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Comments: 239 +- News: Software Bug Adds 5K Votes To Election on Monday June 08, @09:30AM
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eldavojohn writes "You may be able to argue that a five-thousand-vote error is a small price to pay for a national election, but these errors are certainly inadmissible on a much smaller scale. According to the Rapid City Journal, a software glitch added 4,875 phantom ballots in a South Dakota election for a seat on the city council. It's not a hardware security problem this time; it's a software glitch. Although not unheard of in electronic voting, this bug was about to cause a runoff vote since the incumbent did not hold a high enough percentage of the vote. That is no longer the case after the numbers were corrected. Wired notes it's probably a complex bug as it is not just multiplying the vote count by two. Here's to hoping that AutoMark follows suit and releases the source code for others to scrutinize."
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Uh oh... (Score:3, Funny)
The software has achieved sentience and is trying to elect its robot overlords! Before anyone else... I for one welcome our democratically elected robot overlords.
Re: (Score:3, Insightful)
I take it you've never really taken a good hard look at the crop of politicians currently in office. The 'droids have been running the show for quite some time now....
Re:Uh oh... (Score:4, Funny)
No no no, it's clearly a glitch. Counting numbers (e.g. 1+1) really isn't a computer's strong suit, so it's understandable that it would sometimes do this, 1+ 1 + 1 + 1 + 5000 + 1 + 1.
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Re:Uh oh... (Score:4, Funny)
I'd mod you funny but I've completely lost faith in electronic voting.
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How hard is it for a computer to do addition? (Score:5, Interesting)
Why is a voting system doing any kind of math at all? I voted yesterday in Belgium on a computer that puts my vote onto a card, which is then tallied separately. This same system has been working since at least 1995 with zero reports of fraud or failure (except normal "computer is broken" style failures).
How can a computer "add phantom ballots"? Software does not just "glitch", it breaks in ways that depend entirely on how it was built.
Re:How hard is it for a computer to do addition? (Score:5, Insightful)
Why is a voting system doing any kind of math at all? I voted yesterday in Belgium on a computer that puts my vote onto a card, which is then tallied separately. This same system has been working since at least 1995 with zero reports of fraud or failure (except normal "computer is broken" style failures).
How can a computer "add phantom ballots"? Software does not just "glitch", it breaks in ways that depend entirely on how it was built.
How do you know this system is fraud free? Reading your comment doesn't convince me one bit. I voted too, in the Netherlands, and for the first time in years I had to use a pencil again. No guarantee that there are no counting errors, but they won't be systematic on a large scale.
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Re:How hard is it for a computer to do addition? (Score:5, Interesting)
Belgian politics are not always polite. There is endless infighting. There is no monopoly of power, every government is a coalition and always fragile.
This makes election fraud very hard to organise and probably impossible to keep a secret. One would need to buy too many people, for too long.
So not because I trust the Belgian political establishment, but because I trust their incompetence and greed, I'm pretty satisfied that every vote is counted, and accurately.
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Re:How hard is it for a computer to do addition? (Score:5, Informative)
How do you know this system is fraud free? Reading your comment doesn't convince me one bit. I voted too, in the Netherlands, and for the first time in years I had to use a pencil again. No guarantee that there are no counting errors, but they won't be systematic on a large scale.
The Belgian government publishes the source code of the voting software the moment the bureaus close. The software of yesterday's election can be found here: http://www.ibz.rrn.fgov.be/index.php?id=1152&L=1 [rrn.fgov.be]
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Re:How hard is it for a computer to do addition? (Score:4, Insightful)
Parent
Re: (Score:3, Funny)
Real life appears to disagree with you! :D
Re:How hard is it for a computer to do addition? (Score:4, Insightful)
Right. Ask a computer to count 1 million records and stop exactly on the millionth, and then ask a person to count 1 million cards and stop on the millionth. If you had to bet your life on it, who would you think would be more precise? Obviously computers have value.
On the other hand, I'm a firm believer in the idea that the source code should be available for review to make sure there are no weird bugs that could multiply votes, and there should be a paper trail so that the computer can be checked for voter fraud. Computers are more efficient, but not only are they more efficient at doing the right thing, and they're more efficient at doing the wrong thing. If the code tells them to count votes incorrectly (whether it's fraud or an inadvertent bug) they will very efficiently count the votes incorrectly.
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Re:How hard is it for a computer to do addition? (Score:5, Funny)
Additions just aren't so simple anymore in concurrent computing. The obvious way to do addition in gcc c would be:
totalVotes[candidate]++;
but this will totally screw up the vote count, whereas
__sync_add_and_fetch(&totalVotes[candidate], 1);
gets it right.
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Re:How hard is it for a computer to do addition? (Score:4, Interesting)
Is it a race condition, it pulls the number adds one and puts it back, and if the system is run parallel it will drop vote added at the same time?
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Re:How hard is it for a computer to do addition? (Score:5, Interesting)
Yes, it's a threading issue. If you have multiple threads trying to update the value, some of them won't count. You'd either need to use a lock (and probably mark the variables as volatile) or use some kind of atomic update (like a read-modify-write operation).
Still, you'd have to be an idiot to even try to count votes as they're coming in. A much better approach would be to use a database. Database servers are already really good at handling concurrency and scaling. When a vote is cast, simply add a record to the database. Once the election's over, do something like "SELECT COUNT(*), candidate_id FROM votes GROUP BY candidate_id", and the results will be calculated based on the records in the database.
Really, you could only screw this up if you insisted on developing the entire system from scratch, rather than going with existing, well-tested code.
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Re:How hard is it for a computer to do addition? (Score:4, Insightful)
Sure, go ahead and add a field to the table and you've got a record of who voted for who, which is awesome!
The problem for slashdotters is that there is more to a voting system than JUST counting the votes properly.
You have to count the votes properly, provide proper auditing to validate that everyones vote got counted for who they voted for, all the while making sure that you don't actually know who specifically voted for who, even though you may need to prove that their vote was counted for a specific candidate later.
If all they had to do was count votes, they would have gotten it right cause even the $0.50/hour programmers from India can get that part right.
It does blow my mind however that we still get errors in electronic voting due to bugs, these companies are utterly failing and should be banned from making software such as these as soon as a bug like this is detected. It is not acceptable to have not tested your software properly before hand to detect this crap.
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Re: (Score:3, Interesting)
Re: (Score:3, Informative)
I'm not a programmer but why would totalVotes[candidate]++; not work?
Is it a race condition, it pulls the number adds one and puts it back, and if the system is run parallel it will drop vote added at the same time?
Because totalVotes[candidate]++ really is
totalVotes[candidate] = totalVotes[candidate] + 1
which is
temp = totalVotes[candidate];
totalVotes[candidate] = temp + 1
and with 2 threads this might look like this:
Thread1: tempA = totalVotes[candidate];
Thread1: totalVotes[candidate] = tempA + 1
Thread2: tempB = totalVotes[candidate];
Thread2: totalVotes[candidate] = tempB + 1
Or like this:
Thread1: tempA = totalVotes[candidate];
Thread2: tempB = totalVotes[candidate];
Thread1: totalVotes[candidate] = tempA + 1
Thread2:
Re:How hard is it for a computer to do addition? (Score:4, Insightful)
Parent
Re: (Score:3, Interesting)
The obvious way to do addition in gcc c would be:
totalVotes[candidate]++;
but this will totally screw up the vote count.
Why will it screw up? A bug? gcc trying to force good coding practices? Ignorant minds want to know.
Re: (Score:3, Insightful)
I am not a programmer, nor an election official, but that process is as dumb as a blade of grass.
Why upload during the day? We are only interested in the whole day's total.
Why reset the local count? Like the server is infallible?
Why transmit ANYTHING? Like I trust even a modem call to a dedicated line. There is not much easier than diverting a landline. All you need are cutters and spare wire. My modem is just like your modem. MY server will be like your server. I can tap in and listen to a few connec
Re: (Score:3, Interesting)
Well, there's the
candidate[x]++;
that should be going on inside..
Other then then, no math..
Seems somebody is not following the K.I.S.S. method..
Re:How hard is it for a computer to do addition? (Score:5, Funny)
void vote(int candidate)
{
switch (candidate)
{
case GEORGE_BUSH:
totalVotes[GEORGE_BUSH] ++;
case AL_GORE:
totalVotes[AL_GORE] ++;
break;
}
}
Parent
Re:How hard is it for a computer to do addition? (Score:5, Funny)
Parent
Re: (Score:3, Informative)
Or at least I hope that was his intention.
How hard can it be? (Score:5, Insightful)
I mean really, I'm pretty sure I could write a program with a couple of buttons and a counter for each.
What's going on here?
Re:How hard can it be? (Score:4, Insightful)
What's going on here?
That, my friend, we will never find out. We would if these highly complex applications were OSS, but then again the complexity of these are so immense that 9/10 experienced programmers had their heads spontaneously explode upon viewing the first line of code. That or someone is bullshitting you.
Parent
Re:How hard can it be? (Score:5, Funny)
Ah, "Shaky" Jim was off his meds again.
Parent
Re: (Score:3, Insightful)
Really, the very first step you'd need to make, is separating the system into a GUI client, operator client and vote server. The vote server would be easier to verify due to very few libraries and unrelated code being used. The GUI client would not be able to mangle _all_ vote results in an instance due to
How..... (Score:4, Insightful)
Re:How..... (Score:5, Interesting)
It still amazes me how "hard" it is to write a simple program. First have something to scan the ID, check that its unique then move to the voting. Have a few radio buttons that you click, then hit submit, each radio button corresponds to a candidate or a choice, they are added up and give you the results. How the crap do you screw that up?
Well, in the case of New York State, our fearless leaders in Albany changed the requirements no less than 15 times after signing a contract with the vendor for new voting machines. Then after they finally agreed on a set of requirements they decided that they needed voting machines for 62 counties right now so they'd have them in time for the election. Then after the machines arrived they changed the requirements again and needed the new software for them right now.
Doing business with the Government is not an easy undertaking. The only good thing that came out of it is our fearless leaders weren't stupid enough to go with a DRE (direct electronic recording) system. We still have paper ballots that can be counted by any human being if the computer system fails. All the computer does is tabulate them and provide an interface for those voters (the blind/handicapped) whom can't fill out paper ballots themselves.
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Re: (Score:3, Informative)
Hey, you are preaching to the choir here. I became a NYS Elections Inspector primarily so I could see how the machines and procedures work behind the scenes. I'm convinced that we have a good system.
The new machines we use have two main components. The ballot scanner and ballot marking device (BMD). The BMD is only used by handicapped voters. It consists of different interfaces (a control pad, a sip/puff device, foot pedals, LCD screen and headphones) designed for people with various disabilities. It
Re:How..... (Score:4, Insightful)
How does a local election provider define the ballot?
Depends, have a list of candidates, choose the candidate, submit it. For a yes or no issue have two buttons, one yes the other no.
How do you ensure that the ballot programming is accessible to politicos and not computer programmers?
Either have a GUI or hire a programmer, I'm sure that the cost of one programmer and one or two other people is a lot less than hiring a team to hand-count votes.
How do you QA the ballot program? How do you verify that nobody has tampered with the ballot program after it has been QAed?
Sign it. Have the program check the signature, good signature it lets it go, bad signature it rejects it and throws up an error message.
For QA, how do you do it without using official ballots that don't end up in the valid votes pile?
Reimage the machine after use.
What happens if the scanner (for optical scanners) gets miscalibrated, or the ballot printer was miscalibrated when it printed them, so that alignments aren't off? What if the initial votes and ballots are correct but later ones are not because of changes in calibration or alignment? Think about multiple ballot runs off a printer in a high-volume election.
Simple, don't use scanners. Simply have it be all digital with a paper printout that may be used if the electronic voting failed due to errors, etc. The paper printouts could be hand-counted if there was a major failure.
What about different election types? "Most-of", "at-large", "one-of", "instant-runoff", etc.? What about the interactions between these election types and other election types on a single ballot? What about multiple ballots in small regional areas? Who programs them and verifies the programs?
Programmers and the town. Have an open meeting where anyone can discuss them, fix them, etc. You only need to hire one competent programmer to program a ballot. Multiple ballots are simply more XML files, trivial to make.
Parent
I must be missing something... (Score:3, Interesting)
Blckboxvoting.org (Score:5, Insightful)
A software error resulting in +/- 5000 votes cast is unacceptable on any level, even if it gets drowned out on the national level in the US.
There is absolutely no reason or excuse for software to miscount votes. It isn't rocket science.
I know I'm preaching to the choir here, but this shit just pisses me off. It's a matter of national and local integrity that our voting systems are transparent. Please support blackboxvoting.org [blackboxvoting.org] if you don't have the time to get involved in a deeper fashion (calling/writing your legislators, etc).
Note: I'm not affiliated with blackboxvoting.org. I just appreciate their work.
Re:Blckboxvoting.org (Score:5, Funny)
Yes, but it's hilarious when there were only 5600 actual votes cast. +/-100% error bars, is good enough for government work apparently.
Parent
whiners (Score:3, Funny)
A software error resulting in +/- 5000 votes cast is unacceptable on any level, even if it gets drowned out on the national level in the US.
You know, some people are always complaining. First you complain that there's not enough people turning out to vote each election, that people are apathetic, etc. Finally someone develops some software that fixes that problem and now everyone complains about that!!
This is why we have validation. (Score:4, Interesting)
tampering? (Score:5, Interesting)
It's simple (Score:5, Funny)
Someone forgot to clear the chad bit!
In related news... (Score:3, Interesting)
my observation (Score:3, Interesting)
I find it interesting that companies that make ATMs for systems that track things down to the penny are unable to track much smaller numbers with errors of plus or minus THOUSANDS.
Maybe we should just start voting at ATMs?
Oh wait, that's what the lobbyists do already.
Re:my observation [ATMs DO fail] (Score:3, Insightful)
Nah, I've HAD the ATM screw up before, and record a deposit twice. The bank happily deducted it from my account later. I've also had an ATM record a withdrawal three times for the one transaction. Took me a couple weeks of back and forth for them to get it all straightened out. So, the ATMs *do* screw up, but the banks don't care because in the end they don't lose any money. The only one that suffers is the customer (by being out my $$ for two weeks).
Pseudocode (Score:3, Informative)
MAIN:
print("Please enter your Voter ID")
scan, store as voterID
if (voterID == any value in array of legal voters)
then run the vote program
else {
print("Error")
go back to main }
VOTE:
print("Enter your choice of candidate")
scan, store as candidate
if (candidate == A) {
then record vote for candidate A
remove voterID from array of legal voters
exit }
elif (candidate == B) {
then record vote for candidate B++
remove voterID from array of legal voters
exit }
else {
print("Error")
go back to vote }
ballot browser (Score:3, Informative)
There is a very simple, comparatively low-tech fix for broken elections that involve paper ballots.
As we do in Humboldt County, CA, run all ballots through an off-the-shelf scanner and run an independent count with independent, open source software. Ballot Browser (open source, Python, GPL from me) is available for tweaking and the basics are explained in April's Python Magazine. Or, it's really not that difficult to write your own bubble-reading software.
PuhLease (Score:3, Funny)
The real issue (Score:3, Funny)
The real issue isn't that the votes were miscounted in South Dakota.
It's that I bought them for South Carolina!
Re:!bug (Score:4, Insightful)
yeah, cause the difference in saying something like "x+y/2" or "(x+y)/2" is obvious fraud, as it is a bug that wouldn't crash the system.
Parent
Re:!bug (Score:5, Insightful)
Parent
looking at the source code (Score:3, Funny)
if( vote = my_candidate )
{
my_candidate_votes = my_candidate_votes + 2;
} else {
other_candidate_votes = other_candidate_votes + 1;
}
In the source code as complex as this, you will probably need a PhD in computer science...
Re: (Score:3, Insightful)
There are plenty of good paper based systems around.
They scale. The more voters you have, the more volunteers and observers you should be able to get.
The counting of each ballot can be observed by party representatives and independent 3rd party observers/monitors. In my country, the counter holds up each ballot paper to show it to "everyone". It'll take a fair number of magicians to cheat in this and they would have to work a lot harder to cheat without getting caught.
As I've