2002.11.06 ~07 The so-called "Super Tuesday"; voting day Election Day. The ballot reminded me again that the US is based on a representive democracy (as most so-called democracies tend to be). Five of the seven pages regarded "whom" to vote for, and the other two were "what" to vote on. I prefer not to dawdle and languish over the ramifications of a so-called democracy that puts into office people easily... "swayed" by... "donations"... that lead to... er... "sponsored bills" that "help" the said "sponsors" campaign to put into office said people that were... "persuaded". So I'll concentrate on something that came mind as I looked at the voting mechanism doohickey, which sort of relates to security in general and a little bit on forensics. The two times I've ever voted in my life (today, and two years ago), the voting mechanism looked the same. In fact, it still looks the same from when I went in with my dad a decade ago to watch him punch his ballot. I don't know if this is an artifact of my city in particular (been here for nearly 16 years), or the State of California in general. The (paper) ballot itself has roughly the same area as that taken up by the typographic ("letter") keys on a typical PC-ish keyboard. The ballot is basically a souped up punchcard; for those familiar with Scantron forms, it's like a big version of one that has the choice poked out to form a hole instead of bubbling-in with a #2 pencil. The voting machine is all-mechanical. It's a mostly plastic thin box, just large enough to house the ballot. The machine's business face is a grid of hole masks (to guide the holepunch). Stiff paper pages with the meaning of the particular holes are bound between columns of holes (rotating on fine metal rods). Laid horizontally, the pages flip down to hide all but one column at a time. The end result is that the voter turns to a particular page, and the printed choice points with an arrow to the exposed hole representing the choice. As a neat trick against improperly inserted ballots, another layer of plastic hole mask lies just under the machine main grid of holes, spring-loaded against the ballot, such that the two holes do not line up (blocking the holepunch) unless the ballot is properly inserted deeply. An equally simple mechanism at the insertion end uses small plastic posts that the ballot end slips over to keep it anchored against the springs. Should the ballot slip out, the spring pops out the ballot and de-aligns the two layers of hole masks to prevent any punching. (ASCII art, monospace font required) punch holes contents | semi-blank page V V V more pages>> +-------------+-+-------------+-+-+ |#OFFICE FIO=>|o| |#|#| |# ERI=>|o| |#|#| <- # = zebra codes (!) |# RUMI=>|o| ========> |#|#| |# |o| GO TO |#|#| |#FOO YES=>|o| NEXT PAGE |#|#| | NO=>|o| | | | | |o| | | | | GOATSE YES=>|o| check for | | | | NO=>|o| chad | | | +-------------+-+-------------+-+-+ next column on ballot | (next page) V +-+-------------+-+-------------+-+ |#|#PROP X YES=>|o| |#| |#|#blah NO=>|o| |#| |#|#blahblah |o| ========> |#| |#|#blahblah |o| GO TO |#| | | |o| NEXT PAGE | | | | MEASURE Q |o| | | | | blah YES=>|o| | | | | blah NO=>|o| check for | | | | blahblah |o| chad | | +-+-------------+-+-------------+-+ Eh... where was I... Oh yeah. I mulled over my choices "on the spot", taking it SATs-style (mark what I dunno, mark it for return (but on another sheet paper!), go on to others, come back later). Yeah yeah, should've researched, yadda yadda. But while I did, I noticed bits of chads in the holes, of choices I didn't decide on yet. So much for secret ballots. Well, OK, so I don't know who was at it before, but it's certainly disheartening when you see a bit of chad in the "No" hole when you're thinking "maybe Yes...". Even more disheartening when the chad doesn't fly away despite all your blowing and realizing the only way you're going to get rid of it is by punching it through into the chad collector... as your choice (can't do it with ballot removed -- the holes masks don't line up). Anyway, I was thinking, despite all this effort to make the ballots "secret", something so insignifcant as a random cruft of paper sticking to an anonymous holepunch on its way out can still give away so much information. I find it intriguing how something so insignificant as a tiny tad of chad can say so much. Security is one thing, secrecy another. Security through obscurity rests on secrecy, and then some tiny bit (literally) in just the right/wrong place can blow this kind of security. Hrm. I forgot where I headed with this.