Sequoia Vote Machine Can't Do Simple Arithmetic?

whoever57 writes "Ed Felten is showing a scan of the summary from a Sequoia voting machine used in New Jersey. According to the paper record, the vote tallies don't add up — the total number of Republican ballots does not match the number of votes cast in the Republican primary and the total number of Democratic ballots does not match the number of votes cast in the Democratic primary. Felten has a number of discussions about the problems facing evoting, up to and including a semi-threatening email from Sequoia itself." Update: 03/20 23:30 GMT by J : Later today, Felten added an update in which he analyzes Sequoia's explanation. He has questions, comments, and a demand.

Count from Zero

[jibster]

Both tallies are out by 1 count. Could it be the one is counting from zero and the other from one?

On the bright side at least the error will vanish as the number of votes approaches infinity :)

it's like the Kempelen's chess machine

[someone1234]

The little gnome in the machine made a slight error. So what?

A Common Problem.

[oahazmatt]

Considering that this article was listed as showing "11 of 3 Comments" I think this is quite a common problem.

Re:Hypocrisy

[B3ryllium]

I love that the machine is named the "Advantage".

But, then again, I'm from Canada - land of paper-based voting. :)

Slashdot Polls

[ke5aux]

Ok, thats it! We need the source code for /. polls.

Re:Count from Zero

[91degrees]

I suspect it's actually a data error. Dems have one too many, GOP have one too few. This is exactly the number of votes cast for Guiliani. They could have simply set him to the wrong party.

Re:Slashdot Polls

[ke5aux]

Well, looks like they have nothing to hide so it's not worth it.

Guaranteed results

[revery]

What we need is a company like Diebold or Sequoia to step up and guarantee the results of an election. I'm thinking the line could be: "If within the first 30 days, you're not 100% thrilled with the results of the election, we'll give you your old Republic back". That's right, the Republic-back guarantee, you heard it here first.

Re:How is this possible?

[Anonymous Coward]

I honestly do not understand how companies screw up something as simple as a voting machine. A first year CS student could write it in Java in a weekend.

I'd entrust my vote to Diebold before I entrusted it to a machine programmed in Java by a first year CS student.

The only possible explanation is that the votes are intentionally being miscounted.

No it isn't. A more likely explanation is that the machine was programmed in Java by a first year CS student.

(OK enough knocking first year CS students who think anything can be done in Java. We've all seen and heard them though.)

BTW, how you doing in your Java class man?

(I couldn't help myself. Really I couldn't.)

Re:Count from Zero

[bryce4president]

If the voting machine used some sort of "stance on issues" to determine the party of the candidate I could see how they thought Guliani was a Dem, but since it should just be some field that is entered, maybe the data entry person got it mixed up :)

Re:it's like the Kempelen's chess machine

[why-is-it]

The little gnome in the machine made a slight error. So what?

Maybe they should try running KDE instead?

It's quite obvious what happened

[whitehatlurker]

The machine counted the vote for Giuliani as being for the Democratic party.

Re:Count from Zero

[Anonymous Coward]

Chicago has the simplest system. My Teamsters local told me how I had voted. I never even left my house.

Re:Maybe the votes were not placed?

[Anonymous Coward]

and top-brand CS schools (I'm thinking MIT, Apache Foundation, Cal Tech, Carnegie Mellon, Case Western, etc)

One of those universities doesn't belong on this list. I bet you can tell me which one!