Orange County: More E-Ballots Cast Than Voters 434
"David Hart, chairman of Texas-based Hart InterCivic, which manufactured Orange County's voting system, said it would be impossible to identify which voters cast ballots in the wrong precincts because of steps the company had taken to ensure voter secrecy. For this reason, an exact account of miscast ballots is impossible. The good news, if the folks there can be believed, is that there is no evidence yet that any result is in jeopardy. In a masterpiece of understatement, elections system analyst Kim Alexander is quoted as saying, "Certainly this kind of problem that's occurred in Orange County doesn't do anything to contribute to greater confidence in electronic voting systems." Steve Rodermund, Orange County's registrar of voters, is quoted as saying that despite the problems, he is satisfied with the performance of Orange County's new electronic voting system."
Re:I don't get it (Score:1, Informative)
Re:I don't get it (Score:5, Informative)
Post misrepresents story (Score:5, Informative)
Not a problem with electronic voting... (Score:5, Informative)
Re:I guess nobody cares.... (Score:3, Informative)
Glitch in the Matrix?
lack of insecurity, (Score:4, Informative)
(besides seeing that it was manned by a bunch of old ladies who wouldn't know how to operate the machines themselves)
The machines use no internet connection, in fact the number of cards, steps, and the size of the voting system makes it "almost" impossible to hack.
Brief description for those of you who have not come into contact or heard of the system yet:
You walk in and provide them with your name, they hand you a card with a smart chip (flash memory) and you walk over to the tablet-computer-like voting machines to cast your vote. At this point your name is on the flash memory, and when you insert the card you can begin the voting process. the only cord leading away from the unit was a power cord and I didn't pick up any WiFi signals with my ears.
You continue your voting, and the selections you made on the screen are put onto the card when you finish. Then your card is ejected back into your sweaty little palms.
you hand said unmarked card to the attendant and she puts it safely with the others. I've also heard the cards are kept for a manual tally back at the voting offices.
What is so great about this you ask? Well considering that the machines are not biased and that the people who built or were contracted to build them did not tamper with them, there is very little chance for a misread vote, or a "purposefully changed" vote. On the other hand from the information I've gathered the system is also open to a more wide spread hack or foul play because of it's final form: mass data statistics. one file or even multiple files holding numbers...MUCH easier to change as opposed to 6 million ballots, but at the same time much harder unless you have the knowledge or skill set which is (I suppose) very steep, deep, and wide.
Weighing all of the factors, I believe that the system is just about as secure as before, but it still needs a lot of work. (it could be ten times better, easily .
We were getting it right (Score:4, Informative)
We were getting it right before this. We had minor problems here and there, but nothing that drastic. Then, Florida. Because it was the deciding state, the vote was extremely close, and it had no uniform standards for what counted as a 'vote,' it became a battle to the death that had to be settled by the courts finally. And because of inherent "flaws" that hadn't caused any big problems up to then, the ACLU sued everyone who was using the punch bllot and forced them to go to new methods which produced (surprise) chaos the first time out. My city had clueless poll workers who couldn't even boot their machines for hours at the beginning, turning away hundreds or thousands (no one is sure even now) of voters. Even scarier, the poll workers were getting assisted by walk-in voters who had technical knowledge and were helping them to fix the problems. I heard one guy on the radio talking about how he'd poked around in the OS (WIndows CE, no less) on the Diebold machine, looking for the missing application. A number of poll workers took the manines home after they were trained and stored them in their garages until voting day. The 'seal' was a sticker that could be easily removed and reapplied without detection. Not exactly what you'd call secure. Tell me this is better than what we had, I dare you. Thanks, ACLU!
Actually, we were not getting it right (Score:5, Informative)
This is bullshit. The ACLU and NAACP wanted shorter lines [63.135.96.161] and a felon list that included only, you know, felons.
In fact the debacle in Florida showed us we WEREN'T getting it right and we needed a federal standard, like most western nations, but the states were sold on the 'digital voting' snake-oil and here we are. And make no mistake about it, they were sold on this knowing full well how easily these machines can be manipulated.
'Tis politics as usual.
Re:How do either of you know? (Score:3, Informative)
In terms of how the votes are counted, I think that if you marked your ballot incorrectly, it's just counted as spoiled (so no vote for any candidate, nor do they try to figure out who you voted for). Quite frankly, I like this system, if you can't properly fill out the ballot, your vote shouldn't count, and there shouldn't be a guess as to what you meant.
I think that part of the simplicity of Canada's voting system is that there are usually at most six candiates on the ballot, since you only vote for the representative of your riding.
Read the instructions that come with the ballot If you run into a problem, ask for assistance, that's what the volunteers are there for.
-- Joe
Re:I don't get it (Score:2, Informative)
I may not know California, but there is one obvious example: Governor Ronald Reagan [ca.gov].
Re:I don't get it (Score:5, Informative)
Why repeat it if you are not sure. Before our Democratic Governor was recalled, Pete Wilson was the Governor of California, a republican.
California has a very liberal state assembly because of how the districts are laid out, however Californians tend to vote conservative. In recent years we passed propositions to get rid of bilingual education, stop illegals from getting government assistance, only recognize a marriage between a man and a woman, and recall our Democratic governor.
The idea of a Republican taking California in a presidential election is not far fetched at all.
Re:I don't get it (Score:5, Informative)
Spare me the open source mantra of it's "The only way to know your vote is counted". As big of a fan of OSS as I am open source would do nothing to make sure my vote is properly counted.
You might say "Sure we can view the source" but how can you A) Make sure that's the source running on the machine; B) Make sure the results aren't edited after the election (vi results anyone?).
The only way for e-voting to be secure (open source or closed) is with a paper audit trail. Print me out a paper ballot based on my voting selections and let me drop it into a drop box. Until that happens I won't trust any e-voting system (closed or open source | copyleft or copyright). Anything else has the potential of being fucked with. I don't trust any balloting scheme that can't be recounted by my 85 year old Grandmother who volunteers for election day -- and neither should you.
Re:I don't get it (Score:5, Informative)
OK, let's look:
(source: Dave Leip's Atlas of U.S. Presidential Elections [uselectionatlas.org]
Year Candidate who got CA electors
2000 Al Gore (D)
1996 Bill Clinton (D)
1992 Bill Clinton (D)
1988 George Bush, Sr (R)
1984 Ronald Reagan (R)
1980 Ronald Reagan (R)
1976 Gerald Ford (R)
1972 Richard Nixon (R)
1968 Richard Nixon (R)
1964 Lyndon Johnson (D)
I think 40 years is far enough for now. Anyone who's interested go back further on their own.
Now, what do we learn from this, kids? That California is just as likely to vote for a Republican as a Democrat. To state otherwise is foolish.
Two precincts, one polling place? (Score:1, Informative)
Why the FUCK do you have more than one precinct assigned to one polling place? That is just asking for trouble.
In Pennsylvania each polling precinct is broken down into wards. Each ward has one, and ONLY one, polling place to vote at for that particular voting area. If you show up at the wrong polling place it is recognized very quickly since your name is not in the book you must sign in order to vote. The book has a copy of your signature so the two can be compared.
No wonder Florida has such a difficult time running a fair election, their system is designed to sow confusion and obfuscation.
There is no legitimate reason to have a polling place service more than one voting area no matter how many safeguards are put in place. That's just being lazy.
Re:We were getting it more right than now (Score:2, Informative)
Actually, I'd like to point out that those horrid ballots were only used in a single Florida county, Palm Beach county. A large number of counties here in Florida use optical scan ballots. These ballots, at least in the form we use where i live (Orange County) easily satisfy 1, 2 and 3 on your list above. And the poll workers easily satisfy 4.
1. Each candidate's name has a broken arrow next to it. You use a special marker to connect the two parts of the arrow next to the candidate you want to vote for.
2. After completeing your ballot you put it into a machine that scans it right there in the precinct. If you have marked your ballot in an invalid way (ie voting for two candidates for the same office) the machine spits the ballot back out and the poll workers will destory it and issue you a new ballot. I believe the law gives you 4 or 5 trys to get it right. Not that anyone should need more than one try with this ballot.
3. Since the ballot is collected, and has the candidates names on it right next to the place where people mark there vote, the ballots are in human readable form. And if you accidently mark the wrong candidate, you can ask the poll worker to destroy your ballot and give you another one, and again you have those same 4 or 5 trys to get it right. Not that any person should even need a second try, but it's there just in case.
4. While the ballot itself doesnt verify that people are in the right place, the poll workers do. They have a list of every voter in their precinct. When you come into vote, they ask for photo id, and if you use some id other than your driver's license they ask for your address. They then locate your name on the roll and verify your address, and have you sign the roll.
The country is being stolen from us.... (Score:2, Informative)
Re:Actually, we were not getting it right (Score:2, Informative)
No. The list included people with *misdemeanors* from outside the state of Florida. The decision to throw out their votes was that of data mining company ChoicePoint, a private entity."
The problem with the 'felon list' in Florida is that it had several errors that caused it to illegally exclude many voters. For example:
- People who were felons who had their right to vote restored (35 states allow felons to vote once they've served their time, and you retain that even if you move to Florida).
- People with similar names, age and race as a felon from another state. Yes, if any white male named something like "John Smith" around the age of 30 was arrested anywhere, all similar John Smith's in Florida lost their votes.
- They initially matched anyone who was a rough match, which was then supposed to be "scrubbed" by DBT (the private contractor) calling the person to verify their identity and status. DBT was told by the state not to actually call any "felons" but blocked all possible matches from the lists.
The result was that a huge number of non-felons (who happened to have the wrong name) and ex-felons who were legally allowed to vote were denied their votes. For example, Madison County's elections supervisor Linda Howell
Given the documentation provided by the private contractor (they warned that the list had significant overcounting, and were told by the state not to attempt to cross-check or call the "felons" in order to eliminate false records) I personally suspect that this was an intentional attempt by the state to eliminate a significant number of likely Democratic voters.
Re:We were getting it more right than now (Score:3, Informative)
Note: a simple verification method is to just have all voting districts in separate locations. Then you don't have the problem of miscoded smart cards or incorrect machines. I suppose that they could issue incorrect ballots, but not by mixing them.
Re:Workaround (Score:2, Informative)
That's good.
But -- just to be clear. I don't think it is important, or even a good idea for me to have a paper copy of my vote. In fact, sending me out of the polling place with a copy of how I voted is a potential violation of the secret ballot.
One could imagine how this would work in some third world country. Perhaps the national police or an organized militia or gang could force people to vote a certain way -- and could check on them by asking to look at their ballot copy. This is not that far fetched of a scenario even in the USA. Here in Orange County, we have had instances of "volunteers" policing (and intimidating) Latino voters at polling places to prevent voting by "illegal aliens." The potential abuses are enough to require that no one leave a polling place with a paper ballot showing how they voted.
The point to having a paper ballot is so that I can stuff it into a box (after I have verified that it is correct) at the polling location where it gets mixed with all the other ballots and cannot be traced back to me. The paper ballots are then stored using an auditable, public and secure method. They are them made available for random audits and manual recounts to verify the integrity and correctness of the vote.
I made another post here [slashdot.org] about the problems with Orange Counties "access codes" and how they endanger the concept of the secret ballot.