Tuesday, November 11, 2014

Hack the vote

Voting via email - what could possibly go wrong?  This:



I've been complaining about the lack of security in voting machines for a while, but this is perhaps the stupidest idea I've ever heard.  The paper is more detailed.

This is such a bad idea that you wonder what the motivation is behind it.  It certainly isn't any concern for the integrity of the voting process.

2 comments:

kx59 said...

Ya right? That dude "viagar will make your phenix bigger" will vote like a million times!

Eagle said...

The motivation behind anything OTHER than going to the polls is... being too lazy to GO to the polls.

I understand the need for absentee ballots for those who cannot get to the polls. And I understand the desire for online voting (which will **NEVER** be secure enough to withstand hacking).

But to those who want to talk about voter ID as a means of "voter suppression", I respond by telling them that "voter suppression" already exists and is accomplished by:

- picking a location for a polling station that isn't big enough to allow everyone in the ward to vote without requiring multi-hour waiting lines;

- failing to hire enough workers to ensure that the polling station is properly staffed;

- designing a ballot form that is either too hard to understand, too easy to mismark, or has obvious errors meant to confuse the voter (as if an online form will be made any easier to understand);

- using electronic voting machines that have not undergone a pre-election check (think of it as a "beta test": bringing in a few hundred folks to run the machines through a test vote 5 days before the actual election).

Voter suppression like this is easy... and it happens in every election.