Clinton E. Curtis, programmer, testifies to Congress about fradulent voting machine source code

http://www.videosift.com/video/From-The-Programmers-Mouth-How-The-2000-Election-Was-Fixed

by rms • 19 years ago

20 22 19 years ago

videosift.com

hhm• 19 years ago

Direct YouTube link: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ky-YXvxYbck&feature=relat...

nextmoveone• 19 years ago

odd how not many people here care to comment.

rms4• 19 years ago

There's not much to say. It's sobering to think that it is somewhat likely that the voting machines were rigged and that there is absolutely no way of confirming it.

downer2• 19 years ago

"Somewhat" likely?

Here's how normal paper ballots work: After the polls officially close, they count them up, in full view of whatever members of the public care to observe. In hotly-contested areas, this will usually include members of both/all the major political parties. This mutual distrust keeps everyone honest. Fraud is obviously not impossible, but is more difficult to get away with.

Here's how electronic voting works: A private, for-profit corporation TELLS you what the numbers are, with no paper trail and using unauditable practices protected by "trade secret" (court ruling).

What else do you need to know? People will scam other people for a buck, let alone control of the entire country. The burden of proof should be on the voting process to show that it's correct, not on those who challenge it; because the very lack of auditability is a virtual guarantor of fraud. It is not an accident when ATM companies produce voting machines with no receipts.

In the 2004 election, exit polls tracked closely with the official counts in the paper ballot areas, but were way off the "official" totals in the electronic voting areas. E.g. http://www.nogw.com/images/exit_poll.jpg

Hackers make ZERO difference. Hack all the votes you want going in; the voting machine company is a black box, and it will produce whatever totals it wants as output.

It's ESPECIALLY not going to announce if it were breached and is now completely untrustworthy; it's going to produce numbers that look plausible to save its own ass, leaving aside any nefarious reasons. Even if all their voting data was corrupted, they could just get the exit poll or pre-election survey numbers and tweak by a few percent in the desired direction in a few key areas and voila.

How many people need to be in on this? One guy with root access.

matth2• 19 years ago

I would assume this is partly because many of us have been upset with electronic voting machines since day one. Machines without paper trails are scary, and there's not much more for the hackers here to say.

What's odd is that, seemingly, so few non-hackers are scared of the implications of these machines.

Here's a scary combo: Ron Paul's tech savvy followers + no paper trails.

rms4• 19 years ago

It scares me a lot less than existing system. Ron Paul and the Ron Paul followers are strongly in favor of a paper trail, by the way: without it, they fear being disenfranchised.

edw519• 19 years ago

Maybe they don't think rigged presidential elections make any difference anyway.

Be brutally honest with yourself. If any of the last 10 presidential elections had gone the other way, how would that have changed YOUR life?

Personally, I don't know the answer to that question. But I do know that I have other things I'd rather spend my mental energy on.

jwp• 19 years ago

I remember seeing this video in a very sobering HBO documentary: http://www.hbo.com/docs/programs/hackingdemocracy/

astrec2• 19 years ago

The mere fact that the source for these machines is not available for public scrutiny is a pretty clear indication that voting machines threaten the democratic process.

I wonder if anyone has tried to use FOI laws to gain access to the code, and if so, how much of it was redacted?

rontr• 19 years ago

Having the source code wouldn't be much of an assurance. How do you know that this code is really the code that is deployed on the machine during the elections? How do you know that the memory cards that store the votes are not tampered with? How do you know that the machine's hardware works "as advertized"?

Without a paper trail, we should assume every voting mechanism is rigged. The stakes are just too high to do otherwise.

astrec2• 19 years ago

My understanding was that what has been tested (and ruled on) in court is whether the code comprises a trade secret, and whether as a trade secret the code should be disclosed.

I still don't get what's wrong with the mkI pencil and ballot paper!

mynameishere• 19 years ago

The geezers who typically volunteer during elections probably don't mind manually counting up ballots.

falsestprophet• 19 years ago

Thats quite the pick up line:

Hello. My name is Clinton E. Curtis, programmer.

brianr• 19 years ago

In high school I wrote a simple web-based voting app for school elections (an election I was running in, no less)... had I wanted to rig the election, it would have been trivial to do so and cover my tracks. As downer articulated, there's absolutely no reason to believe that electronic voting results aren't being manipulated.

Seems like voting might be one of the few areas where more technology is not a good thing.

angryprofessor2• 19 years ago

I agree with you, to a point. But lets not ignore the drawbacks of paper voting: a bunch of old ladies counting paper ballots can have error rates approaching 1%.

Better electronic systems are possible.

In NJ, we have an electronic machine which is just a bunch of buttons and lights: push a button, a light in row 1 goes on, push the commit button, and "Row a, column b" is recorded. A translucent paper ballot indicating the meaning of "Row a, columnb b" is placed on top of the lights/buttons, so the machine doesn't know which row/column corresponds to which candidate.

Using a machine like this, and physically randomizing the rows/columns machine by machine on election day (which isn't done in NJ), software fraud would be difficult.

Of course, none of this will stop fraudulent voting (which is very easy), zombie voting and other old fashioned trickery (google the washington governor's election, seattle district in particular).

I voted under a phony name in 2006, due to bad handwriting. After I discovered this, I called up my old roommate, who voted under my name (rather than his) in my old town. Vote totals were unnaffected, but only because we were honest.

brlewis2• 19 years ago

Random 1% error is easily dealt with. When the election is close they do a supervised recount.

rms4• 19 years ago

There is not a single comment suggesting that electronic voting machines are acceptable. I take this as a sign that the hacker community is unanimous in condemnation of our disenfranchisement.

Is there anything we can do about it? Or does it take millions of dollars to have any impact in America anymore?

Clinton E. Curtis, programmer, testifies to Congress about fradulent voting machine source code

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