
Judges question challenge to voting machines, but case could change state law - lisper
http://www.kansas.com/news/politics-government/article174144281.html
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jonbarker
This seems to augment Tim Snyder's argument for a return to paper ballots (not
paper tapes which have a software layer between them and the machines).

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kthejoker2
This is literally a non-story, in that no evidence is provided one way or the
other, and it appears to be turning extremely traditional political posturing
- forcing allegations of misdeeds to go through lawsuits and exhibit things
like standing, harm, etc. -

Anyway, that being said, the stock picture they used for the header is pure
unadulterated gold. It's straight out of The Colbert Report.

~~~
ethbro
Give the entire case is about access to evidence (which Kansas denied previous
request for), I'm not sure how the story could have been written any other
way.

If election tampering were occurring, how would one discover that? How would
one confirm it?

If the answer to the above questions is "Trust us, vote tampering isn't
happening," then election laws in that state probably need to be changed.

~~~
smsm42
At least it could describe some evidence in why there is a reasonable
suspicion exists that something is wrong. Saying "well, some woman thinks
something's wrong and because she happens to be a statistician she must be
onto a government conspiracy" is not very informative. The only thing the
article gives is:

> Clarkson has said her statistical analyses of elections over several years
> have shown discrepancies indicating vote tampering.

What kind of discrepancies? Indicating how? What kind of tampering? No idea.

~~~
unclebucknasty
> _At least it could describe some evidence in why there is a reasonable
> suspicion exists that something is wrong._

The burden should be on the state to demonstrate that voting is secure and
accurate, especially given that they control the data and the processes,
thereby making it more difficult for someone to present evidence. As it is,
the state's position is circular: "we won't give you access to the information
you need to prove something was amiss until you prove that something was
amiss".

But, even in the absence of someone questioning, the state should be able to
show why there is no cause for concern in ways that allow the public and
outside experts to verify for themselves.

However, on the contrary, many precincts refuse to allow a paper
trail/receipts and they continue to use machines that have demonstrated
vulnerabilities, further obscuring the issue.

It looks like this case may be prompting legislation that is moving in exactly
this direction. That would be a positive outcome.

~~~
smsm42
> The burden should be on the state to demonstrate that voting is secure and
> accurate

It doesn't work this way. It can't. It's like I am saying "you are a reptiloid
alien from planet Nibiru planning the conquest of Earth" and now the burden is
on you to prove that you are human and not an alien wearing human skin as a
costume. Normal people do not behave this way, and if you claim the election
has been tampered with, you need to present at least some evidence why you
think so. Otherwise you're just running your mouth (or keyboard) and blowing
hot air.

> As it is, the state's position is circular: "we won't give you access to the
> information you need to prove something

Not true. She does claim there's evidence that something is wrong and she can
prove it statistically - we just don't know what it is because there's no
reporting on it. So we can not verify whether she is onto something or her
statistics is junk and she's just trolling, in which case the state is right
to refuse to spend time on her.

> the state should be able to show why there is no cause for concern in ways
> that allow the public and outside experts to verify for themselves

How would that look like? The vote is secret, for a reason, and if you do not
trust the state mechanisms that collect that vote, how would you become
convinced that the vote is accurate without some trust in the process? How
that mechanism would look like?

> they continue to use machines that have demonstrated vulnerabilities

It is true that the machines have vulnerabilities, as do about 100% of
computer equipment. Given that, I am not sure what your proposal it - not
using computers at all and count everything by hand? What is the counters are
dishonest too? How paper trail would help - personalized vote log is highly
private information, and non-personalized one can easily be faked - how do you
know if the system didn't report your vote for D as R and vice versa if you
are just looking at the stream of Ds and Rs on the tape and don't know which
is which? How do you make the system that demonstrably can not be tampered
with while you have zero trust in hardware, software or people dealing with
it? I don't think it is possible.

Of course, there are mechanisms to prevent election fraud, and they are being
used, but each of them involves a degree of trust and can be questioned, and I
don't think any of them can be scientifically verified without destroying the
privacy of the vote in the process.

~~~
unclebucknasty
> _It 's like I am saying "you are a reptiloid alien from planet Nibiru
> planning the conquest of Earth" and now the burden is on you_

Your line of reasoning is valid--that a claimant cannot simply make an
assertion and declare it true, simply because it cannot be disproven. But,
what you're missing is that it's the _state_ that is making the initial
assertion: that voting is secure and accurate. So, they are the ones claiming
the voters to be reptiloids.

Pretty much the whole of your comment is undermined by this single
misapplication of reasoning. But, I'll continue on a couple of other points...

> _Not true. She does claim there 's evidence that something is wrong_

She's asserting statistical anomalies that can be clarified with additional
information (i.e. a recount) that the state refuses to provide. But, that's
not the point. Again, she's in this position based on a fallacious premise
that you've accepted: the state's assertion of security without sufficient
proof.

> _How would that look like?_

There are probably n technical solutions to this. A simple one would be paper-
receipts with anonymous identifiers that tie votes to tallies published on-
line. Anyone can look up their votes/results and/or download them to run
analysis. Add a cryptographic hash to avoid forgeries. Speaking of hashes,
there's also block-chain.

> _It is true that the machines have vulnerabilities, as do about 100% of
> computer equipment. Given that, I am not sure what your proposal is_

Your premise leads you to exactly the opposite of the conclusion that one
would expect. That is, you acknowledge the problems, but conclude that it's
acceptable for the approach to be trust in the system versus introducing
corroborating processes or systems.

I'm not sure if you know the degree to which vulns are a problem, but start by
at least closing _known_ vulnerabilities. Then, provide other validating
factors that mitigate the shortcomings you acknowledge, whether via paper or
otherwise.

In any case, throwing our hands up and saying "it's hard, so let's stick with
what we've got and declare it secure even in the face of challenges" is _not_
the solution.

~~~
smsm42
> that voting is secure and accurate. So, they are the ones claiming the
> voters to be reptiloids.

No, they are not. They are claiming the normal state of affairs - that the
vote is what it appears to be, and the voters that appear humans are indeed
humans. The challenger makes extraordinary claim - that some of them are
instead not what they appear, but reptiloids wearing human skin as a costume.
Extraordinary claims require extraordinary proof. Claim that humans are humans
do not require proof. Claiming that voting process is not fraudulent is not
extraordinary, since this is indeed a common case in vast majority of the
situations.

> She's asserting statistical anomalies that can be clarified with additional
> information

Which anomalities? So far nobody named even one.

> the state's assertion of security without sufficient proof.

It's not a proof, just as I have no proof you are not a reptioloid from Nibiru
trying to undermine human race by casting doubt on electoral processes. I just
accept the normal case that you are human wanting honest elections, even with
slightly misguided logic - because this is the common case. That's what you
have to do to be sane - in fact, there's specific form of insanity where
person suspects all surrounding him is an elaborated setup to trick them and
demands extensive proofs of most mundane things like that drinking tap water
won't instantly kill them and that their relatives are not secretly plotting
to murder them - and it is almost always an extremely severe and debilitating
condition.

> A simple one would be paper-receipts with anonymous identifiers that tie
> votes to tallies published on-line.

What prevents one from faking 10000 anonymous IDs voting for
$ones_favorite_candidate? All anonymous IDs look alike, how do you verify they
are true? In fact, sine you have no idea which of the IDs is yours, how you
even know your vote has been recorded properly? How do you know the hardware
just doesn't print one vote for $favorite_candidate after each vote against,
with fake (or just unused - e.g. dead person's) ID?

> Speaking of hashes, there's also block-chain.

Oh of course. How could I forget, every problem in the world has one simple
solution - use blockchain.

> but start by at least closing known vulnerabilities

Sure, that is sensible. But for that they should be _known_ \- and so far, the
statistician in question didn't make them _known_ , but only _implied_ and
_hinted at_. That's exactly my complain. When I say "there's RCE vulnerability
in current version of Linux", you say "ok, show me the exploit", not "well,
now it's on Linus Torvalds to prove there's no RCE in current version on
Linux, and he must spend as much time as that guy wants to prove it to him". I
would like to see the same approach in this case, that's all.

~~~
unclebucknasty
Looks like we've wandered into the ridiculous.

> _They are claiming the normal state of affairs - that the vote is what it
> appears to be_

Except that the "normal state of affairs" is not a "normal state" any more
than PCs are inherently secure. Of course they're making a claim. It's asinine
to suggest otherwise.

BTW, the whole reptiloid/nibiru analogy doesn't work here. Never did.

> _Which anomalities? So far nobody named even one._

She claimed statistical anomalies, as well as others. They're not in the
linked article, but it's easy enough to Google her name.

> _What prevents one from faking 10000 anonymous IDs_

Wait. Is there a threat or isn't there one? First you're asserting that the
normal state is safe. Now you're concerned about 10000 fake anonymous IDs that
could arise from taking _extra_ measures to secure the election.

> _use blockchain._

I know, it's easy to bash blockchain. It happens to be a potential solution to
your fake anonymous IDs, but never-mind that.

Really, it sounds like you're just arguing for the sake of arguing. Enjoy
yourself.

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yazan94
Can someone explain why the machines themselves would be subject to
inaccuracy? Can her discrepancies be explained by voter turnout or varying
degrees of candidate charisma/competency?

~~~
cjslep
When people vote, the machines they use record votes electronically and on
tape. However, when summing up the votes, only the electronic portion is
tallied up by removing a physical memory device and plugging them in to
another special machine that does the summation.

This woman wants access to the actual physical tapes which have been stored,
in order to do a statistical sampling of them in order to say how
statistically likely the electronic tally was. (Physically counting the tapes
by hand is not practical)

The courts are considering barring her again from access to the tapes.

If the electronic portion was highly statistically unlikely, then there are a
lot of places the vote could have been tampered: tallying machines, individual
voting machines, memory cartridges, physical transport of memory cartridges,
even the paper tapes themselves, etc.

For a documentary I recommend watching Hacking Democracy.

~~~
yazan94
Thank you very much for explaining it. In my jurisdiction, we fill in our
choices on paper ballots and insert them to a machine. I thought this single
machine did its thing on its own and without additional machines. Thank you
for explaining the process and the various points of suspicion in the process

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rhcom2
From an actual source: [http://www.kansas.com/news/politics-
government/article174144...](http://www.kansas.com/news/politics-
government/article174144281.html)

~~~
sctb
Thanks, we've updated the link from [http://bloomsmag.com/a-mathematician-may-
have-uncovered-wide...](http://bloomsmag.com/a-mathematician-may-have-
uncovered-widespread-election-fraud-and-kansas-is-trying-to-silence-her/).

