State election officials across country returning to paper ballots

[DonViejo]

Source: The Boston Globe




By Matt Viser GLOBE STAFF FEBRUARY 19, 2018

WASHINGTON — Hoping to counter waves of Russian Twitter bots, fake social media accounts, and hacking attacks aimed at undermining American democracy, state election officials around the country are seizing on an old-school strategy: paper ballots.

In Virginia, election officials have gone back to a paper ballot system, as a way to prevent any foreign interference. Pennsylvania Governor Tom Wolfe this month ordered county officials to ensure new election equipment produces a paper record. Georgia lawmakers are considering legislation to replace a touch-screen voting system with paper.

Top election officials around the country are growing increasingly alarmed about this fall’s midterm elections, with a drumbeat of dire warning signs that Russia is determined to influence them. And many are concerned that President Trump has not focused on the potential for more attacks on America’s election system like the one Russia launched in 2016.

With little leadership from the White House or Congress, they are acting locally, trying to outwit potential hackers by upgrading equipment and enhancing the cybersecurity of systems that contain sensitive voter registration rolls. Secretaries of state and other elections officials around the country in recent months also began applying for security clearances so that federal officials can start briefing them on classified information — and potential threats to election integrity.

Read more: https://www.bostonglobe.com/news/nation/2018/02/18/state-election-officials-across-country-returning-paper-ballots/mVoVKD6SW41yNejR327y6H/story.html

[elehhhhna]

1. Scantron totals can be hacked to. Hand counted voter verified paper ballots as the ballot of record

Is what's required ...

[byronius]

15. +1

[C Moon]

25. And you'd better believe the GOP is looking into how to do those hack Scantron totals.

[elehhhhna]

42. I'm sure thats already done

[Sophia4]

31. Yes.

[TheFrenchRazor]

47. yep; without hand counting, the paper is pretty worthless. nt

[questionseverything]

49. with a tight chain of custody

[hatrack]

57. This! Hand count works for the UK and it will work here

Average precinct size in the US is about 1,600 voters.

It doesn't take that long to count 1,000 ballots, assuming a high turnout (by US standards).

[RandomAccess]

6. Pretty good wrap up ya got there

Quite a pleasant little journey you took me on!

[WinstonSmith4740]

11. Basically agree, but...

How would Obama be in his second term? And I thought Grimes lost by a pretty good margin, but I could be wrong.

But I've been beating the drum about paper ballots since Bush/Gore. It's a damn shame the Democrats who run the show never saw the need to do anything about what was domestic hacking and some pretty compromised voting machines. And because they did nothing, it now includes a hostile foreign government as well as a hostile domestic political party. It's flat out ridiculous that Democrats have to win an election by 8-10 points to make up for the vote flipping, ballots "lost", and voter purges. We don't need to know the results 2 minutes after polls close. We're adults (sort of). We can wait. Paper ballots, indelible ink, hand counting of ballots. ALL ballots...no more "conditional" ballots. And UN oversight wouldn't hurt either...right-wingers will get butt hurt over it, but fuck 'em. They're the reason we're here.

[shanny]

19. re Obama: Kerry would have had two terms ('04, '08) is the assumption nt

[WinstonSmith4740]

28. Oops! Forgot that part.

I was blocking out the 4 years of Bush. Now you made me think about it again. Rats.

[WinstonSmith4740]

33. Oh, I totally believe you.

Our damn computer voting machines have been compromised since we've been using them. It's been so damn evident, it's crazy. Numbers and polls (all of them!) are never that far off. Especially exit polls. And that's really the point of my original post. (This may get me flamed, but in this regard, the Democrats are like the Republicans on gun control. They wring their hands, squeeze out some crocodile tears, and lament that there's really nothing they can do. And just like the kids in Parkland, I'm calling BS on it.

[shanny]

40. You won't be flamed by me: I totally agree.

[Sophia4]

32. Republicans have had lots of opportunity to do something.

They managed to stop Obama's pick for the Supreme Court. They have been in charge of Congress for enough time to move for paper ballots.

If Republicans decide that we should end machine voting, we will end it. Democrats will have a hard time doing it on their own.

I did voter protection in Ohio in 2008. I was at a location with two precincts. One was a mostly white precinct. The other was, from what I could tell partly maybe even mostly (I couldn't be sure), mostly Black.

The machine in one of the precincts broke down and voters from that precinct could not vote for what seemed to me at the time to be quite some time.

Give you one guess in which precinct the voting machine didn't work. You only need one guess, I assure you.

That part of Ohio is usually strongly Republican.

The machines were repaired and worked after some time had lapsed.

I'm only telling you the raw facts. You can draw your own conclusion.

It's important to have voter protection people on the ground to report problems in every election everywhere.

[LiberalArkie]

26. Has anybody ever wondered how Arkansas kept Faubus in power for so long.

And how the boss Hogg type county judges stayed in so long and the only way the Democratic Sheriffs ever lost power was to die?

The paper ballots for the counties were delivered by the county deputies to the county court house. Those precincts who might be leaning to Republican or (the other party) had their boxes replaced before they were delivered to the court house.

It wasn't until voting machines were brought in that the good ole boys in the back rooms got tossed out. The old mechanical voting machines were hard to "hack" and had to fix an election until they were replace by the Diebolds.

[Sophia4]

34. Maybe we should switch to the mechanical machines.

[LiberalArkie]

41. As with anything, people maintaining the system have to be trustworthy. And there

are not many that can be since the county clerk office is usually elected.

[questionseverything]

50. we need transparency so we don't have to trust

[crazycatlady]

43. like the lever style ones?

[LiberalArkie]

53. Yea, they got the Faubus machine out of power in south Arkansas at least and got

us a 2 party system for a few years. The bosses like Witt Stevens and the rest just changed parties is all.

[Hermit-The-Prog]

3. about time

People can't see where electrons go. You can't have a verifiable ballot if there is an electronic abstraction layer between voter and vote. The voter needs to verify his or her ballot and the public needs to be able to verify the count of those ballots.

The public can count and verify paper ballots. Electronics should only be used to assist voters in filling out a paper ballot.

[Igel]

44. The voter has never had the ability to verify his/her ballot.

I cast a ballot on paper. It gets put in an urn.

Later, somebody picks it up and makes a mark on paper to tally my vote. Does the counter tally it correctly?

I have no way of knowing.

Now, if I had a printout of all the votes cast and my name by it, I could verify it. However, that *and* a secret ballot are incompatible forms of reality. The information necessary for verification necessarily entails a non-secret ballot: Somebody has access to it, and all it takes is one person with great hacking skills or somebody who decides that s/he is more important than the law and my ballot's not secret. Sic semper erat. (Sorry, had a drink. I tend to use foreign languages in the presence of ethanol. And go full-bore pedantic.)

Nonetheless, it remains true: One right entails abolishing the other. I prefer secret ballots.

[Hermit-The-Prog]

45. voter can verify paper ballot

What you describe is vote fraud. That's a separate issue related to public verification of chain of custody.

With a paper ballot, you verify it is correct before you turn it over to election officials -- typically a sealed ballot box.

With electronic voting machines, you verify you pushed a button or flipped a switch or touched a screen. You cannot verify what the machine does with that action.

Once you place your paper ballot into the box or "urn", that container should remain sealed, under continuous watch of election officials and available for view by the general public until it is unsealed and the ballots counted.

[turbinetree]

4. I am going to call and ask my Sec. of State in Maryland what they are going to do

after all.......................Russians penetrated U.S. voter systems, top U.S. official says

https://www.nbcnews.com/politics/elections/russians-penetrated-u-s-voter-systems-says-top-u-s-n845721



November 2018 cannot get here fast enough

[rtracey]

5. I have

I have been call for this for 2 years...paper ballots, 1 repub, 1 dem, counting the ballots with an independent witness.

[Hermit-The-Prog]

7. needs multiple counters

It needs to be done by multiple counters sitting around a table in full view of the public. Each official counts the ballots and passes them on to the next official. If they all agree on the count, it gets certified. This makes it harder to corrupt the count.

The Shrub started this idiotic push for electronic voting after Diebold handed him Ohio and the Supreme Court handed him Florida. blackboxvoting.org started not long after that, to advocate for transparent voting systems.

[GregD]

9. Don't forget verifiedvoting.org

we were there too.

[Hermit-The-Prog]

10. thanks!

Sorry about that.

[Sophia4]

35. Right. And election protection people need to go in and make sure local officials

are actually processing voter registrations correctly in time before elections.

[turbinetree]

12. This is from February 14, 2018

Securing US election systems: Why a paper ballot isn’t enough

http://www.sfexaminer.com/securing-u-s-election-systems-paper-ballot-isnt-enough/


November 2018 cannot get here fast enough

[Hermit-The-Prog]

36. paper doesn't require software

Yes, it is essential that any software used anywhere in the system be open to public scrutiny, but paper ballots and human observers do not run on software.

Voter registration is the part that can still run on software. There is at least one place where open source software should be required.

[turbinetree]

37. Agreed

[Paladin]

8. Glad to hear it. (nt)

[ancianita]

13. YES! Reason and reality are winning.

[ProudMNDemocrat]

14. I am an Election Judge since 2006......

It is easy to SPOIL a paper ballot, but not hack it. The counter machine where the ballot is inserted is correct with the number of ballots for voters.

Never in my experience have I ever witnessed vote fraud. We go through training every 2 years to remain up on changes. Paper ballots is how we do things in Minnesota.

[dragonlady]

39. Have you ever had hand counts after the election to verify the results?

The number of voters may match the number counted by the machine, but hacked software can change the count for each candidate that is reported by the machine. Touchscreen machines that total the votes electronically and spit out a report are dangerous, but paper ballots provide tangible evidence of how everyone voted--if they are physically recounted by humans. I know the machines are tested with a test pack of ballots before the election starts, but when the election totals are electronically uploaded to a central office to be aggregated with other wards, that transfer is where the totals can be hacked. If no recount is demanded, the wrong results stand. Of course, none of this is under the control of the election workers, who do a great service to democracy in running our elections.

[uponit7771]

54. What happens when a persons not registered to vote? Do they get a provisional ballot

... that counts in the win loss vote tally?

Thx in advance

I've worked in IT all my life and it the wide open back door to our election is the voter roll and micro purging.

This happened in Florida in 2000 and it wasn't micro and few if any noticed at the time it was happening.

The "hack" of our election is keeping peoples votes from counting and not cracking the individual machines

[ProudMNDemocrat]

55. Minnesota has same day registration.....

For Primaries and the General. All new voters need a picture ID from the state they moved from, proof of residency such as Utility bills , Rental and Mortgage papers, that has the address of their current residence in the Precient in which they live.

[uponit7771]

56. Hmmmm, possibly one of the reasons MN been consistent with the polls. I find it odd

... that nearly all the states HRC was up but lost were VSM states.

I'm still trying to find out what technically happens to a persons vote who is de-registered to vote in those VSM states.

[ProudMNDemocrat]

58. Minnesota uses paper ballots.....

So there are few mistakes made. A ballot that has been SPOILED, goes into a separate envelope. People voluntarily show ID. We take our right to vote seriously here.

[dalton99a]

16. There is a reason Western Europe doesn't allow electronic voting: Russian hackers

In fact, electronic voting has been declared unconstitutional in Germany

[OhNo-Really]

17. not so sure Repub states can be trusted - Ohio Ken Black syndrome

[Rene]

18. they need to make sure server LOG files can be audited.....to ensure

no server switching took place.

[mountain grammy]

20. Colorado..we get our paper ballots in the mail!

The best way to vote.. mail it in or drop it in a box.

[Wounded Bear]

22. It's a start...

not a panacea, but paper ballots at least allow for a real audit of the results.

I'd also go for some spot checking of the results, sample tests of results in every election.

We have all mail-in here in WA, and it seems to work. And BTW, we have the 3-person panel on re-districting. Our districts seem to be rational, at least.

[McCamy Taylor]

24. It limits e-fraud for fear of audits.

[McCamy Taylor]

23. Yes!

[forgotmylogin]

27. Thumbprints

http://thehill.com/blogs/pundits-blog/presidential-campaign/320343-a-simple-just-fix-to-voter-fraud-take-fingerprints

Without some method of determining who actually voted, it is virtually impossible to detect voter fraud. It is not surprising that there are no prosecutions for a crime that is nearly undetectable. Voter fraud is as close to the perfect crime as possible. A political operative, armed with the names of registered voters who have recently died or moved, could easily vote in dozens of precincts in a single day with little chance of detection.

....

Fortunately, there is an easy way to deter voter fraud and provide strong evidence with which to convict fraudsters — fingerprints. If a person shows up at the polls without proper identification, they should be required to leave a fingerprint. They could put a fingerprint on a form on which they attest their identity under penalty of perjury.

This process would be very cheap. It costs next to nothing to take a fingerprint, and follow up investigations would only be needed if there were other suspicions of voter fraud or the election was close enough to require a recount. Everyone has fingerprints, so there is no possibility of someone showing up without identification.

[djacq]

29. VA-05, 4 Candidates (D) for U.S. Congress

[ffr]

30. The end of conservative politicians as we know it.

[Mountain Mule]

38. I hope Colorado goes back to paper ballots

Right now Coloradans can just mail back a ballot to the computers in Denver. When Colorado first implemented its current election system, I thought it was a good idea that would make it easier for people to place their vote. But now I see that it has also made it easier for Russians and other interests inimical to democracy to vote as well.

I'm going to call my state representatives about this.

[colsohlibgal]

46. Good To Know

To be as foolproof as possible they need security afterward for custody and counting.

[RussBLib]

48. Finally!

But everyone should call up their state's Secretary of State, or whoever is responsible for voting procedures in your state, and urge them to do the same. It's the only way we can ensure that ballots are counted correctly. I'd much rather go back to the "hanging chad" bullshit than press buttons on machines any day.

[gopiscrap]

51. Excellent

[bunt homer]

52. I'm Sure Trump Opposes This

States' Rights, ya fuckin' orange freak!

[onetexan]

59. right on

we need to work to get more Dems governors elected and more Dems candidates elected at state level Congresses. I really believe if we ride this wave which the brave young people have started, we can BEAT the NRA into submission and get state and federal legislation to curtail gun violence and promote responsible gun ownership.