Unauditable Voting Machines

CustomDesigned writes "AP news has a story on how the new proprietary voting machines for Palm County, FL are working (or not). It seems that voters are complaining that their votes weren't taken. The company claims that the machines are "self auditing", but won't say how they are "audited". The loser of a mayoral race is suing for a review of now the machines work. But doing so voids the warranty, so the election supervisor won't allow it. So, nobody knows how the machines work, but as long as we don't try to find out, the company "guarantees" that they do - whether they seem to or not. I don't expect are problems this fall, do you?" After the debacle, there was lot of noise about electronic voting systems, even ones which use open-source software and were thus completely auditable. Absolutely none of that talk has made it into practice.

Comments

Holy moly!

[MaxVlast]

Who's responsible for these things? And how much of the taxpayers' money did they cost? I hope the voters pay attention in November.

I'd really like to know why private business has so much sway over government in these sorts of things. I'm quite certain that this county's contract is one of the largest orders that the company has ever gotten. How come the county, as the consumer, doesn't realize that it has the power in the situation, and instead of acting out of fear of the company, should act to protect the interests of its residents.

Here patents would be useful.

[Krapangor]

I suppose they don't want the inner workings the box disclosed because they fear that the competitors steal their design.
But if they had a patent on this stuff they could agree to the disclosure without problems.
You see a good example would patent would come in handy and everybody would profit.
But they seem to be always at the wrong places.

Re:Sounds like a user training issue

[Daemonik]

Even if the actual voter doesn't recieve a reciept, there should be some hard data trail for use in lawsuits and such. "It's true because I say so" will only get you so far in a court of law, or in public opinion.

So what if the public wants to whine about changes in the way they interface with the government they elected to represent them? In a democracy the government is responsible to us, not the other way around. Large changes like this should be able to stand up to any public scrutiny and prove its reliability and accountability.

It's not like anyone would even THINK of altering the software in these machines so they automatically chose the winner based on whichever party has paid off the manufacturer the most. Nah, such underhanded tactics wouldn't get past the high ethical standards that our elected officials and business executives in the US are known for.

Re:Well

[BlueUnderwear]

Whoever orchestrated the purchase of these machines: a) has no business in office, and b) probably got a kickback from the manufacturer.

Why bother with a kickback? In this case, the manufacturer had something much more valuable than a mere kickback to give to the decision maker. Namely, the promise that from now on, he will win every election in his town...

Conspiracy theory.

[BitGeek]

The reason nothings being done... hmm... could it be that democrats cook elections just as much as republicans? And the two parties have a vested interest in the status quo? No?

Back in 2000 MIT demonstrated a secure, verifiable voting mechanism that would allow any citizen to audit the results in a few minutes without giving up the anonymity of the voters. The technology is there.

The fact that it hasn't been adopted is yet another in a long string of failures to perform their duty on the part of our government.

These failures are unacceptable to me, but most people just go about their lives believing what they're told and in denial.

How can you have liberty in a land of sheep? All it takes is a few wolves to convince the sheep that its for thier own good. (which is why we still have the income tax system-- the sheep said "OK" to it to pay for WWI, but the wolves didn't keep their word.)

Its a shame, really.

This should be easy

[rnturn]

If the law allows for a candidate to ask for a recall, and the machines do not alow it, then the voting machines should be declared illegal.

So this voting machine manufacturer thinks their warranty supercedes the rights of the voters or the local laws where the machines are used. Seems like a judge ought to be getting these machines thrown out and the local government ought to be firing the bozo who authorized thier purchase in the first place. And perhaps the government's lawyers ought to be getting some serious looking into as well. They should have seen the potential for a firestorm in purchasing a machine with this warranty.