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strugglz t1_j80w1rx wrote

Spending money on vaporware that results in elections being less secure. Of course.

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ClownCarnival t1_j80wd5v wrote

Not a good day for Texas taxpayers. First they get to pay out the settlements for their corrupt AG and then this but hey you get what you vote for and you won't have to worry about voting much longer once these guys are done destroying our democoracy.

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Vulcan_MasterRace t1_j8102ly wrote

I think the tech exists today where we can vote from our phones, tablets and computers.

−5

bazzbj t1_j816yyz wrote

They keep voting for the same people 🤷🏻‍♂️

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tundey_1 t1_j818fqq wrote

This is what happens when you let morons write your law.

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tundey_1 t1_j818t64 wrote

Replying to Vulcan_MasterRace (#1,773,954)

There's really no reason to make something as important as voting be subject to the lax security on personal electronic devices. And we don't need it. The expansive use of mail-in voting during the COVID presidential election in 2020 is proof that measures like early voting, no-excuse vote-by-mail etc are good enough.

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Shavethatmonkey t1_j81b0qq wrote

Don't worry, as the deadline looms Republicans will vote to allow an untested and unverified machine from a company that supports Republicans.

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luxmesa t1_j825rev wrote

Okay, so the technology they want is a write-once drive to replace the reusable drives they use to collect results from the voting machines. The idea is that if a drive can only be written to once, then you can guarantee that the data hasn’t been tampered with once it’s been copied from the machine. There’s no evidence that something like this has happened, but even if it had, couldn’t you pull off the same thing by getting an entirely new drive and just swapping it with the real one?

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view-master t1_j829yfo wrote

Replying to luxmesa (#1,775,975)

And here’s the thing. The USB drive is encrypted, the paper ballots are locked away and provide a separate record of the votes to compare against. If an election official delivered a USB drive that didn’t match what the actual ballots show(has never happened) they would go to prison. No sane person would try that.

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Uncast t1_j82l17x wrote

Good. Keep voting conservative. I wanna see how deep they’re willing to screw themselves just to own the libs

1

ElectricGears t1_j82u5vx wrote

Replying to Vulcan_MasterRace (#1,773,954)

From a fundamental information theory standpoint, it's can't exist*. For secure voting you need to identify the voter and ensure the voter's ballot is included in the final count. The real problem is that you have to do it in a way that not even the voter can identify their ballot in the list of counted ballots. This is necessary to prevent coerced voting. The only way we can do this is by putting ultimate trust in some part of the system. The primary goal when designing voting system is to make that trusted part as small and as simple as possible. All the things you would need to do to make this is work over the internet is diametrically opposed to both those criteria.

That said, you can absolutely design a very inexpensive, easy to use, secure, computerized voting system if you wanted to. It consists of terminals powered by an Arduino, a basic LCD screen and cheap thermal printer. You can have whatever ballot layout (along with any assistive technologies) and the voter makes their selections electronically. The printer prints a voter-verifiable ballot using the same ballot that is mailed to absentee voters. It's put in the same box as the other votes. A scan and counting machine power by another Arduino counts the ballots and displays the number of votes for each candidate/measure.

Ultimate trust is placed in the code and hardware of the counting machine. While that is fairly complex, it is entirely possible to verify it's operation to a reasonable degree of certainly. If you really wanted to be sure, I could design a counting circuit out of fully viable mechanical relays. Plus you can always just hand recount or run them through machines from a different manufacture.

* Theoretically something called homomorphic encryption might be able to solve this, but we have no working implementation and it massively violates criteria number 2.

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C7H5N3O6 t1_j82vv36 wrote

Texas proving that the one star on their flag is actually them showing off their Google Maps rating.

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flossypants t1_j835yr0 wrote

Current rewritable drives, either rotating or solid-state, leave behind "ghosts" of what was previously written that would allow forensic experts to detect tampering. This write-once drive is just tweak on that. It also depends on trusting the drive manufacturer not to include a back door allowing a rewrite. It's not a bad idea but addresses something that's not a priority, it's not a panacea, and they're the sorta folk that might not commission something compliant in time. Dominion should get something compliant made and, if no one else does the same, they can demand an unhealthy amount of money as the unique supplier.

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MPenguinGaming t1_j836vde wrote

This article doesn’t name the bill. Also Texas house wasn’t in session in 2021. Only in session every other year. 2016, 2018, 2020, 2022…

−1

Temuma t1_j83esgx wrote

You get a lot of paper and pens with 100M.

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GravyDangerfield23 t1_j83oax2 wrote

Replying to roboninja (#1,778,150)

Not entirely true.

It is still relevant as to how the state legislature is broken down, but yes, it is less relevant. For example, let's say for simplicity's sake that Texas had 4 million Dems & 6 million Republicans, leading to a 40/60 split that we would hope to see reflected in the govt body. If there were 10 legislative seats, each representing 1 million people, we could carve up 10 districts — 1 district that had 900k Dems and 100k Republicans, and the other 9 would all have 344,444 Dems and 655,555 Republicans, leading to an easy 90/10 split for Republicans.

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Geass10 t1_j84a494 wrote

Good thing they voted for another Republican. Feel no sympathy for that state.

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Geass10 t1_j84a5pw wrote

Good thing they voted for another Republican. Feel no sympathy for that state.

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cryptoderpin t1_j84knmv wrote

Cool so the TX gov gets to shovel taxpayer money into their friends “voting tech company” and get a sweet, sweet kick back in the form of political donations, on top of making voting less secure.

We know their games yet we still keep playing the game thus allowing this to continue so in the end it’s really all our fault not the fault of them. The beatings will continue until morale improves.

2

Car-Altruistic t1_j84xro9 wrote

Replying to strugglz (#1,773,763)

Vaporware? The technology has existed for literally all of my career and I’m old, they’re actually mandated for things that are a lot less consequential than voting systems. The fact voting machine manufacturers don’t want to use such technology is a bigger problem.

I could literally make a RPi based device that plugs into existing voting machines today and sell you a solution that anyone can track online in less than 4 hours, secure, cryptographic proof that track records of votes as they come in.

As the article says, they can always go back to paper, which has been proposed on every side (D, R and I) when alleging fraud.

−1

littleMAS t1_j858ikw wrote

"A great first step towards rigging elections," GOP.

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xal1124 t1_j85cofy wrote

Replying to R_Meyer1 (#1,777,608)

With all the complaining of fake votes, dead people voting, etc., do you think that people would go for voting by phone? People barely know how to construct a password more than 8 characters long. People would have their voting accounts accessed by others, and people would vote for them.

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Inconceivable-2020 t1_j85in4d wrote

So Texas Republicans till embezzle the funds and when the equipment they want is invented, will charge taxpayers again.

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xal1124 t1_j85ombh wrote

Replying to MPenguinGaming (#1,782,444)

The Texas Legislature meets in Regular Session for about five months every other year. Regular Sessions begin at noon on the second Tuesday in January of odd numbered years and can last no more than 140 days, ending during the last week of May or the first week of June.

That’s from your source

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MPenguinGaming t1_j85posh wrote

Replying to xal1124 (#1,782,451)

The Texas Legislature meets in Regular Session for 140 days every other year. Regular Session begins at noon on the Second Tuesday in January of even numbered years.

​

That's direct copypaste

0

bareboneschicken t1_j85x3kj wrote

From the voter perspective, the machines we have in Bexar County are the best I've seen to date.

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R_Meyer1 t1_j869xgp wrote

Replying to xal1124 (#1,781,771)

No, I don’t think voting by phone should be allowed, but if you can do your damn taxes online, you should be able to vote online as an added option to the already in person and by mail options. Voting by mail was never a problem until jackass Trump.

0

Shavethatmonkey t1_j8dn700 wrote

Replying to Vulcan_MasterRace (#1,773,954)

It does. You can do banking from your phone, we have MFA, etc. The state could have a voting app.

But the Republican party opposed mail in voting and passed 240 bills to make voting harder for citizens. They will never support easy electronic voting.

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RepeatOffender21 t1_j8ni6j3 wrote

At one time I had a design for a voting system which would address so much, but there's no way I'd bother investing in it when these characters just change the rules on a whim all the time. Sure, I could potentially make huge bank on this deal by replacing machines every year or two, but there's the COGS aspect of that which I don't think is really worth it.

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RepeatOffender21 t1_j8nipwk wrote

Replying to MPenguinGaming (#1,782,510)

It's literally not a direct copy-paste. LOL

>https://house.texas.gov/about-us/
>
>The Texas House of Representatives is composed of 150 members, each elected for a two-year term. The Texas Legislature meets in Regular Session for about five months every other year. Regular Sessions begin at noon on the second Tuesday in January of odd numbered years and can last no more than 140 days, ending during the last week of May or the first week of June. Special Sessions may be called by the Governor and can last up to 30 days.

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RepeatOffender21 t1_j8olw1d wrote

Replying to MPenguinGaming (#1,822,179)

Well as it turns out that's not the big gotcha you think it is. The thread is older than this account. Big deal. Offended little folks love to report accounts and get them suspended because they think it's funny.

Doesn't change the fact that you are standing on some crazy hill about odd vs even years, changing the text to match your game. But I guess that's what you were playing with the other guy. Not my problem. I saw the comment, it's patently incorrect, so I stated so and showed the evidence. Your beef with the other commenter, fine, go talk to them.

Still wrong about the facts. LOL

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RepeatOffender21 t1_j8payp5 wrote

Replying to MPenguinGaming (#1,824,251)

You’re doing enough of that for both of us. I’ll pass.

Oh wait I bet you think you’re an “alpha” too….hilarious.

You sling what you think are insults and righteous clever burns but you’re the guy who posted to AskReddit and then deleted it… “Why are people on Reddit so hurtful”.

LOL

Run along now.

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