California Grills Diebold Over E-Voting Foul-Ups 364
orthogonal writes "Electronic voting machine producer Diebold admitted today that 'thousands' of voters were turned away from the polls during the Super Tuesday Presidential Primary because of flaws in Diebold's machines. Diebold Election Services Inc. president Bob Urosevich said 'We were caught', and answered 'yes' when asked 'Weren't [California voters] actually disenfranchised?' Today, California officials may recommend decertifying some or all of Dielbold's machines for the November General Election." Reader TargetBoy adds: "Diebold knowingly used uncertified software in California elections. Especially interesting is the comment that, 'The law firm's memos reflect a corporate defense firm on a $500,000-a-month campaign to protect Diebold.' Wonder how much it would cost to just fix the problems?" Apparently India is having evoting problems of its own: purple writes "The world's largest democracy is in the midst of a 4-month election marathon. Except this time around the whole thing is run electronically. And, surprise surprise, things seem to not be working perfectly. Some polling booths have been ordered to re-poll due to malfunctions in the electronic voting machines. In another article, 191 voting booths were ordered to re-poll. Other polling locations seem to be operating on voter lists from 2001. I suppose the good news is that these errors were caught before they could have really screwed things up."
Here's the rub (Score:5, Insightful)
The simple fact is that, while Diebold does indeed care about producing accurate voting results, they are more concerned with making money. If Diebold is forced to choose between increasing their profit and making the system better, they'll choose profit.
If you put voting machines in the hands of the private sector, the private sector will try to maximize profit. Corners will be cut. There simply isn't any way to avoid this, so long as the people making the machines are doing so to make money off the venture.
So long as the design and development of voting systems is left to the private sector, voters will be disenfranchised for the sake of profit. That's all there is to it.
Tehnology is not the root problem here. (Score:5, Insightful)
A system where votes were printed to a machine-readable piece of paper, verified by the voter, then deposited in a secure box, would be simple and secure. By printing votes you create a self-verifying system -- voters can check their vote is correct, and an audit can easily verify that votes were recorded as voters intended. Management of the printed records would be just like the ballots we already are using, but without the reliability problems of punch-card systems. Tallying could be done mechanically, as a barcode could accompany the printed text.
The whole system is very simple. Even if they just used an ATM style of security (printing to an internal paper log) they would be far superior to Diebold. But using logic is difficult in this case, because Diebold is clearly making absurd claims, and it's difficult to refute absurdity.
EVM 2003 is trying to create a complete open source voting system (not just machine). I wish them the best of luck. This is more than just philosophy about copyright and IP, it's the defense of democracy from those that want very much to take away even the slight accountability that currently exists. They've already made it into office with one fraudulent election (2000), and very possibly kept control of congress with another (2002, with many states being won with unverifiable votes that didn't match up with predicted results).
Hold Them All Accountable (Score:5, Insightful)
And nobody on the federal level is making a fuss because...hmm, now I wonder why?
And it'll probably just tool along all status quo-y until...what? Massive, undeniable fraud? Some kind of grassroots "Hack the Vote" movement?
I think it was Heinlien that said, "It may be rigged, but it's the only game in town."
So keep the pressure on, and hope it makes a difference before November.
(Where's my EFF renewal form...)
Re:Hold Them All Accountable (Score:3, Insightful)
Diebold probably knew a lot more about the things their machines did to lose or reverse votes. I even heard someone at Diebold reconfigured the excel data coming out of the machines to increase believability of the voting results.
I'm not a lawyer so can someone tell me what it takes to become a traitor to the United States of America?
Re:Hold Them All Accountable (Score:3, Informative)
Treason against the United States, shall consist only in levying War against them, or in adhering to their Enemies, giving them Aid and Comfort [usconstitution.net].
Re:Hold Them All Accountable (Score:3, Interesting)
-Colin [colingregorypalmer.net]
Update at SFGATE (Score:4, Informative)
Re:Tehnology is not the root problem here. (Score:5, Informative)
Security? So what! The softwar is shit ANYWAY! (Score:4, Insightful)
Security? So what! The softwar is shit ANYWAY!
People like to harp and harp and harp on how insecure the Diebold system is, and this is very important. But put that aside for the moment and look at where the actual problems have been: software crashes that prevent people from voting, software glitches that produce false data. I don't care how "secure" the system is; if it produces garbage it can be Fort Knox, and who cares! The whole issue of "security" while conceptually important for voting software is in a way irrelevant here until they can make software that produces accurate data while not being tampered with.
Indeed. (Score:3, Informative)
It appears that at least some of the Diebold machines DO have internal printers, but Diebold has been notably coy about mentioning that, and indeed has been strangely resistant to the whole idea of verifiability. Makes me
Re:Tehnology is not the root problem here. (Score:3, Insightful)
Just a nitpick here. There is nothing to be gained by putting barcodes on the ballots because humans can't verifiy them. The person can only verify the text accompanying the barcode.
In the end you'd still have to verify that the barcode actuallys matches the text above it, but if you're going to do that you may as weel just skip reading the barcode altogether and verify that the text matches the electronic count.
The p
respectfully and strongly disagree (Score:5, Interesting)
I love computers, but with voting, nope, I want to be able to verify it with a paper ballot, not even punch cards,a mark in the bubble ballot is quite sufficient. And I don't mean a receipt from some black box voting machine, either, this is just thousands of dollars a precinct busy work with electronic voting. More government waste (and kickbacks),easier fraud potential and inefficiency. Selling the smell and the sizzle, not the steak, typical advertising crap.
If it is not readable by any human who chooses to poll watch or if there's a dispute immediately and a human can't read it, then it is not secure, and I don't care what "guarantees" they give. "They" ALREADY swore up and down that "it was secure and worked properly", and they have been proven to FAIL IT in not a very long time.
Government and government connected contractors have a long history of being liars and crooks, and with something like voting, using computers??? WAY too much temptation there to ignore, after all, what is it woreth in potential dollars and power over other humans to "adjust" who wins?
This is just another way for that to happen,a much easier way, and as you can see it has happened, exactly like it was predicted by folks like me several years ago when it was being discussed, and I remember the arguments then that it "would just work and be better". Phooie. I was right, they were wrong.
"Computerised Voting" came pre-broken and crooked right out of the box. And with a real voting period and not this half a day deal we got now,and some sort of instant runoff deal,and third parties being covered in the news, we might see more people voting. the way it is now is 50% voting roughly, that is not any sort of success figure. It would reduce lines and the wait,the longer period, and not discrimnate against workers who can't make it to the polls, or people who have emergencies come up they have to go deal with, etc. and "counting" is a normal human thing, I doubt there's any precinct out there that lacks people who can count. Yes, there's trouble with that too, but stricter enforcement of the laws on the books with severe penalties could knock that down considerable.
And then MAYBE if the paid off FCC can see fit to REQUIRE the networks to cover third parties and candidates in their day to day so-called "news" reports and in the so-called "official national debates" we might not only get more votes, we might get more voting enthusiasm and some constructive change in this nation, instead of this "new and improved and it's so shiny!" scheme which will only go to elect the same tired old parties and candidates who have caused all the mess in the first place. And FUNNY it was *their idea* to switch to "computerised" voting. I certainly don't recall seeing any private citizens approaching me with some petition to beg the government to please switch us to computers, because it didn't happen. It was shoved down our throats and sold to us just like beer or cornflakes on the TV. The "controllers" wanted computerised voting because it's more hackable than the old original system.
Hard tech is great, I love it, for SOME things, but in other circumstances, you can't replace normal human actions.
Re:Here's the rub (Score:2, Interesting)
The law firm's memos reflect a corporate defense firm on a $500,000-a-month campaign to protect Diebold.
Regardless of purpose, this establishes that Diebold's primary intention was NOT to make the voting system more accurate or practical, but to make a buck on a cheaper system and hope to play the legal game to get out of trouble if it needed to.
Re:Here's the rub (Score:5, Insightful)
That doesn't track logically. The system already costs $5000 per voting machine. If the printer was added, they'd simply add another few thousand for the work and hardware. Memos have surfaced taht confirm this: they were instructed to charge HIGH to add that capability, if it came to it.
No, from the minutes of a meeting inadvertently attended by a publisher, and from justing oogling Diebold's 500K/month legal fund, itcan only be said Diebold's ONLY aim is to prevent the addition of printed ballots for verification purposes.
So they don't want an audit trail. Now, why?
They know that if the system is audited, ie a recount made and results from counting paper matched to election tallies, the numbers won't match up. OR, they are making sure the machines can secretly alter election vote totals, and don't want it known.
Since there is no profit motive, it must be incompetence, or cheating, or both.
Another possible explanation. (Score:3, Insightful)
I don't see this as (necessarily) a huge conspiracy to avoid an audit trail. This is likely a simple matter of Diebold achieving vendor lock-in with a limited feature set and then charging outrageous prices to add to that feature set.
Another non-conspiracy explanation: Printers have lots of moving parts and are highly subject to failure. That's especially true if they are used intermittently, with months of storage
Re:Here's the rub (Score:5, Insightful)
They're not claiming it's expensive, or complicated, or anything logical. They claim it's not necessary.
Now, we've plenty of data at this point, from negative tallies in Indiana to system tests by computer scientists. The tallies are not working even by Dielbold's standards. The scientists cracked the system in 5 minutes in one case, and found multiple hacks in all others that permitted them to own the voting machines, the aggregation machines, the modem communications, the voter smart cards... their conclusion: minumum effort to change vote totals at will!
Doesn't take a "conspiracy theory" to stare the truth in the face. The machines don't work as they are supposed to. The basic idea is unsound and an invitation to cheat. The system is already hacked, and the vote counts can be changed. Strange results have occured in Georgia and otherplaces: wild swings for candidates that don't match the polls. The company has fought like a rabid hyena to prevent an audit trail, even though doing so means extra profit.
I don't think the entire company is out to cheat the voters. But I find it easy to believe that either the machines don't work as advertised, or the company bigwigs may be terrified that an paper audit was run and cheating occured. I also find it humanly certain that someone in the Bush-fanatical company has it in their head to use the easy methods already known to tip a race in the Republican's favor. Why not? It's untraceable.
In any case, extremely robust printers are available for use,so fallibilty of hardware isn't an issue. Do ATM's fail to print very often? It's Diebold, they specialize in tough hardware.
Cost isn't an issue. They can charge whatever they like.
Time wasn't an issue, until they ran out the clock.
The audit trail IS the issue for them. They fundamentally deny they need one. Their reasoning is nonexistent. They simply assert it isn't necessary.
It boils down to this: they are blocking the ability to hold recounts. They don't want recounts. There must be a reason. They are capable, can charge what they like. So... they have something they don't want known. It can onlybe that tthe possiblity exists that the recount tallies won't match the original totals. Think what kind of hell would explode if the new, bulletproof system was shown conclusively to be completely untrustworthy. It would be a scandal unlike any other, especially seeing how hard they tried to hide the problem.
Fear of esposure as incompetents or fear of exposure as the enablers of a falsely elected government, take your pick. And ALL previous elections would be invalid on the evidence!
I don't think most Americans would even care, but some would. Enough to send people to prison.
Re:Here's the rub (Score:2)
"All electronic" to me means, "Not 100% safe". Unless the gizmo kicks out a paper "receipt" that the voter checks for accuracy then placed in a "lock box" for random audits, I will NEVER trust such a beast. Id rather be requesting absentee ballots.
Mod Parent Up (Score:3, Interesting)
1) Voter uses touch screen computer voting station to select candidates
2) Voting station prints a paper ballot
3) Voter checks ballot and;
a) If correct, inserts the ballot into the slot and presses an ACCEPT BALLOT button, the ballot is fed into a storage bin, and votes are stored electronically
b) If incorrect, inserts the ballot into the slot and presses a CHANGE BALLOT button, and the ballot is shredded and process
Re:Here's the rub (Score:4, Interesting)
Re:Here's the rub (Score:3, Informative)
Their server seems overloaded today so let's not all go and slashdot it right now.
Re:Here's the rub (Score:5, Interesting)
Remember that there were three debacles in Florida:
1. Diebold machines used in one county registered -16,000 votes (yes negative) for Gore. When that was corrected, and the media eventually picked up the new numbers, Gore called Bush back to rescind his earlier concilliation. I suspect that recognizing there could be an error this large inspired the idea of asking for recounts, on the hope that similar errors may have changed the outcome. Of course, there's no way to recount the electronic districts, so we'll never know if there were more Diebold problems or even if the -16,000 votes were undone correctly.
2. The butterfly ballot created confusion. How much we'll never know, but some people probably voted for someone other than who they intended to. If this was the cause of the surprising number of votes for Buchannen, then it's likely this issue alone cost Gore the election, regardless of the next point.
3. Hanging chads and the whole problem of reading intent from a punch card was the center of media attention, even though the first two issues probably had a much bigger affect on the election than this one. Yes, there was lots of debate and unstable numbers, but the official recounts and the after-the-fact audits by the media indicate that the problems with punch cards didn't skew the vote enough to make a difference.
I suspect that if the first problem didn't happen or wasn't detected, then we'd never have heard about the other two, and we wouldn't be spending millions on contemptuous, incompetent e-voting vendors like Diebold.
Re:Here's the rub (Score:5, Insightful)
Makes me wonder though, if corporate greed can be used to our advantage. Knowing that profit is the motivator, and not altruism/patriotism/whatever, means that hitting them in the wallet is the best assurance that they will play nice. It's a known target.
Maybe it's naive to assume it will work, and there will be a horde of ACs to inform me as such, but while we're in fantasy land: strict government guidelines for how electronic voting functions. Even paper ballots have a margin of error, your electronic system has to do at least as well, with a certain amount of guaranteed uptime. Certified this, authorized that. Otherwise, you'll never get that check to cash, or maybe get hit with some stiff investor-frightening fines.
Hmm, maybe strict rules like that will scare away the private sector from making voting machines, though... Hell, that works for me, too.
Re:Here's the rub (Score:5, Interesting)
Well, only in the case where the government is too trusting to draft a suitable contract to protect voters' rights.
All that's really needed is for government to stipulate that a single foul-up will result in zero payment. You can bet that would get Diebold's act together pretty quick. If they don't like that we can go back to paper ballots which have a pretty good track record; statistically reliable error is much better than the possibility of wholesale errors or even fraud.
Unfortunately, this whole electronic voting movement is just companies capitalizing on the mishaps of the 2000 election. If legislators knew anything about how computer systems actually worked, they wouldn't be so easily convinced that it's better than hanging chads.
Re:Here's the rub (Score:5, Insightful)
Afterall, consider that Diebold is one of the largest makers of ATMs in the world. Ever wonder why they can make ATMs that don't screw up your checking account balance every time you withdraw funds? Simple: banks are accountable to their customers, share holders, and various government agencies to not screw up people's finances. If someone went to the ATM and it reported they only had $18,181 (a reference to a previously reported bug on the upper limits of counted votes), when in fact they had ten times that much, there'd be a huge outcry (if the reverse happened, the bank would eventually catch it, and again there'd be a huge outcry, at least internally to the vendor). So, again, the problem isn't that Diebold is greedy (which they are) or stupid (which they are), but that the people to whom they are directly accountable (the various county registrars) have no clue what the hell they're doing.
Re:Here's the rub (Score:5, Interesting)
Re:Here's the rub (Score:5, Interesting)
Yes, the problem IS the private sector. Efficiency, quality, and reliability DOES NOT automatically follow when profit is the motivation.
The problem is not that the private sector can't produce a quality product, but rather that the government doesn't demand it
The government did demand it, they were promised it, and Diebold lied about it.
but I really think there's a better balance than the way the government operates now.
No, there isn't. Diebold does a hell of a lot worse than the government does.
What's happening here is all the people with the anti-government, pro-privatization bias are scrambling to make it look like somehow it wasn't the private sector's fault.
The government didn't demand quality (Score:3, Insightful)
Perhaps the government claimed they demanded a quality product, that doesn't mean they really did. If they had, then as soon as they discover the evidence to the contrary they will at least stop doing business with Diebold and at most sue Diebold for failing to live up to their claims and/or contracts. Have you ever bought a grossly faulty product and then continued to patronize the same company regularly afterward? The gove
Re:Here's the rub (Score:3, Insightful)
It sure does when you say:
"Your product must meet these efficiency, quality, and reliability requirements or you're not getting paid."
The government did demand it, they were promised it, and Diebold lied about it.
AND THE GOV'T KNOWS THAT DIEBOLD LIED! The gov't should have cancelled to cotract immediately and demanded their money back. The contract should have
Re:Here's the rub (Score:3, Insightful)
but it's true! the deibold voting machine deliberatly and consistantly omits one valid candidate:
the spoiled ballot.
ballot spoiling has long been a traditional form of protest against the process of the election, the limite choice of candidates or the state in general. with the diebold machines there's no effective way to spoil your ballot.
except maybe by pouring your pepsi on it.
Re:Here's the rub (Score:5, Insightful)
Re:Here's the rub (Score:4, Funny)
. . . vote for Nader.
Re:Here's the rub (Score:5, Interesting)
If you put voting machines in the hands of the private sector, the private sector will try to maximize profit. Corners will be cut. There simply isn't any way to avoid this, so long as the people making the machines are doing so to make money off the venture.
The problem isn't really with having the machines in the hands of the private sector. Moving them to the public sector just opens up other motivation to cut corners or alter results (think political). The real issue is that the driving force behind the private sector no longer has the strong balancing factor that was historically attributed to investors. A few decades ago, businesses had to carefully plan for long-term viability. Investors held them to that, and a company that made short-term gains was not necessarily considered a good investment. Enter the day trader, and everything changes. Now companies are motivated to make decisions that yield short-term gains in profits because investors unwisely jump on the short-term gains. Look at how quickly a CEO comes and goes and it becomes obvious. The incentive provided to a CEO is short-term. They come in, make a quick gain, get their compensation, and then head off to destroy another company. It doesn't matter that three years later the company they left will be in the toilet when the irregular accounting and outright lies to the public are noticed.
I'm not sure what the solution to the problem is, but somehow investors need to start holding corporations responsible for long-term success, and long-term sacrifices to yield short-term gains need to be severely punished. Believe me, if the management at Diebold knew that regardless of how much money they make now, it could all be taken away from them for unethical business practices, they would focus on quality and customer satisfaction.
Re:Here's the rub (Score:5, Insightful)
You have hit the nail squarely upon the head. The complete lack of regard for the long-term that is now endemic in the US and, increasingly, the UK is a recipe for disaster.
Assuming that there is absolutely no chance of investors (whether individual or institutional) getting a sudden attack of morality, the best way that I can conceive of to fix the problem is to use the tax system. Increase the capital gains tax on stocks and shares which are sold without being held for long and decrease the tax on long-held stocks and shares.
If taxes decayed to near zero for investments held for 25 years or more, you can bet that pension companies would start taking the long-term view. This would exert a significant beneficial pressure on the behaviour of company directors.
Re:Here's the rub (Score:5, Interesting)
The 1910's were tied up with WWI. If you were in the war material business, you did well. Investment capital was tied up in the war effort.
The 1920's made the dotcom era look sane in comaparison. Everyone was kiting "Aeroplane" related stocks, until the market tanked.
So through the 1930's and 40's you had the twin devils of the Great Depression and WWII.
The 1950's saw the birth of the Cold war.
The 1960's ... we have all seen the moves.
The 1970's was the birth of Voodoo economics and hyper-inflation as we know it, continuing on to the 90's.
The 90's we a recession tailed by a... well we all were there.
Re:Here's the rub (Score:3, Interesting)
If voting were truly privatized, you'd see a system where private firms collect and certify votes from people for a fee. Counting votes would merely be tabulating all the voting firms. This would work because if a voting firm fucked up even one vote, everyone would run
Re:Here's the rub (Score:4, Insightful)
Boycott? That's how we're supposed to keep private corporations in check?! And how, pray tell, am I supposed to boycott a company like Diebolical? Don't vote?
We don't expect the FDA to slaughter the cattle and bring it to the neighborhood store. The FDA ensures that the people who do, do so responsibly.
But we're not talking about a product that is subject to the laws of supply and demand or other market forces. The IRS is a government agency, and gets paid through taxes. But how is a private company supposed to get paid to offer voting services? Through (you guessed it) the government, the "number one cause of loss of liberty" in your words.
Or I suppose we could just institute a poll tax. The IRS and FDA get paid through taxes, right? I'm sure people won't mind their hard-earned money going into private hands for the luxury of voting.
Re:Here's the rub (Score:2)
Re:Here's the rub (Score:3, Insightful)
So why does Diebold resist selling ballot printers to go along with the machines? This is what I don't get -- all the problems are solved by printing a ballot that the voter looks at and then puts into a ballot box. These ballots can be counted, just as ballots are counted now (except they would be uch easier to count because they would be uniform and machine-generated...)
AND, Diebold would MAKE MORE MONEY! But they are resisting this to the death.
They turned to ITAA to whitewash the issue (Score:3, Interesting)
ITAA has "gone on the e-voting offensive" [fcw.com] to protect the industry. If Diebold is so concerned about producing voting accuracy, why did they go and hire a lobbyist like Harris Miller to protect their image?
And the services aren't cheap...." annual dues are calculated (they range from $600-$44K, depending on a company's sales. "Deliverables" will cost up to $200,000+". Why not
Re:Here's the rub (Score:5, Funny)
Well, hell. Here I was hoping that my opinion would have at least cleaned the kitchen while I was gone.
Lazy, good-for-nothing words...
Thank Goodness Somebody's Noticing (Score:5, Informative)
Maybe I can avoid posting a dozen times. (Score:5, Interesting)
Our voting machines are mainly of three different (internally) models: (a) the old ones, that use VirtuOS (*) as the OS, (b) the new ones, that use WinCE as the OS, and (c) the newest and deprecated ones that have the second printer to print your vote, show it to you inside a clear acrilic case, and mix it with others inside the machine.
Externally, all of them look roughly the same: a box similar to the old "portables" of the eighties, with a 5-6" diagonal LCD and a big numerical keypad in the right side of the screen, that has, besides 0-9 keys, "confirma" (ok), "erro" (cancel), and "branco" (white).
The electoral process (from the point of view of the voter) begins
In the election day, you scan the newspapers (or the Superior Electoral Court website), search for the address of your section, and go there. No, there is no transit vote, you can only vote at that address. If you can't get there, you'll have to "justify" your absence.
At the section, you will present your voter id to one the "mesários", and if you don't have it on you, you can still vote (you can show other valid id), but will be delayed. The mesário will search for your name in the vote-ticket sheet, and annex it to your id while you vote. You will sign a receipt in a sheet, and proceed to the voting "booth". Another "mesário" will type your voter id # in a remotely connected keypad, setting the machine in the "ready to vote" mode.
The voting "booth" is really a desk with the voting machine over it, facing nobody else in the room, and sometimes with a cardboard "cover" around it. You will "dial" the numbers of the candidates, in order. when you dial all the digits of one candidate, a star-trek-like chime rings, his/her face will show up in the screen, and if you digited it right, you hit "ok". otherwise, you hit "cancel" and start over. After typing all the candidates, you hit "ok" one last time, the machine chimes again, and goes to "stand by" mode. You have voted. If you don't want to vote for nobody, you can hit "white" instead of the candidate ## (accounted as a "white vote", or "none of the above" -- this is the equivalent of putting your paper ballot in the box without marking anything), or if you really want to protest you can type 9999 or other non-existent-candidate-#, and your vote will be accounted as a "null vote", or "I'm really pissed of" (the equivalent of drawing pictures or writing "improper expletives" in a paper ballot)
Then, you get your id back, your ticket (keep it together with your voter id!!), and you go home. Ah, bars do not open (theoretically) in the election day, so hope you have bought your beer in the day before).
From the point of view of election officials, things are more complicated. The machines arrive to the Electoral Judge (yes, a Judge of Law) pre-prepared one to two months
Contingencies (Score:3, Informative)
If one machine does not work, you have 2 or 3 backup machienes for each 100 or so; if they don't work, also, you do paper ballot voting in the section that machine, call in the party officials and the scrutinizers, make the count by hand (remember, each box does not have an awful lot of votes).
If your floppy goes bad, you (the Electoral Judge, I mean) writes by hand in a Superior Electoral Court program the results from that box, signs a
I wonder. (Score:4, Insightful)
Re:I wonder. (Score:3, Insightful)
Re:I wonder. (Score:2, Informative)
So, no, they were not outsourced.
If Brazil can do it... (Score:4, Informative)
I don't know about that. Seems to me, if you put the right people in charge, and keep the system as open as possible, you're far less likely to have the sorts of problems that a private firm will run into. Just like any other kind of software. More proof needed? Well, electronic voting seems to be working just fine in Brazil [cic.unb.br].
Re:I wonder. (Score:3, Insightful)
The logic, is mind numbingly simple. Just record a vote, that's all the public termanial has to do.
Some thought to security, but again nothing new here. There are several proven methods in use at this moment such as SSL/PGP/RSA/MD5 and more all the time. Some hardware security in place too, again all the tech needed here exists and is in use now. Hell, a well designed tamper-proof case would do most of the work, then
Improper Apology (Score:5, Interesting)
"We're sorry for the inconvenience of the voters," Urosevich said.
Nothing about apologizing for the problems with the product, or the fact that they didn't work. He appologizes for getting caught.
Re:Improper Apology (Score:5, Insightful)
-
Nothing about apologizing for the problems with the product, or the fact that they didn't work. He appologizes for getting caught.
Which speaks volumes about Diebold as a company. Using the phrase "We were caught" implies they willfully put the bad machines out, etc. Having the head of the company say this makes it very hard for even the most forgiving of souls to trust them.two words, (Score:5, Interesting)
Re:two words, (Score:2)
#2 pencil (Score:5, Insightful)
It's a disgrace! (Score:2, Insightful)
E-Voting? Pah (Score:2, Informative)
Re:E-Voting? Pah (Score:3, Insightful)
I can't imagine that the computer end is so difficult. The code cannot be that complex. You need a numbered menu, human input device, some switch statements, and increment counter. Maybe check for buffer overflows, etc. Save the results with high-grade encyption that requires a password to access. Give the voter a receipt with a printed confirmation hash for verification. Plus, computer hardware is such commodity items that there should be sufficiently good
Re:E-Voting? Pah (Score:3, Insightful)
The Republicans descended on the state in waves, filed gobs of lawsuits, and fired PR bullshit cannons at the TV talking heads.
The "problem" was the hysterical Republicans at the counting tables. At the doors, rioting. At the courts, delaying. On the TV, bloviating and installing doubt into people's heads.In the Supreme Court, concocting a BS, only-this-one-time decision to install their boy.
The recount of the paper ballots was going fine, no hi
Who's not surprised? (Score:4, Insightful)
"The general election is too close to fix anything now! If ONLY we'd learned about it sooner!"
Bah! (Score:3, Interesting)
It's pathetic, really, that these companies can't get it right. I can't tell if it's due to their own incompetence, or because governments are so fearful of technology that they over-compensate by making the requirements too demanding.
I mean, heck, you'd think the governments would WANT flawed software, to increase their chances of getting elected. Or perhaps, if you were conspiracy inclined, you'd think that the governments want the public to THINK the software is flawed, so they can return to the tried-and-true election rigging tactics.
Either way, the solution is to use proper software engineering principles - most likely with a strict formal specification.
Why don't we have a Federal Standard? (Score:3, Interesting)
Here in Texas, we have communities hand counting, some use optical scanning, and some even used the punch cards. We don't have to worry about shipping the votes though the Pony Express anymore, so why has there never been any effort to make standardized, open standard machines for everyone? Is it just because the states don't want to lose that power?
Re:Why don't we have a Federal Standard? (Score:3, Insightful)
For the same reason as with many other things in this country: States Rights.
This topic was widely discussed during the 2000 election, with lots of questioning about why there wasn't a standard mandated by the Federal govenment. But the elections are run by the municipalities, and not by the national government.
Re:Why don't we have a Federal Standard? (Score:3, Insightful)
You'd think that there'd be some impetus towards a minimal standard.
States Adhering to the Voluntary Federal Standard (Score:3, Informative)
The Federal Election Commission [fec.gov] has a FAQ About The National Voluntary Voting System Standards [fec.gov]. According to the FAQ [fec.gov], "[a]s of April 2001, the following States have adopted the FEC's voting system standards *OR* require the testing of systems against the standards by independent testing authorities (ITAs) designated by the National Association of S
We need more than Decertification (Score:5, Interesting)
Maybe if the company and the persons who run it were actually held responsible for their actions it might make others more likely to comply with the law.
All in all though, I'm glad California is aware of the problems and hasn't just ignored them.
Fraud (Score:5, Insightful)
Re:Fraud (Score:3, Interesting)
No on
Re:Fraud (Score:5, Informative)
Because these machines don't produce a paper trail, it will be almost impossible to catch someone rigging an election. Whatever numbers the computer spits out are the final numbers, that's it. Even when the number of votes is 10 times the number of voters (as in Evansville, IN) there is no way to recount.
There is circumstantial evidence showing election fraud here in Georgia in 2002. Our incumbent Democratic Governor and a Dem incumbent Senator both had 10% leads in the polls the week of the election. Both lost. Warehouse employees have reported that Diebold patched thier systems after the elections board had certified the software on them. Diebold certainly isn't doing the rigging themselves, but their incompetence may be letting someone else do it.
I recently read a great quote from that champion of Democracy, Joseph Stalin - "The people who cast the votes don't decide an election, the people who count the votes do."
News of the GA 2002 election:
wired.com [wired.com]
scoop.co.nz [scoop.co.nz]
-B
California officials will vote (Score:5, Funny)
Absentee Ballots (Score:4, Informative)
I have to ask (Score:5, Insightful)
People should just chill, let a team of little old ladies count PAPER BALLOTS marked in PENCIL or PEN, and get the VERIFIABLE RESULTS a week or so later.
Re:I have to ask (Score:5, Insightful)
I believe it's a case of a hammer in search of a nail. Or, to quote a sig I saw once on
It's not like the country will come to a stand-still if the results aren't known three minutes after closing the voting stations.
Re:I have to ask (Score:3, Insightful)
Totally agree, but it doesn't even need to take a week... overnight should be enough. Here in the UK, it's currently done as a paper ballot. The General Election results for the entire country are counted in time for the (new?) Prime Minister to move into 10 Downing Street the next day, rather than having a Prime-Minister-Elect for a few months. In most cases, the count is done within a few hours of the polls closing. The UK has a pretty big population, and I'd expect the ratio of banking/clerical staff
Because Americans worship technology (Score:3, Insightful)
Technology wins our wars, so it must be flawless.
We have a permanent hard-on for technology. Just look at Slashdot, for crying out loud. We're a country that worships technology for its own sake.
If it's newer, sleeker, faster, shinier, and eliminates interaction with people, we're all for it. We want a permanent state of newness. We don't care about history, or precident, or any of that bullshit.
Ready, fire, aim! It's the American Way.
Re:I have to answer (Score:3, Informative)
1) Accuracy. The main reason that everyone is junmping on the e-voting bandwagon is fear that they could preside over the next broward county, with significant numbers of voters being disenfranchised because it is impossible to be sure for whom they are voting. (Significant = greater than the margin of vict
Re:I have to answer (Score:3, Interesting)
Thank you. Much abliged.
Maybe it's not an issued because results are issued on the same day. If the entire country went to paper ballots, as I advocate, you can bet it would become an issue, toot sweet.
There is a perception that e-voting machines are more accurate then current voting systems.
Excellently qualified, and a good point.
Some electronic voting systems require that the voter check their votes and show
Grilling Diebold? (Score:2)
What about the county's responsibility? (Score:3, Insightful)
Also, while I feel bad for the folks who are having their ability to vote without assistance taken away from them, it has to be better than having broken machines at which no voting at all can take place.
This proves one thing... (Score:2)
Alameda County has been pursuing these issues ... (Score:4, Informative)
Alameda County is basically the "East Bay", ie. across the Bay from San Francisco, including Berkeley, Oakland, Fremont, etc.
Alright, I have a question. (Score:5, Insightful)
Lave the code open, let people look at it themselves, fin problems or what not
Jesus, people have created some insane stuff back in the day, what's the problem now?
I mean, Come On (Score:2, Insightful)
.... for more info and history on Diebold (Score:5, Informative)
What the problem was (Score:5, Informative)
This whole thing was a fiasco from the beginning. Not only did they use known-uncertified code, they let poll workers take the machines home, protected only by a peel-off sticker for "security". They then had a bunch of unqualified and unvetted civilans being given access to try to fix the problems. Unbelievable.
Tossing the Baby With the Bath (Score:5, Insightful)
>Today, California officials may recommend decertifying some or all of Dielbold's machines for the November General Election.
Sadly, this will include the Diebold optical scanners used in my county. Like much associated with this issue, this would be JPFN. The optically scanned ballots are much like the machine scored tests used in university classes everywhere. You fill in a bubble with a black felt pen to vote for a candidate. Simple, quick, readable with either the optical scanner or the Mark I eyeball in the event of a power failure.I am totally at a loss to understand this rush to electronic voting. As a citizen, I demand that my vote be:
- Secret
- Subject to verifiable recount
- Free from fraud
I realize that these are the ideal and that abuses have occurred under all forms of balloting yet used. However, the paper ballot and voting lists have stood the test of time. Reducing costs is not be a valid reason for mucking about with the very foundation of the democratic process.Re:Tossing the Baby With the Bath (Score:5, Insightful)
Its pretty simple really. The party in power wants electronic voting without an audit trail. They approved billions of tax payer dollars to be thrown out to local election officials to insure it was instituted and at the same time insured all the electronic voting machine manufacturers bidding on said systems were controlled by Republican partisans who no doubt went out of their way to propose systems with no paper trail. WHO COULD POSSIBLY WANT A NASTY OLD PAPER TRAIL WHEN YOU CAN HAVE THESE NIFTY ALL ELECTRONIC SYSTEMS. Votes go in here, get turned in to electrons and you magically get a vote count out the other end. Pay no attention to that man behind the curtain.
The Diebold incident in California really sounds like they were practicing for how to steal the election in November, in particular the part about installing uncertified software and getting caught. This is the #1 thing you need to accomplish to steal an election with electronic voting, installing uncertified software. I imagine they chose California to practice because California isn't likely to be a swing state and the primary didn't really count for much. The place they want to smoothly and successfully install their rigged software is in all the close swing states in November when it counts. They also want it in all the states with crucial senate contests.
Bottomline is electronic voting is a way to insure the people who control the machines, which happens to be the Republicans, can hold power if, god forbid, the majority of the electorate realize they are either incompetent or serving the interests of a minority at the expense of the majority and try to, god forbid, vote them out of power. We just can't have that. The Republicans are the only ones we can trust to save America and make the world safe for American hegemony. Those Democrats are dangerous, can't be trusted(well they can't but thats another story).
I don't imagine there are reliable statistics but its a near certainty that the default state for elections is for them to be rigged every time the opportunity exists to do so. The right wingers will no doubt lob out the standard accusation now that the Democrats are the one with the history of stealing elections. Well yes they've stolen them, the Republican's have stolen them, every party and politician, in a close race and with the opportunity to rig an election with a reasonably good chance of not getting caught will do so. Power is the ultimate drug, once people have it they will generally do anything to keep it and get more of it. Its only by nonstop tireless efforts by a large number of volunteers, concerned voters, that elections are made fair and secure. Relying on incompetent bureaucrats and politicians with mixed motives just doesn't cut it.
The gold rush caused by the billions of dollars the congress threw in to the market as a knee jerk reaction to the 2000 fiasco was certain to not create an environment where a reliable voting system would be produced and the rate of change is so high its pretty hard for concerned citizens to do much about it, though a few people are making a noble effort.
A couple nights ago one of the network news shows ran a piece on how unreliable the military mail system is and how its disenfranchising the brave warriors who are defending democracy around the world. They raised the possibility once again that the all votes of the military should be done electronically, so they could be cast in seconds. The end result being millions of votes being run through the Pentagon, with no paper audit trail, under the control of the Secretary of Defense whose job is at stake in the presidential election so he can adjust the outcome as necessary.
To be honest the U.S. in particular is reaching the point it doesn't really deserve a democracy. Maybe the Republicans should just declare a state of emergency and put democracy in the U.S. out of its misery. What's left of it at this point is barely worth saving anyway.
India (Score:3, Informative)
This should really be compared to what used to happen with ballot boxes: every Indian election has a few repolls, I'm not sure of typical numbers but 191 isn't a huge number given the size of the exercise (670 million voters, each polling station deals with around 1500 voters, you do the math). With the machines, at least you don't have the problem of thugs taking over smaller/more remote stations and "stuffing" the ballot boxes: the electoral officer can simply disable the machines.
Other polling locations seem to be operating on voter lists from 2001.
This has nothing to do with the voting machines. The machines don't contain the voter list.
The voters should demand a recount! (Score:3, Insightful)
Never mind
Our chief elections officer says "Hell, no" (Score:4, Insightful)
San Mateo County went to mark-sense machines years ago, and has had very little trouble. The ballot boxes consist of a lid with a scanner locked to a big plastic bin, so every ballot scanned is locked inside the ballot box should a recount be necessary. At the end of the election, the scanners are plugged into a phone line and transmit results to election HQ. They can be re-read later, and the ballots counted and matched against the scans if necessary, one ballot box at a time.
Other than generating huge amounts of paper, there seem to be few problems with this.
The fault is with CA (Score:4, Insightful)
The fault lay with the requirements produced by California (and any other state trying E-Voting). That is to say, none. They just said "Give us E-Voting, whatever that means"
The agencies should NOT be allowing the machine producers to define the voting method. They will invariably produce a mechanism that maximizes profit potential. How do you test the machines once you get them. You don't even understand the process since you didn't develop it. As a developer I can tell you NEVER let development produce the requirements. We miss everything and when you think you found a bug we just say "it works as designed".
The various election agencies need to come up with a definitive set of requirements for what an E-Voting machine should do. The level of detail should be excruciating.
The agencies also need to define and publish policy and procedure around these devices as well. You don't actually need to devices to do this. If they are built to your requirements then the procedures can be followed.
The kinds of requirements need to cover things like:
A paper receipt must be produced by the voting machine with human and machine readable type. If the machine readable type is not the same as the human readable type, the code produced must not be unique per voter or voter session (i.e. I can't transcribe the code and use it to prove who I voted for or you cant prove who I voted for)
The executing code must be certified (Open or not) and must then be cryptographically signed. The certified cryptographic checksum must be published 30 days before the election and each voting machine must display the checksum at all times during operation in a place that is visible to voters (i.e. I can write down the checksum and verify that the machine I'm using is using the correct version of the software)
When setting up a voting area each machine must be checked for the proper software checksum. (potentially a matching of software checksum and hardware specification, a use for Trusted Computing perhaps?)
Each machine must be able to produce test ballots for every candidate and the test ballots must be accepted by the designated reader machine. The test ballots will be conspicuously marked in a human and machine readable way. The reader will display the candidate indicated on the test ballot when reading (could be a screen, 7-seg display code, whatever).
Lots more, in much more detail that I went into...
=Shreak
Re:The fault is with CA (Score:3, Interesting)
I see more people blow hundreds of thousands of dollars sourcing things out, or trying to shoehorn COTS (or supposedly COTS) hardware and software to solve and esoteric probl
What is so hard about voting? (Score:5, Interesting)
Here in germany we draw marks into circles next to the names of the candidates. The votes are counted by hand. The results are faxed to a central bureau where they are aggregated.
This system has several advantages:
Testing? (Score:4, Insightful)
eVoting made right (Score:3, Insightful)
Diebold should be banned (Score:3, Insightful)
good news? (Score:3, Interesting)
Okay, but how many errors didn't get caught?
The accuracy of the SW and system is irrelevant (Score:3, Interesting)
An inaccuracy of as much as a few percentage points is not going to result in better/worse government. Once you're within a few percentage points, the only clear thing is that a clear decision has not been made. We desperately need to start asking "why"? Are the two sides really that close in appeal or is something being rigged (whether intentionally or as a side effect of the system is not really relevant)?
Candidates that win by a few percentage points haven't really won, they've just survived the election process. They still have a huge portion of their constituency unrepresented... No, actually unrepresented isn't right because in many cases today, those the vast majority of those that didn't vote for the candidate that won are in fact diametrically opposed to the candidates views. So, they aren't unrepresented. Instead they are actively misrepresented or, even attacked by their representative.
What our system is missing is a means to force a progression beyond this 50/50 stage.
One of the problems is accountability. It is hard to progress when someone can represent themselves one way during the election process and then act another way when in office. I think the primary problem with this is that the platform they run on is never proven or disproven. So, it can be brought up again and argued about again without being able to point back at facts.
Another major issue is that the platforms are incomplete. Candidates are running on the basis of what they will do about a couple dozen problems and then going off and making decisions on 1000s of problems. Their decisions on the side issues frequently don't match up to what you would think. Basically, I believe the issue here is that the debate is over issues instead of principles. If you could elect on the basis of a detailed knowledge of a candidate's principles and then have some means of holding them accountable to those principles at least in a broad sense, you'd be doing much better.
So, my hypothesis is that as long as there are no candidates (and no means in the system to force those candidates to come about) that can present a clear belief system and be trusted to follow that in their governing regardless of pressures placed on them by supposed constituents that often really don't have any real care about the principles of government, the system for electing them is irrelevant because we can't have a stable and progressing debate and discovery of who is right and who is wrong. Real progress will be elusive.
I'd like to see a "another choice please" option added to the ballots. If "another choice please" wins, I think the position should be left open with no provision to temporarily fill it. At least the representatives left after the initial fallout are the clear choices of SOMEBODY!!! I believe that most people would rather not be represented at all than be misrepresented to the degree that they are today.
Simply adding this option to the ballot and handling it in the specified way would likely force a major change very quickly. I think that we'd find the majority of the country unrepresented in the first election. But, that would be good, because it is already the truth, just one that the current system glosses over. Bringing it out would show the naked truth, our system of government has departed from representing the people to such an extent that our government has in fact failed.
An interesting side question to ask is "who is running our government"?. Ultimately, the answer is "whoever chose the representatives" because they are who the representatives answer to. Some think that the choice is by the people. They are wrong as long as the choice is from a rigged pool of candidates. My answer is "whoever is rigging the pool of candidates", because the fundamental differences in what the candidates from the supposedly different sides are doing in Washington has mostly disappeared. From a long term view, all of the candidates are taking power and money away from the people and cent
Re:The accuracy of the SW and system is irrelevant (Score:3, Insightful)
Third parties try to flip the paradigm and appeal to larg
Cost of Failure is higher for ATMs (Score:2)
Re:Uhhhh how hard can it be? (Score:2)
Re:The hypocrisy of the Democrat Party (Score:3, Informative)
hmmmmm....maybe items such as these [usatoday.com] make them that way perhaps?
Come on now, insist on accuracy in both the census AND vote counting.
Agreed.