 1986. It's still a topic in Volume 30.

* [http://catless.ncl.ac.uk/risks/](http://catless.ncl.ac.uk/risks/)

* [http://catless.ncl.ac.uk/Risks/2/12#subj6.1](http://catless.ncl.ac.uk/Risks/2/12#subj6.1)

------
herogreen
Perhaps the most important political message I have seen on XKCD. Related
Computerphile episode:
[https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=w3_0x6oaDmI](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=w3_0x6oaDmI)
I guess that some computer-powered elections are coming in the US, EU ?

~~~
freeone3000
[https://voatz.com/](https://voatz.com/) is going to power remote voting in
West Virginia, according to [https://www.engadget.com/2018/08/07/voatz-mobile-
voting-west...](https://www.engadget.com/2018/08/07/voatz-mobile-voting-west-
virginia-blockchain/) .

~~~
martythemaniak
When Reddit kicked out some hate groups, they setup their own website called
"voat.co". I thought this was something associated with them.

~~~
rhencke
That isn't how Voat was created at all.

~~~
Nadya
If people repeat a lie enough it becomes the truth. That's the goal when
misinformation like this is spread. Even better when ignorant people with only
secondhand knowledge begin to spread the message.

Voat had existed for just over a year before the mass subreddit ban on Reddit.
The timeline is easy to look up on their Wikipedia page [0]. It was already a
trollfest 4chan-like-community version of Reddit before the users of banned
subs joined.

    
    
        - Founded as WhoaVerse in April 2014
        - Subreddits banned June 2015
    

[0] [https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Voat](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Voat)

------
lucideer
This comic may have been inspired by this thread in West Virginia's voting
system
[https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=17706849](https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=17706849)

------
hsnewman
Travis county, Texas, is purchasing new voting machines which create an audit
trail on paper. [https://www.mystatesman.com/news/local-govt--
politics/travis...](https://www.mystatesman.com/news/local-govt--
politics/travis-county-approves-purchase-paper-trail-voting-
system/3sGRBQijMuh0NEW5QD6WUJ/) That said, I'm sure there will be hacks...

~~~
TeMPOraL
Even if there won't be hacks, there will most certainly be accusations.
Electronic voting _enables_ accusations of hacking.

------
rwmj
What problem is electronic voting trying to solve?

~~~
julvo
Potentially reducing cost while increasing voter turnout

~~~
rwmj
Where I live, the paper ballots are collected, moved and counted by volunteers
(in big open halls and other public spaces where anyone can go along and
watch). So I guess cost doesn't have to be an issue.

Voter turnout: People prefer screens to paper or something? Sounds odd that
voter turnout would be affected by the exact method of voting.

~~~
r-bryan
Maybe we've been looking at the wrong cost. As you suggest, voting machines
wouldn't make it cheaper to count the votes. They would make it cheaper to
hack the election!

"No matter how cynical I get, I just can't keep up." \--Lily Tomlin

------
dqpb
Why don't we start with voting machines that either produce or consume a paper
ballot (with user confirmation that paper/electronic records match). Then have
people count the paper ballots and compare their count to the computed
electronic counts. The counts should match.

~~~
joveian
For the US, the Oregon/Washington/Colorado style vote by mail ballot seems
best. There is no need for anyone to stand in a line to vote and a human count
of the paper ballot is possible if necessary. The computers involved are not
in direct contact with the general public.

------
samuelfekete
If airplanes or elevators would become unreliable or would be tempered with,
everyone would know.

With elections, where the votes are secret (and the monitors are not
engineers), hacks and bugs could happen without anyone ever finding out.

------
nailer
That's not it. It's among other things:

\- the threat model of a startup with only 2M of funding managing an asset
(election outcome) that is worth far more

\- the lack of verifiable proofs for individuals to see that their vote was
handled correctly

\- systems with known issues being deployed.

The idea isn't awful, the execution is.

~~~
TeMPOraL
> _The idea isn 't awful, the execution is._

Not really sure about that.

The way I understand, most of the inefficiencies in paper-based voting are
actually _features_ , that make the process a) verifiable and trustworthy to
anyone with most basic education, and b) prohibitively expensive to attack at
scale. All voting machines seem to do is to reduce either of those. I
obviously cannot prove it, but I strongly suspect that the paper
implementation is overall cheaper than any alternative electronic
implementation comparable in trustworthiness and security guarantees.

Maybe when we'll have a colony in the Alpha Centauri system, then we can
revisit electronic voting. Right now, there's no need for it.

~~~
nailer
> verifiable and trustworthy to anyone with most basic education

"Scan this paper with the Foo app or enter your secret number on the website
to reveal your voting receipt." its harder, but not that much harder.

> prohibitively expensive to attack at scale

Not sure about that. The existing system often gets voter turn out above 100%.

~~~
skymt
Unless I'm misunderstanding your post, the concept of a "voting receipt" would
enable vote buying. The inability to prove how you voted after the fact is a
deliberate feature of voting systems.

~~~
nailer
How can you verify your vote was counted correctly without a receipt?

Vote buying is an issue without receipts. See tax cuts for the high income
earners (right), welface increases (left), etc. If someone pays you $200 to
vote for them, is that substantially different from a $200 tax cut or benefit
increase?

------
mulletbum
Why should we wait till the people currently in the field retire?

~~~
twoquestions
The field of programming simply isn't mature enough to reliably manage an
election with millions of participants, especially when we have ancient
traditions of vote counting that work well enough right now. Look at how fast
the people at DefCon rooted a voting machine!
[https://www.usatoday.com/story/tech/2017/07/30/hackers-
defco...](https://www.usatoday.com/story/tech/2017/07/30/hackers-defcon-
conference-exploit-vulnerabilities-voting-machines/523639001/)

Think about the development of heavier-than-air flight. It was a thing for 50
years or so before commercial flights became common, and they had the
collective world's genius spurred on by 2 World Wars to advance the field.

Entrusting something as critical and nigh-sacred as our elections to such a
provably immature and insecure as modern voting machines, and there's little
impulse to remedy the situation right now.

~~~
heavenlyblue
Rooting a voting machine does not imply the votes can be faked, if the voting
is based on cryptography.

The fact that US believes IDs are optional for the citizens but also thinks
that all-encompassing surveillance is OK looks delusional to me.

------
genericid
Proper link: [https://xkcd.com/2030/](https://xkcd.com/2030/)

~~~
stochastic_monk
I prefer this format as well, even on mobile.

~~~
ygra
How do you view the alt text on mobile with the desktop view, though?

~~~
stochastic_monk
On iOS, hold your finger over the image to make it appear.

------
bradknowles
Gloves won't save you this time.

Nor will sand.

~~~
bradknowles
Nuking the entire planet from orbit is the only solution.

~~~
nscalf
Based off recent findings, it seems as though aiming at one country in
particular would also have the same results.

------
JdeBP
I recommend
[http://explainxkcd.com/wiki/index.php/2030:_Voting_Software](http://explainxkcd.com/wiki/index.php/2030:_Voting_Software)
to anyone about to ask "What does X mean?" or "Why Y?" questions.

------
bloodboil0
I'm my country we can vote online, everything is under control :D

~~~
nashashmi
Why do you make us ask? Tell us which country.

------
IshKebab
Is he unaware that planes have millions of lines of code?

Writing robust software is possible, but nobody wants to pay for it when it
isn't safety-critical.

~~~
TeMPOraL
> _Is he unaware that planes have millions of lines of code?_

He's an ex-NASA engineer, so he's perfectly aware of that.

> _Writing robust software is possible, but nobody wants to pay for it when it
> isn 't safety-critical._

That's the core reason why the field of software engineering is bad at what it
does, while aviation isn't. Somehow, aviation can get people to pay for doing
the job right, while software cannot.

~~~
odyssey7
I had hoped "software engineer" would have meant more of a focus on making
systems reliable, vs "software developer," but in my experience it's only a
trendy job title preference.

~~~
SketchySeaBeast
In Canada you can't call yourself an engineer unless you're an actual
engineer. While I don't know if it helps actual software quality, it can't
hurt that there's been at least some rigor applied. When the title is totally
users choice and interchangeable with software developer/programmer/code
monkey/Mr. Pill the Wonderful Computer Magician, it doesn't mean anything.

Though now I am wondering if there have been studies correlating work
performance and title. My initial thought is there is no correlation,
considering all the technical support analysts running around.

------
bilbo0s
To be completely fair, the problem is likely not the voting machines
themselves. The problem, at a fundamental level, is that most democracies are
deeply corrupted. Some from within. Some from with-out. Some corrupted from
with-in and from with-out. (Most probably fall into the latter category if
we're being honest.)

The voting machines simply represent another tool in the box of the corrupt.
Like money, or judges and politicians, or social media. Is it a good idea to
refrain from using voting machines? Probably. But realize that you've only
eliminated a single attack vector for corrupting an electoral process. There
are many, many, many more. And they are probably a lot easier and more
effective than breaking into a voting machine.

A few for instances:

The entire nation has been thoroughly Gerrymandered. This is a fairly
effective method of corrupting elections and it is a fact of life for us here
in the US.

Professional manipulation campaigns. Yeah, I don't think I need to tell anyone
how effective these are. Basically, any comment on the internet that is
remotely political ought to be discounted, as it should be assumed to be part
of a professional manipulation campaign. Including this and every other
comment on this thread to be perfectly frank.

Another example. In North Carolina, they simply deleted all the black people
from the voter registration database during the last election. Fast. Simple.
Effective. And _WAY_ easier than hacking into Heaven only knows how many
different voting machines to tamper with the numbers.

My only point is that, yes, voting machines are corruptible. Anyone who says
they aren't is being willfully dishonest. (And probably trying to screw you.)
That said, there are so many other methods of corrupting a modern election
that I'm not at all sure that breaking into the voting machines would be
option number one for all those political types out there.

So, yes, by all means, stay away from voting machines. It probably makes sense
for you to agitate for their removal in your municipality.

But realize there are many, many other threat vectors out there that you
should probably be more worried about.

