The corporate owned media is revving up to start NOT covering this:

Cryptographic voting debuts

A new system for ensuring accurate election tallies, which MIT researchers helped to develop, passed its first real-world test last Tuesday.

http://web.mit.edu/newso.../2009/rivest-voting.html

Since you mentioned it, BD, and since I haven't had much time to hit the latest "open source" onslaught of new e-voting schemes, and since someone else just emailed me about the same announcement, along with the question "evoting that's verifiable - what's the catch?", I might as well post what I sent via email in reply:

The catch is that it's not actually verifiable. It can also be gamed. But most notably, it's "verifiable" only by you, for your own vote. If *I* have a question about the election, *I* can't know if anybody elses vote was counted as cast.

Also, even if you trust the verifiability of your own vote (which, in general, misses the point of citizen-verifiable elections), we've ALL got to trust in rocket scientists and cryptographers that the cryptography is accurate and secure.

Using cryptography and transparency in the same sentence is pretty much an oxymoron, doncha think?

Brad

Of course, one of the developers of that particular voting scheme is also a BRAD BLOG reader, so I'm sure he'll jump in with his own points and/or rebuttal if inclined here.

This discussion reminds me of the film "Minority Report," where the would-be murderer's name is etched into a ball with a unique wood grain pattern.

I don't know how we ever get past the conundrum of trying to have both secret ballots/private voting and transparent elections.

- Tom

Tom, it seems like it would be pretty easy. You put your vote down on a paper ballot, drop it in, and then it is counted by real live people in an open process. Your individual ballot is not identifiable, so you've got the secret/privacy thing covered, and as long as the process of counting is done in an open and verifiable way that should do it. RIght?

Even as there definitely is reason to cut taxes on low and middle wage earners in the midst of such an apocalyptic economic meltdown, it still bugs me that we were screaming about it when Bush did it and bragging about it when Obama does it... to the extent he's done it.... At the same time, he also eased up on the high wage earners and hasn't touched the tax liability for big corporations and just plain rich people. So, honestly, not really much to be holding over the poor duped tea partiers' heads.

And, even if they're screaming about healthcare reform for the wrong reasons, that shit they're trying to pass off as healthcare reform should be raising the ire of all citizens. We should be out there with them, carrying signs that aren't just partisan disinformation.

Peter B's latest podcast does an outstanding job of enumerating much of what is so wrong with the healthcare scene. Somewhere in the middle of it he goes off on a rant with a long list and gets cut off by his guests... but... you get an earfull of stuff you really ought to be considering before it's too late.

I have no love for MIT's friggin voting system.

I wonder if the moderator will even allow my post. In case it doesn't.... here's what should be approved by the moderators there.

-=-=-=- Post @ MIT news blog thingy -=-=-=-

What is MIT doing about the chain of custody of the hardware? Do they have 100% chain of custody from the point of where the chip was doped all the way 24/7/365 until the live election? NO? Then the hardware can not be trusted. Get out your electron microscopes and start doing destructive reverse engineering looking for kill switches, hidden logic, etc. Oh wait, you have to destroy every voting machine to do that! That will be expensive.

The results from this system are only what's presented, not necessarily what the actual tabulation is.

All your doing here is adding levels of complexity to a problem which doesn't have a solution besides OUTLAWING ALL ELECTRONIC VOTE TABULATION DEVICES.

Electronic signals are invisible to humans. The moment you go from an analog vote to a digital copy representing that vote you no longer can validate what's happening.

The Serial number on the ballot is an identifying mark. Identifying marks (even if you have to use a stupid pen) = No transparancy

As you already stated some ballots failed. That means a voter was denied the right to vote. Unacceptable!

Even if a voter writes down the serial number of the ballot and the id number of the vote field, there's no integrity or plan in place to fix a bad marked vote for whatever reason. There's no way to validate the output of such a device is the same as what is internally stored.

Not all voters have web access.

This electronic vote tabulation device does not solve these problems...
http://www.bbvforums.org...amp;post=54802#POST54802

No plan in place for failures. Except that voters lose their votes.

While MIT students certainly mean well, this is not a solution, and it won't protect our constitutional republic.

It's completely faith based voting.
It's unacceptable, and history will show all such electronic vote tabulation devices must be outlawed.

The question is, how screwed up will the United States get before people wake the hell up.

Both Matthew Masterson and U.S. Election Assistance Commission are corrupt and full of crap!

The SOLUTION:

Paper ballots hand counted by humans (made up of the public) with an unbroken chain of custody. No local law enforcement and officials shall be allowed to hassle/arrest poll watchers and by proxy break the chain of custody.

No electronic voter registration poll books.
No electronic vote tabulation devices.

Voting has to be transparent. Ballots which have serial numbers are not transparent.

Voting has to have public oversight. Not abusive law enforcement and officials!

Nobody should be trusted. No electronic vote tabulation device should ever be trusted.

The article says,
"But they reveal enough information that anyone interested in performing an audit can ferret out fraud. "

Outright lie. If fraud is found there's no way t fix it.

This is electronic dictatorship, not positive for democracy.

You all better check yourselves.

Shame on MIT...

Chips Chips Chips Chips Chips Secure sources lacking and why I don't trust electronic vote tabulation devices in ANY form!

( Hat tip to JYA @ C r y p t o m e for linkage )

All the slashdot'ers and raw story folk don't read that NYT article, and change their fricking tune about our elections, paper ballots, chain of public custody (not leo'es), and on and on and on.... let alone still I see highly respected programmers still act all retarded here.

ENOUGH!
THIS IS TRULY A NATIONAL SECURITY PROBLEM!

you just were initiated to the highest level of government corruption, now behave like you f.ing care! How can you possibly even consider electronic vote tabulation devices with your knowledge0rV electronics and physics? A paper ballot CAN be better than all this shit, as long as you can maintain the public chain of custody, as soon as the COC (chain of custody) is broken, the election fails. PERIOD

Fuck this Glitches, and "Human Error" crap in the Fucking Corporate Fascist (For Profit Journalism) Media!

SIDE NOTE; HEY FCC. Engineering, not Profiteering!

Oh how about the great new electronic poll books?

Electronic "registered voters poll books" - uh uh, no. That crap's WORSE! That eliminates you from getting the chance to get your vote eliminated by the unvalidatable electronic vote tabulation devices

Crypto end to end VS. an NSA fios splitter

Sorry Crypto, your signal can only be trusted if the transparency is gone, but if the transparency is gone the signal will

OKAY let's get this straight. For elections?

WHEN TRANSPARENCY IS OUTLAWED, ELECTRONICS WORK PERFECTLY MINUS THE FAILURES. PERSISTANCE WITH NO TRANSPARENCY EVENTUALLY DELIVERS THE MESSAGE CORRECTLY. I voted bla. Waaa? NO. bla Waaa? bla Waaa? bla GOD DAMNIT bla bla bla bla bla. O bla

(vote verified)

Boom, electronics win.

I remind you how folks in the past got killed for not having transparency when they voted, or OH HELL is there already a LAW?

well there you go, use the LAW, use time as weapon (in reverse this time), emergency yank all electronic vote tabulation devices (SOS level.)

Then ARGUE IT TILL ELECTRONIC VOTE TABULATION DEVICES ARE DONE AS THEY MUST BE.

Why are we even wasting the web space on this stupid lost argument? There is no way you can maintain a transparent "chain of custody" on an electronic signal. PERIOD.

Phil asked:

Why are we even wasting the web space on this stupid lost argument?

Whaddaya mean, "we", Kemosabe?

If there isn't a parallel mandatory manual hand count alongside electronic voting, might as well not even go through the motions to vote.

If some fat ass can rig the count without getting out of his La-Z-Boy and actually going to the precinct and manually stuffing the ballot box, I'm against it.

Whaddaya mean, "we", Kemosabe?

Actually I was subtly hinting at the SOS website.

Didn't that expert from Finland who was in "hacking democracy" say that we could have secure e-voting, that it's possible? We just don't do it? I'm not advocating it, I'm for paper ballots hand counted. Of course.

OT:

http://blog.al.com/sweet...secutors_oppose_for.html

Tom, it seems like it would be pretty easy. You put your vote down on a paper ballot, drop it in, and then it is counted by real live people in an open process.

I like what The Uptake did: capture the hand counting process on video. I'd feel more comfortable if paper ballots, right after they are turned in, would be counted by hand and recorded on video, right from each of our polling places. Then the chain of custody issues wouldn't be as problematic.

- Tom

It's very surprising they are talking about e-voting when the Pentagon itself was a victim of a cyber attack as were various billion dollar organizations.

I say keep it to the ballot - electronizing it is so very easily manipulated.

Phil: a great summary...tnx