States ditch voting machines in favor of wasteful paper alternative because there is 'no money' to r - Polidicks

[QUOTE]States have abandoned electronic voting machines in droves, ensuring that most voters will be casting their ballots by hand on Election Day. With many electronic voting machines more than a decade old, and states lacking the funding to repair or replace them, officials have opted to return to the pencil-and-paper voting that the new technology was supposed to replace. “There is simply no money to replace them,” said Michael Shamos, a computer scientist at Carnegie Mellon University who has examined computerized voting systems in six states. "State and local election officials should not rely on the federal government to replace voting machines that may be nearing the end of its useful life. Therefore, state and local election officials should recognize that they are responsible for upgrading their voting equipment as needed, and hopefully they are budgeting accordingly," Miller said in a statement to The Hill. More whimsically, two researchers showed they could install Pac-Man onto a touch-screen voting machine, leaving no detectable traces of their presence. “There's never been a proven case of manipulation of an electronic voting machine,” he said. Voting machines are not connected to any network and not connected to each other, making them difficult to tamper with. “These machines are not hooked up or networked in any way that would make them vulnerable to external access,” said Matt McClellan, press secretary for the Ohio Secretary of State. “We’re confident that process is secure and the integrity is being maintained.” “There’s no mechanism whereby viruses can pass from one machine to another,” Shamos agreed. Best case scenario, “maybe I could fool a few people” and get several hundred votes “for my guy.”[/QUOTE] [URL="http://thehill.com/policy/cybersecurity/222470-states-ditch-electronic-voting-machines"]Source[/URL]

It isn't like the paper cannot be recycled.

Like a hanging chad?

[QUOTE=MR-X;46391636]It isn't like the paper cannot be recycled.[/QUOTE] paper recycling is far less effective than electronic voting. [I]far[/I] less

[quote]“There's never been a proven case of manipulation of an electronic voting machine,” he said.[/quote] [quote]“There’s no mechanism whereby viruses can pass from one machine to another,” Shamos agreed. Best case scenario, “maybe I could fool a few people” and get several hundred votes “for my guy.”[/quote] Hmm.

e-voting is harmfull

Eh paper works too. I've only ever voted on paper and then fed it through a machine where it counts the vote.

never used a voting machine before, probably never will since my state is vote-by-mail only

Decade old voting machines are pretty bad. I doubt hardware that old can be secure by today's standards.

[QUOTE=Saxon;46391786]Decade old voting machines are pretty bad. I doubt hardware that old can be secure by today's standards.[/QUOTE] I definitely don't want to say this is a case with voting machines, because it's probably not, but there is a real concept of Security through Obsolescence. Being you use machines/network so old, no one can easily make an attack.

[QUOTE=Doom14;46391874]I definitely don't want to say this is a case with voting machines, because it's probably not, but there is a real concept of Security through Obsolescence. Being you use machines/network so old, no one can easily make an attack.[/QUOTE] "Crap, it's running a 1990's Linux distro or something! It might as well be in Mandarin!"

afaik britain is paper votes

Stop whining about using some fucking paper. We use paper every day in massive amounts.

If ya'll are that fucking worried about the trees, start allowing for greater hemp legalization for usage in making paper.

[QUOTE=Chernobyl426;46392268]Stop whining about using some fucking paper. We use paper every day in massive amounts.[/QUOTE] Yeah, but I think this is more about setting a precedent than how much paper is actually going to be wasted (A solid amount). On the topic of our voting system, it's fairly dysfunctional. Some ballots are poorly designed and confusing, many are disenfranchised from voting because of ID laws, et cetera et cetera. Furthermore, not everything is standardized between the states because the states have the right to conduct elections, which, quite frankly, doesn't make much sense in the 21st century.

[QUOTE=redback3;46392092]afaik britain is paper votes[/QUOTE] I'm pretty sure it is, East Midlands here, I've only seen paper voting.

[QUOTE=Doom14;46391874]I definitely don't want to say this is a case with voting machines, because it's probably not, but there is a real concept of Security through Obsolescence. Being you use machines/network so old, no one can easily make an attack.[/QUOTE] Maybe An old machine can have exploits that haven't been patched and since its old its probably no longer supported which is the case and fear here. Generally security like that comes from something much older, say a computer from the 70's like a nuclear power plant or the analog computers for missile silos. These machines probably run on code which is similar or a precursor to what we use today. I remember reading some stuff about voting machines and it depends on the vendor for how good the security is. Some of the earliest ones have laughable security (around 2000ish) before they clamped down hard on them and many are still in use.

Its 2014 so I'm still not entirely sure why there isn't a healthcare.gov equivalent for voting. Like, it would show you every election happening in the area near by, and up coming elections, along with bios of the candidates and links to their websites. Register by social security number probably. You could still have all the other ways of voting too, but it's stupid that this isn't a thing. I bet if this was a thing millennials would vote in record numbers.

[QUOTE=JoeSkylynx;46392431]If ya'll are that fucking worried about the trees, start allowing for greater hemp legalization for usage in making paper.[/QUOTE] But then kids will inject the hemp paper straight into their veins!

[QUOTE=Chernobyl426;46392268]Stop whining about using some fucking paper. We use paper every day in massive amounts.[/QUOTE] "we do bad thing a lot so reducing bad thing doesn't help"

Electronic voting is undoubtedly better, but nothing beats the feeling of physically setting an x with a pencil for democracy.

[QUOTE=Doom14;46391666] ... ... Hmm. [/QUOTE] What's so "funny" about that? Electronic voting machines are not linked to anything except for power since each one has a male and a female power socket. And I think the memory cards in them are write-only. If you wanted to actually exploit the hardware, your best bet's either taking it apart and messing with it or writing malicious data to the cards you insert to them. But good luck with the latter since the cards don't even hold enough for a basic hello world program and the data is likely sanitized going in and out of them.

[QUOTE=Saxon;46391786]Decade old voting machines are pretty bad. I doubt hardware that old can be secure by today's standards.[/QUOTE] Actually, that makes it MORE likely to be secure, because few people will have the know-how and tools to crack such an old piece of equipment. Some government agencies still use floppy disk for data transmittal, because it's the most secure option available.

I know electronic voting is secure, there are very few risks and it is obviously much much more economical, but I still would like to have a paper vote. It just makes me feel more comfortable.

Electronic voting machines in the vast majority of the world, where they've at least been used sometimes, tend to be running proprietary garbage software, which cannot be proven to not be manipulating votes. The bigger problem though is that machines can be made "unavailable" - just say it's broken, so you don't have to wheel it to the voting location. Democrat-heavy location, with a lot of black voters, who need to vote in the morning, so they can go to their jobs for the rest of the day? Have one or two machines available, instead of what was actually supposed to be there, and you've now eliminated a lot of votes from people you don't like.

I intend to cast physical paper ballots as long as I am permitted to do so. If somebody wants to lose my vote, I want to make sure they have to physically get rid of it. It's harder than getting rid of one vote's worth of data on an SD card. Not that I think we have any real election fraud problem in this country, I just prefer knowing there is a paper trail.

[QUOTE=darunner;46393325]Actually, that makes it MORE likely to be secure, because few people will have the know-how and tools to crack such an old piece of equipment. Some government agencies still use floppy disk for data transmittal, because it's the most secure option available.[/QUOTE] Wouldn't it be less secure because as its been around for longer there's a chance that more people would have studied it and to a higher degree? Not to forget that older systems are generally not as complicated (eg less built-in security) than newer systems. And I thought floppy disks were still used not because of security reasons but because it would otherwise be too expensive to upgrade to modern hardware and so the benefit of better performance didn't exactly outweigh the costs? [editline]3rd November 2014[/editline] [QUOTE=Elecbullet;46392983]"we do bad thing a lot so reducing bad thing doesn't help"[/QUOTE] Yeah, doing this once every few years is going to destroy the environment. What about one day when you have all these voting machines that are obsolete after being replaced by newer models, surely they aren't as recyclable as just paper? Which, un-like the components in computers, comes from a renewable resource anyways?

You won't get any money until you go back to the paper ballots my cronies can fuck with! Like God intended!

Reminder: Diebold previously had [B]a photo of a key[/B] on their website that was a legitimate key for their actual machines and a proof of concept replica key made from the photo successfully unlocked a secured Diebold voting machine. Not to mention the multiple irregularities that get reported every time an electronic-voting election goes by in the US, like more votes than there are registered voters in the entire county.

[QUOTE=Antdawg;46393939]Yeah, doing this once every few years is going to destroy the environment. What about one day when you have all these voting machines that are obsolete after being replaced by newer models, surely they aren't as recyclable as just paper? Which, un-like the components in computers, comes from a renewable resource anyways?[/QUOTE] Well argued. You did better than him. His argument is still shit