CISA: Election Security Rumor vs. Reality | Hacker News Reader

CISA: Election Security Rumor vs. Reality

cisa.gov

30 pointsgigama63 comments

Reality: The existence of a vulnerability in election technology is not evidence that the vulnerability has been exploited or that the results of an election have been impacted. Technology has vulnerabilities. Identifying and mitigating vulnerabilities is an important security practice.

  Rumor: Vulnerabilities in election technology mean that elections have been hacked and hackers are able to change election results.

I'm sorry this is comical.

Not when a judge has such qualms that the evidence is sealed.

"At a recent hearing, Totenberg sealed the report, citing a strong reluctance to draw any public scrutiny to the sensitive details in the case. Totenberg would not even allow an election integrity group to openly advocate for disclosure of the report..."

This is absolutely intolerable.

https://www.thedailybeast.com/judge-seals-report-on-voting-m...

As far as google will tell me, the seal remains in place.

I say burn these Dominion Voting machines, and blacklist the vendor nationwide.

"But the lawsuit, now known as Curling v. Raffensperger, didn’t stop. It instead shifted to alleging that the new system was so insecure as to be unconstitutional."

https://www.votebeat.org/2022/3/2/22959221/alex-halderman-do...

Finally the person has been charged that I can speak plainly about these things - elections in 2012 and 2016 had incredible amounts of fraud at the local level. These elections mean next to nothing politically for the local folks running, however, the state and national level really “appreciate” the ability of single upstarts to “get out the vote” in their party.

No true preferences for government by the governed have been revealed through elections for some time. That is the travesty for the US, and will be its ultimate downfall

Unfortunately, the fraud is hardly new.

Nixon did not lose to Kennedy as meekly as some assert, despite some evidence of fraud in Illinois:

https://constitutioncenter.org/blog/the-drama-behind-preside...

It would have been far better for the country if Kennedy had lost (to say nothing of Kennedy himself).

Let's go back further:

https://guides.loc.gov/chronicling-america-1884-presidential...

Election fraud has a long history in the United States.

It must end.

I am actually very interested in evidence of election fraud. The "there's no fraud" claims sound like hand waving. Of course there's fraud, but to what extent, and how do we know that extent?

Here is some hard evidence of how elections are defrauded in the United States.

https://www.heritage.org/voterfraud

https://www.heritage.org/election-integrity/commentary/add-t...

This is a conservative-leaning site. I would be curious if a liberal site had opposing evidence.

These are in the news all the time. They’re almost all crazy idiots who show up to the polls and pretend to be their dead relative. Add them all up and they don’t amount to a difference in anything anyway.

All of these little differences are exploited to become a tsunami.

Trump went to bed on election night assured that he had won.

I was no supporter of Trump, but I regret his passing in what has come.

We need accurate and transparent elections, full stop.

'The U.S. Supreme Court said in 2008 in Crawford v. Marion County Election Board, “flagrant examples of such fraud … have been documented throughout this Nation's history by respected historians and journalists … [that] demonstrate that not only is the risk of voter fraud real but that it could affect the outcome of a close election.”'

> Trump went to bed on election night assured that he had won.

This was painfully predictable. More conservative demographics preferred voting in person. Their votes were counted first, electronically. Paper mail in ballots were counted afterwards in many places.

I agree that we need accurate elections, but even if the link above only represents 1% of actual fraud, that still doesn’t amount to enough to change any elections.

Mail voting is not secure and you’re not being honest if you say it is. you’re also not being honest, if you conflate absentee with mail voting, where the stark difference is that one is requested in the other one is disseminated en mass. Also states like California require a new voter ID to confirm who you are so yeah, you can vote as your relative who has dementia and doesn’t show up. people act like cheating in elections pretty hard it’s actually pretty simple. It just requires organization do it at a large scale.

> you’re also not being honest, if you conflate absentee with mail voting, where the stark difference is that one is requested in the other one is disseminated en mass.

Nothing about mail in voting is inherently unsolicited. I requested my mail in ballot.

Painfully predictable only when considering mail in ballots as completely normal - mail in ballots at that volume never occurred, ever. That’s a fact. Knowing the person charged and how they went about their “business” — that one idiot could move 5-10k ballots in one populated county. that’s just one idiot, no extra team members, no support, simple small state

Right, when mail in ballots required an excuse to obtain, they had lower volume. When they were made available to everyone, in the middle of a pandemic, volume was greater. Go figure, people prefer voting from their couch on a Saturday as compared to voting in person on a Tuesday.

Sure... let's trust bureaucracy that consistently outsources election security to third parties who then claim that the process is proprietary. Might as well outsource the Federal Reserve and SEC to Chase and Wells Fargo while we're at it and believe everything they do is fair and balanced.

While I agree with your point, YSK that your examples don't support it.

Congress does outsource the Fed to the big banks, including Chase and Wells. [1] That's how the US Federal Reserve system works. Congress (through its appointed board of governors) sets goals, and the regional privately incorporated Federal Reserve Banks act towards those goals at their own discretion. The Regional Feds pay taxes, own property, etc just like any other private corporation. Principal shareholders are the biggest banks, including Chase, Wells, Goldman, Bank of America, etc. Apart from the power of the position, the banks profit by the mechanism of "printing money" in the US: Congress creates new bonds and treasury notes and gives them to the Feds, whose shareholders earn interest and fees on those bonds/T-bills. You would not be the first to worry that this is the fox guarding the hen house.

The SEC however, is a government organization... which outsources the bulk of its regulatory responsibilities to a private association of stock exchanges and broker-dealer banks (including Chase and Wells) called FINRA. [2] The principle of "self-regulation" has been a cornerstone of the SEC since its founding. Here, too, there is considerable debate about whether self-regulation is a good idea in the age of private exchanges, dark pools, rapidly-multiplying derivatives, etc.

I don't know what this does to your impression of the Fed or the SEC being fair and balanced. But you should definitely think about it every time you see discussion of the unequal impact of monetary policy, or a million dollar fine for an SEC violation worth billions.

[1] https://www.federalreserve.gov/faqs/about_14986.htm [2] https://www.investopedia.com/ask/answers/how-does-finra-diff...

Outsourcing to a proprietary voting system could work, if a paper trail is produced that is verified by the voter.

Still, open source is everywhere. Why don't we have open, unbreakable voting?

Really, what is wrong with us? This is not a hard problem.

What’s wrong with us: Pork barrel politics, corruption, money being considered speech, etc.

This is why campaign finance reform is probably my top issue as a voter. It’s just disappointing to have the two main political parties dominate to such an extent that it feels like there’s no reasonable choices WRT voting.

What's wrong with our elections is a different thing than what's wrong with our politics.

Related, but distinct.

It all comes down to people believeing the ends, justify the means, instead of the means being the seed the ends grow from

Open source does not mean unbreakable

Why don’t we require voters to show ID? It seems the system is flawed from the very beginning, there is little oversight and too much trust in local “officials”.

> Why don’t we require voters to show ID?

Because in the US the people in charge of issuing suitable state ID have no interest in making it cheap and easy for all eligible voters to obtain such ID.

In fact, in many cases at around the same time they institute voter ID requirements they also reduce the number of places one can go to get ID, with most of the reductions coming to places that mostly serve minority populations.

That’s false it’s free in most states

Not quite. The fee for the ID itself might be free, but to get that ID you often to have to present an application and supporting documents in person at a place that can issue the ID.

The supporting documents, such as getting a copy of your birth certificate, often cost money. It often requires significant travel to get to an office that can issue the ID. When the office is in a different city or county, there is often poor public transportation to it making it even harder on those who do not have cars. The offices that can issue ID often are only open on weekdays and only during business hours, meaning many people have to take unpaid time off from work to go.

One can easily blow a whole day on this, or more if there is a long wait at the ID office, assuming that they even can get time off work for it.

A "free" ID ends up costing many people somewhere in the $75-175 range due to document fees, transportation costs, and waiting time.

> The supporting documents, such as getting a copy of your birth certificate, often cost money.

And if the person was born overseas, this can be a prohibitive cost even for a middle class person.

If you cannot provide supporting documents how can you prove your identity?

If you don’t have documents you have no business voting.

There are citizens in the United States that do not participate in our culture to the extent that they do not have IDs.

One might think of Amish communities, but many are averse to regulation.

They are citizens, and they should vote if they wish.

We should find some method in the technology to continue their participation.

Does Canada have this problem? They require voters to have ID.

In Canada we can vote without ID by declaring our name/address and having a friend/family member from the same district vouch that we are eligible to vote.

Source: https://www.elections.ca/content.aspx?section=vot&dir=ids&do...

Perfectly reasonable

The Amish seem unlikely to participate in elections at all.

I don’t know enough about the Amish to know either way, but I do think that someone’s rights shouldn’t be predicated on their historical participation.

If they don’t care enough to get an ID then might as well flip a coin because they don’t know what they’re talking about or voting on

People who have different cultural practices than yourself are not necessarily dumb. Nor do we take away people's rights even if they are dumb.

> Mail-in/absentee ballot request forms typically require applicants to sign the form and affirm their eligibility to cast a mail-in/absentee ballot under penalty of law. Upon receipt of a mail-in/absentee ballot request form, election officials implement varying procedures to verify the identity and eligibility of the applicant prior to sending the applicant a mail-in/absentee ballot. Such procedures include checking the signature and information submitted on the form against the corresponding voter registration record, as well as ensuring that multiple mail-in/absentee ballots are not sent in response to applications using the same voter’s information.

Let’s see. In 2020, many duplicates were sent. Ballots were sent for dead people. So the rumour is not only true, it has already been happening across the country as recently as last election.

https://www.cbsnews.com/losangeles/news/duplicates-and-dead-...

Yeah, I got one of those “duplicate” ballots. News stories about it were posted all over political discussion sites as “proof” of fraud.

What they didn’t mention is that they all had serial numbers that tracked back to the registration roll anyway. If you tried to send both in, it wasn’t counted, and you’d be caught in the act.

I’m more comfortable with this process than I am with electronic voting with no paper record.

Can you name one person that was caught in the act?

I'm not saying that people were caught doing it, I'm saying that if someone did, election officials would literally have a sheet of paper in their hand with the name of someone who tried to vote twice.

In any case, voting is a solemn act of conscience.

It should be conducted on election day, in privacy, without undue influence.

Mail-in voting should only exist for those who cannot physically attend, with medical evidence.

That's how it works in italy. Where we also use paper instead of machines to vote.

Then a fraud requires a conspiracy.

I wish we had your system.

We also have held elections with the USA navy circling us, ready to bomb in case we voted wrong… so it's not all nice.

Can we stop it with this bullshit.

There's no such thing as election integrity in america and there never has been. Everything they say about the previous election is probably true. Everyone involved in elections in the united states is biased, and just like everything in politics, people will resort to dirty tricks, do whatever they have to do and are in it for themselves. It is nothing new.

Everyone arguing for mail in and absentee ballots is doing it because they want to use them to cheat. Everyone arguing for or against anything wants the rules to favor them in some underhanded way, every single rule in very single system was decided to enable some official's preferred method of cheating.

Multiple presidents have stolen elections. Every house seat is gerrymandered to protect the incumbent. Election officials in the south used to throw black votes away. Politicians in the north used to pay poor people to travel around a city or state and vote multiple times 50, 100, 150 years ago. It has always been this way in America.

The people of the United States are sovereign.

As such, we can require transparent and accurate elections if and when we choose.

This choice must be exercised by elected representation.

No political power in the United States can resist this force, when it gathers.

We are sovereign.

It's never going to gather because nobody wants their cheating methods to become useless. Most of our elected representation got there by cheating. They can resist this political force, by making sure to cheat to prevent honest representation.

> Not a word about Voter ID

Every serious, even-remotely-democratic country on the planet requires voter ID, yet one US party is staunchly against it. Until the US changes this, then its electoral process should be seen with extreme skepticism and electoral fraud should probably be considered the default.

Both parties have their qualms about IDs. It all depends on how they’re issued and by who.

If you proposed exactly what many of those other countries have: a national voter ID, both democrats and republicans would be against it.

No only one party is importing Hispanics by the hundreds of thousands

Unless accompanied by a national free US ID, a voter ID law is an unconstitutional poll tax. Nobody should need to pay to vote.

And as another poster mentioned, a national free ID is unpopular with sections of both major parties.

So we can make a vaccine card for every person, but we can’t print a freaking ID? These arguments against voter ID are so pedantically stupid I just wanna slap people.

Vaccine cards aren't authenticated or secured in any way. They are literally just little cards with text ...

>So we can make a vaccine card for every person, but we can’t print a freaking ID?

We can, there isn't the political will to do so as many people oppose a national ID.

>These arguments against voter ID are so pedantically stupid I just wanna slap people.

"It's unconstitutional" is pedantically stupid? How so?

I don't want anybody to be down voted on this thread, so I am up voting you.

All voices should be heard.

Pasting from another post:

There are citizens in the United States that do not participate in our culture to the extent that they do not have IDs. One might think of Amish communities, but many are averse to regulation.

They are citizens, and they should vote if they wish.

We should find some method in the technology to continue their participation.

If one wants to drive, one needs a driver license. If one wants to vote, one needs a voter ID. If one does not want to participate in culture and society, doesn't want to get any government ID, then they don't get to vote. I think that it should be that simple. But it won't be because historical and political reasons, status quo, etc.

New Zealand does not require ID at the voting booth. We would generally be considered to be near the top of the list for "remotely democratic countries".

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Voter_identification_laws#New_...

Australia doesn't require ID either.

If I understand the simple Australian guide bellow correctly anyone who knows your name and home address can vote in your place. The only good thing about it is that abuse of that probably doesn't scale well.

https://www.aec.gov.au/About_AEC/Publications/easy-read/file...

These are all of the following form:

> Rumor: Bad things can happen.

> Reality: Bad things cannot happen.

> Facts: We made bad things illegal. Therefore they can't happen.

Somehow this fails to be reassuring. A slightly more sophisticated take is that the "bad things" which fill in this template are precisely those things which legislatures thought up as the most likely threats to election integrity. That makes the "we made it illegal" approach that much less sufficient. The only thing on the whole page which is remotely a mitigation is the description of outdoor drop boxes being reinforced against tampering, which is... small potatoes.

These are bromides offered by a bureaucracy on issues over which it has no control.

The claims are easily dismissed.

I saw the film "2000 Mules."

Amongst the claims of this film was an assertion of open drop boxes on public streets with no cameras for surveillance. Several FOIA requests for camera footage also failed, as the cameras "malfunctioned."

While there may be innocent explanations for the odd cell phone location tracking, this fact remains:

"The most secure election in history" cannot be as claimed with unmonitored and publicly-accessible drop boxes.

This cannot continue if an honest election is the goal.

p.s. I regularly split my voting ticket, so I am not as biased as some might suppose.

It mentions system testing; i read here that testing could only be done according to criteria provided by the vendor.

https://www.scribd.com/document/596142725/Fulton-Pa-Sues-Dom...

I don't think we need this vendor.

I think that a tiny amount of money could be allocated from our taxes to create an open, transparent, and secure voting system.

We are buying from untrustworthy vendors when we could build a superior solution ourselves.

The federal/state bureaucracies that advocate proprietary voting systems should be liquidated.

Oh, yay another government agency telling us exactly how things happened without any possibility of their mistake

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