The Fraudulent Voting Machine
The blue display below is a teaching demonstration called the Fraudulent Voting Machine.
Please use it to run some elections, and then read the explanation below it.
The demo starts
by asking you to choose a "machine test" or "real election."
Machine tests give accurate final tallies,
but real elections might not!
This is because, in a real election,
one particular candidate is programmed to win.
Is it realistic
to demonstrate a program that works two different ways?
Yes! If you read the news you know that at least one major
manufacturer of voting systems does something similar -- they
use one program during tests,
and a different program during real elections.
And many manufacturers install "patches" -- which
means different programming -- just before an election.
The demo runs an election
with two candidates, John Doe and Mary Smith.
In a "real election" if you enter any votes,
Mary Smith will win.
Fraud can look totally authentic -- to see for yourself,
run a real election and enter more votes for John Doe,
or give both candidates the same number of votes.
After running your elections, read more below!
Explanation
If you ran a "real election" and gave more votes to John Doe,
you saw the Fraudulent Voting Machine reverse the tallies
(Mary Smith got the votes intended for John Doe, and vice versa).
If you gave the same number of votes to both candidates,
you saw that one vote was subtracted from John Doe and added to Mary Smith.
However, an election director would be 100% within their rights to say
that these elections were perfect and that they saw no errors.
This is because, unless there is an audit,
election personnel can check only one thing -- is the number
of voters the same as the number of ballots?
The only reason YOU know the ballots and final tallies were wrong
is that you saw ALL the votes being cast.
In a real election, each voter has a secret ballot.
There isn't any one person who can watch all the ballots being cast
so, unless there is an audit, no one can know if the final tallies are right or wrong.
It doesn't matter if the problem was caused by an innocent mistake,
malicious intent, an insider, or an outside hacker. Democracy was lost.
The ballots were changed by the machine.
The vote count was wrong. The wrong candidate won.
Demonstration programmed by Teresa Hommel.