(no subject)

[brynndragon]

As some of you know, I've got a large portion of my family in Maryland. I'm really worried about the Diebold machines down there, because they're quite hackable and there's no way to know if they've been hacked because they leave no paper trail. But I just learned that you can still vote via personally-obtained absentee ballot, right though 8 PM on Election Day. So here's the letter I wrote to my family who lives there:


Hey guys,

While I'm not a computer scientist, I have been keeping an eye on the intersection of computers and politics for about a decade. Even as I stopped caring about the political machinations in Washington I still cared about RIAA and Napster, security through obscurity, China's information firewall, and the difference between free-as-in-speech and free-as-in-beer. Now I care about the voting machines currently in place for the Maryland general election. These machines use bad security methods that are known to be hackable and they leave no paper trail so you can't even find out if someone did so. I'm not worried about one party or the other screwing the with tally - with these flaws a small group of people with an ideological motive could give the election to whomever they choose.

Thus I ask all of you (because I think all of you are voting in Maryland) to vote via absentee ballot this year. The procedure is described here: http://www.elections.state.md.us/voting/late_absentee_ballot.html
The gist of it is, you go to your county's Board of Elections (http://www.elections.state.md.us/about/county_boards.html), hand in a form (I recommend printing and filling it out ahead of time, if possible - the site has a link for a PDF of the form), and they give you a paper absentee ballot that you can fill out with your #2 pencil. You can do this any time the Board is open between now and 8pm on Election Day (Tuesday of next week).

You guys taught me that democracy is based on the will of the people. Whether I agree or disagree with your political views, I want your voice to be heard. Please vote by absentee ballot and please ask your friends and neighbors (and family members whose e-mail addresses I couldn't find) to vote absentee as well.

Thanks for taking the time to read this.

Brynn (Jessica) Kessler

Comments

[brewergnome.livejournal.com]

Of course the paper ballots are still scanned in, leaving a point of weakness.

Scares me too.

[benndragon.livejournal.com]

I'm OK with scanning in paper ballots, as long as you keep the ballots afterwards. It's having no paper trail at all that worries the hell out of me.

[tommx.livejournal.com]

As a Maryland resident, I've been concerned about this too. Regardless of what happens on Tuesday, I'm expecting the candidates to pull out lawyers to start debating the results regardless of whether they are electronic or absentee ballot, especially if it's close.

[ellyfialy.livejournal.com]

TechReview (which I get for free b/c I'm an MIT alum) had a little article about how to hack a ballot machine. I think it was a Diebold one, but I'm not certain. It was scary easy.

[benndragon.livejournal.com]

Security through obscurity is not only wrong on principle for public voting machines (I firmly believe that democracies must be run transparently, lest they cease to be democracies without anyone noticing), I've never seen it be effective on anything that people give a damn about.

[cos]

Diebold TSx touchscreen voting machines will be used in 12 Massachusetts cities and towns this Tuesday, as part of a "test" by Secretary Galvin. Please vote for someone else for Secretary!