16M Americans will vote on hackable paperless machines
Disclaimer: I served as an election judge in the 2012 general election in Arapahoe County, CO.<p>I&#x27;m so sick and tired of stories like this framing the issue of election security as a software issue or hardware issue. You can mitigate software flaws with chains of custody, tamper proof seals, bipartisan poll watchers, bipartisan election judges, and enough transparency. Most election systems in the United States employ all of these controls, which is why you have few stories of legitimate votes being discarded due to software failure or tampering.<p>If your argument is that paper ballots are more auditable or harder to hack, they are not. The same access controls above can be applied to paper, and paper is always susceptible to being destroyed, lost, or conveniently found in a clutch race. In Russia, cameras were provided at many election booths in a recent race and caught multiple instances of suspected ballot stuffing [0]. Paper products can be created at will and the requirement for ballots to be anonymous often prevents measures to prevent double voting or outright forging of votes.<p>Hackable machines are a problem, but they are not the only problem. Ultimately, it&#x27;s easier to influence an election by discarding legitimate voters from voter registration systems, selectively failing to notify voters of elections, and other indirect interference campaigns that have been known to happen. Not only are hackable machines not the biggest issue, but they turn the camera away from bigger issues like these, which decreases scrutiny on the most vulnerable parts of the system.<p>Ultimately, if you vote in an election system, you must have something you trust in the system. You need to be able to trust the body running the election, the individuals that makeup the body, or the system elements itself. If you trust the government then you can be certain that collection processes happen correctly. If you can&#x27;t trust the government, why do you think trusting the terminals that collect votes is any better? It&#x27;s like trusting your child to bring home important documents from the school about their discipline. Sure, the paper might be tamper proof or tamper evident, but if your child throws it away it&#x27;s pointless [note 1].<p>[0]: <a href="https:&#x2F;&#x2F;www.youtube.com&#x2F;watch?v=pH7uXZQsyHI" rel="nofollow">https:&#x2F;&#x2F;www.youtube.com&#x2F;watch?v=pH7uXZQsyHI</a><p>[note 1] The analogy breaks down if you talk about electronic records, and assumes that the child is the &quot;higher authority&quot; bringing the documents to you. The point is to demonstrate that tampering with reporting is much easier than tampering with the record collection.