A technical question about voting by computers?

[kentuck]

Is it possible to change votes by simply placing a "cookie" on the website?

Could a "cookie" from a Russian source influence the vote totals in some manner?

Because it was mentioned on the Bill Maher show last night that "cookies" were planted on more than a hundred different county websites...

[MineralMan]

1. Who mentioned it? Was the person a computer expert?

"Cookie" can mean a number of different things, depending on who's using the word, really.

[kentuck]

2. As I recall, it was Bill Maher...

...although he did not mention if the "cookies" impacted the vote totals, only that they were found on that many websites.

[MineralMan]

3. There are many types of cookies.

Maher doesn't probably really know all that much about them. Most people don't. Check this link:

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/HTTP_cookie

That will give you some basic information. Cookies can be used maliciously, but are primary information collection methods, not control methods. They're not really active on the computer that stores them, in the sense that they can do anything on that computer. Instead, they're more likely to be gathering some sort of information, which can then be retrieved later. They're used by most websites for one reason or another, but they're also used maliciously. Tracking cookies, for example can store browsing histories and navigation. None, however, can do anything actively on the computer where they're stored.

On the other hand, Maher could have been referring to some type of malware and called it the wrong thing. I have not idea.

I'm betting that Maher heard something about this somewhere, but doesn't know anything more about it. Without additional information, it's impossible to tell what they were or what they might have been used for.

[kentuck]

4. That was my impression...

But was hoping someone might know more about this subject?

[MineralMan]

5. I couldn't find any reference to it in several Google searches.

I wouldn't be surprised if Russian hackers installed malware on computers here. That could be active, but I think the voter database computers are separate from voting equipment and tallying equipment. Maher may be conflating cookies with malware. That would be my guess.

[Sancho]

6. I've seen a DRE flip votes in Florida...

Here's an example of how it could be done with one type of machine. There are no forensic studies of DREs or tabulators for the most part, so there's no way to definitively "prove" if the votes counted are valid. Is it possible that Russians, or Repubs, or someone else hacked individual machines or tabulators? Yes.

The US needs paper ballots that can be recounted by hand if they really want fair elections.

[IphengeniaBlumgarten]

7. Computers can mis-record or mis-tally a vote

I would not call this a "cookie" but, because all voting machine software is "proprietary" (or trade secret), we do not have total assurance that it is doing what we hope and expect it to do. This could be due to simple error -- a program that does not behave correctly under some unanticipated circumstance -- or it could be due to tampering -- say, setting the recording program to flip every tenth vote, or doing something funny during tallying.

This is why is is so important to have voting produce a paper record that can be inspected by the voter and retained so that votes can actually be recounted in case of later questions.