
Senators ask why vendors sell voting machines with ‘known’ vulnerabilities’ - Ours90
https://techcrunch.com/2019/03/27/senators-security-voting-machines/
======
bshipp
Criticisms of the underlying hardware/software aside, my intuitive answer to
the headline question is "because governments are buying them."

Perhaps the esteemed Senators should undertake a short naval-gazing exercise
and ask _" how could there only be three major players in such a lucrative
segment, each selling ancient hardware and crappy software products?"_

I'm going to go out on a limb and guess at the answer to that question, and it
likely shows those three companies as being the only ones with the patience
and tenacity to get those models approved.

So Mr./Ms. Senator(s), I suggest you rephrase your question as follows: _" how
can we simplify the procurement process to make sure we, the government, are
receiving the greatest value for our expenditures?"_

~~~
Bluestrike2
They don't actually have any influence in the purchase decisions, as it's a
state matter. Machines are bought by local governments, with varying state
regulations on what can be purchased depending on the state in question. Most
machines were paid for by local jurisdictions with a mix of federal funding
(HAVA), and in some cases, state funds for part of the cost. Some states have
uniform systems; others do not.[0] On election day, there isn't just "one"
election but thousands taking place.

There's no single procedure for procuring voting machines, well, anywhere.

To make matters worse, each jurisdiction and the states are fiercely
protective of their power in this matter. A federally uniform system, or even
just something beyond the very basic requirements set by the Help America Vote
Act in 2002, is right now very unlikely and would be a massive political and
legal mess. Or, more accurately, a series of messes.

0\. [http://www.ncsl.org/research/elections-and-campaigns/the-
can...](http://www.ncsl.org/research/elections-and-campaigns/the-canvass-
june-2016.aspx)

~~~
ams6110
> There's no single procedure for procuring voting machines, well, anywhere.

And that's probably a good thing. Heterogeneity in this sort of thing is
desirable, as it makes large-scale fraud harder to pull off.

~~~
athenot
Not if all these heterogenous procurement processes end up buying from the
same 3 vendors.

------
save_ferris
Regardless of one's political leanings, it's frightening that only one of the
two major American political parties is even feigning interest at fixing what
is clearly a vulnerable system.

This shouldn't be a partisan issue, but it somehow continues to be.

~~~
cdoxsey
This isn't true.

The Secure Elections Act was introduced by a Republican:
[https://www.congress.gov/bill/115th-congress/senate-
bill/226...](https://www.congress.gov/bill/115th-congress/senate-bill/2261).

~~~
save_ferris
This is absolutely true.

As someone else pointed out, it didn't even make it out of the committee
controlled by the ruling party, and certainly wouldn't have made it out of the
Republican-controlled Senate.

This legislation would pass in a Democratic Congress and White House, but
absolutely will not in a GOP-led government. Full stop.

~~~
cdoxsey
Its not true that "that only one of the two major American political parties
is even feigning interest at fixing what is clearly a vulnerable system".

Apparently some Republicans support this bill. I bet there are some Democrats
that don't support the bill.

Partisan reductionism presents an overly simplistic view of a complex
phenomena.

And bills don't represent ideology anyway. They often have unintended
consequences. Politicians might be interested in fixing a "vulnerable system"
while rejecting a particular bill for some other reason. For example: Voter
ID.

~~~
save_ferris
It's not that complicated: one party is committed to fixing this problem and
has influential leaders backing such an initiative. Another party isn't even
seriously trying. One GOP senator is interested in solving this problem? Good
for that guy, but shame on the other 52 GOP senators that aren't.

> And bills don't represent ideology anyway.

Yes they do, that's why we vote for one party or another. Think taxes are too
high? Want to expand social programs? Legislation is how all of that is
executed. Bills absolutely represent party ideology. Take the green new deal,
for example. How was that bill not an example of party ideology?

> Politicians might be interested in fixing a "vulnerable system" while
> rejecting a particular bill for some other reason. For example: Voter ID.

Voter ID laws were designed explicitly to suppress minority votes and have
been struck down time and again by the courts. They were not designed to solve
a legitimate issue, because there is no evidence that rampant voter fraud
exists in the US[0].

What does exist, however, are coordinated ballot-harvesting efforts designed
to unduly influence the outcome of elections, as was witnessed in NC-9 in this
past election. But again, the GOP doesn't seem to be very concerned about this
specific issue.

[0]: [https://www.brennancenter.org/analysis/debunking-voter-
fraud...](https://www.brennancenter.org/analysis/debunking-voter-fraud-myth)

~~~
cdoxsey
> Voter ID laws were designed explicitly to suppress minority votes and have
> been struck down time and again by the courts. They were not designed to
> solve a legitimate issue, because there is no evidence that rampant voter
> fraud exists in the US[0].

That is not what motivates many people who care deeply about this issue. Its
partisan spin used to malign a contrary view. Believe it or not many
Republicans are not racists hell-bent on denying minorities the right to vote.
I know it seems impossible, but some Republicans even are minorities.

> What does exist, however, are coordinated ballot-harvesting efforts designed
> to unduly influence the outcome of elections, as was witnessed in NC-9 in
> this past election. But again, the GOP doesn't seem to be very concerned
> about this specific issue.

A lot of Republicans in California complained about ballot harvesting.

FWIW I agree that voter fraud not a major problem. And neither is vote
hacking.

Both sides play footsie with these issues and its dangerous as it undermines
the credibility of the system as a whole. If you believe elections are stolen
or democracy is dead, then the American government is illegitimate. How long
till we're advocating ignoring its laws, or overthrowing the regime.

Another civil war is the last thing we need in this country.

A slightly corrupt system that we collectively pretend is pristine is far
better than the alternative.

------
ddingus
They ALL have a known vulnerability. Works like this:

Pretend the machine is a person in a secure room only they are in, and only
they know the contents of.

You approach a window, tell them your vote. They say it back and optionally
hand you a piece of paper.

Then, in that room, they do whatever they want, and the final tally, winner of
the election is determined by whatever they did in the room.

Voters have no chain of trust between their expression of intent, and the
record used for the final tally. When voters make physical expressions, and
those expressions are counted, voters know the election, on a basic level, can
be trusted to reflect the collective intent of the people.

When they use electronics, they have no idea. They push a button, or mash a
screen, and the display will tell them something and that something could be
anything. They cannot know.

None of us can without forensic level examination of the machine. Even then,
we can only verify function and infer a voter intent was correctly recorded
and or used for the tally.

Secondly, should there be error, or controversy, the enduring record of voter
intent both walked out of the building and or is a collection of grease smears
on input devices.

Useless in a court of law.

The only way around this is to make vote records personally identifiable and
basically use the systems for banking. (Who gets around this problem with
multiple, redundant records created at the time of transaction)

~~~
Slippery_John
Why not have paper ballots that can be read by a machine? It doesn't get
around the issue entirely, but you can always look at the physical ballots for
a recount. It's a lot harder to tamper with an election at scale when you need
to handle physical ballots.

Or just abandon electronic voting entirely. Ireland tried electronic voting,
but scrapped it for just these reasons. You could even keep the ballots in a
machine-readable format for sanity checks if necessary.

~~~
danaris
In New York State, we have exactly this: optical-scan ballots. We fill in the
bubbles of the candidates and issues we support with a black marker, then
personally feed them into a voting machine that both securely stores and
automatically tabulates them. If they needed to be hand-recounted, that could
easily be done.

The one significant improvement I would prefer in this process is verifying on
the optical-scan machine's screen which options you have voted for, with the
option to retrieve your ballot and fix it if anything shows up wrong.

------
gumby
I think it's pretty straightforward to understand: the buyer likely has little
to no expertise in the important issues. This is not in any way a slur on
election officials, simply the recognition of the (statistically) likely
experience of someone who is a local election official.

In addition the way the question is structured by the senators isn't really
fair either: if you have _n_ bugs to fix before the ship date, you'll
prioritize them and then ship (presumably) the best product you can by the
immovable target date. That is also reality.

Though voting is a local matter the Federal Government has a constitutional
interest (Article 1, Sections 4 and 5) in the elections to Congress and can
mandate minimal standards for voting just as the DoT mandates minimum
standards for automobiles. So they could require that whatever machines used
are verifiable and non-repudiatable. They could also mandate _procedures_
although those are harder to enforce. If States need to buy equipment suitable
for congressional elections they'll presumably use the same equipment for all
other elections too.

~~~
specialist
In my experience, the buyers (election administrators) at the state and local
levels know exactly what's going on. Like every where else, there's a
revolving door between govt election administrators and the private vendors &
consultants.

~~~
gumby
Hmm, perhaps I was thinking too fine-grained.

~~~
specialist
Feel compelled to add: I think we want the same thing, eg informed
legislators. But from what I've seen, administrators run circles around
legislators and their staff. Which is why I flipped on term limits (now
oppose) and think legislators need a lot more staff.

------
Macross8299
I suppose it's more politically expedient to blame the companies trying to
rationally minimize cost rather than risk reprimanding and alienating state
and local officials who sign contracts for voting machines without any sort of
serious security, auditing or compliance provisions.

This sure does seem like grandstanding from these senators. Probably not
unrelated to fallout from the Mueller report.

~~~
munificent
_> reprimanding and alienating state and local officials who sign contracts
for voting machines without any sort of serious security, auditing or
compliance provisions._

What other options do these officials have?

The companies have the choice to improve their security of their hardware at
the possible expense of lowering their profit margins.

Whenever you're deciding who to point the finger at, one simple rule is "Can
this person actually effect change?" If the answer is "no", then blaming them
isn't helpful.

~~~
Macross8299
>What other options do these officials have?

Paper voting, for one. If no system is offered that is secure enough, then the
default should be no electronic voting system at all and just paper voting.
It's scaled fine for hundreds of years and has clear processes in place for
custody of ballots.

>The companies have the choice to improve their security of their hardware at
the possible expense of lowering their profit margins.

You can't expect companies to just "make a choice" to lower profit margins
without some sort of (dis)incentive or external pressure like regulation. It's
unrealistic. Companies exist to make their principals money. It's the
government's job to check that and make sure that the companies are acting in
public interest while they pursue profit.

Local and state officials definitely can effect change on this level since
they are often the ones in charge of the procurement process.

~~~
munificent
_> Paper voting, for one._

The election official's budget may simply not be able to afford that.

------
gafferongames
The better question is, why do they keep buying them?

------
BenMorganIO
Note: this article is of the United States.

