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It's actually very easy to dispute everything you have said.

The Software you talk about being installed in Ohio has been approved by the U.S. Election Assistance Commission. No problems detected with the software AT ALL. Since everything else you are talking about is loose conspiracy theories, the rest of your rant is invalid.

I could make the same complaint about Maryland, where the state legislature gerrymandered the congressional districts and put up a misleading ballot measure to approve the new districts. It's politics, that's what they do. Mislead the ignorant masses to retain control.

The compiler will almost certainly point to AB and CD and invoke a runtime library which will interpret your ADD verb for you. This involves determining the type of variables, fetching both conversion to a common type, putting into machine registers, executing the add instruction, converting the sum back to the type consistent with the storage target, then transferring it to that target. At each step of the way there is error checking to be sure the data types are compatible, that they exist, that overflow did not occur and that the target is actually addressable.

Yep, and the output of those compiler operations are stored in a binary file with machine instructions, or rather the OS choice of representation of machine instructions (wow! more interpretation!). While we all see your point I believe you, Sir, is missing ours. The law does not consist of ADD, MOV etc. It is concerned with semantics. A very reasonable meaning of section 4.2.2 in the Voting System Standards Volume I is that they are referring to code being interpreted at runtime by other means than the CPU. Such as a VM, or an interpreter, that is, machine instructions that take non compile-time code (regardless of format) and executes it. Yes, that means you won't be able to bundle gcc or python on your voting box, it also means that you can't write your own little interpreter and include it. If you like you could probably argue that the text states that all code on the system has to be statically linked as well.

A less reasonable interpretation of the law is that no code can run on the system, 'cause if we're splitting hairs, all code can be described as interpreted

I've been messing with computers longer than you have been alive, and I'm here to tell you everything you learned about how things work is a simplification to avoid overwhelming you with the facts.

You seem to be having a bad day Sir, may I suggest a massage or a sauna?

The more you read at the ultimate site more you realize the people digging thru this garbage know nothing about what they are reading, and not much about programming either.

You could have kept reading, you know.

See also the 2002 edition of the "Voluntary Voting System Guide" published by the Federal Election Commission especially this bit in Volume 1:

Self-modifying, dynamically loaded, or interpreted code is prohibited [...]

The FEC standards say "prohibited". They do not say "Any self-modifying, dynamically loaded or interpreted code is only okay if someone who is a really good programmer says it is" or "Interpreted code is okey dokey as long as it isn't called all that often". If the database itself contains application code which modifies the database, then that's a problem. It doesn't matter what kind of code it is or how benign you think it is, it should not be there at all.

If you would like to share your educated opinion where it matters, feel free to comment in the wiki. That's what it's there for.

Rock the Vote uses the same National Voter Registration Form as everyone else, you can find it here: http://www.eac.gov/files/voter/nvra_update.pdf. Rock the Vote will fill it out for you online but you still have to print it, sign it, and mail it - so it's easier to register without their assistance if you're concerned about privacy.

The form itself is page 4 only; address to mail it to is in your state's instructions in the back.

The press release http://www.eac.gov/vvsg/News/press/eac-seeks-public-comment-on-tgdc2019s-recommended-voluntary-voting-system-guidelines-online-comment-tool-now-available says the VVSG will be open for public comment for the next 120 days. After the 120 days they will internally review/modify the document and then re-open it for comments for another 120 days. If you have posted some brilliant, insightful bit of wisdom here on slashdot for karma... PLEASE TAKE THE TIME TO LEAVE A COMMENT IN THE RELEVANT SECTION OF THE VVSG. I am guessing comments that get posted in this first 120 day period will have more influence than those posted in the second 120 day period.

in PDF Format.

It is interesting that the guidelines propose Open-Ended Vulnerability Testing, which is essentially described as a red-team exercise. This is a new and significant addition.

The second chapter of the introduction provides a good rundown of the new material in the guidelines.

It is interesting that the guidelines propose Open-Ended Vulnerability Testing, which is essentially described as a red-team exercise. This is a new and significant addition.

The second chapter of the introduction provides a good rundown of the new material in the guidelines.

Software independence means that an undetected error or fault in the voting system's software is not capable of causing an undetectable change in election results. All voting systems must be software independent in order to conform to the VVSG.

I definitely recommend reading the guidelines. There's a lot of stuff in there.

Maybe make it like the NFL draft- if New Hampshire wants to be first so badly, make them give some concessions to the state that got the highest turnout in order to swap places.

What sort of 'concessions' would New Hampshire make to, say, Delaware? A tanker truck full of maple syrup?

(And just in case anyone is curious, here's a breakdown of voter turnout as percent of population, for the 1996 election. South Dakota pretty much swept it with over 60% of the eligible voting-age population [not even just registered voters].)

1) I find it highly offensive and irresponsible that the discussion on /. for this case (both this story and the one before) has automatically presumed that the disabled community is being used as a witless proxy for larger battles.

2) Having read and digested the entire nuanced thread, particularly posts like this and that, I have come to the reasoned conclusion that disability access is being used as a proxy for larger battles. I also duly note the similarly with the Massachusetts fight over ODF, but disavow that this is a pattern. Even if Peter Korn of Sun thinks differently. <*sighs deeply* />

I would like to quote a well connected individual who this all into perspective for me a week ago:

It is curious that the original inquiry sources a New York Times company product. The NYT Co. and the Sulzberger family that controls it have been highly skeptical in the advancement of independence for people with disabilities. The latest criticism and skepticality from them regards the cost and reliability of accessible voting machines. The NYT co. product below fails to explain that this is a simple contract dispute and does not involve access issues. Diebold believes it met the requirements of the RFP more than ES&S and therefore should be given the contract rather than ES&S.

The difference of course is that the Diebold system for access is completely electronic and would need to blend the results with the paper optical scan ballots while the AutoMark simply prints a completed paper ballot and no blending of results is necessary. The Diebold DRE is a lot less expensive than the Automark, which is their biggest selling point.

This is likely the last big contract outstanding and could add to the sale price of the election division when Diebold decides to sell it. The new CEO already has said in Fortune magazine that the election division is not a long term strategic fit for the company.

And I initially thought he was just being cynical!

Not that anyone at /. cares, but here is a link to Voluntary Voting System Guidelines which both the ES&S and Diebold products fail to completely satisfy.

The Voluntary Voting System Guidelines have a great deal to do with accessibility to people with disabilities. I am not convinced Diebold does a better job with this than their competitors, but I would appreciate having this very point discussed. Thanks!

So what's the point of an electronic machine if the votes are counted manually? Seems like it would be a lot cheaper just to improve the paper ballots.

Yes, yes, yes.

You, sir, have realized what any sensible person would, and what virtually all coutry clerks, recorders, registrars, directors of boards of elections, and every other person who works with matters of election administration have long realized: It's much cheaper and more sensible to have human-readable ballots that can also be read by machine than to have machine-readable ballots that can't be read by humans.

If we're going to require our voting machines to produce human-readable ballots and these will be the ballots of record, then our fancy new machines are really nothing more than ballot printers. Well, what's the damned point in that?

Have a look at how much the Feds have allocated and distributed for HAVA as of FY2004. This is an absurd amount of money to throw at a technical fix to something that will not be fixed with technology. (I only mean that election trickery has been around as long as elections have, and neither HAVA nor other well-meaning Acts of Congress will solve that problem. Generally, they only make it more complicated by establishing a legal basis for behavior they sought to end. But that's another rant).

Unless there is a power glitch, or any one of a number of other statistically small possibilities. In this case, I'd accept that the system is flawed, unless they could demonstrate it was voter error. While they say "electronic voting machine", that is rather ambiguous and could mean any one of a number of things.

As far as "not one single vote", that isn't going to happen. There are just too many little things that could go wrong, and some of them eventually will.

The law [Vol 1. Section 3.2.1] states a test of 1 in 500,000 "ballot positions", per processing step is acceptable. They do not measure voters, but rather ballot positions. A ballot position is the number of candidates and the number of other votable issues on a ballot. Steps include things like the electronic recording; the paper trail; transferring data to jurisdiction HQ; etc.

For example, if there are 3 people running for mayor, that is 3 ballot positions per voter -- assuming no other races. If there were 7 bond issues (yes and no spaces), that is another 14 ballot positions. Add in things like other races, referendums, etc. and what looks like a small election can have 30-50 "ballot positions" per ballot. Multiple that times the number of voters then the number of steps and it adds up fast.

To be fair, the target is 1 in 10,000,000 and in an election this small, they should have gotten it right.

Why can't an electronic voting machine with a paper trail satisfy the private voting/public counting principle?

In a time where 537 votes makes ALL the difference, the ten-thousand plus Americans overseas certainly do not consider themselves a statistically negligible group. Your feelings may vary.

Granted, it's primarily Republicans that are fighting to ensure that not all the votes counted, as they did in 2000 when they argued before the Supreme Court that racially marginalized populations don't deserve to have their votes counted (being too brown, and all), but it's not at all inconceivable that someone overseas might not know how to vote and might need to find out how to vote. While they can, of course, search for the information on Google and check out cached pages and do a reverse DNS over IP doubleback-traceroute off a proxy server in Malaysia to get to the information they need, chances are they are not as computer savvy as your average slashbot (though certainly more worldly, as you've pointed out). In fact, there is undoubtedly someone out there that can only guess at where they might go, and it certainly seems to the layperson that the candidates that want your vote might have information on how to vote on their webpages. Guessing http://www.georgewbush.com/ is a lot easier than guessing http://www.eac.gov/register_vote_forms.asp.

Of course, if people overseas can't get to the cesspool of lies that is georgewbush.com, they're more likely to go to the mildly festering swamp of lies and revealing truths at http://www.johnkerry.com/, or preferably the amusing and admirable http://www.georgewbush.org/. Either way, it's a step in the right direction (or at least shorter strides in the wrong one).

The EAC didn't start up until January 2004. There was a long delay because the 4 commissioners were not nominated until October 2003 or confirmed by the US Senate until December 2003.