Wyden: Paper ballots are coming

[Qutzupalotl]

Link to tweet

You might recognize the above image as a popular format tweet, someone peeking around a building to deliver a message, in this instance, “Paper ballots are coming.” Ordinarily, one would not give this a second thought.

But this was posted by RON FREAKING WYDEN, who sits on the Senate Select Committee on Intelligence, and is in a position to know stuff he can’t talk about. But he can hint.

Oregon is already vote-by-mail, so we know he’s not talking about his home state. We are left to speculate about his meaning, but the implication seems to be this is wider. Make of this what you will. Here is my take:

I think he must be saying touchscreen and other electronic voting equipment will be shown to have been compromised and unreliable in past elections. It’s already been shown to be vulnerable; he is hinting at something explosive that will render these machines undesirable for future elections, necessitating a voter-verified paper trail and/or something that can be recounted.

[mopinko]

1. i bet this is about floriduh.

we really need to get the whole damn story about that.

[iscooterliberally]

10. I don't know about all of Florida, but we do have paper ballots here in Broward County.

We've had them since after the 2004 election when we had those touch screen machines. Our ballots get scanned right in front of us after we fill them out. Apparently 2 counties were compromised back in 2016 though. It makes me wonder if our current governor is legitimate. Same thing for Rick Scott. I don't think he really won.

[Dr Hobbitstein]

17. Brevard county and the rest of Central Florida is paper as well.

I believe most of FL is paper, but some counties still use digital machine.

[BigmanPigman]

2. Keeping my fingers crossed.

[Blue Owl]

3. Republicans would be toast if this happens

Might have to break out the butter and jam...

[blueinredohio]

19. I don't know about them losing because here in my red part of Ohio

we vote on paper ballots with a scanner but we're so gerrymandered I don't think it matters.

[Mme. Defarge]

4. Please make it so.

[keithbvadu2]

5. Paper ballots - absolutely!

Paper ballots - absolutely!

Auditing class taught that there is a reason 'some' people want accounting trails that cannot be audited.

[SergeStorms]

6. It's the only way...

to make sure our elections are honest and reliable. As long as there remains a single method for republicans to cheat, they will. There is absolutely no reason people in this country need to know who our next president is the same day they vote. If it takes a week, or a month to find the results, the integrity of our electoral system is the only thing with which we should be concerned.

[blueinredohio]

7. For everyone? Every state?

[Qutzupalotl]

18. It's not clear what he means,

but I think he’s saying we’ll see more states adopt (or have to adopt) paper ballots.

States run their own elections and so are likely to have their choice in the matter. It’s unlikely in this environment that a top-down federal decree will force states to comply, at least not through legislation; but it’s possible that the FBI could issue guidance and best practices. It’s also possible that voting machine companies could be shown to have acted in bad faith and face some sort of legal action, which is what I’m hoping for.

[SCVDem]

8. California gets it right!

Opti scan.
We have been marking circles forever.

Screw computers when you can concentrate on the opti tally with ballot backup

[BlueJac]

9. Let It Be.

I hope for the best, the crooks have been winning, but, why is that so?

[Grasswire2]

11. for the best info on election security..

.....follow or check out Jennifer Cohn Twitter feed. She is fighting tirelessly every day to investigate, to advocate, to push push push for hand-marked paper ballots that are never tallied or marked or changed by being connected to a network or machine.

@jennycohn1

[link:http://

Link to tweet

|

[yellowdogintexas]

12. Our new machines will be online to the voter lists to get the proper ballot for the voter

The ballots will be called up on a touch screen machine using a code generated by the election judge. The voter will use a touch screen to make choices, then print the ballot. If the voter realizes the ballot needs changing, it can be turned in to the election judge and a new ballot generated

If the ballot is correct, it is then scanned and counted.

There will be a paper backup for every ballot.

[calimary]

13. Yes! Ron Wyden rocks!

[fierywoman]

14. Paper ballots and vote-by-mail.

[patphil]

15. I really don't want to see us go back to paper ballots.

I am not sure that method of voting is that much more secure.
They can be lost, miscounted, and ballot box stuffing is easy in areas where the party in power has a problem with integrity.

What I would suggest is a project that involves the Schools of Computer Science in a group of major technical colleges across the nation...say 4 or 5.

Lets say students from several graduate schools are challenged to produce a safe, secure, and demonstrably accurate voting program on a platform that uses an operating system created just for voting.
Each school is in competition with the others.
When all of them have a candidate, they pass it on to another school, and receive the candidate from another school. Then they try their best to break into it.
After a set time period, the program goes back to the school that created it, and they fix it.
Then the process starts again, but the candidate is passed to a different school.
Again, the program is challenged severely and passed back to the originating school.
The first school to survive 2 challenges with no serious hacks wins.
And that program goes to another group of schools who each look at ways it can be hacked.
Results are passed back to the winning school.
This cycle continues until the program survives.
It then becomes the new national voting platform and program.
After every election, there is a review to insure everything was okay.
And, additional challenges are done to the program to make sure it is still robust enough to resist even the most severe attempts to compromise it.

As a computer scientist, I think this will work.
But vigilance is still needed.

In any event, the current system of computerized voting with proprietary software is badly broken and needs to be scrapped.
In the meantime, I would like to see old style mechanical machines used instead of paper ballots.
But, please, no hanging chads!

Patrick Phillips

[pazzyanne]

16. Minnesota uses backup paper ballots and scanners.

It has worked here for years.

[eppur_se_muova]

20. When I was in MD, I saw a sign forbidding cameras, phones, and other electronic devices in the ...

... voting machine area. I was immediately suspicious, as this sounded like a way to suppress coverage of irregularities. When I asked one of the pollworkers, she told me it was because electronic devices might cause interference that affects the machines. Well IF THAT'S TRUE, that seems like a pretty big concern that no one's addressing ! Why should we be voting with machines that are so utterly unreliable that they have to be protected from CELL PHONES ?