
Private equity controls the U.S. voting machine industry - petethomas
https://www.bloomberg.com/news/articles/2018-11-03/private-equity-controls-the-gatekeepers-of-american-democracy?srnd=premium
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darawk
The problem here isn't private equity control of the industry...it's state &
local governments choosing to actually use these things. PE can call a
lemonade stand a voting machine, that's what it means to live in a free
country, but that doesn't mean we have to use the damn thing. It's a joke.
It's not like we don't know how to design reasonably secure electronic voting
mechanisms[1]...these companies just don't bother. There is no reason anyone
should ever be using these things.

[1]
[https://crypto.stanford.edu/pbc/notes/crypto/voting.html](https://crypto.stanford.edu/pbc/notes/crypto/voting.html)

~~~
philipov
I disagree with the notion that false advertising is a right characteristic of
free countries. Free does not mean anarchy.

~~~
darawk
Sorry, I didn't mean to imply that. My point is that these companies ought to
be able to sell 'voting machines' that suck, and we ought to be free to not
buy them. They should not be free to make false claims about them.

~~~
0x7265616374
absolutely agree on all three points. unfortunately it's well known that
governments often go with the lowest bid for a plethora of goods and services,
and it's all to easy to lowball a bid to push machines that suck.

~~~
olliej
In California at least there were ballot iniatives that mean the CA government
_must_ go with the lowest bid, even if it is from a company that has
consistently run far over budget.

Honestly I feel the solution to this is: lowest bid, but the company cannot
charge more than their bid and needs to have completion/bankruptcy insurance.
That way companies that routinely under bid will go bankrupt/have the
bankruptcy insurance bills increase until it becomes unprofitable to underbid.

------
hnmonkey
Is there a solid argument for not having more regulation on these
organizations? We have so much regulation on slot machines and casinos for
example because we know that a lot of money passes through there and there's
high potential for money laundering. Why not have strong regulations around
voting systems too? We know that if voting systems are compromised the impact
could be devastating to the entire country - far more critical to America's
security and continuity than regulation in many other industries.

I just don't get the opposition to that. It seems like it's in everyone's best
interest (those that are honest and are looking for a fair foundation to build
from that is).

~~~
maxxxxx
I honestly think that a lot of people in the US think it's more important that
their party wins than having fair elections. So I don't expect a big push
coming from the people who are responsible for these purchases.

~~~
Spivak
I'm not sure why you see that as irrational? If I had a genie that made sure
whoever I voted for won I wouldn't really hesitate to use it. It would be
silly of me to refuse.

The party in power is expected to lie cheat and steal to maintain their
position and the opposition parties are supposed to keep them in check.
Adversarial systems seem to work pretty well since the incentives align -- way
better than I would expect an honor system to work at least.

~~~
smolder
It's irrational because they should understand both from both civics education
an intuitively that the success of the system depends on good faith
participation. If we don't respect the process or the outcomes, act like
adversaries to our own country, it ends up a steaming pile.

~~~
Spivak
Why do I care about 'the system'? It's just a means to make a decision.
Holding the process as the highest ideal ignores the consequences. If a wrong
decision gets made but we followed the process are we really saying we're
somehow better off than if we made the right one?

~~~
maxxxxx
It seems you are advocating outright war between factions and let the
strongest win. In this case we should abolish all laws.

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darkerside
Why is it that Bloomberg has run an article so light on the details of the
financial ownership of these companies by private equity firms (something they
should be quite expert in), and instead mostly consisting of old news stories
about how close some past elections have been (not their area of expertise and
barely relevant if the idea is that the entire voting system can be wholesale
rigged)?

My guess is that it's because if you dig into the details, there is little
actual control being exercised by those PE firms, making this a non story.

------
tracker1
I'm not even sure there's a good answer. It's not just federal and state
elections. There is a lot of complexity that isn't considered. Localized
districts (water, fire, school, parks, etc) have weird and overlapping
boundaries compared to other districts. Add in some gerrymandering and it gets
horrific to write software against.

While I'm genuinely concerned over security considerations, not to mention
equipment. It's hard to coordinate even the paper/scantron style ballots. What
bugs me more about the visual/touch computers is the _time_ that those
stations take relative to cost... a few cardboard privacy booths and scantron
is _much_ better, but we're spending billions on systems that are demonstrably
worse.

And anything over the internet is a non-starter now. In the end, I really hope
that more states/districts realize how bad the cost/benefit of the computer
voting stations are. Not even considering the coordination, lack of paper
trail, before considering the relative consolidation and closed-source nature
of the system.

Disclosure: I work for a company that does ballot printing and other election
services, but not voting machines specifically.

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twblalock
Maybe everyone should vote by mail, which currently is done by paper ballot.

The current voting machines have problems, and I'd rather use paper ballots
today, but let's not make the mistake of thinking that paper ballots are the
ideal long-term solution. Remember "hanging chads" and voter confusion caused
by the ballot layout in Florida back in 2000?

~~~
briandear
Voting by mail is fraught with huge problems. Zero proof the person filling it
out and mailing it are actually the person they should be. Campaigns often
block walk, “helping” people complete their ballots, for example. Also ballots
get sent to dead people quite frequently. Voting by mail should only be done
for those overseas and hand delivered to a consulate where ID can be verified.

[https://www.nytimes.com/2012/10/07/us/politics/as-more-
vote-...](https://www.nytimes.com/2012/10/07/us/politics/as-more-vote-by-mail-
faulty-ballots-could-impact-elections.html)

[https://www.themonitor.com/news/local/article_983f423e-d3e9-...](https://www.themonitor.com/news/local/article_983f423e-d3e9-11e8-9bd6-a7ddaa46a712.html)

[https://www.star-telegram.com/news/local/community/fort-
wort...](https://www.star-telegram.com/news/local/community/fort-
worth/article219920740.html)

A single person at a polling location committing fraud affects one vote, but a
few people committing mail in fraud can affect hundreds or thousands of votes.
“Helping” people vote, while not illegal, is definitely ripe for abuse. “Want
to keep your social security checks? Here, sign this ballot.”

In person voting with your thumb dipped in dye just like they do in developing
countries along with photo ID, along with auditable paper ballots is a sure-
fire way to eliminate fraud. Those that oppose this generally are the ones who
benefit the most from the current system.

~~~
com2kid
The counter argument is that it is much harder to intercept the mail en-masse
than it is to interfere with elections in person.

Every year there are stories of polling places having "technical difficulties"
or being "moved at the last minute" in certain neighborhoods. Roads get closed
down, signs directing people where to go to vote are not put up, and 4+ hour
lines out the door become common place in areas where those in power want to
suppress votes.

In contrast, with vote by mail people don't have to take a day off of work,
they don't have to wait out in the cold for hours, and they don't have to risk
not being able to vote at all if their local polling place decided that all
the machines are "no longer working".

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donbright
democracy dies because people couldn't be bothered with the "mundane technical
details".

its like this is a flaw of intelligent civilization that Carl Sagan didn't
think about. it's not global nuclear warfare, it's not climate change, it's
not some mad virus...

it's that the species becomes disinterested in performing maintenance because
maintenance tasks don't produce a dopamine rush. the civilization becomes too
incompetent to perform even the most basic upkeep on the structures they set
in place - whether physical like roads and bridges, or social-political, like
election systems.

nobody becomes famous or wealthy for performing upkeep.

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stretchwithme
I don't see why we can't use open source voting software, low cost PCs and old
fashioned punchcard machines.

The problems in 2000 were all about data not be correctly recorded. That was
solved a long time ago. There never was a need to start transmitting the data
electronically.

Now we can use electronic gathering of the data AND automatic counting of the
physical ballots to help prevent fraud. But replacing physical ballots with
electronic vote collection wasn't really needed.

But lobbyists saw an opportunity.

~~~
stonesixone
The City and County of San Francisco has started funding a project to do just
this. More info can be found here:
[https://osvtac.github.io/](https://osvtac.github.io/)

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lsiebert
Before I saw this today, I saw this opinion piece from the ny times:

[https://www.nytimes.com/2018/11/03/opinion/midterm-
election-...](https://www.nytimes.com/2018/11/03/opinion/midterm-election-
hacked.html)

I can't help but think, if private equity already controls the industry, that
there is ample room for a startup or non profit or even a government owned
business to disrupt the industry. Create real secure optical scan voting
machines based on the best practices that have been come up with, and with
independent audits and sell them with a contract where the machines are
updated with security fixes for a fixed period.

Sell the machines a bit like razors, The machines themselves are relatively
cheap, but come with a required subscription to the security fixes for the
lifetime of the machine.

~~~
specialist
Los Angeles County is one of the few jurisdictions with the resources and heft
to move the needle on their own.

They're making their own OSS tabulators. I've been out of the election
integrity game for a while, so I'm not immediately familiar with the scope of
their effort.

Any one wanting to reform USA's election administration stack should start in
LA. Help their effort. Lobby to import their gear to their own jurisdiction.
Study their effort, roadmap.

~~~
stonesixone
No, Los Angeles County's new tabulator isn't open source. Look what happened
when someone tried to request the source code for their "open source" system
(as LA County's press release called it). LA County replied that it's "exempt
from disclosure" for a whole host of reasons (2 pages worth):

[https://osvtac.github.io/files/meetings/2018/2018-09-13/pack...](https://osvtac.github.io/files/meetings/2018/2018-09-13/packet/LA_County_Records_Request.pdf)

[https://osvtac.github.io/meetings/2018/2018-09-13/agenda](https://osvtac.github.io/meetings/2018/2018-09-13/agenda)

In contrast, the City and County of San Francisco _is_ working on developing
and certifying an open source paper-ballot system.

~~~
tracker1
And that's not even close to the most shady action a government has tried with
software that I've heard about.

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exabrial
Open source software and hardware could be a solution for these problems me
thinks. Or at least a requirement for shared source of both

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rmrfrmrf
...just the gatekeepers?

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jimhefferon
> Can we trust the outcome?

Clearly not.

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gok
Uhg now PE is the new boogieman? If these voting machine firms were public
companies, or family owned, or a subsidiary of a conglomerate, would that
somehow be better?

~~~
tlb
A family-owned voting machine company’s main incentive is to sell voting
machines. A PE firm might be able to hedge themselves into vast upsides from
particular election outcomes — much larger amounts of money than the sale of
voting machines — and then affect the outcome.

