San Diego Diebold Poll Worker's Report Posted 316
James Renken writes "I was a poll worker in San Diego for this year's primary election. It was the county's first using Diebold voting machines, and as you may have heard, we ran into some problems! My full report of the goings-on can be found at Live from the Nuke Free Zone. Enjoy!"
just in case - full text (Score:5, Informative)
On March 2nd, I was a poll worker for this year's California primary election. More specifically, I was a Systems Inspector in San Diego county, whose problems with voting machines and procedures received some coverage in the national media.
First, a summary of my personal opinion: I think that current electronic voting systems are better than the traditional systems in terms of security, and also in terms of usability for most people. However, I share the opinion of many bloggers that major security issues remain in the new machines and implementations, and that these issues should already have been fixed.
More details below...
This was San Diego's first election using electronic voting machines - specifically, Diebold AccuVote-TSx stations. Previous elections in the county used punch cards. The county failed to make the mandated upgrade prior to the last election, and a federal court ordered that it be done for this primary.
Previously, precinct boards in the county were made up of an Inspector, an Assistant Inspector, and clerks. As of this election, a Systems Inspector and an Assistant Systems Inspector have been added at each precinct. According to the Registrar of Voters, this is because a four-hour training session would have been required in order for Inspectors to learn both the general procedures and how to operate the machines. Instead, most of the technical details are left to the Systems Inspectors.
I was contacted and assigned as a Standby Systems Inspector, meaning that if necessary, I would stand in for a missing Systems Inspector or Assistant Systems Inspector in my part of the county. The standby system is apparently not used very much; they forgot to handle some details, like sending me a copy of the poll worker's manual, or notifying me that the location for the mandatory training had changed. Fortunately, I'm fairly resourceful, and the classes were running late anyway.
In the class, we were introduced to how the system works. Along with the usual paperwork and supplies, each precinct has:
* A Precinct Control Model (PCM).
* A number of voting stations (either four, six, or eight).
* Two Voter Access Cards (VACs) per station, plus one or two extras.
* Two Supervisor Cards.
A poll worker (usually the Systems Inspector) sits in front of the PCM. One poll worker has each voter sign the roster, while another checks the voter's address on another list. That second worker points to the appropriate line on the address list, and the PCM operator sees which party to program a ballot for - with the party name never said aloud.
The PCM operator then selects the party on the PCM's touchscreen, and inserts any one of the Voter Access Cards (VACs) for programming. The VAC is then given to the voter, who inserts the VAC into any one of the stations, and is then presented with the ballot for their party. After casting their ballot, the voter's VAC is ejected, and the voter is instructed to give it back to the poll staff. The VAC itself is not a ballot at all - it just authorizes a voting station to bring one up, and tells it which party's ballot to display. After a ballot has been cast using a VAC, it must be reprogrammed on the PCM prior to being used again.
We were warned that some voters might try to cheat by claiming that they received the wrong party's ballot. We were advised that, should this happen, we should insert the card in a station to make sure that it had not been used to cast a ballot already; then, add one to the tally sheet of programmed but uncast ballots, and reprogram the VAC after checking the voter's registered party on the street address list.
That was about it. We were shown the startup and shutdown procedures for the machines, and cast a few sample ballots with them. The regular poll workers were noted on a list, and some paperwork or other was handled. I asked about getting ahold of a poll worker's manual, and was promptly given one from a large box that was sit
What is wrong with paper ballots ? (Score:4, Insightful)
Why can't yopu make that work in the US ?
Paper ballots are most accurate (Score:3, Insightful)
The 2004 Democratic primary had a turnout pattern [gojre.com] of primary-specific apathy (lower than expected votes) and caucus-specific inspiration (high and record high votes). Why did the New York primary record a 20-year low turnout on the same day that the Minnesota caucus recorded a 33-year high turnout?
South Carolina's state Dem party fought pressure from the national Dems to institute a loyalty oath [johnedwards2004.com] for voters, which w
Re:just in case - full text (Score:2, Funny)
[ ] You posted a Religious Thread
[ ] You posted a accusation with no proof
[ ] You posted a thread containing 1337 talk
[ ] You posted a me > u thread
[ ] you posted a worthless offensive thread
[ ] You continued a long, stupid thread
[ ] You committed crimes against pork biproducts
[ ] You posted a "YOU ALL SUCK" message
[ ] You haven't read the FAQ
[ ] You don't know which forum to post in
[ ] You just plain suck
[ ] You posted false information
[ ] You posted something totally unint
Recount? (Score:5, Insightful)
"I think that current electronic voting systems are better than the traditional systems in terms of security, and also in terms of usability for most people."
But how are those Diebold machines at allowing a recount? Do they finally create a paper trail, or is it still "faith-based voting"?
Re:Recount? (Score:4, Insightful)
--
Slashdotted today already, can I survive another? [dealsites.net]
Re:Recount? (Score:5, Insightful)
No hanging chad problems... but no pieces of paper at all to count wasn't the solution we were looking for.
Re:Recount? (Score:2, Informative)
Physically compromising the paper storage area presents the same risk as traditional ballots, so the risk presently by the undoubtedly insecure Diebold implementation is the only real concern. Of course, if the machines aren't accessible by any remote hosts, then bit-by-bit or hash verification of the drives before and after voting should prov
Re:Recount? (Score:2, Troll)
Makes be wonder about the quality of ink used, as I've seen some of the cheap stuff my university uses degrade to illegibility in about three months. Election disputes certainly can draw on for quite a while, and thus raises a red flag with me. Can't recount the votes if you can't see what's on the paper.
Re:Recount? (Score:5, Informative)
Re:Recount? (Score:4, Informative)
I voted in the SD election as well, and in fact, I was one of the people who asked for a paper receipt. It was denied.
There is a printer, but it's used only to print a tally of votes received at that machine. Nothing says that the data can't get corrupted before it gets there.
Re:Recount? (Score:4, Informative)
Re:Recount? (Score:3, Interesting)
But isn't a systematic compromise the main concern? How do you know that the code has not been written to detect a real ballot day (by dates, or the number of votes cast) and then alter both the electronic and paper count?
The point is that the count cannot be certified because there are steps in the process that are resistent to certificatio
Re:Recount? (Score:5, Insightful)
Many things can go wrong. For example.
1) The machines could be programmed to favor one party or another. No matter who the voter selects the machine one out of a thousand times switches the vote. If only one out of a thousand voters notice the discrepency the party gains power and grants more govt contracts to diebold.
2) the machines could skew the results enough to beat the margin for a recount. If the politician A wins by more then 5% then no recount will be triggered and nobody is wiser for it.
As long as commercial companies are making these machines and as long as those companies are allowed to lobby and bribe politicians the process is suspect. The software should be open source period. The machines should be imaged at secure locations under tight surveillance and should be accounted for 100% of the time they are in use.
elections are too important to trust to corporations with political agendas. The profit motive is just too great not the mess with things.
A receipt is not enough (Score:3, Insightful)
Say it prints out the vote. The tally still says what CEO "I am committed to delivering Ohio's electoral votes to G.W. Bush" wants the tally to say.
Canada counts paper ballots under the watchful eye of partisans, and gets it done in a few hours. How many ballots can you count in an hour? Hire enough counters and let the parties watch. Done fsking deal.
I was in the odd position of b
As you may have heard? (Score:2, Informative)
And this. [slashdot.org]
And probably a few more links I could karma whore with.
Security by Confusion? (Score:5, Insightful)
We'd be much better off with a system that produces prints a human readable and machine readable piece of paper, and then put those pieces of paper into a ballot box. At least, when the security of a box in plain sight gets compromised we know that something happened... the worst case here is swearing in a losing candidate.
Re:Security by Confusion? (Score:5, Funny)
George W. just called and wants to meet with you to discuss your idea.
Re:Security by Confusion? (Score:3, Insightful)
Re:Security by Confusion? (Score:2)
Re:Security by Confusion? (Score:2)
Of course the fact that nader took three or four percent of the vote and the thousands of people accidentally voted for Buchanan also helped him out immensely.
I think it's pretty safe to say that the majority of the people in florida did not want him in office.
BTW if you think state politicians don't look at polls you need to put your crack pipe down. The only difference between your state legila
Re:Security by Confusion? (Score:3, Insightful)
My point is, the Senate was originally intended to represent the State's interests, not the people within the state - at least not directly. The way things are now we may as well have just a Congress or just a Senate; they are both elected in the same manner. Both sides only want to *please* their constitu
Re:Security by Confusion? (Score:2, Insightful)
Here are the core problems built into the constituion. Things can not get better till they are changed.
1) The idea that artifical geographical boundries matter. There is no reason my voting choices should be limited by where I live. Whether it's the state or the neigborhood where I live should have no bearing on who I am allowed to vote on.
2) winner take all elections. It's not fair that a person who wins 50.01% of the vote gets to shit on half the population that di
Re:Security by Confusion? (Score:3, Insightful)
Artificial geographical boundaries are still our best approximation of representation. Gerrymandering laws recognize that minority voting blocks can be either held together or split apart when drawing the lines, and splitting them up is in many cases illegal. People st
Re:Security by Confusion? (Score:4, Insightful)
Many problems that voter face are somewhat geographic in nature, though. There's no way you can maintain the argument that problems in East Texas can be adequately represented by someone living in Northern California, or even West Texas. Not to mention which, geographic representation allows the representative to (theoretically) maintain a perspective on those problems.
It's not fair that a person who wins 50.01% of the vote gets to shit on half the population
That's a problem of human nature. It's not necessarily right, but it's also not something that can be easily solved until you get people into office who actually care about those they represent. The system is built to attract a certain type of person drawn to power. Perhaps, instead of drafting people into the military, we should draft them into public representation instead.
Third parites just don't stand a chance
Not entirely true. There is some representation by third parties at state levels. The third party voters are pretty scattered throughout the US and do not form a concentrated voting bloc in any one area.
Who the fuck needs a president anyway
Well, the Constitution calls for it, so unless you change the Constitution, we're stuck with it. Not to mention which, having a President allows us to have a single representative of the entire nation to deal with other nations, when it is really necessary. Most of the time, the job seems redundant or unnecessary, since most of the contact is handled through lower level representatives, but on occasion, someone has to make the hard decision and do it in a decisive way.
Just because you don't like the one we've got (and believe me, I wouldn't pee on him if he was on fire, in the figurative AND literal sense), doesn't mean the Office is not necessary on occasion.
Re:Security by Confusion? (Score:2)
I think it's pretty safe to say that the majority of the voting age people in Florida are idiots. 5 year olds had no problem with their ballots, yet 60 year olds were "confused". If you can't follow simple directions, you really shouldn't be voting.
Re:Security by Confusion? (Score:2)
1) If 5-year-olds were voting, that's a sure sign that something funny was going on.
2) Did you see a picture of the ballot? not only was the butterfly design rather confusing, it was actually misprinted in many locations, so that the arrow for Gore was halfwa
Re:Security by Confusion? (Score:4, Informative)
To say Bush won every media recount (those are the recounts that happened after the election) is a distortion. The truth is Bush won every recount using only undervotes (i.e. where the problem with the ballot was a hanging chad or there was only a dimple) (See USA Today [usatoday.com]). That is the most widely used standard, and the one that Gore was asking for, so ultimately Bush won. Fine.
But I think it might worth at least mentioning that if you include the overvotes (such as where people checked Gore and wrote in Gore) Gore won. That is to say, if the standard is voter intent, in every recount more people went to the polls intending to vote for Gore than Bush. So when you say Bush won every recount, be sure and include that little footnote, because otherwise people may think you are being dishonest. See Guardian. [guardian.co.uk] See USA Today. [usatoday.com] See Salon. [salon.com] See Washington Post. [washingtonpost.com]
And you know, maybe if minority votes counted for as much as a non-minority vote, that would make a difference. See New York Times. [nytimes.com]
Personally before Florida, I thought the voter's intent was the standard. How silly.
Then there was the minorities being intimidated at the polls thing. Then there was Republican officials writing on a bunch of ballots to "fill in missing information." I'm not saying they didn't just fill in missing social security numbers, but it is obviously a violation of election standards to have partisan non-election officials writing on ballots. There are media references for all this stuff too. Go find them yourself. I'm tired.
Re:Security by Confusion? (Score:4, Insightful)
Um, no. Actually a big part of the reason people want to get rid of the electoral college is because of the gut feeling, reinforced in every other US election that I can think of, is that the person with the most votes should win, coupled with the fact that all those ads say is ' for President', not 'Electoral college rep who promises to vote for , honest.' It's a perception problem as much as anything else, and you can be sure that if GWB had a majority in the popular, but had lost the electoral, the people bitching about the electoral college would be The Elephant Ass-Licking Society, not The Jackass-Licking Society.
Actually, according to the Economic Research Service and USDA (http://www.jcpr.org/conferences/oldconferences/r
Also, you seem to imply that Liberals are the reason for huge government spending. They do spend money, but so do the Conservatives - hence the budget deficits under Bush are frequently compared to the ones under Reagan. Or do you consider these Presidents liberals?
We should also go back to allowing the State Legislatures elect members of the Senate instead of the people directly.
And this would stop the impact of polls how? Sure, the senators would conduct the poll by calling their party boss in the state rather than calling in Gallup, but so what? Since elections are popularity contests, polls in some form or another will be there.
Re:Security by Confusion? (Score:5, Informative)
Seems like Diebold's Automatic Teller Machines (ATMs) are no more secure [coed.org]. Until I'd clicked that link, I'd never seen the Windows Media Player playing on an ATM.
This crap is supposed to save us from another Florida chad-count? Or have we just decided that democracy isn't really important enought to make secure?
Re:Security by Confusion? (Score:2, Informative)
I wonder if there is actually anything that would stop an atm like this from getting a virus? i didn't see a scanner running in the taskbar.
frightning if you think about it.
Re:Security by Confusion? (Score:3, Informative)
My dad worked polls in Orange County, CA (Score:5, Interesting)
So much for progress through IT!
Re:My dad worked polls in Orange County, CA (Score:3, Interesting)
All ballots not used must be torn up or marked in a way that shows they weren't used, then sent back. One year, the Inspector told us not to bother and if anybody asked, we'd just tell them we forgot. I reported this the next day, and she wasn't there for the next election.
Re:My dad worked polls in Orange County, CA (Score:2)
All ballots not used must be torn up or marked in a way that shows they weren't used, then sent back.
So, you don't tear it up, instead... you tear it up?
I think your automatic blank-filling engine added "and throw it away" after "tear it up" to the original poster's comment...
Real Time (Score:5, Funny)
Re:Real Time (Score:2)
This country is going to hell like a ferret sliding on a 60 deg ice slope.
Anyone besides me see a correlation between the notion that the country is going to hell in a handbasket *and* voting doesn't make a difference?
Wise up. If more people got off their asses and voted, we might not be *in* this mess. Boo hoo, you're disenfranchised... because you choose to b
Diebold news on Cringely's site too. (Score:3, Informative)
I didn't think so.
Re:Diebold news on Cringely's site too. (Score:2)
Did you know that the Diebold machine already have a printer installed?
I didn't think so.
Nice, but not enough. See if I can't see what it printed the screen can show me that I voted for "Ralph Nader"* but print "George W. Bush" on the receipt inside the metal cabinet.
Clever, no?
Of course just turning this on would allow random inspections by the poll workers, they could check their own votes, and allow random inspections by voters. A clever programmer could get around this, just change votes at times
Re:Diebold news on Cringely's site too. (Score:2)
Hey, not all of California got stuck with these machines. Los Angeles County convinced the state that we couldn't *possibly* roll out electronic voting in time for the March election, so we got something called Ink-A-Vote instead. It looks a lot like punch cards, but the little doohickey leaves a perfect black ink spot where you punch, instead of trying to poke through the paper.
Yay, chad-free, and I
Diebold ATMs @ CMU go crazy! (Score:4, Funny)
The scary part (Score:3, Insightful)
"It appeared to have recorded all of the votes properly, but I can't be 100% certain" or apparently.
With 1,000,000 people voting, an error 1/1000 is enough to change the results of election for the whole state. We need paper ballots.
It is even scarier, because he was a poll worker and did't realize this.
Re:The scary part (Score:2)
An error of 1/1000 is 0.1% and rarely enough to swing an election. It doesn't matter if there are 10,000 votes, 1,000,000 or 100,000,000.
Wisconsin Assembly passes Paper Trail bill (Score:5, Interesting)
We're already safe for this November, as the State Elections Board has not certified Diebold machines, or their competitors.
Diebold ATMs about as crappy too (Score:5, Funny)
Re:Diebold ATMs about as crappy too (Score:3, Informative)
When is civil disobedience justified? (Score:5, Interesting)
Remember, Americans: Bring your voter registration card, and a sledgehammer for Diebold. They are stealing our freedom to vote, the very democracy over which so much blood has been spilled, and the corrupted political process is encouraging it via awarded contracts and almost silent acquiescence.
This crosses political affiliations and affects all Americans. I strongly believe that this must be stopped it by all means necessary or we will lose the ability to collectively affect the policies of our country, no matter how small your individual voice might be. This is zealous, without a doubt, but not all zealotry is bad. "Extremism in the defense of liberty is no vice."
Live free or die.Re:When is civil disobedience justified? (Score:2)
Not to be a cynic, but can you tell me of any recent elections that have been decided by one vote? Sure, I know, if everyone thought this way, etc. Or yeah, we all know that Florida came down to a few hundred votes. Fine. Unless an election came down to one vote, yours was not the one that made the difference, nor was mine. Know what this means? Had you stayed home, things
Re:When is civil disobedience justified? (Score:2)
Let me counter your flawed logic with some flawed logic of my own: if nobody voted, we would not have a democracy at all.
(This is flawed on many levels: first, we really don't have a democracy; and seco
Re:When is civil disobedience justified? (Score:4, Insightful)
Re:When is civil disobedience justified? (Score:2)
Ghandi and MLK didn't invent Civil Disobedience. Try Henry David Thoreau in 1849.
Silly LINK! (Score:2)
^---that's the link.
Re:When is civil disobedience justified? (Score:3, Interesting)
Also small devices that deliver electricy may prove effective.
Finally you may be able to effect them with a EMF generator from the outside of the building.
Re:When is civil disobedience justified? (Score:2)
good for electronic parking meeters too.
Re:When is civil disobedience justified? (Score:3, Funny)
Live free or Diebold.
Re:When is civil disobedience justified? (Score:3, Insightful)
You: smash a voting machine
Media: some nutball tried to destroy the democratic process - cut to clips of Idaho cult training
next election
You and 20 other people you've convinced: smash a voting machine
Media: Terrorists(tm) try to keep Americans from voting, cut to footage of people wearing turbans with "Al Queda" crawl
assuming the nobility of your crusade at the next election manages to recruit more p
civil disobedience is nullified by biased media (Score:3, Interesting)
That's good in theory, but in practice, the mainstream media, which is currently the most effective way of disseminating information, has been anything but objective in its selection of what is and isn't worthy of covering. It's worth noting that the media has found an interesting method of injecting its bias by selectively deciding what is and isn't worth covering, which in many cases, is more effectiv
Yeah but (Score:5, Funny)
Go Absentee (Score:5, Insightful)
Re:Go Absentee (Score:5, Insightful)
Using an absentee ballot will make it possible to recount my vote if necessary, but that doesn't do much good if everybody else's votes are miscounted.
Don't be fooled by talk of "paper receipts". What we need are paper ballots. If they're machine-generated, that's fine; it avoids problems with incorrectly marked ballots. If they're machine-readable, that's fine too -- as long as they're also human-readable.
Re:Go Absentee (Score:2)
You can call it a ballot or a receipt, it doesn't matter. All you need is, after you vote, it prints out your votes for you to review. After checking it for accuracy (if you care), you press the final button to submit. Then you put your paper print
Collection of the final data (Score:5, Interesting)
After the machines are dropped off and loaded into the "rented truck" some tech has to extract and accumlate the count data. How easy would it be to alter the counts before the data is transmitted to the central site? Suppose a non tech centric deputy was to oversee the final tally. It might be possible for the tech to alter the counts in plain sight of the deputy without him knowing specifically what's going on.
It's really hard for me to believe with the amount of tin foil programming/tech talent available that these systems have gone into use without something as simple as a printed ballot. There too much black box magic going on in these things for me to trust them...
Re:Collection of the final data (Score:2)
Lets say that Diebold promised the election to bush (they kind of did actually). they could take every 1000th vote for Kerry and switch it to bush instead. the voter vould never notice and Bush would win by a comfortable margin.
During the next term Bush would make sure that Diebold got a big fat contract in Iraq or North Korea or Iran or whoever we invaded next and voila alls fair in war and politics.
My question (Score:5, Insightful)
If these machines are more difficult to operate and more expensive to maintain, and require the hiring of additional personnel to administer, why are they being used?
Paper ballots seem exponentially cheaper in all respects, and I haven't seen a piece of oaktag crash in many years.
Re:My question (Score:3, Informative)
Most poll workers report that people found them fairly easy to use, even relative to the old paper systems. So ease-of-use is there.
It's very expensive to run an election (just ask California... we got to spend $50 million on getting a new governor, so that he could do just what the old one was doing, but with a funny accent). A lot of the
Comprimise (Score:4, Insightful)
Diebold and its advocates are bent and determined to use them in elections. OK, lets do that.
The Comprimise(TM): Change the voting Method. [paulhager.org]*
If your country is split so close, so narrowly through the center, that the *POSSIBILITY* of tampering is not 100% obvious (that causes those riots in the streets...) why not look to garner a better concensus? Why not consider altering the *structure* of the debate? Why not consider the method?
We
If your public discourse is incapable of discussing *that* issue -- Real Reform of Government (like, I dont know, maybe more than a Democracy of the Republicrat Party). If your paperless ballot system was meant to build concensus, you wouldnt have this debate in the first place.
NO LARGE GROUP WOULD BE UNHAPPY WITH THE RESULTS. Maybe the "one person one vote, winner take all" system is just a little dated? Lets start communicating. Lets focus enough to discuss our governance...if we cant, why build all these "communication tools?".....oh, look, a shiny thing...
*Woha, woha, woha. Before you go flaming me, or modding me down, I am not delivering a flippant "this is the solution" answer, im suggesting a place to start thinking. I am not for, or against, *that particular method*. There are many, how about PR? (Use Google))
Third party is not the way to go (Score:2)
Yeah, keep believing there are no differences between the parties. Its that kind of thinking that got us in this mess in the first place.
If you want reform, you're going to have to work with the system and within it to change it. Voting Green and walking away is about the least you can do and about as reformist as voting LaRouche and patting yourself on the back for being such an independant thinker.
Heaven forbid "reformists" meet the people running for office and h
Re:Third party is not the way to go (Score:2)
Yes, Gore ran a not so hot campaign, but shit like "Republicrats" and entire dismissals of the system are worse than political apathy. If you dont like the system, thats fine, stay home. But dont go around telling people tha
Re:Comprimise (Score:2)
I live in the precinct mentioned... (Score:4, Interesting)
In a word, the system sucks. From a voter's perspective, here is what happens:
1) Walk in, they ask you for your address and name. No ID requested.
2) Sign your name IN PENCIL.
3) They ask for your party affiliation ("Green" oh that's cute!)
4) They hand you a smartcard.
5) Go to the machine, insert the card, and use the touch-screen to vote.
6) The interface is terrible: Looks like a demo I that someone wrote on the plane ride over to California. Fonts are hard to read, the layout is busy, etc. etc. Other interface bugs I noticed: If you hit the "Next page" button twice, it would blink the button twice, even though only one page was turned. Just crappy UI overall.
7) I was VERY tempted to write in my own name on the "Write in" section for one of the offices. My thinking was that write-in candidates must be public info, right? So I could use this as a sort-of checksum to make sure my ballot was really cast. Make up a fake write-in candidate for an office that I didn't care about, then check the election results later. But I chickened out.
8) The end of the process is the worst: You eject your card from the machine, take it back to the poll worker, who then throws it into the pile of used cards. I was struck by this: was my vote on the card that he had just threw back into the stack? Upon further reflection, I realized my vote was on the voting machine, but the appearance was that my vote had just been thrown away.
Now to be fair, steps (1) and (2) have always been that way. No ID required (for good reason), but why sign your name in pencil?
But the rest of the system did not inspire confidence. It felt very, very sketchy.
Re:I live in the precinct mentioned... (Score:2)
This is probably not legal in your jurisdiction. I know it's not in New York City because I noticed it and one of the poll workers went apeshit when he realized that table had been making people sign in with a pencil. He also gave me a pen.
But it was probably just an oversight of the poll worker in both our cases.
Re:I live in the precinct mentioned... (Score:2)
In Cook Country, Illinois, you sign your name so they can compare it with how you signed your name on the voter registration, a copy of which was previously scanned and brought to the polling place in a binder. No photo ID used at all.
Re: No visual ID required (Score:3, Insightful)
DIEBOLD Politics (Score:4, Informative)
Diebold ATM crash (Score:5, Informative)
- Windows media player was installed (as seen in the pictures)
- It's a P4 2GHz with 512mb of ram (wtf?! why on earth does it need that)
- There's a CD-RW installed
- There are two partitions and C: can't be accessed
- There's the standard crap that comes in My Documents (like the Beethoven playing)
- The printer is an Epson USB printer
- There was a device listed for ATM Driver or something, I presume what actually feeds cash.
- We never were able to get the network up, but there's an Intel network card in there.
- For some reason there are speakers so we could hear the Beethoven.
- It's running XP Embedded, didn't catch what version or what patches it had.
- There was some sort of Text-to-Speech (or maybe S-to-T) program
- As you can see Acrobat is installed
- Remote Desktop was enabled! (might have been turned on by one of us though)
That's what I remember from the 5 minutes before running to class.
Re:Diebold ATM crash (Score:4, Insightful)
>It's a P4 2GHz with 512mb of ram (wtf?! why on earth does it need that)
"Rich" media ads. You'll need some power to play compressed video of that next hollywood blockbuster while you wait for your cash. Or maybe its just cheaper to buy 'off the shelf' PC commodity stuff. Prob both. Thats probably why WMP was installed.
The speakers are for the future ads and for the interface for the blind. Most have headphone jacks too.
About the RAM (Score:3, Insightful)
Re:Diebold ATM crash (Score:3, Informative)
Re:Diebold ATM crash (Score:2, Funny)
- It's running XP Embedded
Answered your own question there.
Trust (Score:3, Insightful)
Re:Trust (Score:2)
I, too, worked the SD Polls (Score:5, Interesting)
Re:I, too, worked the SD Polls (Score:3, Informative)
That's absolutely rediculous. You obviously don't understand the responsibility of the job.
You CAN NOT do something like that! What if you found the wrong executable? May
Re:I, too, worked the SD Polls (Score:5, Insightful)
True. They were much, much worse. Reread your post, please!
I started poking around the root filesystem looking for a link to the executable.
What are they thinking giving every clerk everywhere root?
I finally found the actual location of the executable--it seemed to be on a datacard of some sort--and started it for them.
Other posters have noted that you have no way of verifying that this is the correct excutable. What if it was a testing version, or something else uncertified by the state?
We had one voting maching give a blank page to someone when it was in large print high contrast mode, but we just hit next and it was fine.
And this is the sort of thing that can be horribly troublesome. People with poor eyesight are mostly (though not exclusively) the elderly--a group that are not known for their comfort (in general) with computers. And here they are with a blank screen.
One of our machines failed to print -- it just cut off in the middle and wouldn't reprint (some paper trail, eh?).
How many people voted at that machine? A hundred? Five hundred? How many votes are now either irretrievable at worst or highly suspect at best? Even though it couldn't print the totals, you expect it to submit electronically the correct tally?
The worst part was that the voting stations give a total number of votes cast onscreen and a total on the printed tape, and on all of our machines but one, these did not match. They were all off by one vote.
How is this problem not very, very serious? First, you lose whatever thin reassurance the total provided. The system now is without an effective check on number of ballots cast. Second, if there was an error--if it was randomly distributed then it's unlikely (though not impossible) for it to affect an election. If it was systematic (deliberately, or just a programming error that inadvertantly doesn't count the first vote for the first candidate, or something like that) then this could be very serious. If five hundred people use each machine, and you lose one of every five hundred votes for a candidate, that's an error of 2000 votes per million ballots. That's appalling--and larger than the margins in a number of states in the last Presidential election.
Diebold was put to the test earlier this year.. (Score:4, Informative)
Diebolds voting technology was actually put to the test [nytimes.com] by some security experts this year who found that:
- It was an "easy matter," they reported, to reprogram the access cards used by voters and vote multiple times.
- They were able to attach a keyboard to a voting terminal and change its vote count.
- And by exploiting a software flaw and using a modem, they were able to change votes from a remote location.
"Diebold, the machines' manufacturer, rushed to issue a self-congratulatory press release with the headline "Maryland Security Study Validates Diebold Election Systems Equipment for March Primary." The study's authors were shocked to see their findings spun so positively."
The Digital Commons (Score:5, Insightful)
It is clear that present electronic voting efforts are the first step in a general program of transforming voting as we know it into an online, decentralized process, with the final goal being a system where voting is an activity as simple and hassle-free as ordering a pizza or sufing to a website.
Therein lies the problem. As citizens of a common nation, our involvement in the democratic process should be something that brings us together, together with people we would not ordinarily encounter, for what can only be called our sacred ritual of casting votes. A ballot should not be a screen with virtual buttons floating in hyperspace, it should be a hefty card, symbolizing the hefty decision that lies with each voter, it shows our seriousness that decision needs is embodied in the real physical ballots that are carefully tallied and counted and not simply disseminated into electronic bits.
The process of voting should be a little inconveniencing, with voters having to drive to the polling station, stand in line, and punch a ballot. It reinforces our sense of civic pride to have to make a bit of an effort to vote. It demeans the democratic system for the voting process to be allowed to atrophy into a simple matter of point-and-click, no need to get out of your chair. Choosing the laws and leadership of a nation should be an act more involved than switching channels.
When the once-proud rituals of democracy are reduced to a set of simple gestures, once the paricipants in the voting process are reduced to a mass of isolated individuals typing on keyboards or pushing buttons on PDAs, a sense of togetherness is lost. The insiduous decentralization of the voting system that is the end result of electronic voting can only lead to the erosion of our sense of citizenship, of being equal paricipants in something larger than ourselves. Could the erosion of democracy itself be far behind? It seems the dystopian corporate-run societies of so-called "cyberpunk" "fiction" more than just sci-fi.
Diebold CEO Bush contributor and evangelist.. (Score:4, Interesting)
In Ohio [he] told Republicans in a recent fund-raising letter that he is "committed to helping Ohio deliver its electoral votes to the president next year."
The Aug. 14 letter from Walden O'Dell, chief executive of Diebold Inc. - who has become active in the re-election effort of President Bush - prompted Democrats this week to question the propriety of allowing O'Dell's company to calculate votes in the 2004 presidential election.
O'Dell attended a strategy pow-wow with wealthy Bush benefactors - known as Rangers and Pioneers - at the president's Crawford, Texas, ranch earlier this month. The next week, he penned invitations to a $1,000-a-plate fund-raiser to benefit the Ohio Republican Party's federal campaign fund - partially benefiting Bush - at his mansion in the Columbus suburb of Upper Arlington.
The letter went out the day before Ohio Secretary of State Ken Blackwell, also a Republican, was set to qualify Diebold as one of three firms eligible to sell upgraded electronic voting machines to Ohio counties in time for the 2004 election.
[Link to the story quoted above [commondreams.org]]
Are we missing something? (Score:3, Interesting)
Well, these voting machines are the wrong tool to fix this problem. The electronic voting machine like Diebold's are meant to totally erase the paper trail which is very bad thing, IMO. What they should make is basically a ballot booth that prints punchcards. You stand at the machine and it asks you:Then the machine punches the ballot for you, so there won't be any confusion as to who you're voting for. You can also run an independant tally in the electronic machine, then check it against the punch cards by feeding them back in to a reader, if everything meets up, then few people can contest the results.
comment on open source in the poll worker's manual (Score:5, Informative)
"what about the issue of Open Source Code?"
Diebold's ballot tabulation source code is checked extensively by an independent testing authority which tests according to voting software standards developed by the Federal Election Commission. Once this test process is successfully completed, the source code is placed in an escrow facility.
Source Code is not open to the public to protect not only the companies intellectual property, but also to prevent the possibility of tampering or other fraudulent manipulation of the tabulation program.
in Georgia, the Secretary of State challenged a citizen to try to tamper with the ballot tabulation program after this citizen made claims about the program's vulnerability. When the citizen learned the source code was not available, she abandoned the effort to tamper with the program.
Re:comment on open source in the poll worker's man (Score:3, Interesting)
The FEC hasn't published any real testing standards, so it's not terribly useful to say that the code was testing against the FEC standards. Also, it's not useful to say that the code is in excrow, or audited, unless the code in production is built from the code in escrow and audited, because otherwise you haven't proven anything other than that the same company that produced the voting system you're running also produced some code that passed your audit and went into escrow
Well, this pretty much shoots it then. . ! (Score:3)
Then the dirt began to surface. Internal emails. Party affiliations. Conflicts of interest. Bad code.
This stuff has been laid bare. The world has been alerted. Very Smart People(tm) have given their dour warnings.
At one point I was even getting a little optimistic. I posted something here to the effect of, "Well, this is the test! Everybody now knows and agrees that electronic voting is a Bad Idea, and now we'll get to see how proactive Americans are going to be. The choice has been placed before them. I can't imagine that nothing will be done about this!"
Foolish, foolish Fantastic Lad!
Americans are not just asleep; they are tied down! Too tired after their long work days to do anything. Too brain-wiped by their cell phones, drugged food, anti-depressants, television and social conditioning to be able to gather the brain cells required to elicit anything more than a vague, "Aw nuts" response. And the media is owned by the wrong people. Man, back in Superman's day, the headlines would have shouted, "CORRUPTION!" and there would have been public outcry, riots, Bushmen hauled from office and run out of town on good ol' American rails!
But instead, people choose to sleep.
Man. Some days I wish I was an American living in that once bold nation just so I could shotgun some asshole politico or Diebold rep and be hauled away with a raised fist while American housewives whimpered and their stout husbands shook their heads, "Well, something had to be done! It's a shame it came to this, but Americans simply don't lie down for this sort of thing!"
Well, perhaps at one time this might have been true. There was a time when hanging a corrupt politician would have been considered a reasonable response. But now the people are so controled, that their rage can be directed with pin-point accuracy at whatever target the corrupt politicos want destroyed. "Just blow up a building or two and blame the people we want to see take a fall! That ALWAYS works!"
Pathetic.
-FL
Re:Election (Score:5, Insightful)
Re:Election (Score:4, Funny)
Re:Election (Score:5, Insightful)
Yes, there are issues. Are the issues any worse than what can/has been done in the past with non-electronic voting? Probably not. I think that Florida proved that you can tamper with the old system just as well as an electronic one.
Eventually what voting comes down to is trusting that the people who run the system are honest. If you have dishonest people anywhere in the chain; you're going to get bogus results. The only solution that I can see to this issue is that the process must become more open.
1) Diebold needs to modify the machines to produce a printed slip that shows the party X voted for. X is then responsible for ensuring that the slip makes it into the collection basket. Bar codes can be used to correlate votes in the machine and votes on paper, and verify that they match. Because the electronic vote must match the paper vote, and because the user can verify the paper vote themselves, it becomes harder to cheat.
2) Make the vote counting process open. If anyone wants to, let them watch votes being counted. Canada does this, why not? Votes are counted to verify election results. In the event of a discrepancy, the paper votes would be used. The electronic tallies would be used for "quick" results.
Well, it's an idea, anyways
Re:Election (Score:3, Informative)
Hmm... maybe we should check those facts. [cnn.com]
I don't like the guy either, but this Florida crap has to stop. Complain about his policy in Iraq, in Afghanistan, domestically, whatever - there's plenty of good fodder for criticism - but sour grapes won't win you any minds.
Re:Live from the Nuke Free Zone (Score:2, Funny)
--
Latest deals from all the major deal sites. [dealsites.net]
Re:hmm i'm a san diegan voter (Score:2)
Re:hmm i'm a san diegan voter (Score:2)
Do you think they've got a room full of sweatshop workers chained to desks counting them by hand? No. They count them with a punch card reader. Okay, so I've never used one (I'm not _that_ old), but I really doubt that they're impossible to compromise.
Why worry about the new systems and not worry about the old ones? I find this whole
Re:hmm i'm a san diegan voter (Score:3, Insightful)
I doubt that they are *impossible* to compromise, too. But, you're omitting a few relevant details:
- These machines work on technology that has been essentially unchanged for many, many years. The code is simple, and likely is public domain, since the gov
Re:Diebold's competition's CEO was killed today (Score:3, Funny)
Suspicious?
And, in other news, stock prices of Alcoa and other large aluminium concerns were up today.