Observer Pans Touchscreen Voting Test 278
riversidevoter continues: "WinEDS, the program that is used to count votes, was only tested in a pre-election mode. The software was not tested in the configuration that it would be in on election day.
In addition to that, people signed a form that said that they had verified the results of the test before the test had finished running. Mischelle Townsend, the Riverside County Registrar of Voters, told Salon that the form that people signed was just an attendance form. But the form clearly states 'We the undersigned declare that we observed the process of
logic and accuracy testing of voting equipment performed by the Riverside County
Registrar of Voters, as required by law and that all tests performed resulted in accurate
voting of all units tested, including both touchscreen and absentee systems.'
You can see a copy of the Salon article here. You can see a copy of the form that people signed here.
I also believe that the observation group that witnessed the test was given a misleading description of Sequoia's system. For example, the fact that the votes are transferred from the DRE to a SQL Server database to be counted was never fully disclosed to all the members of the group.
Also, the sheer number of times that the phrase 'proprietary operating system' was used, among other things, helped to create the impression that Sequoia's system is not as reliant on Microsoft Windows as it really is.
I have created a website about this issue; please take a look at it.
On the website you can find my report on what happened that day (which outlines several problems I haven't mentioned in this posting) as well as some supporting documents. There is a letter and a note from Mischelle Townsend in which she mentions mailing the results to people or having the test results be picked up 'afterwards'...."
Civil Disobedience against DMCA and Diebold (Score:5, Informative)
The Good students at have decided this will not stand. [swarthmore.edu]
http://verifiedvoting.org (Score:4, Informative)
This site, rather than coninually dispairing at the fact that there are problems with electronic voting, has concrete steps that average citizens can take to make change.
Re:Civil Disobedience against DMCA and Diebold (Score:5, Informative)
http://why-war.com/memos/s/lists/
Search the diebold memos:
http://why-war.com/memos/cgi-bin/search.pl
MEMO EXCERPTS
"Elections are not rocket science. Why is it so hard to get things right! I have never been at any other company that has been so miss [sic] managed."
source: http://why-war.com/memos/s/lists/announce.w3archiv e/200110/msg00002.html
"I have become increasingly concerned about the apparent lack of concern over the practice of writing contracts to provide products and services which do not exist and then attempting to build these items on an unreasonable timetable with no written plan, little to no time for testing, and minimal resources. It also seems to be an accepted practice to exaggerate our progress and functionality to our customers and ourselves then make excuses at delivery time when these products and services do not meet expectations."
source: http://why-war.com/memos/s/lists/announce.w3archiv e/200110/msg00001.html
"I feel that over the next year, if the current management team stays in place, the Global [Election Management System] working environment will continue to be a chaotic mess. Global management has and will be doing the best to keep their jobs at the expense of employees. Unrealistic goals will be placed on current employees, they will fail to achieve them. If Diebold wants to keep things the same for the time being, this will only compound an already dysfunctional company. Due to the lack of leadership, vision, and self-preserving nature of the current management, the future growth of this company will continue to stagnate until change comes."
source: http://why-war.com/memos/s/lists/announce.w3archiv e/200112/msg00007.html
"[T]he bugzilla historic data recovery process is complete. Some bugs were irrecoverably lost and they will have to be re-found and re-submitted, but overall the loss was relatively minor."
source: http://why-war.com/memos/s/lists/support.w3archive
"28 of 114 or about 1 in 4 precincts called in this AM with either memory card issues "please re-insert", units that wouldn't take ballots - even after recycling power, or units that needed to be recycled. We reburned 7 memory cards, 4 of which we didn't need to, but they were far enough away that we didn't know what we'd find when we got there (bad rover communication)."
source: http://why-war.com/memos/s/lists/support.w3archive
"If voting could really change things, it would be illegal."
source: http://why-war.com/memos/s/lists/support.w3archive
"I need some answers! Our department is being audited by the County. I have been waiting for someone to give me an explanation as to why Precinct 216 gave Al Gore a minus 16022 when it was uploaded. Will someone please explain this so that I have the information to give the auditor instead of standing here "looking dumb"."
source: http://why-war.com/memos/s/lists/support.w3archive
"[...] while reading some of Paranoid Bev's scribbling."
source: http://why-war.com/memos/s/lists/support.w3archive
"Johnson County, KS will be doing Central Count for their mail in ballots. They will also be processing these ballots in advance of the closing of polls on election day. They would like to log into the Audit Log an entry for Previewing any Election Total Reports. They need this, to prove to the media, as well as, any candidates & lawyers, that they did not view or print any Election Results before the Polls closed. ***However, if there is a way that we can disable the reporting functionality, that would be even better.***" (emphasis added)
source: http://why-war.com/memos/s/lis
Petition on voting machines (Score:5, Informative)
http://www.workingforchange.com/activism/petition
How to help in 3 steps (Score:3, Informative)
1) The students engaging in this civil disobedience are meeting with the Dean of their college Wednesday, October 22nd at 4pm. We need you to email *nice* and *supportive* emails to rgross1 (at) swarthmore.edu and cc them to info (at) why-war.com *before* October 22nd at 4pm EST. Please help Dean Bob Gross understand the importance of this issue!
2) Download the entire memo archive:
http://why-war.com/memos/s/lists.tgz
3) Join the disobedience by hosting the memos
Re:Unfortunate. (Score:3, Informative)
Re:A method for electronic voting accountability (Score:2, Informative)
Re:Unfortunate. (Score:4, Informative)
Maybe use the UN, Canada or Mexico to supervise the election hardware. (never happen)
I believe this system could be another jack boot on the neck of freedom.
Re:Oh man... (Score:3, Informative)
Is 'No' a good answer?
In Canada we conduct federal and provincial elections using old-fashioned paper ballots. The ballots are black, with each candidate's name block printed in white next to an open white circle (names in alphabetical order by surname). To vote, put a mark in one--and only one--circle. Easy to count, easy to use. In principle, I suppose ballots marked in such a way could be counted mechanically, too, but we don't do that.
The last time I worked during an election, the counting was done in about two hours, and the provincial results were announced essentially in their entirety before midnight. Even for people hung up on the horse race aspect of elections, there's lots of counts available to the networks starting from about a half hour after the close of voting. Yes, more people are required to hand count, but it's worth the price--and completely auditable.
Incidentally, how do the blind vote with a touch screen? In Canada, we have available Braille cards that slide over top of the ballot; open holes are left in the template that correspond to the white circles on the ballot. The blind can mark their vote, remove the template, and fold the ballot so that their right to a secret vote is preserved.