EMP weapon

Would it be possible to make a device, which could be carried in a suitcase, which would destroy/disable a computerized voting machine?

It might kill a few mobile phones too, but that would be a small price to pay to defend democracy.

Some politicans in my country wants to jeopardize the trust the peoples trust in our paper ballot system, which everyone can understand, and is very, if not impossibe to cheat, and replace it with electronic voting machines.

Even if almost all IT-professionals complain that you can't have both secret and verifyable e-elections, they still insist on having trials at the next municipal elections.

The only IT-professionals which are positive, are the companys which think they can earn hundreds of millions on trying to implement the system, it seems...

Er, perhaps you should just go back to whatever gaming planet you happen to be on at the moment, eh.

Oh and cut out the Skunk, too, you are just providing more funds for criminal gangs to invest in things far more sinister.

Hope that helps.

In the US, at least one company manufacturing such machines was a strong supporter of conservative politicians. It was assumed (but not proven, as far as I know), that this company had given their machines a "back door" through which to alter the votes.

People will have to stand up and reject computerized voting machines. They are too-easily compromised.

On Sat, 12 Jan 2013 23:05:10 +0100, Leif Neland put finger to keyboard and composed:

In English we refer to cheating during a paper election as "stuffing the ballot box". Very easy to do ...

As for everybody understanding the ballot system, tell that to the loser of the 2000 US election. ISTR that there was some misunderstanding about "chads" ...

Here in Australia every citizen receives a Medicare card. ISTM that it would be very easy to use this card (and a PIN) to register a vote via telephone. The voice prompts could also tell the voter whether their vote was informal, so there would be no need to deliberate over whether a chad was "pregnant. Telephone voting would save a massive amount of time and money, with a result being guaranteed almost immediately after the close of polling. The Electoral Commission could oversee the elections as usual (nobody has questioned their impartiality or competence in the past). Alternatively, international observers could be engaged to observe the process in the tally room where the servers are kept (we have impartial referees and linespeople for international football matches, so why not for elections?). It goes without saying that the software would be open source, with full source code available for free download and examination by the general public.

Another benefit of electronic voting would be that we could afford to vote more often, especially in referenda.

- Franc Zabkar

Any voting system can be compromised. But electronic voting leaves no "paper trail".

The thought had crossed my mind that a heavily encrypted system could be used, and voters could check the "voting database" to confirm their vote had not changed. But I'm sure someone would figure out a way to compromise even that.

Well, Here in Oklahoma USA we have a double acting system. We vote with a paper ballot and it is counted electronically. That way we have a paper trail if there is any doubt.

Bill Gill

Franc Zabkar udtrykte præcist:

And easy to detect, when you have a voting attendance of 110%. Otherwise you would also have to remove votes you didn't like.

Here, everybody are allowed to witness that the ballot box is empty, when it is locked. And the entire election, in every election site, is being monitored by members of all the parties. (ordinary party members, not the elected party members), so it is not easy to cheat.

It would take a massive conspiracy to fix the election in 10.000 election sites, while hacking the machines, especially if they are all alike, could be done by very few.

The test of any voting system is "Would you trust Putin if he said it was OK?"

Leif

Even those are suceptible to manipulation. Some examples from recent elections:

If a voter failed to indicate a choice in a particular race, a poll worker would mark the ballot (for the candidate the poll worker preferred, of course).

Some voters didn't understand the process and would vote for their choice in the main section of the ballot, and also write in the candidate's name in the write-in section. Those ballots were not counted, even though courts have ruled that if there is a clear indication of an intent to vote for a particular candidate, the ballot is valid.

In a close race a recount was mandatory. The process would be to run the ballots from precincts chosen at random through the counter again, verifying the results matched. If a limited number (5%?) produced no mismatches, it would be assumed the initial count was correct. The preliminary recount was scheduled for 10:00AM. The election workers were there at 7:00AM, running blocks of ballots through the counters and identifying precincts that matched. Those were distributed at random, then tagged so the workers could pull known good precincts for the official recount.

PlainBill

Well, One of the things the counting machine does is to check for accuracy. If it finds, for example, votes for 2 or more candidates in the same race it rejects the ballot and the voter has to do another one. And in Oklahoma we don't have write in votes.

As far as your other problems, those are procedural problems, and the results should be rejected by the poll watchers. Otherwise there is always an appeal to the court system.

There is no such thing as a perfect voting system. The Oklahoma system does allow for checking and a recount of the actual ballots.

Bill

A friend of mine who used to own an electronics company (he is now retired) had an idea to make something like that to take out traffic cameras and other surveillance cameras, similar to a gadget police are considering for immobilizing late-model cars involved in chases:

(This of course would not stop cars from the 1970s and earlier that do not have computer-contolled engines.) If it can be done with cars it should be doable with voting machines, or cameras, or any non-hardened computerized device for that matter.

My friend never actually built anything as far as I know but it is an interesting idea. You would want the pulse to be as focused as possible to eliminate collateral damage, including to your own vehicle and/or personal electronics.

snipped-for-privacy@yawhoo.com har bragt dette til verden:

There is an easy remedy for this: the poll workers are not civil servants or otherwise employed by the government, but selected from the general population by the parties.

In this way, both sides watch over each other. And the task is so simple and transparent, that everybody can understand it after a few minutes if instruction.

But, back to the question: Would a 12V MC-battery, a 12->mains voltage(120/230V depending on location) and a microwave generator from an oven do the trick of disabling a computer?

But you do not have a proof that the compiled source code is loaded in the voting machines.

On Sun, 13 Jan 2013 17:29:47 +0100, Leif Neland put finger to keyboard and composed:

In some countries voting is not compulsory, so your extra 10% would go undetected when the turnout was 50%, say.

Believe or not, in Australia the only requirement for identifying yourself at the polling station was to tell the booth attendant your name. S/he would then locate it in a paper directory and draw a line through it. This meant that you could vote several times at several polling booths by impersonating other electors.

IMHO, paper ballots are an anachronism that should have died long ago. I refuse to believe that technology is incapable of ensuring that electronic voting is safe and reliable. AISI, electronic voting is an inevitable progression.

I wouldn't trust Putin with any ballot, paper or otherwise. Would you?

- Franc Zabkar

On Sun, 13 Jan 2013 22:00:04 +0100, tuinkabouter put finger to keyboard and composed:

Leif's scenario could just as well be applied to the servers as it is to the ballot boxes:

"And the entire election, in every election site, is being monitored by members of all the parties. (ordinary party members, not the elected party members), so it is not easy to cheat."

- Franc Zabkar

On Sun, 13 Jan 2013 20:03:37 +0100, Leif Neland put finger to keyboard and composed:

To me, you are just like those Green zealots who want to impose their anti-GM ideology on the rest of the world by destroying experimental crops. If you don't agree with something, then you feel justified in vandalising it. To me the solution is simple -- if you don't like electronic voting, then vote against it. ISTM that a referendum would be in order.

- Franc Zabkar

It's quite capable of being safe and reliable. It's just that the people who manufacture the voting machines aren't safe and reliable.

Surfing through the over the air TV the other day while checking the electronic program schedules, I ran across an infomercial from some outfit selling a portable countertop induction cooking element.

What kind of effective range do these things have for destroying electronics? I gather that these things put out a magnetic field with several hundred watts in the 20-100 kHz range.

Mark Zenier snipped-for-privacy@eskimo.com Googleproofaddress(account:mzenier provider:eskimo domain:com)

I don't know, but to use it at a polling place you would have to adapt it to battery operation and then lug around an awfully big battery box.

Maybe, maybe not; it depends on the degree of shielding around the computer.

As others have suggested, you are using the wrong approach. If you manage manage to disable the voting machines you will probably be identified rather quickly, the suitcase would certainly arouse curiosity.

A more effective approach would be to illustrate obviously incorrect results in an election - one where the total number of votes for certain candidates (ideally those belonging to parties who have few followers) receive more votes than there were voters.

PlainBill

snipped-for-privacy@eskimo.com (Mark Zenier) wrote in news: snipped-for-privacy@enews6.newsguy.com:

Yes, over a distance of 0 to 2 centimeters(one inch). At 4 inch it would not heat a snowfake enough to melt.