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Los Alamos Reconsiders Touch Screen Voting
Posted by
michael
on Fri Nov 21, 2003 10:56 AM
from the narrowly-avoided dept.
from the narrowly-avoided dept.
goombah99 writes "Los Alamos county, which boasts the highest geek PhD per capita in the world and considerable clout in secure computing, has voted to rescind its previous plans to purchase Touch Screen voting systems and will ask the New Mexico's secretary of state to address its concerns regarding an imminent state-wide purchase. They may get forced by the Clerk's office to use them anyway if the state makes its bulk purchase of Sequoia AvcEdge touch screen systems with a Windows-based WinEDS database. The Los Alamos position is welcome news since it casts the rejection of these systems in a more sober light; widespread right-wing conspiracy theories have done great harm by galvanizing election officials to be dismissive of re-opening their consideration of the issue. What won the day was convincing the county they had until 2006 to comply with HAVA, and that better machines with voter verifiable audit trails and even open source, were on the way. There is also more in the local newspapers."
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What won the day (Score:3, Insightful)
Simon the cynic.
No, not conspiracy theories. (Score:5, Informative)
Re:No, not conspiracy theories. (Score:5, Insightful)
Parent
Re:No, not conspiracy theories. (Score:4, Interesting)
First step in concealing your conspiracy is to make it sound stupid. The moment a few TFHs (Tin Foil Hatters) appear and start raving about every voting machine in the country being rigged or the banking system being controlled by the Elders of Zion, then more moderate critics and theorists coming afterwards get lumped into the same category.
Essentially, the loonies lay claim to an issue and then you can no longer support the issue without being seen to support the loonies.
Not saying that this is the case here - just a general principle.
Parent
Re:No, not conspiracy theories. (Score:2)
Once we lose our right to vote, then it's gone. Period. Good bye. It will take nothing short of a blood bath to bring it back.
That is why this issue is so important. It is not possible to overstate the importance of what is going on here.
To dismiss people who are concerned for the fate of their democracy as Tin Foil Hatters is disgusting, especially when you consider all the lives sacrificied throughout history so we can have democracy.
Bush stole 2000, and no
Re:No, not conspiracy theories. (Score:3, Insightful)
We've got evidence that Diebold tampered with results [scoop.co.nz], we've got evidence that blacks were denied the opportunity to vote [bbc.co.uk], we've got Katherine Harris and we've got the supreme Court and oh yeah we've got the Governor of Florida who just happens to be the First Retard's brother.
We could go on with how the war on drugs disenfranchised some hundreds of thousands of blacks thus preventing them from voting, in violation of the Constitution, or we could talk about how recounts were i
Re:No, not conspiracy theories. (Score:3, Insightful)
Yes, we should all restrict ourselves to viewing only the first page of Google results. Especially if we're a freelance writer.
I fail to see how this could have anything to do with Bush "buying" the election.
Well, that's probably because you aren't middle-aged. The state government in Florida was obviously extremely friendly to the Bush candidacy, and it is measures of
Re:No, not conspiracy theories. (Score:3, Interesting)
Yes, monster. As in somebody who violates the law and kills tens of thousands of people with no cause, and who risks the lives of us all in the process.
And if you can't recognize this very simple fact, there is no use in conversing further with you.
Re:No, not conspiracy theories. (Score:5, Informative)
Now due to demographics and crime rates in the US, where those who are poor and black are more likely to have a criminal record, this deliberate policy of ignoring FLORIDA state law by it's governer and the electoral commitees disadvantaged the Democrats as most poor and black voters vote democrat. The fact that they mis-matched on name also helped the Republicans as not many wealthy, white Republican voters have similar names to poor blacks. There are many, many cases of the wrong people being denied the right to vote.
Parent
Evidence? (Score:4, Insightful)
Read your link and missed anything that could be construed as evidence. The only fact is that there was a technical glitch. Everything else is complete speculation.
I mean, even think about it: if they were going to rig 16,000 votes, where would they do it - in a precint with a population of 600, or a population of 100,000? Which would make more sense? There's no way they "get away" with it the way it went down, and it was so blatant that there's no way it would have even had the presumably desired effect.
I'm not saying to believe everything "the man" says, but fuming over evidently nothing denies credibility to real causes.
Parent
Re:Evidence? (Score:4, Insightful)
I still don't find that to be an acceptable voting tabulation method, even given the large assumption that no one is guiding the 'errors'.
Parent
Re:Evidence? (Score:5, Informative)
What the evidence shows is that it is easily possible to rig these machines. What historical evidence shows is that people who can rig elections sometimes do. For instance, Lyndon Johnson first got into the Senate because of ballot box stuffing in one Texas county; and there were a lot of people in Cook County, Illinois who managed to vote for JFK despite their graveyard residences. There were some stuffed ballot boxes in Kansas City when Truman first got into the Senate too.
So we can conclude from history that given the chance, Democrats at least will sometimes rig elections. Are Republicans more pure? How about those Republicans who cheated California on electricity, or the Republicans who have cheated mutual fund holders out of what's looking to add up to billions (okay, there may be a few Democrats among executives in those industries - perhaps 5%)? With the Republicans particularly adept at cycling people between public and private office, we should assume that their ethics in public office are uniformly different than when they're in private "enterprise"?
You can't deny this about individual Republicans: they're enterprising. And so, history shows, have been the Democrats. It's not a conspiracy theory that's the problem here, it's the notion that history has been repealed and our current vote counters are angels.
Yeah, right.
Parent
Exactly. (Score:5, Interesting)
Fact: A company is producing voting machines which are easily tamperable and which allow such tampering to go completely undetected except through observing anomalous results.
Fact: There are people who would benefit greatly from utilizing this ability.
Fact: The company in question has given a good deal of money to one of the groups of people who would benefit from exploiting the flaws in the company's system. Even stated that they want to help said group win.
How could a rational, skeptical person look at this and not think "something isn't right here"?
Perhaps you are right, and alleged skeptics have suddenly become convinced that everyone in politics (or just their favorite politicians?) have become saints.
Parent
Re:No, not conspiracy theories. (Score:5, Interesting)
Fact: The Diebold Machines have horrible design and implementation.
Fact: Diebold has done some shaddy things to cover their buts when they make a mistake.
Fact: The CEO of the company has donated money to the republicans.
How does this imply that there is a great conspiricy? Lots of people give money to the republicans. Lots of people write crappy software. Lots of businesses try to get away with things that they shouldn't. Where is the proof that the reason for their actions is that they want the hand the election over to the republicans? It is just as likely that they are just incompetent and greedy, not conspiratal. Repeat after me: Correlation does not imply Causality.
Now is it possible that Diebold really is doing this to hand the election over to Bush? Sure. Is there any proof? No. But there is proof that some people framing this issue as a conspiricy theory has made the rest of us loose alot of credibility. And doing so is completely uneccisary because there are so many (factual) reasons why we shouldn't use these machines. So do everyone a favor and stick to the facts.
Parent
No, that isn't so at all (Score:2)
Bush's Justice Dept. doesn't go after his buddies. That should be obvious to everybody by now.
There is a demonstrable and proven effort under way to compromise democracy in this country. That you are too blind or too stupid to see it doesn't make it not so.
Re:Enron (Score:5, Insightful)
ROTFLMAO!!!
Yeah, Kenny Boy is doing his 10 years at Leavenworth, even as we speak!
NOT!
Who would it benefit if the executives were thrown in prison for life and told to pay billions in damages (which they'd never be able to do)?
How about all the victims to come from the next set of CEO/thieves who will do whatever they want secure in the knowledge that if they get caught nothing really bad will happen to them?
One of the reasons we put people in prison is to discourage others from committing the same crimes.
Using your logic, we should be freeing all sorts of criminals.
(of course, if we are talking about non-violent drug offenders who never hurt anybody then I would wholeheartedly agree.)
Parent
Re:Enron (Score:5, Interesting)
The real travesty in this case is that Andersons was brought down to stop the investigation going any further up the food chain, alegedly to members of the current administration. Bizarely in the case of Andersons the responsible partner was able to get off scott free by turning state's evidence and the normal employees paid for it instead. I have worked at Andersons and I know how much power and control over information an individual partner has over his team/division. It was very easy for that partner to keep his behaviour secret from the rest of the company...
Parent
Right wing? (Score:2, Insightful)
I think this is the first time that I've ever seen CBS News, home of Dan Rather, called "right-wing"
*Sigh*
Touch screens had so much potential. (Score:5, Funny)
your wish, granted. (Score:2)
Only a Matter of Time (Score:2, Insightful)
This is the future. It's only a matter of time until it's perfected. Let's be patient.
Of course.... (Score:4, Funny)
Right out of the MS playbook (Score:2)
Sounds old doesn't it? Hey Bill, I'm still waiting for Trustworthy Computing to start providing me with a secure OS. ;).
But seriously, this has been one of the major sticking points of e-voting besides security. I can't understand why the major players in this industry don't get it. Governments want traceability and backup
Re:Right out of the MS playbook (Score:5, Insightful)
Governments want traceability and backups in case the something goes wrong.
What I think the government wants varies according to how paranoid I'm feeling on any particular day. As a voter however, I want traceability and backups so I can be assured that the vote wasn't tampered with.
Parent
Thank GOD! (Score:3, Insightful)
I believe electronic voting systems can work, but only highly secured, rigorously tested, and open source systems that leave a paper trail. If nothing else, a piece of paper that the voter can use to verify the votes he or she cast.
For now, I'll stick with punch cards or penis pullers, thank you very much.
They VOTED... (Score:5, Funny)
Dismissive (Score:5, Interesting)
If anything, I think that the conspiracy theories will do more to get their attention - after all, it's their job to make sure that people have confidence in the election results. Having a bunch of backwoods farmers saying "I don't trust the results from your damn computers" is one thing. Having Los Alamos computer scientists saying "I don't trust the results from your damn proprietary software" is quite another, and I think they are waking up to that.
Sign the HR 2239 petition! (Score:5, Interesting)
We need your help!
HR 2239 [loc.gov] is a bill which requires all touch-screen voting machines to produce a paper receipt which the voter can read and verify, then drop in a lock box. The receipts in that lock box are used in a recount. This bill also mandates a recount in 0.5% of districts chosen at random to verify that the touch-screen voting machines are reporting the results accurately.
Sign the online petition [thepetitionsite.com] to support the bill. Contact your representatives [verifiedvoting.org], educate them and demand they support the bill.
We also need legal help with injunctions against the machines, starting with the 37 Diebold states. The organizers of BlackBoxVoting.org [blackboxvoting.org] have 65,000 documents to make the case.
What's this "right-wing" crap? (Score:3, Insightful)
Article slashdotted posted here (Score:4, Informative)
Council yanks voting machine funding
By ALLISON MAJURE, lareporter@lamonitor.com, Monitor Staff Writer
Revisiting a motion that had narrowly passed by a 4-3 vote last month, Los Alamos County Council rescinded funding for the purchase of 17 Sequoia Pacific "Edge" touchscreen voting machines by a vote of 7-0 Tuesday.
Councilors Nona Bowman, Diane Albert and Mike Wheeler opposed the original motion on Oct. 28. At a meeting Nov. 4, Councilor Fran Berting asked councilors to support her motion to revisit the issue. They voted 5-2 to do so with Councilors Geoff Rogers and Jim West opposed. In light of newly received information, Berting sought an opportunity for further discussion on the voting machines, as well as an opportunity to change her vote.
The 17 machines would have been purchased by the county as back-up machines for each of Los Alamos' precincts. The State of New Mexico has already funded the purchase of 19 "Edge" touchscreen voting machines for Los Alamos through federal funding received as part of the Help America Vote Act.
The HAVA was enacted shortly after the presidential election of 2000 when discrepancies in Florida called the count into question. Among its requirements is the provision of voting machines for the visually impaired so that they may vote independently without personal assistance.
During public comments, Kathy Campbell read her letter to the editor to the councilors and highlighted the fact that the proprietary software that tabulates the votes is not failsafe. Any tabulation errors indicated, would need to be researched by Sequoia Pacific technicians, because the software is proprietary, she said.
"Australia, Canada and New Zealand use open source software for their voting machines, which are reliant on an open source operating system such as Linux or UNIX," she said in an interview today.
Charlie Strauss also provided information for the councilors, saying the state deadline for the use of these machines is 2006, not 2004 as was previously asserted. He said, "There's no need to rush, we're going to have good machines soon," indicating that machines with a ballot-level voter verification capacity might be on the market shortly.
Strauss urged councilors to send a letter to the New Mexico Secretary of State expressing concerns about the validity of the "Edge" machine's output. He referred to New Jersey Rep. Rush Holt's bill, HR 2239, which is sponsored by 61 other congressional representatives, as useful for its language which objects to touchscreen machines made by Diebold, Sequioa-Pacific, ESS and others.
The councilors unanimously endorsed a motion to rescind funding for the voting machines and to draft a letter to the New Mexico Secretary of State, articulating Los Alamos' concerns.
Power Without Accountability (Score:5, Insightful)
I read the CBS News article in the included link, and I don't see the "great harm" anywhere in that article. I'm wondering if the submitter is showing a bias by his comments.
I am not aware of any solid proof that the right-wing has used electronic voting machines to ensure election, but it stands to reason that it has and will happen. Why? Because politicians on both sides have tampered with election results and methods for decades (centuries, millenia). So it would be quite naive to think that the right-wing wouldn't try to use whatever advantage it had. The left-wing too, when they are in power, would do the same thing. Power corrupts.
This is a non-partisan problem. Either side is likely to try to use closed-source technology to their favor. It is short-sided to think this is only a right-wing problem -- it's not. Whoever is in power will use whatever means are accesible to maintain that power. Therefore it is imperative that the voting method being used does not give them an obvious tool to corrupt in maintaining that power. Diebold (and other manufacturer) machines are bad news, no matter which side you are on. Elections are stolen routinely throughout human history. Don't give them another tool to do the job, for they will most assuredly use them.
Think about it: Do you really want to give politicians a method to hide voting result confirmations? To be able to say, "Here are the results and, hey whaddya know? I won!" and have no possible way to verify that? That's called power without accountability, and we all know where that leads.
Re:Power Without Accountability (Score:3, Insightful)
I'm guessing this article appeared in some form on CBS news. So it would reach a whole lot of Average Joes who may have otherwise never heard of the controversy, or known anything about the issue besides that the government wants to use electronic voting booths to prevent another November 4th debacle.
So the first time they hear about this issue, the take-away message they get is, "
Obviously there is something dodgy going on... (Score:5, Insightful)
When government is not open and transparent it is usually because those people who make up the government are trying to hide something, usually fixing things in their own self interest.
Would you trust your money to a bank that had no audit trail and whose systems and accounts were not open to independant audit?
Paper trail now! (Score:5, Insightful)
Everywhere across the country, hundreds of millions of people get paper receipts with their purchases at the store. This happens, because Republican (and Democratic) store owners "Don't trust" the electronic tabulations in the machines and demand a verifiable "paper trail" from each of their cash registers. If store owners don't trust a $0.99 purchase to be recorded electronicly, why should we trust voting machines. It's simple, effective, and not expensive either. It happens HUNDREDS OF MILLIONS OF TIMES PER DAY.
Why can't everyone simply get a printout of their votes?...Why the foot-dragging...other than proving the conspiricy theories!.... To the voting machine folks, just add a paper tape, just like an ATM or cash register!....It's the right thing to do.
why not ... (Score:3, Interesting)
Touchscreen station sends vote to database. writes one record to a 'has voted' table, indicating voter registration number. writes a different record in a 'vote' table indicating the actual vote. (no common index, no datestamp).
touchscreen prints out scantron styled paper ballot.
you record 'has voted' in the database simply to indicate if anyone is gaming or circumventing the software. not only can you detect the problem, you can id the perp.
and if you think that's too much, then hell - just drop the 'has voted' table. it'd only be an 'early warning' widget anyway.
the paper forms would be collected in traditional ballot boxes for manual recounts should problems be seen. simply run the forms through a scantron reader for a machine recount, or count by hand. easy peasy japanesey.
no pregnant, dimpled, hanging chads - no worrying about ruined elections via computer hax0r1ng... simplified interface for the voters, hardcopy backup.
Conspiracies aren't the point. (Score:4, Insightful)
just about fair and honest elections (Score:3, Insightful)
Heck recently there was a story that made the local papers about an election worker that improperly broke the seals on some ballot boxes is some election. It turns out that the worker probably did nothing to change results and was just trying to find some papers, but people were rightly indignant that an elections official wasn't following an agreed upon procedure wich left the boxes open to tampering after the fact... With some of these computer system designs that same election worker could have physically done the same thing thousands of times without any one being able to tell. Of course, there wouldn't have been any newpaper stories since there would have been no evidence of the tampering unless the elections worker had come forward herself.
Computers are physical things. Similar rules should apply computers as they apply to paper ballots.
Not even a good conspiracy theory (Score:5, Funny)
and plenty more-- I'm sure you can come up with more than me.
Put the politics aside (Score:3, Interesting)
evoting will never be secure (Score:3, Insightful)
A vote is something else...there's lots of motivation to steal an election. There isn't any way of knowing, given today's operating systems, that no one has either hacked the code in ROM or loaded a hook that'll modify the vote as desired. For every measure you propose to thwart theft, there's a counter measure. That's just the intentional attacks. There are hardware failures to contend with as well. There isn't a straightforward way to backup a vote and know for certain that the backup is accurate. Distributed tallying/backup just introduces another error source.
Voting is an activity that is best left to humans doing the tallying. When properly implemented, it's trustworthy unlike what we're currently doing. I know this is /. heresy but there are tasks where a technological solution should not be applied - voting is one of them.
Open Source Not the Answer (Score:3, Interesting)
Re:Los Alamos (Score:5, Interesting)
What is needed is a voter-verified paper ballot printout that goes into a separate locked ballot box. This way, after voting on the machine the voter can check the ballot to be sure that the voter's choice is correctly recorded.
Using the electronic voting machine reduces the error rate to near-zero. Printing the ballot reduces the counting problems (hanging chads...) because they are standardized, uniform and can be run through counting machines quickly.
With a system like this in place the security of the electronic machines doesn't MATTER.
Parent
But what counts them? (Score:2)
Re:Los Alamos (Score:4, Interesting)
If the paper ballot is used only as an audit trail then it is completely worthless. The voter has no way of knowing that what is on the paper acurately reflects what is tabulated. The obvious solution to this is that you actually count the paper ballots, but then the machines are just really expensive punch card punchers.
Anyone who thinks that voters are actually going to check their ballots is deluding themselves anyway. The ballots in Florida were NOT confusing, and if people had checked them their would not have been a problem. When you have a reporter ask someone if they are sure who they voted for and the answer is, "No." The problem is with the voters, not the counting.
Where I vote there are clear instructions, and people who will show you how to vote (on a sample ballot) if you can't figure it out yourself. Maybe what we need is to spend some money educating voters instead of building more expensive, more easily corruptable voting apparatus.
Parent
Re:Los Alamos (Score:2)
Shithead.
Re:Los Alamos (Score:3, Insightful)
A good example of this situation is when DARPA contracted with Berkley to develop BSD into
Re:New York City (Score:3, Insightful)
Question - how did Democrats vs Republicans get into this? Are electronic voting machines that don't allow the voter to verify that their vote is correctly recorded somehow a Democrat/Republican issue? How did that come into this?
Re:Touch Screening (Score:3, Insightful)
Here in the UK there are plenty of ticket machines at stations and airports that use touchscreens which appear to be made of toughened glass or very heavy duty plastic.
IIRC the touchscreen is covered with a material bearing an electrical charge. When a finger touches the screen, oscillators round the edge of the display measure the change in capacitance and a position is calc
Re:The REAL Problem with a paper trail... (Score:3, Interesting)
Re:Oh you poor thing... (Score:3, Interesting)