Voting machine

“ The merits and defects of voting machines. Voting by Machine.—In some cities of the United States the experiment of permitting the voter to record his 140choice by means of a voting machine has been tried with varying degrees of success. A voting machine is constructed upon much the same principles as a cash register. The keys bear the names of the various candidates and the voter merely steps behind a curtain where he presses one key after another just as he would mark crosses on a printed ballot. ”

“ Each state that adopts voting machines first enacts a law specifying the requirements that must be met in the construction of the machines. These requirements are substantially the same in all the states, the laws being copied largely from the New York Voting Machine Law. The laws require in general that the machine shall give the voter all the facilities for expressing his choice which the Australian ballot gives him, and further require that the machine shall prevent those mistakes or frauds, which if made on an Australian ballot would invalidate it. ”

“ It is after all the fallible and imperfect humans who complete ballots, providing opportunity for the voter him or herself to cause inadvertently the very situation that prevents the ballot from being readable by the machine. [9] Similarly, it is not genuinely debatable that machines at times can and do malfunction, break down, and experience problems operating as designed and expected. In sum, Plaintiffs' underlying, explicitly asserted premise that voting machines are, or are required by law to be, always perfectly accurate is simply not credible, reasonable or provable. ”

“ While best practices dictate that electronic voting machines not be connected to the internet, some machines are internet-enabled. In addition, each machine has to be programmed before Election Day, a procedure often done either by connecting the machine to a local network to download software or by using removable media, such as a thumb drive. These functions are often carried out by local officials or contractors. If the computers responsible for writing and distributing the program are compromised, so too could all voting machines receiving a compromised update. ”

“ In other types of machines each candidate had a separate receptacle, into which the machine dropped a ball for each vote that was cast for the candidate. These machines have so far not been successful. The whole development of practical voting machines has been limited to those machines in which a separate counter is provided for each candidate, the counter being operated either directly or indirectly by the voter. ”

“ The Committee rightly identifies problems with vendors of voting machines, noting vulnerabilities in both the machines and the supply chains for machine components. Currently, however, the federal government has no regulatory authority that would require these vendors to adhere to basic security practices. [7] Only general federal requirements that states and localities use paper ballots and conduct audits will ensure that the risk posed by voting machines provided by private vendors to states and localities can be contained. ”

“ VOTING MACHINE REQUIREMENTS.—By not later than the date of the regularly scheduled general election for Federal office occurring in November 2024, each State shall seek to ensure that any voting machine used in such election and in any subsequent election for Federal office is manufactured in the United States.”. ”

“ One of these is the SECRET BALLOT. At the polls each voter enters a booth by himself to mark his ballot, or to operate the voting machine, and need have no fear that a possible "watcher" may cause him to lose his job or otherwise suffer for voting as he thinks best. The secret ballot also reduces the likelihood that votes will be bought, for there is no way of telling whether the man who sells his vote will vote as he has agreed; and the man who sells his vote is not to be trusted. ”

“ In all elections of officers of the state, or members of the general assembly, the votes of the electors shall be by ballot, either written or printed, except that voting machines or other mechanical devices for voting may be used in all elections in the state, under such regulations as may be prescribed by law. No voting machine or device used at any state or local election shall be equipped with a straight ticket device. ”

“ The vertical movement of the operating bar counts the vote on each of these slides, rings a bell, which notifies the election officer that a vote has been cast, and locks the machine against further voting. The election officer then moves a slide which resets the machine for the next voter. The machine is limited in its application because two or more candidates on the same office line cannot be voted for by the same voter, although the voter may be entitled to vote for more than one candidate. ”

“ The record of the State in carrying out the following with respect to the administration of elections for Federal office: “ (A) Providing voting machines that are less than 10 years old. “ (B) Implementing strong chain of custody procedures for the physical security of voting equipment and paper records at all stages of the process. “ (C) Conducting pre-election testing on every voting machine and ensuring that paper ballots are available wherever electronic machines are used. “ (D) Maintaining offline backups of voter registration lists. ”

“ Many of the states have special requirements, to meet which many ingenious features have been provided on the various machines. Among these is the group of 18 supervisors in San Francisco, for which office as many as 108 candidates have appeared upon one ballot, out of which the machine must permit the voter to vote any 18 and no more, regardless of the sequence in which they are selected, or the position in which they occur. ”

“ But, I believe,’ continued the shoemaker, ‘that after all this election will turn out mighty well for the Republican party. In the end, the new way of voting is going to help us. Before this the boss or the politician could take his men or his gang and vote them as he wished. Now this is, to a certain extent, changed. The half-way independent man who before was led to the polls and voted, goes to the polls and votes for himself. Before this he was part of the machine, gave election matters but little thought, and was enthusiastic only because others were so. ”

“ On this web the votes of each candidate were all punched in a single column, each separate column representing a separate candidate. The voter does not see the web, which is removed from the machine by the election officers after the election is over, and the vote thereon is canvassed by passing the web through a pneumatic counting machine. The paper web makes a separate record of each man's ballot that can be identified by a person skilled in the use of the machine. The machine is also slow in giving returns, due to the fact that the vote has to be counted after the election. ”

“ We're coming off of an election week in which millions of American exercised one of the most important rights that we possess, the right to vote. As in every election, I hope all eligible Americans went to the polls. But, after looking at what happened over the last two presidential elections, I have some other hopes for Election Day. I hope all voters who got to the polls found voting machines that worked, that there were nonpartisan poll workers who understood the law and enforced it without bias. ”

“ Another of these local features is the primary election feature required by Minnesota, in which state the various parties must hold their primary election at the same time and on the same machine. The voter announcing the party of his preference finds the voting devices on the machine of all other parties locked against him, but the voting devices of his own party are open to his use. ”

“ These machines have been built large enough to provide for seven parties of sixty candidates each, and for thirty questions and amendments, a machine of such size carrying 480 counters, besides the total vote and protective counters. ”

“ These enactments had direct and immediate reference to elections by the people, and decisions sustaining them do not control the present controversy. Congress clearly exercised its power to regulate the manner of holding an election when it directed that voting must be by written or printed ballot or voting machines. ”

“ And the thoughts of man are widened
With the process of the suns.
In the recent movement for election reforms, four lines of advance are marked: (1) —To secure the voter, by protecting him from evil influences, as is the object of the various “corrupt practices acts” and kindred laws; by guarding him against fraud, intimidation [78] and overawing, by means of an absolutely secret ballot, as under the Australian system; and by preventing, as with voting-machines, any manipulation of ballots or count. ”

“ Alex Halderman, Professor of Computer Science at the University of Michigan, testified before the Committee in June 2017 that "our highly computerized election infrastructure is vulnerable to sabotage and even to cyber attacks that could change votes." [282] Dr. Halderman concluded, "Voting machines are not as distant from the internet as they may seem." ”

“ Our soldiers and sailors and marines know that the overwhelming majority of them will be deprived of the opportunity to vote, if the voting machinery is left exclusively to the States under existing State laws—and that there is no likelihood of these laws being changed in time to enable them to vote at the next election. ”

“ Further, machines can be programmed to show one result to the voter while recording a different result in the tabulation. Without a paper backup, a "recount" would use the same faulty software to re-tabulate the same results, because the primary records of the vote are stored in computer memory. [297]
(U) Dr. Halderman said in his June 2017 testimony before SSCI:
I know America's voting machines are vulnerable because my colleagues and I have hacked them repeatedly as part of a decade of research studying the technology that operates elections and learning how to make it stronger. ”

“ Voting machines are to be made optional in any political subdivision of the State. Assistance to voters is to be more restricted and permanent registration is provided for in other bills. A proposed constitutional amendment is contemplated which would make use of voting machines compulsory in given cities or in cities of A class, would abolish tax qualification for voting and provide for overseers of elections. ”

“ A29 (reporting that 0.3% of ballots cast in 30 Florida counties using optical-scanning systems registered no Presidential vote, in comparison to 1.53% in the 15 counties using Votomatic punchcard ballots) . Thus, in a system that allows counties to use different types of voting systems, voters already arrive at the polls with an unequal chance that their votes will be counted. I do not see how the fact that this results from counties' selection of different voting machines rather than a court order makes the outcome any more fair. ”

“ ES&S says the software was not installed after 2007, and it was only installed on election-management systems, not voting machines. [296] More than 50 percent of voters vote on ES&S equipment, and 41 states use its products.
(U) Advocates of electronic voting point out the flaws in paper ballots, like the potential for the introduction of fraudulent ballots or invalidated votes due to stains or extra marks. The Committee believes that any election system should be protected end-to-end, including against fraud. ”

“ Aging voting equipment, particularly voting machines that had no paper record of votes, were vulnerable to exploitation by a committed adversary. Despite the focus on this issue since 2016, some of these vulnerabilities remain. ”

“ VOTING MACHINES. The complications in the voting at American elections have resulted in the invention of various machines for registering and counting the ballots. These machines are in fact mechanical Australian ballots. ”

“ That's why there is overwhelming consensus in the cybersecurity and election integrity research communities that our elections are at risk. [299] (U) In speaking with the Committee, federal government officials revealed concerns about the security of voting machines and related infrastructure. Former Assistant Attorney General for National Security John Carlin told the Committee:
"I'm very concerned about ... ”

“ Said electoral reforms seek to modernize the entire electoral process, to include extending the mechanisms for voting of those absent from their voting centers -- by availing of the new electronic technology to contain electoral fraud ”

“ So many colored people, so many white, therefore so many colored votes and so many white votes; and therefore so many Republican votes and so many Democratic votes; and if an election does not show this exact proposition, it must be necessarily the result of fraud and intimidation and the National Government must interfere. When we have established the rule that election returns must be made or corrected according to the statistics of population, then we may decide elections beforehand by the United States Census and last year's Tribune Almanac, and save ourselves the trouble of voting. ”

“ The registration may generally be had on any one of several days, while the voting is to be done on one day. The machinery is imperfect and clumsy at best; but that is not a reason for making it worse, or depriving ourselves of the advantages which it yields, notwithstanding its imperfections. The nearest approach to absolute justice that we can now hope to make is to take the votes of all the voters who offer themselves, and count the votes that are taken. Every scheme of counting out legal [Pg 13] votes cast, or counting in votes not cast, must result in confusion, uncertainty, and fraud. ”