California Panel Recommends Dumping Diebold 526
sdw3u writes "Wired reports that a voting panel urged California officials to stop using a voting machine made by Diebold Election Systems, and recommends that the state consider filing civil and criminal charges against the company." There's also an AP story. We covered the hearing yesterday, with Diebold admitting that their machines had numerous problems.
Online Banking Model (Score:5, Interesting)
Re:Online Banking Model (Score:5, Insightful)
Want to skew the results? Attack the servers most likely to be used by a people of a particular political persuation.
Re:Online Banking Model (Score:5, Interesting)
Re:Online Banking Model (Score:5, Insightful)
And then... (Score:4, Interesting)
And then you get arrested, because the NSA can track any DDOS attacks without much trouble. Oh, now if you could get your rivals to do it, they would hang themselves and you could point at them saying how evil they are (and mop up all the votes). That happened in Ontario recently when the Liberals used a Buffy quote against themselves, suggesting a Tory (PC) said it; somebody called Dalton McGuinty a kitten eater. Then, in a Wag the Dog scene from hell, Dalton posed with a cute little kitten, and won the election. But the Liberals planned the whole thing.
Re:Online Banking Model (Score:5, Insightful)
Another method would be to attack the infrastructure that supports a particular voting district (Obviously, you'd want to attack those districts that lean more heavily toward your opponents).
Re:Online Banking Model (Score:4, Funny)
You don't think the Stonecutters would pay a lot of money to DDOS all the servers in NY?
Re:Online Banking Model (Score:3, Funny)
Re:Online Banking Model (Score:5, Insightful)
Based on what? Is there any precedent for an open-ended extension of the voting period? Let's go to our favorite recent election and our favorite state. Many people in Florida were not allowed to vote after being mistakenly added to a list of felons.
What happened after this and the many, many other issues with that election were exposed? One thing that didn't happen, the polls didn't re-open.
There are cases where polls were left open later than the established hour in cases of technical issues, but why would you think hours would be "extended until such time that everyone who wants to vote is allowed to"? If the DDoS last through the night, do you expect polls to be open the next day?
The issues with online voting are not insurmountable, but they are formidable.
With online banking, I want my bank to know who I am every step of the way. With online voting, the system needs to know who I am to confirm I am eligible to vote and have not voted already, but should not know who I am to compromise the privacy of my vote.
With online banking, if an error occurs, I can clear it up with my bank later. If takes days to supply documentation and sort out an issue, so be it. With an election, once the polls close, they are closed. Something happens and my vote doesn't get cast, I'm SOL.
Also, I don't have the right to bank. If there are less bank branches or fewer tellers because the bank wants to route more business to their web site, so be it. If I don't have a computer or access to the internet, I may not be able to bank, but sure as shit I better be able to vote. So we're looking at administrating and regulating and _paying_for_ two parallel polling systems.
If you complain about people not voting, I would argue that it is almost compulsory to support initiatives to establish online voting.
Can you offer some support for that statement? How does online voting help folks who don't have access to a computer or the internet? Or do you propose voting should be restricted to computer-owners? How do you justify the expense of two voting systems, one online and one at polling stations?
I am certainly not a technophobe, luddite, or anachronist, and I certainly think everyone who can, should vote. Heck, even if you don't know what going on and pick randomly. Or straight party-line. Or hate all the candidates and write in Stimpson J Cat. Just f'in vote.
It sickens me the turnout of registered voters in the US of A is as low as it is. But at the same time, it is really such a crime against humanity that once in a while we might have to get out of our cars and step away from the keyboard and be a member of the community for a few moments?
Yeah, it would be nice to be able to vote online. But it so low on the priority list as to be invisible. And to be on topic of the article for a moment, who do you think will be selling these online voting systems? The same crooks selling the broken, uncertified touch-screen systems. And who will be buying and running these online voting systems? The same idiots who let polls open hours late and disenfranchise random voters by taking their names off the registry.
I just don't see online voting as a great advance for the republic.
Re:Online Banking Model (Score:5, Insightful)
That's not the bottom line. The bottom line is that we don't need electronic voting systems. At best they are a political ploy to score cheap points for looking like we are "doing something" about the mess in Florida. At worst (if you are a tinfoil hat wearer) it's a giant conspiracy to rig our electoral system.
I (and others) have said it before and I'll say it again. What the heck is wrong with paper ballots that are actually auditable? Or mechanical voting systems that don't rely on software that we can't see or understand? Why the heck do we need touchscreen voting? Why are the companies so afraid of putting an auditable paper trail in it?
Why (Score:5, Interesting)
Micro-auditing is possible if you check your account after voting to make sure the vote you placed was the vote you wanted. Each user can remember who they voted for, and they could easily call out if their account was violated in any way. Any database can tally up votes if they are micro-audited internally, and cross-referenced. Very standard secure database design will always be able to print a receipt. They could mail you a receipt too.
>Or mechanical voting systems that don't rely on software that we can't see or understand?
Mechanical voting systems are a thing of the past. I really believe that society is ready for online voting.
> Why the heck do we need touchscreen voting?
I'm with you on this one. To me, it's wasteful and really difficult for people to use. What if the person has Parkinson's and touches the wrong button? Better let people use their own systems, and provide systems for those who need them.
> Why are the companies so afraid of putting an auditable paper trail in it?
I agree. Paper is just as important as anything, and the Diebold systems should have printed receipts, and master files that could be audited. Any online system could be printed at a micro-level. Bottom line: you'll know if your vote was compromised. Plus, with online voting, you'll have more control over your vote after it's created, and that truly counts for something. Imagine a nice record of your voting history? That would seriously rock.
The fear is that some people think that allowing users access to their vote history would compromise the secrecy involved in voting, and cause problems, but I truly think that with all the right people involved in such a project, one system could be created that was truly for the people and by the people.
Re:Why (Score:5, Insightful)
As for a record of your voting history. I'm fairly sure it's illigal for anyone other then you to access that information (and if it isn't it should be), so if its important to you then just do it yourself.
Re:Why (Score:4, Informative)
You've made an excellent case for switching from plurality elections (most votes to win) to majority elections (at least 50% of the votes to win). Two election styles that accomplish this include Instant Runoff Voting [wikipedia.org] and Condorcet [wikipedia.org].
Note that neither of these require doing away with primary elections (although they both reduce the need for them) or the electoral college.
Re:Why (Score:5, Insightful)
I'm sorry, but I'm not ready to give up my anonymous ballot just so I can vote online from home. The anonymous ballot is one of the most important features of our voting system. And if you are too lazy to go down to the polling place once a year (or request an absentee ballot) then you probably don't need to be voting anyway.
Mechanical voting systems are a thing of the past. I really believe that society is ready for online voting.
Why? They work just fine and any poll worker with an hour of training can understand how they work. They are virtually impossible to sabotage without being detected. And they leave a paper trail.
Imagine a nice record of your voting history? That would seriously rock.
Umm??? WTF??? No it would not rock. Do I want my voting record retained forever? That's a great idea. That way there's always the possibility of being harassed/jailed/murdered if my current political party ever goes out of style. Oh, and a nice way of my employer/union leader to blackmail me too.
Re:Why (Score:3, Insightful)
No, it wouldn't. Large data warehouses (or other organizations) cannot abuse data they do not have. If I want a record of my voting history, I'll keep one, but the last thing I think anyone needs is to be a target of arbitrary discrimination based on the fact that someone got ahold of this information (legally or otherwise), and used it to formulate a response - whether it be a quality of service issue, or something that's more substa
You have never met someone with Parkinson's (Score:3, Informative)
Let me just say that anyone I've known with Parkinson's (and that's at least three people) have all become quite angry when anyone tries to help them. That doesn't stop them from spilling milk all over the floor, but it gives them the dignaty to clean it up after.
Re:Online Banking Model (Score:5, Interesting)
Combine the two systems.
Use a touchscreen to vote. A paper receipt is printed with a barcode. Take the paper to the counting machine. Insert. Put the paper into a ballot box for possible auditing.
Add encryption to the process for the barcode, and that should be enough.
Re:Online Banking Model (Score:5, Insightful)
The systems shouldn't be completely electronic, but should be a two-machine system, where the first machine is touch screen and easily used by the population that creates a paper ballot and a second machine that takes the generated paper ballot, reads it and tallies the totals. This is the type of system that the Open Voting Consortium (and probably others) are working on creating.
So, basically, I'm saying that you should clarify your statement to say we don't need *entirely electronic* voting systems, but we should still look for systems, including electronic ones, that are easy to use and less prone to error, which includes touch screen voting booths.
Re:Online Banking Model (Score:5, Interesting)
Now of course government 'by the people' isn't trivial to set up. In modern countries with millions of inhabitants, automation will be necessary. That includes having 'voting' computers accessible to all, including those without computers, however remote, and a ton of other security measures. As another poster mentioned, online banks have such measures, so it should be doable with current technology. Of course, those in power don't have any reason to want to do this; they have a vested interest in the current system.
The system I am suggesting would still rely strongly on representation: if you don't want to vote every week, you can give your proxy to someone else with similar views. This person will have made themselves available, will have had training, and be responsible to their 'constituency'.
Such a system could be extended to allow people to vote for issues more important to them; for example people with children could have more say on education, or those living in a certain area have say on local issues.
Not that it will happen in my lifetime, but I can imagine.
Re:Online Banking Model (Score:3, Interesting)
This argument is getting old. Paper ballot systems are full of problems themselves. Any system that requires humans to read and count the ballots is error prone. Humans are error prone, and tend to be more error prone when performing boring tasks like counting votes. Anybody who's done an inventory in a warehouse can attest to this. Humans are also inconsistent. Paper ballot systems require humans to interpret the intent of the voter an
Re:Online Banking Model (Score:5, Insightful)
It's official, we're lazy bastards. If people aren't voting because they have to "drive/walk/take the bus" then it's a good thing they aren't voting, because if they don't have enough conviction to overcome the miniscule amount of inconvenience involved it's really doubtful they have much of a clue about what is going on around the world.
Voting shouldn't be tough, but it should at least require a small amount of effort.
Be Black (Score:3, Insightful)
Okay, you be black for a second. Imagine you have to go to the police station to vote. The trouble involved in voting is actually quite a bit more than a miniscule amount of inconvenience, for some. For some people, the very aspect of voting for some white fool in a suit who will likely screw you anyway, makes the whole system bogus.
With an online voting system, anyone could run for government, because they c
Re:Be Black (Score:3, Insightful)
Wow. Apparenty this is *no* link between a user's slashdot ID and his or her ability to post a relevant or on-topic comment. =P
Black people are afraid to vote because some polling booths are located in police stations? WTF?
Letting anyone/everyone run for office via the internet will clean up politics? WTF?
As far as I know, any candidate is already able to advertise and campaign via the internet for relatively little cost. I fail to see how "online voting" makes this any more accessible. Are you sugge
Be black, but don't be such a dumb ass (Score:3, Insightful)
Imagine you have to go to the police station to vote.
Because, of course, the folks that might hesitate to walk into the local police station are the most wired. America's ghettos are covered by DSL. Actually, the folks most abused by our justice system are least likely to have a home computer and access to the internet. Guess online voting doesn't solve that problem.
With an online voting system, anyone could run for government, because they could freely advertise on the system without havin
Re:Online Banking Model (Score:5, Insightful)
Perhaps you could have online voting as a supplement, like absentee ballots, but not a replacement.
Re:Online Banking Model (Score:4, Interesting)
The problem I see with electronic voting is the lack of evidence. The good thing about online banking is the audit trail.
For example, a while ago I was charged six times for the same item due to a webserver problem. Obviously I noticed the discrepancy on my credit card bill and it was quickly rectified.
I'm not sure I would trust a company such as Diebold to correctly accumulate votes. How do I know whether my vote was counted?
Re:Online Banking Model (Score:3, Insightful)
Online banking is not anonymous. All of the activity is directly traceable to your account, and you review it all the time. The results from a vote are anonymous, and doing it online is easily subjec
Parent is the funniest post in a long time. (Score:4, Interesting)
From here [fool.com]:
Diebold controls roughly two-thirds of the North American ATM market, and trails only rival NCR (NYSE: NCR) in global sales.
Re:Online Banking Model (Score:3, Insightful)
Voting models separate the cast vote from the identity of the voter. Looking at a potentially fraudulent electronic vote cast over a network, how can its authenticity be verified?
Re:Online Banking Model (Score:3)
Many many problems (Score:5, Insightful)
One.. voter verification: the overwhelming majority of voters must present picture ID and face to face with a pollster at their DESISGNATED district for voting.
Two, DDOS and many other types/styles of web attacks, which dont need to break security can easily be driected at say the midwestern states, or the liberal states... rendering their sum vote count down, thus allowing the other states a greater showing.
Three, hard break security, with a physical seperation from any public network, it becomes much more difficult for hackers and RICH politcal powers to corrupt the system. With even polling sites seperated by hard breaks it becomes a decentralized and distributed system that is much more difficult to compromise even if a few nodes are compromised.
Four, anonymity, passwords, and human ID. While we currently have mail-in voting, it is a small portion of our voting poulace, and still reuires a signature far more of a proof that it was cast by said person. With online voting, we would have difficulties verifying voters across disparete hardware, as well as their passwords can be much more easily compromised than a signature for a mail-in. anonymity should only extend as far as the VOTE, not the proof of the existance of the voter.
finaly... id like to say this idea isnt without merit... there are existing security solutions that are very powerfull... i would suggest using them in a CLOSED network entirely physicaly seperete from any public network, with the nodes also seperated.
just my thirty three cents worth
Re:Many many problems (Score:5, Insightful)
Re:Many many problems (Score:4, Insightful)
Voters, on the other hand, to *not* accept that it's okay for their votes to be lost, changed, stolen, etc. The risk profile for a voting machine is very different from an ATM, in that a voting machine much be *much* more secure than an ATM. Diebold is having problems because they're used to working in situations where some loss is okay, but voting machines aren't one of those situations.
Six, (Score:3, Insightful)
Asking for ID is ILLEGAL in CA (Score:4, Interesting)
The excuse is that asking for ID "intimidates" minorities, and thereby violates their civil rights, but the real reason is that it makes it easier for non-citizens and dead people to vote. We rank slightly behind Chicago in our voter turnout from cemetaries.
Of course, I would be much more upset about illegals and dead people voting if I thought that voting could change anything. I still vote; I just feel like Sisyphus when I do it.
-paul
Re:Many many problems (Score:3, Informative)
Re:Many many problems (Score:5, Interesting)
Voting in Mexico (Score:5, Interesting)
No, the process was designed specifically to protect identity of the voter... Thats how we finally got the PRI party out of power in 2000, after they had been the ruling party for 70-something years.
The process goes like this:
1.- After your 18th birthday, you can go to a voter registration place (usually at city hall in small towns, or several places in big cities), with your birth certificate. They register your info, take a pic and take a fingerprint.
2.- Your info makes it into the voters register, and your card is mailed back to the registration place. A notification is mailed to your home stating that you can pick up the card at said place... You get the card after your face is verified.
3.- You can start using this card to get beer, go into nightclubs, cash checks, and other adult activities.
4.- Election day comes. You (a responsible citycen) go into the voting place (usually the same place where you picked up your card).
5.- An electoral volunteer worker checks your face against your card, checks your thumb (see point 8 later) and checks this data against the national voters registry. If everything checks out, you are given paper ballots for each election taking place (usually president, deputys, federal and local congresses take place at the same time).
6.- You take said paper ballots to a privacy booth, use a special crayon thats there to cross the party logos that youre voting for. Afterwards, before leaving the booth, you fold each ballot twice (it wont fit the slot in the box if you dont fold it twice).
7.- You leave the booth and place each ballot into the sealed box with the corresponding color.
8.- Before you can leave, a special chemical is smeared in your thumb, which instantly turns a dark brown... This is not paint, but a chemical that reacts to oxygen and to human skin, the color fades in a few days, but ensures that you cannot vote twice in the same election day.
9.- You check the election preliminar results that night, feeling confident that your vote counts and that this is now a modern democracy (despite our decidedly old-fashioned politicians).
Re:Online Banking Model (Score:5, Interesting)
The main reason the public thinks that online banking is secure is because banks don't reveal the security incidents. What bank wants to tell it's customers that fees are going up because a couple million was stolen over the internet?
Amazing (Score:5, Funny)
Versions (Score:5, Informative)
Re:Versions; Are you sure? Source? (Score:5, Informative)
Are you sure? Do you have a source?
The reason why I ask is because the National Association of State Election Directors [nased.org] has an Updated List of NASED Certified Systems [nased.org]. According to the Updated NASED List of Qualified Voting Systems (12/05/03 - Current) [nased.org], the following Diebold voting systems qualify:
Further, the Federal Election Commission [fec.gov] has a FAQ About The National Voluntary Voting System Standards [fec.gov]. The FAQ [fec.gov] indicates that to meet the standards, an election system must satisfy either "FEC's voting system standards" *OR* pass tests "by independent testing authorities (ITAs) designated by the National Association of State Election Directors." Thus, the Diebold systems approved by NASED [nased.org] should satisfy the voluntary voting systems requirements for federal elections. [fec.gov]
Figures... (Score:5, Insightful)
Perhaps I'm just a cynic of the first order, but why on earth would they be less-than-forthcoming if they didn't have some sort of adjenda of their own? You would think that, as a large business, they'd be as forthcoming as possible to put the voters (and the investigatigators) minds at ease with the new technology. Of course, if you were hiding something.....
Fudging elections is not a new concept. This is just a new twist on it. /tinfoil hat on
Re:Figures... (Score:5, Interesting)
"Never ascribe to malice, what can adequately be explained by incompetence."
Re:Figures... (Score:5, Insightful)
The problem is that Diebold's incompetence and inability to follow even the most basic commercial security practices leaves the door open for other people to rig elections. And since the systems are un-auditable, we would all just be stuck with the winners of a rigged election as our leaders.
Federal HIPAA regulations use a 2" thick binder to describe in great detail what computer security procedures must be followed for handling private health information. Aren't elections slightly more important?
-B
Re:Figures... (Score:3, Insightful)
I love that saying.
In this case, we cannot adequately explain what has happened with incompetence. Every one of Diebold's machines made before the voting rigs had a paper receipt capability.
*cough*bullshit*cough* (Score:5, Informative)
Google: diebold bush deliver votes [google.com]
*** 'The head of a company vying to sell voting machines in Ohio told Republicans in a recent fund-raising letter that he is "committed to helping Ohio deliver its electoral votes to the president next year."'
*** 'In mid-August, Walden W. O'Dell, the chief executive of Diebold Inc., sat down at his computer to compose a letter inviting 100 wealthy and politically inclined friends to a Republican Party fund-raiser, to be held at his home in a suburb of Columbus, Ohio.'
*** 'Diebold's CEO, Wally O'Dell, is a proud pioneer (read: he donated more than $100,000 to the GOP's reelection bid) who has publicly announced he "is committed to helping Ohio deliver its electoral votes to the president."'
*** '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".'
*** 'If Ohio's Republican Secretary of State Kenneth Blackwell has his way, Diebold will receive a contract to supply touch screen electronic voting machines for much of the state. None of these Diebold machines will provide a paper receipt of the vote.
Diebold, located in North Canton, Ohio, does its primary business in ATM and ticket-vending machines. Critics of Diebold point out that virtually every other machine the company makes provides a paper trail to verify the machine's calculations. Oddly, only the voting machines lack this essential function.'
How is that, "adequately be explained by incompetence"???
Re:Figures... (Score:5, Insightful)
Never ascribe to malice that which can be explained by incompetence.
I'm not really trying to defend Diebold here, but a lot of their statements really do seem to be incompetence rather than scheming. They may simply be out of their league here.
Of course, some of the statements made by their CEO and other execs are so inane that we may be faced with a rare thing (at least in corporations) -- malice and incompetence.
Re:Figures... (Score:4, Interesting)
This is a very important point. While election fraud of various types has been around sa long as there have been elections, the computerized voting machines automate it.
You no longer have to steal votes one by one (or precinct by precinct), you just control the code in the voting machines and you can slant the election results however you want. And, unless you're really clumsy, there's no way the tampering can be detected.
Remember, the voting process has to be able to convince the sorest loser that the tally is correct. There's no way to do this unless the whole process is out in the open.
Let's wait for the recount. (Score:4, Funny)
Chad (Score:3, Funny)
Naw.
They let Chad make the decision. He wasn't doing anything anyway, just hanging around, dangling his opinions. Some of the women on the panel thought his dimples were cute . . .
Apple (Score:4, Funny)
To more applause and laughter, one shareholder asked if Apple would put its innovation to work and make a voting machine for the state of California.
"We have no plans to do that," said a laughing Jobs. "Hopefully they won't base it on Windows when they do make one."
Which problems do you want? (Score:5, Insightful)
Would you rather have Computer errors, damaged punch card ballots, broken voting machines, bad optical scanners, or good old fashioned human error?
Re:Which problems do you want? (Score:5, Insightful)
Failures in punch cards and broken voting machines etc are likely to occur randomly. They are equally likely to harm or help one of the political parties.
In this case there is real and ligitemate fear that the voting machines may be rigged to help one party and hurt another one. Look at some of the statements and actions made by the CEO of Diebold and you'll understand why people object so vehemently.
Re:Which problems do you want? (Score:5, Informative)
How about on Diebold's own website [diebold.com]? :-) From the article:
[TMB]
Re:Which problems do you want? (Score:3, Informative)
That is because you are a reasonable, intelligent person. You must realize that rule #1 in the "how to rig an election" handbook must certainly be to not publically announce that you are going to rig the election.
The actual quote was that Diebold was "committed to helping Ohio deliver its electoral votes to the President next year". Apparently there are some people that do not know the difference be
Re:Which problems do you want? (Score:5, Insightful)
Human error we're going to get no matter what, so we want a system that will minimize it. Not one that makes it difficult to spot.
Damaged punch cards are easy to see, bad optical scanners will get noticed. Problems with voting software in black-box voting systems are much harder to spot, if there's no paper trail to audit.
But the problems with Diebold systems are much worse than this. The vote counts are stored in a MS Access database, which can easily be edited by anyone who knows how. They are not necessarily protected with a password. Even worse, the audit log is also editable, so that it's possible to go into the system, alter the votes, and then edit the log to hide all traces.
Bev Harris' expose/Diebold memos [scoop.co.nz] And more of Harris' expose [scoop.co.nz]Perhaps Diebold was keeping this backdoor in so that they could edit vote counts when their systems malfunctioned. However, others can also use the backdoor, and perhaps they have. There were some very squirrely results out of Georgia last election, where the pre-election polls were at wide variance with the results.
Defy Mediocrety (Score:3, Informative)
Halloween installment of This Modern World (Score:3, Funny)
About time... (Score:5, Interesting)
This whole thing is like a Dilbert comic..... (Score:4, Insightful)
Result of the Panel (Score:5, Funny)
https (Score:3, Interesting)
The only other arguments against voting over the net is that, (1) it's defacto gerrymandering because poor people don't have computers and tend to vote for democratic candidates over Republicans; and (2) There's no independently audit-able paper trail. I'm sure (2) could be solved with some thought.
This is why you set up stations at public libraries and other government funded institutions open to the public. You can vote in public, or you can vote for home
View of a Pollworker (Score:4, Insightful)
As a pollworker in Georgia, which was the first state to use electronic voting equipment statewide, I can say unequivocally that electronic voting machines have made our precinct's elections run more smoothly. Many people who vote in my precinct comment about how much easier they think the new machines are to use than the old punch ballots.
Not only that, but electronic voting is actually more tamper-proof then paper voting, since you can't stuff a wad of pre-punched paper cards into an electronic voting machine. In addition, the voting machines are tightly controlled on election day, and the only way to gain "supervisor," or root, access to these machines is to use a special access card that isn't even taken out of its container until after the polls have been closed, and even then it's used under the supervision of at least 3 people. And even if the ballots were somehow tampered with that that time, you can still see the total number of ballots counted in 3 different places on the voting machines, and those numbers all have to be the same as the paper record of the number of voters that have received ballots that day. Personally, I think it's a very secure system.
Of course, in this scenario in California, if Diebold were using uncertified releases of its software on election machines, that is unforgivable. I don't disagree with the decision to kick Diebold out of these counties based on their irresponsible actions, but that doesn't degrade the validity of electronic voting as a whole.
Re:View of a Pollworker (Score:5, Insightful)
Smooth != accurate.
Not only that, but electronic voting is actually more tamper-proof then paper voting, since you can't stuff a wad of pre-punched paper cards into an electronic voting machine.
Which is easier and less detectable to insert: pre-punched paper cards or pre-punched database records?
In addition, the voting machines are tightly controlled on election day, and the only way to gain "supervisor," or root, access to these machines is to use a special access card that isn't even taken out of its container until after the polls have been closed,
Only one way to get root, eh? How do you know that? Have you seen the source? Has anyone who doesn't work for Diebold seen the source?
Re:View of a Pollworker (Score:5, Informative)
Would this be the same Georgia where the two democratic candidates for Governor and the Senate were leading by 10% margin in the polls in 2002 and managed to lose the election. Unless there was some dramatic news from the time of those polls to the election its kind of hard to explain a swing that big unless the election was rigged.
With a few seconds in Google I found this article that suggests Diebold did exactly the same thing in your 2002 Georgia election they just did in California and patched 22,000 machines at the last minute, and apparently got away with it:
http://www.scoop.co.nz/mason/stories/HL0302/S00
Just because your elections seem to "run more smoothly" doesn't mean they weren't being stolen.
The Diebold people in California appear to be very incompetent. They had every advantage in rigging the elections in California, first and fore most they had no paper trail and no way to do a recount and they still got caught.
It appears their people in Georgia must be a much better team. They appear to have blatantly stolen an election in 2002 and people like you are singing praises of them for no obvious reason other than things "ran smoothly" and how easy it was to cast an apparently meaningless vote.
Unless you have really high confidence all the source code in those machines was meticulously audited and that the binaries were built from that exact source under supervision of knowledgable independent parties, not Diebold, the binaries were signed and the signs were checked in every machine at the start of the election day (using signing software that is also rigorously verified) all those other security measures you are placing so much confidence in are meaningless. If Diebold slipped in code that checked for the date of the election, and on election day flipped some percentage of the votes(say 15%) from the party they wanted to lose to the party they wanted win they could steal the election from under your nose and you would still be singing praises of their equipment.
Vote-From-Home is NOT a good idea! (Score:5, Interesting)
I disagree. Vehemently.
Voting is somewhat of a ritual in many countries, especially the US. People will gladly talk about their politics, but ask them who they voted for and you usually get the cold shoulder. It's a private matter. You'd have better luck asking them how their bowels are doing. The polls themselves are nice and curtained or secluded, so no one can see. People bring their kids and let them watch, even let them do the final act of pressing the lever or button. There aren't many companies that aren't willing to let their people take a long lunch in order to go vote, and those that don't are not looked upon highly.
When it is your civic duty to periodically go to your official polling station, when you have to go to a specific place that you probably never go for any other reason, where you're around a large spectrum of people of all types that you might not otherwise be exposed to, and go specifically to cast your vote... it means a little more than simply hitting a website and picking the guy who you'd like to have lead.
The percentage of people who vote is truly sad, but it's not a good idea to fix it by making it TOO easy to vote. There must be at least a minimum of effort involved - a place to go, as long as it's reasonably easy to get to. The same place as all your neighbors. When you have to make an event of it, it tends to focus you more on what you're doing, and I've found that people become far less extreme in their politics when faced with this fact.
If you could vote from home, you'd put less thought into it. It would be one step closer to a news site poll, except THIS poll would make our final official selections. People wouldn't take it seriously enough. More people would vote, but the quality of those votes would not carry the same weight.
If the Primaries had been run over the web, I'm willing to bet Dean would have outdone his competition. But people were at an event, a political ritual, and that sobered them into making a more mature choice (though I think there were better people they could have chosen).
Voting should be readily available to the masses. It should be quick, efficient, and as infallible as we can safely make it. But it should also be an official civic act not taken lightly, and deffinitely never done from home.
All technical questions of security and validation aside, the concept of a quick and easy home solution for choosing our national leaders is not a good idea.
It is our fault. (Score:4, Interesting)
What they don't get is that, is that if the code was not posted publically, the public wouldn't know about the security holes, but it would have been known to the people at the Bush campaign who arranged for Bush to be elected this time.
Endemic US voting problems (Score:4, Funny)
Diebold in FL (Score:4, Informative)
Re:Diebold in FL (Score:3, Informative)
They messed up in 2000, they made the fraud too obvious. Of course, people still didn't pay attention to it -- they paid attention to hanging chads and that bullshit, but not to the disenfranchisement of black voters [gregpalast.com] which was far worse.
You are way off base (Score:3, Interesting)
Secondly, when I was referring to "democrats" and "republicans" I was referring to the currently elected members of those parties in the state of Florida. If you know of any elected member of either party in Florida that isn't polarized on the issue in the way I stated, it's news to me. Also, I wasn't attempting to insinuate anything--the implica
They did this with Good Reason (Score:5, Interesting)
I heard an interview on NPR today where the chief of marketing participated in the on air talk-show (InfOhio after 9) review of this protest and Diebold's activities with regard to electronic voting. He basically said California's Voting Laws were so complex and constantly changing that they were not upset at having to leave the CA e-voting machine market.
Sounds like the pot calling the Kettle Black to me.
Diebold's CEO and President Walden O'Dell promised to deliver Ohio (which makes me angry to have them here in my state) to Bush in November, donated to the Bush campaign and worked to organize re-election effrts to do the same. Since this time he has publicy apoligized for his public support of the Bush campaign (one would guess because of the obvious suspicions of impartiality and conflict-of-interest, wether founded or not) and vowed to keep out in the future. IMO, the damadge of his public display of support has already been done. He hasn't asked for the money back. I don't think its unreasonable to hope that the CEO and President of a company hawking a product that manages/administers/records voting would treat voting what it is, THE SINGLE MOST IMPORTANT FOUNDATION OF DEMOCRACY. He and his company are not trustworthy to me.
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Voting Assistant (Score:3, Funny)
Individual clicks 'Yes'
Ohio (Score:5, Interesting)
Electronic Voting could be Good for 3rd World (Score:3, Insightful)
Of course, the down sides are the expense of the technology, and the current issues with software security. But, just like with any new technology, it should eventually get better, and more secure, even if it is never 100% bullet-proof.
Why do you need voting machines? (Score:4, Interesting)
Please note, this is not meant as a flame to you Americans - I would *really* like to know why you need these machines.
Re:Why do you need voting machines? (Score:4, Insightful)
And make big contributions to politicians who help appoint the election boards.
Not exactly a direct link of corruption (or 'spoils' as it was once called) but friends help out friends and supporters.
Re:Why do you need voting machines? (Score:3, Funny)
California gets it right (Score:3, Interesting)
The real concern (Score:3, Informative)
Largely, the non-slashdot concerns about e-voting seem to center around unintentional inaccuracies, like those mentioned in the FA. In other words, the worst problem typically mentioned is about errors causing disenfrachisement or delays in voting. While I don't want to discount these problems, they are fixable, either by a paper backup system or timely software or hardware repairs, likely getting better and better as the machines become more widely used.
Personally, my real concern is about intentional vote fixing by the makers of the machines. I know this has been talked about at great length on /. [slashdot.org] and elsewhere [blackboxvoting.org], but I think it needs more attention in the real world.
I know I'm naive, but the thought that somebody would try to steal the election infuriates me. There is no pit deep and black enough for someone so unpatriotic and dishonest. We must fight to protect one of the greatest experiments in personal freedom in the history of humanity.
Please, take the time to write your CongressCritters [congress.org] about e-voting in the House [theorator.com] and Senate [theorator.com].
Solving problems? (Score:4, Insightful)
"This doesn't solve the problems," said Tab Iredale, a Diebold developer.
No, but "If you will not set a good example, you will serve as a terrible warning."
Oregon gets it right again! (Score:4, Interesting)
Of course, none of this has the gee whiz, gosh golly technology crap that this crowd loves so much, but it works well, is inexpensive, and the process can be easily adapted for in situ voting as well. So why the hell do you need touch screens when Scantron works just as well AND you can get lazy voters to vote by mail, too?
Because you can be coerced ... (Score:3, Interesting)
Word goes around the factory: anyone who "knows what's good for him" needs to take their ballot to their union foreman, vote the union's slate, and seal and sign it right there. Oh, it's never that obvious, and nobody comes right out and says it, but the whispers go around, nudge nudge, wink wink, and a lot of people get the message.
What are you going to do if they don't? (Score:5, Insightful)
If California, or whatever state you happen to live in, concludes that Diebold electionic voting systems are crap, and yet they are implemented anyway, what are you going to do about it?
I'll venture a guess: absolutely nothing. Even if these systems are shown to be demonstrably anti-democratic, the American people will accept them. Supporters of whichever party these benefit -- apparently Republicans -- will embrace them and disregard objections as the ramblings of loony conspiracy theorists. But whatever the case, neither the media nor the American public will truly care, certainly not enough to do anything about it.
This is sad, because I believe this is something that we should be literally up in arms about.
How about choosing by electronic lottery (Score:4, Interesting)
It is not a new idea, but it seems like the best-suited ones for the jobs are clearly not the corrupt, power hungry politicians able to run for the position.
Any citizen, chosen at random, might well make a better candidate than those who can head up the political machines required to get elected.
"Congratulations, you have been chosen to be the next President of the United States. The secret service will arive sometime today."
Also give out random cash prizes to make sure that those who would not normally aspire to hold office will show up at the polls.
Give "Government of the People" a new credibility.
It would save us all a lot of grief, and I do not see how it could be fundamentally much worse, unless the beaurocracy had the ability to keep thus-selected leaders under their thumbs.
Press the Media (Score:5, Informative)
Here are the numbers, followed by the extensions required to reach the comment line. For extensions not listed, you have to ask the human to leave a comment.
ABCNews - 818-460-7477
CBSNews - 212-975-4321
CNN - 404-827-0234
FoxNews - 888-369-4762
MSNBC - 201-583-5000
NBCNews - 201-583-5222
Unleash the slash-hordes.
Re:Press the Media - I Agree (Score:3, Insightful)
I would give you mod points if I had any.
I'm in Orange County, CA and I vote (Score:5, Informative)
- the user interface was different than the punch cards we'd used for so long; that meant confusion, especially since there was no way to "train" on the new equipment before casting the actual vote(!),
- there was no physical record of the vote
- being that there was no physical record changing the vote count would be simple.
- there was no "receipt" showing me my vote so I knew I voted correctly.
I did not get into the hacking issues, since these were not the brightest people; which was another problem in itself. They responded that they did indeed have a record of each vote -- on a central machine controlled by a lady who had a running tally of votes and could print a vote audit trail for each machine. But each machine depended on that central one to hold its votes and there was no corroborrating (I can't spell) record from each machine. I asked what would happen if the central computer failed. I don't rememeber the precise details but it was clear that there was one backup and if it was also lost, all was lost. What is a recount? Re-print the vote total you just printed. There is no way to recount the counted votes. They thought this was a feature ("no need to recount") instead of a flaw ("no way to recount").Then I told them I was responsible for databases. At different times I have been responsible for hundreds of thousands of credit card settlements daily and explained how our failsafe measures failed to the extent a days worth of customers (say, half a million US dollars, without including AMEX) were doubled and, due to an API error, the fix resulted in a triple billing. Wheee. Our systems had much more checks and balances, backups and audit trails than there silly voting system and yet one days transactions went wildly wrong (we somehow avoided the news, though our problem involved the same processor as Walmart's in their recent fiasco). How would they retract double/triple counted votes? Replace lost votes?
The good people at my polling place had received the warm fuzzies from the people promoting inaccountable electronic voting; they didn't like hearing my input. But why would we treat our money as more precious than the foundation of our republican democracy?
I apologize for GETTING CAUGHT. (Score:5, Insightful)
TIme to Sue the Bastards
In any case, does anybody know what the chances of a class action suit are? I figure that $10K for each disenfranchised voter might give Diebold pause. Can you also get punitive damages in a class action lawsuit?
Hardware flaw. (Score:5, Insightful)
Alpha leaders are idiots (Score:4, Insightful)
Idiot leaders: Lets do it like this
Expert Geeks: NOOO ANYTHING BUT THAT
Idiot leaders: Yes! do it like this!
Expert Geeks: This is very very stupid and will go very wrong.
BANG: the space shuttle blows up, the nuclear reactor goes critical, the virus gets released, the entire network goes down, the power dies, the system cant be updated without costing millions, the software crashes, false positives and negatives happen, the security is by-passed etc.
Expert Geeks: See! we fucking told you idiots!
Anyone care to add some examples here?
Re:Good! (Score:4, Interesting)
Does it matter? As RIAA has proven (and SCO might yet prove) you don't need a case to win a lawsuit. You only need more money and better lawyers. However good Diebold's lawyers are I doubt they have the budget that the State of California has.
Re:Good! (Score:5, Insightful)
Actually, if they can prove (and it could be very easy to do so) that Diebold knew about the problems with their machines, then it's practically an open and shut case. Sooo... anyone want to help California out on this? No, no, a nice orderly line please. You'll all have a chance to help.
Kierthos
Re:Good! (Score:4, Interesting)
A while ago, some internal Diebold memos were leaked showing that their practices were (to put it mildly) very shoddy. At least one generation of machines were horribly insecure, making it trivial to untracably stuff the ballot box.
They should never have been allowed to sell their machines after this [scoop.co.nz] came out.
Winning a court case should be pretty easy, given the problematic design of Diebold systems. They look as though they were designed to help vote fraud (though the reality is probably that they were designed to allow Diebold to cover up software problems).Re:Good! (Score:3, Interesting)
Urk? How could SCO possibly prove that?
SCO's money : $$$
SCO's lawyers: ``
IBM's money : $$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$
IBM's lawyers: @@@@@@@@@@@@@@@@@@
IBM's lawyers: @@@@@@@@@@@@@@@@@@
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Re:Diebold voting machines (Score:4, Interesting)
Diebold election machines are a menace. Demand paper ballots. Even punch cards are more accurate __ AND SECURE __ than electronic voting.
Re:Diebold voting machines (Score:5, Insightful)
Like Bush trying to block the absentee ballots from Democratic leaning counties? Or the fake mobs of Republican congressional staffers bussed down from DC?
It's a double-edged sword and I suggest you stay away from it. Both of them acted in the most ruthless manner possible. What else would you expect?
Posted as AC due to the liberals on /.
So you don't have the guts to risk a little karma to stand up for what you think is right? It's only karma for goodness sake. Do you think I'm going to go home and cry if this post gets modded down by a Republican?
Re:Diebold voting machines (Score:3, Informative)
Re: Funny (Score:3, Insightful)
This is hilarious - you'd think they invented water or something. Do they really think it's that difficult to add 1 to an existing number when an on-screen button is pressed?