[kwlug-disc] Say No To Electronic Voting ...

[Gordon Dey]

On 2020-08-06 9:39 p.m., Doug Moen wrote:
> The better system is Australian style paper ballots.
> Apparently Waterloo had electronic voting in 2018, but for some reason I wasn't aware of this when I went out to vote at a voting station.

tl;dr: As someone who participated, I think elections canada is less
electronic than we may be thinking--and fairer too.

The process for the election polls that I attended required electors to
produce some sort of ID (there was a list of what was acceptable that
was copied on the voter card too) for the poll clerk to verify they were
eligible, and what poll they should use.

When the poll clerk had a laptop, the elector information was checked,
and possibly updated, on a local copy sync'd to a remote database. There
was a paper copy too, if the electronics failed, although maintaining
that copy was very tedious.

If eligible, the elector would be issued an initialled ballot in between
a heavy paper folder. The clerk's initial was the only thing to be
showing. The count of ballots before, during and after each election day
was reconciled to detect injected or removed ballots per clerk.

The electors were instructed to expose the ballot when they got behind a
screen, and put a clear mark, such as an 'X', in a single box with a
provided marking tool (OCR: a sharpie pen, pencil otherwise). Then, they
were asked to return the ballot back in the folder, initials out as
before. During the earlier federal election, the elector was asked to
bring the package to someone operating a "tabulator" machine for
initialled ballots. I was that person for that election, and a poll
clerk for the recent election.

The tabulator machine was a self-contained OCR scanner that noted if a
clear mark could be detected, and for whom. The scanned ballot then went
into a sealed box. The count was recorded on a internally sealed CF. The
operator would only insert ballots showing valid initials.

Before the election, each tabulator operator tested his tabulator
software (also stored on another CF card sealed in the body of the
machine) against a prepared set of valid and invalid ballots. After the
election, the results were accumulated, read, then the the seal, if
intact, was broken so the count CF could be removed.  Then the same
suite of prepared ballots were used to re-verify the software CF + OCR
produced identical results.

Paper ballots were accumulated and unsealed after the end, to be able to
cross-check the tabulator if needed or requested. As well, issued and
tabulated ballot counts were cross-checked several times per day.
Finally, the tabulator machines were completely self-contained, with
only a pair of sealed CF cards for getting count and software in and out.

I think the weakest link is the on-line elector registration database
updating. That always was touch-and-go, but the laptop/online sync
method is was always quicker than using the paper database--which was
really tedious to maintain. (The most recent election went back to using
thick binders of electors. Every morning, there would be updates to
apply with a pen!)

The Ontario and federal election people really try hard, IMHO, with many
checks and balances, to deliver a fair, honest, accurate, unbiased and
accountable election process. I think they succeeded... I don't know
about the municipal election; I didn't work at that, so I have no
opinion there.

I, too, am suspicious of an internet connected terminal/app, for
example, the scheme that Brasil uses for their elections. (The "DRE",
see https://cic.unb.br/~rezende/trabs/cryptobytes3.pdf )

Gord.