In a gross generalization, I've found the people who tend towards being supportive of on-line voting are the people most likely to be up in arms over the unlikely possibility someone lost their vote because of a robo-call.
In my limited world view, the most against? Computer professionals. Yes, hipsters, that is a clue stick. But, hey, if there isn't an app for that, it isn't worth doing...or something.
Washington, D.C found out after two years of research and hardening that missing a few very complicated configurations elminates all layers of security. Better to read is the paper (PDF, 18pp) that describes how the University of Michigan team did it.
The paper is valuable for the rest of us...it's also something you won't see from the NDP fail because they used a proprietary system...which is another story altogether.
Money quote?
Our successful penetration supports the widely held view among security researchers that web-based electronic voting faces high risks of vulnerability, and it cautions against the position of many vendors and election officials who claim that the technology can readily be made safe.
Paper ballots with ID work, they've always worked and they will always work.
....don't "fix" it.
of course they work...that's precisely why holder and the rest of the dems in the US are against them so strongly...why not go further and dip voter's thumbs in ink like they do in elections in 'new' democracies ? of course then the voting rate would drop off dramatically...on the left.
Especially when you do not need ID.
vote early
Vote often.
The the DNC way.
"Fathom the hypocrisy of a Government that requires every citizen to prove they are insured....... But not everyone must prove they are a citizen." - Ben Stein
Simplify it.
There are two groups of people in favor of Web voting.
The first consists of people who are too ignorant for their opinions to mean anything.
The second consists of people who have their fraud already planned, and are waiting for an opportunity.
I'm in favour of a hybrid system ...
Create a scantron like ballot about the size of a recipe card and have people scan their ballot into a machine that registers the vote and stores the ballot for proof.
Each ballot should be signed (or marked in some unique way) by an attendant at the polling station when they're handed out to a registered voter; and the attendant might be held accountable to voting irregularities that occur (for example, if there are more votes than registered voters in a riding)
With all of the adance polls etc at various times there is no reason you cannot vote other than failing to exercise personal responsibility.
There is also a societal benefit to making everyone go through the ritual of voting the same as everyone else. Same cheap voting screens and lousy pencils. Same bureacratic process of looking at your card, maybe showing ID, I did last time.
Common experience, there are so few left in this society. Keep the ritual, dont dilute it, celebrate it.
As a computer programmer I can tell you that online and electronic voting is the most dangerous thing that could ever be done. I will fight it to the death.
Ditto james, I can't decide if the people who support it are stupid or evil.
The NDP convention had some serious voting problems.It would not be a stretch to say that thousands of votes were suppressed.
Three weeks later, the NDP has swept that little electronic voting glitch under the rug. I wonder why?
If it was a Pierre Poutine hack,I'd think that it would be in the news. If it was something else,or nothing at all,I'd also think that it would make the news,but nothing so far ,which makes me think that it was internal NDP hijinks that are being suppressed for the good of the party.
The method they use here for muni voting is to fill out a voting card the old fashioned way and then insert it into a tabulation machine for counting. The orginal hard copy is retained for verification/recounts if necessary. Seems to work fine.
The level of fraud possible under the current balloting process (ID? We don't need no stinking ID.) would only be magnified under an Internet voting scheme.
" But, hey, if there isn't an app for that, it isn't worth doing"
Some things that there are an app for, are still not worth doing;
" Download the new #NDP App for iPhone & iPad – your direct line to @ThomasMulcair. http://t.co/j80QHMWL #Cdnpoli"
Lance said: "Paper ballots with ID work, they've always worked and they will always work...don't "fix" it."
Yeah sure Lance, easy for you to say! But come on man, how are you going to get a decent kickback out of paper ballots? There's no software, no hardware, no research... what kind of grease are we going to squeeze out of an order for GOLF PENCILS Lance?!!!
You're threatening the very foundations of modern governance! Oh, the humanity!!!
wallyj nailed this one: "Three weeks later, the NDP has swept that little electronic voting glitch under the rug. I wonder why?"
At first there were all sorts of suggestions how it was probably an outside job with implications it was sabotage by the 'right.' It is almost certainly internal ineptness on their part. Otherwise it would still be headlines by the whiny lefto media
And as wallyj said it's been quietly out away.
The internet has all sorts of uses and we trust it for many things like banking. However security of "public" participation seems elusive.
On the other hand, if they do a web poll with no ID required we could SDA-valanch the thing and get a decent government out of it. One that fires the next egghead that says the words "on-line voting" in a sentence.
The whole push from the left is trying to take back the Commie Gap. Young lefties don't vote. Old Conservatives do vote. That brings on the appearance of a Conservative surge in almost every election and it pi$$es them off.
We see that no system is immune from attack including defence departments etc. Are we going to trust the foundation of our democratic existence to the vulnerability of hackers.
Having been a DRO at a polling station, the bigger problem has nothing to do with the layers of security that might work, but rather good old human beings. Even today, the number of mainly men, who want to 'help' their wife to vote by going into the polling booth were her is still pretty high. In the last provincial election I had to politely tell 3 men that 'no, you cannot go into the polling booth with your wife to help her to vote - if she needs help, that is what I'm there for'. And I pointedly then tell the wife, that once they are in the booth, they can vote for whoever they wish because there is no way that anyone will know. I have no idea if it has any effect, but that is my effort!
So the bigger hazard with on-line voting is the simple thing of domineering spouses/parents who will stand over their spouse or child to order them to vote a certain way. And no matter how much security you put into the system, you have no way of controlling that.
"we could SDA-valanch the thing and get a decent government out of it."
Good one.
In our own hands we could have the ultimate vox populi. Imagine the possibilities...capital punishment for unrepentant sickos, sensible immigration policy, public education actually educating our children, the list is endless.
Everyone knows that they only issue photo ID to caucasians, so das raciss.
Scar @10:45 - I am convinced that there will be a push for mandatory voting; you know, the kind they (sort of) have in Australia. After all, people too apathetic, ill-informed, stupid and stoned to make to to the voting booth on their own probably aren't going to be voting Tory.
And what Maureen said @10:46
peppermint panda:
that system could be broken too - forged or deleted scans, broken storage drive etc.
the only safe way is with photo id registration and indigo ink on the index finger.
“I have nothing against the NDP,” she said in an interview from her home in California. “I just don’t know why they don’t learn.”
That's why they're the NDP!
All anyone needs to know about "fixing" online voting is to look at the results on "reality" shows on TV such as American Idol, Dancing With the Stars, etc that allow voting online, by text, and phone in votes. The results can be so skewed by a block of fans either pumping up the votes for their favorite, or blocking the lines to ones they oppose.
One person, one vote, at a polling station, with proper identity provided to prove they are who they claim to be.
On-line voting would be the death of democracy. It is so easy to rig the outcome. The paper ballot can be rigged as evidenced by "Landslide" Ann McClellans success however it takes a lot of work.
I recall an associate, US Army who recounted his experience with Iraq's first election.
The bad guys threatened to attack polling stations to frustrate the process. He had to attend a polling station which got bombed.
Civilians were cordoned off to about 1/2 a block away until the poll was reactivated.....those folks stayed, in harms way for hours waiting for the poll to reopen.....
How many in North American would dally 10-15 minutes in a safe environment?
Don’t be an election Luddite.
There are hundreds of ways our elections systems can be improved.
No, our elections systems “aint broke” but they are disintegrating and we should be asking what we should do to modernize our systems before they embarrassingly fail during a general election.
Our Elections Acts both provincial and federal (yes each province has their own act) requires approx. 1 temp for the day election worker, for each 100 voters. This is a very expensive system but the main problem here is that it is getting extremely hard to find election workers. The usual election worker is a retired senior. Younger people will not do the job for the amount provincial and federal elections administrations are willing to pay. Raise the pay? It has been done but is not working. Solutions?
I can't fathom the ramifications (and ease) of a hostile foreign power attacking networking infrastructure and disrupting an election in such a system.
Why would we ever consider putting ourselves at such risk.
Our election system is like the education system. Go back to what worked and DON'T MESS WITH IT. And what Phantom said @ 10:24
Paul "Don’t be an election Luddite. Solutions?"
I'm all for letting Chinese hackers determine our government. What could go wrong?
I live in Markham, ON. We have enjoyed (optional) online voting in the last three muni elections.
Works just fine, and certainly a lot better than paper ballot voting in Chicago or Wisconsin or Toronto or Chicoutimi.
Participation has increased every year and, to my knowledge, there have been no incidents of fraud.
It's just IMHO but I love it. This is the 21'st century and most of us trust the interweb with much more complex and, personally anyway, important issues.
Tom
"Our successful penetration supports the widely held view among security researchers that web-based electronic voting faces high risks of vulnerability,..."
Which is why the progressives/left want it.
The vulnerability is not a bug, it's a feature.
"Lance". I can never get past that.
This revelation re; the Nov. US election:
http://www.dailypaul.com/225552/obama-sold-vote-count-to-company-in-spain-linked-to-soros
Hand count all ballots. If it takes two days, so what, citizens will wait if it prevents fraud.
At the risk of being repetitive .... Who want's online voting?
Right now it's the same people who think that whenever their side loses, it is because somehow the other guys cheated.
It's the same people that think it is OK for their side to lie and cheat.
It is the same people who will scream about being cheated .... after the electronic voting is implemented.
Personally .... I'd like to see better security enforced on EVERY transaction.
I'd say we keep paper ballot voting at polling stations. Electronic voting would just encourage lazy couch potatoes to vote themselves even more largess from the public treasury.
just in case anyone missed the purchase of the next US election...
When the Spanish online voting company SCYTL bought the largest vote processing corporation in the United States, it also acquired the means of manufacturing the outcome of the 2012 election. For SOE, the Tampa based corporation purchased by SCYTL in January, supplies the election software which records, counts, and reports the votes of Americans in 26 states–900 total jurisdictions–across the nation.
As the largest election results reporting company in the US, SOE provides reports right down to the precinct level. But before going anywhere else, those election returns are routed to individual, company servers where the people who run them “…get ‘first look’ at results and the ability to immediately and privately examine vote details throughout the USA.” In short, “this redirects results …to a centralized privately held server which is not just for Ohio, but national; not just USA-based, but global.”
And although the votes will be cast in hometown, American precincts on Election Day, with the Barcelona-based SCYTL taking charge of the process, they will be routed and counted overseas.
But although SCYTL’s self-proclaimed reputation for security had won the company the Congressionally approved task of handling internet voting for American citizens and members of the military overseas, upon opening the system for use in the District of Columbia, the University of Michigan fight song “The Victors” was suddenly heard after the casting of each ballot. The system had been hacked by U of M computer teachers and students in response to a challenge by SCYTL that anyone who wished to do so, might try!
Nevertheless, in spite of warnings by experts across the nation, American soldiers overseas will once again vote via the internet in 2012. And because SCYTL will control the method of voting and—thanks to the purchase of SOE–the method of counting the votes as well, there “…will be no ballots, no physical evidence, no way for the public to authenticate who actually cast the votes…or the count.”
As a network tech I'm not that worried about hackers as much as I'm worried about corruption from within. The wrong person with access to the servers can pretty well decide who wins.
$ FKA - Georogie Porgie Soros is the wrong person. Glen Beck has an excellent rundown on Georgie at his own website and at the Blaze.
I've always been perplexed by this constant bewailing of shrinkig vote counts in our elections. If people can't be bothered to take half an hour out of their lives to go register their opinion of the choices on offer, then I'm not in the slightest interested in what their political views are. If you don't vote, you don't have any right to snivel about the outcome.
All on-line voting is, is an attempt to encourage lazy idiots to vote without the trouble of going to a polling station. If they're that lazy, I don't want their registered opinion.
Scar, Gord Tulk and Dave are right. An election is far too easy to fix without paper ballots.
I challenge you all to come out and work in the next election. Particularly if you live in a Riding, EDA, with a large population of new or non Canadians.
Five minutes before the Poll closes, they flood in to the Polling Station. They can barely speak English or not, but are not asked for proof of citizenship. A library card or a phone bill is proof of address?
There is no way of checking to see if they voted in another EDA. No computer network is used, instead a paper form is used to register them; could be for the 4th time that day. The completed paper forms are checked for duplications; when? No photo i.d. is used?
The provincial and federal election systems we use today a far from perfect. Nothing has failed yet but these systems will eventually fail because the election acts mandate approximately 1 election worked per hundred voters. That is if we stay on this course there will be a lack of temp workers to fulfill the election acts.
Also if you do the math you will discover the main reasons why our elections cost so much. Now add in the incredible cost of universal voting for our remote northern communities.
The root of the problem is that the origin of all these election acts was in a time when it was considered an honour to be chosen to work as an election official, and it was consider a duty to vote.
Although some of the commenter’s here like to wear tin foil hats, on-line voting is not the issue so much as our system is bad need of an update.
Have a look at some of the election acts.
Canada Federal election act http://www.elections.ca/content.aspx?section=res&document=index&dir=loi/fel/cea&lang=e
Saskatchewan's Saskatchewan election act http://www.qp.gov.sk.ca/documents/English/Statutes/Statutes/E6-01.pdf
Alberta’s act is very similar.
Yes each province has its own election act. They differ from each other and they are all different from the federal system. Voting is a simple thing right? These acts are amended from time to time and they only get more complex, imagine yourself trying to train 200 to 300 seniors in 2-3 hours on their 13plus hour task. Time to start a new system and perhaps after several by election trials it will be ready for a general election.
When the engine light comes on in your vehicle but it continues to run, do you say it ain’t broke don't fix it?
@ Paul at April 16, 2012 7:18 PM
"
When the engine light comes on in your vehicle but it continues to run, do you say it ain’t broke don't fix it?"
Actually...yes. I just check all fluid levels and watch gauges to see if they stay within limits. Have had engine light on for two years now. Just polution garbage. Erg valve. 300 bucks to fix it. Costs nothing to ignore it. Gaia still happy.
Posted by: peterj at April 17, 2012 1:20 AM
lose the tin foil hat and stop playing with your "gaia". Read my post.
Did you understand it?
Try harder.
Also get an OBDII scanner and do a proper job of diagnosing your vehicle.
I'm afraid you're wrong about the voting shenanigans, " Howard ". It's your beloved, yet dishonest Democrats who are in the business of stealing elections. A prime case in point ws the 2000 election and the so-called recount of Florida counties. By a 7-2 decision of the Supreme Court it was found the Democratic Party's favored method - selective recount of some, but not all Florida counties - was a violation of the Equal Protection Clause. Joining in that 7 member majority were the noted right-wingers Justices Breyer and Souter.
Since you are in favor of accurate vote-counting, you will, I assume you agree with the 7-2 decision, that redress was due Florida voters.
I am afraid disagreement with you does not constitute nastiness. Propagating insinuations based on nothing more than an article in a newspaper; that is nastiness.