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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.
As long as you don't open the box, it is alive. I love to see solid sciences adapted for use by the general public.
The obvious question is:
How can voters be expected to trust a voting mechanism when there is no accountability? I don't give two sh*ts about the machine being proprietary. If the machine's method cannot be audited publicly it has NO business being used for any public business.
Whoever orchestrated the purchase of these machines: a) has no business in office, and b) probably got a kickback from the manufacturer.
(Yeah I'm cynical. It's a hobby.)
"Nothing is so important that you cannot make fun of it." -Clarke
The parent company subcontracts out the makers of the devices is called Penultimate Inc. They are a shady company that buys off politicians so no one asks questions when things go wrong. The Miami Herald has stories about them a lot:
Excerpt:
Penultimate, Inc., which equipped a Florida jail with automatic garage-opener gates that accidentally freed prisoners in a lightning storm.
They are building a parking garage at Miami Inrt Airport, which is three years behind schedule and 5 times the cost.
I really hate Dan Patrick.
That "Nigger: Yes/No" before voting
Asking if you want to recieve important voter product information in your mailbox
Uses CyberAge for verification
You have to agree to a long EVLA which basically states that your Voter Registration Card is property of Sequoia Voting Systems Inc.
Some say that the popup ads for republican candidates violates the 500-yards rule, though advertisers insist that this being a digital medium, the 700-yard long EVLA should be counted in the measurement
Voting System always seems to hang on important issues
Text-feild for write-ins has 3 character limit
Can't really get through the voting proccess without going out and downloading 17 VBRun dll files
Many voters complained of a lack of MP3 support
No confirmation message saying that your vote has been recieved.
-- 'The' Lord and Master Bitman On High, Master Of All
The bottom line: all voting systems have the potential for inaccuracy and abuse, and nearly all of them experience inaccuracy and abuse every time they are used. We have faith in the outcomes mostly because the overall result usually does not differ very much from our shared sense of who really "won."
As the Massachusetts state chair of the Libertarian Party, and a two-time candidate for public office, I have had an exposure to the voting process and the people who conduct it that many other voters have not had. Here's what I can tell you:
At every Libertarian primary, we collect stories of votes not counted, votes incorrectly counted, and voters confused or abused by the system.
In one case, some of our voters reported that they were actually asked to sign their ballots!
In others cases, five people in a precinct will swear they've voted in the primary, but only three votes will show in the official tally.
Then there's the actual abuse.
A fellow who used to work with another party once explained to me how unscrupulous operatives routinely abuse the system by taking advantage of the fact that Massachusetts law does not require voters to present identification when they vote.
I don't wish to give unnecessary detail, but suffice it to say that I do believe that some small level of vote fraud is present in most elections, even here in the United States.
It is interesting to note, however, that when one Massachusetts town tried to mitigate the problem by requiring voters to show ID, the Democrats successfully fought the practice in federal court by alleging that requiring identification is an unfair burden on the indigent.
For the most part, these issues arise not because people are malicious (although some inevitably are), but primarily because poll workers are well-meaning, underpaid, undertrained, and perfectly normal, fallible human beings.
These problems are usually too small to notice against the bulk of legitimately cast and properly counted votes, except when the total number of votes cast is small (like in a small precinct) or when the overall result is very close (as in Florida in 2000).
In general, it is not possible to get a "perfect" result from any voting system. The best that we can do is accept our imperfect knowledge and stand behind the result that most reasonably appears to be true.
That's not always easy. But if you want to make sure the result means something, the best thing to do about it is help to ensure that the result is not small or close by going out and casting your ballot for the candidates you like best.
For voting, it is very important to have a way to re-count the votes. I think a literal paper trail is best.
I cannot imagine a better scheme than what Washington state is using now:
When you go to vote, you get a piece of heavy paper (or maybe it's light cardstock) pre-printed with the ballot. Next to each item you can vote for is a bubble. They loan you a fine-point permanent marker (a Sharpie) and to vote you just fill in the bubble.
When you are done, you take the ballot over to the counting machine. You feed the ballot into the slot. (If this is too technically advanced for you, the nice person watching the machine helps you.)
The counting machine makes sure you didn't make any conflicting votes: for example, voting for both Bush and Gore for President. If there are any conflicting votes, it refuses the ballot and spits it back out the slot. Then you get a fresh ballot and start over.
Assuming all is well, it counts up all the votes, and then drops the ballot into a bag. The bags are locked up and stored, so the actual paper ballots are available for a recount if necessary.
At the end of the day, the counting machine is plugged into a phone jack. It calls in to a computer and reports the votes it had counted all day. The votes can then be quickly summed and you find out how the election went quickly.
You only need one counting machine per voting location, and the voting booths are simple desks with privacy screens; the Florida voting machines cost $3500 each and you need one per voting booth.
The system now used in Washington state is easy to use, not expensive or difficult to implement, gives results quickly, and allows for recounts.
steveha
lf(1): it's like ls(1) but sorts filenames by extension, tersely
Over in Germany, we have something that works flawlessly. Paper and pen. The forms are counted manually and the results are faxed from the local offices.
And how long does it take to get the results? We can usually vote till 6PM and get the results by 11PM on the same day. There are only 70 million Germans, but I don't see why this shouldn't scale up.
>I'd really like to know why private business has so much
>sway over government in these sorts of things.
See, there's this thing called "bribery". It'a a major factor in this other thing called "corruption". Since you're apparently not aware of either, you should look into these new concepts right away. It'll give you a better understanding of why this "campaign finance reform" thing keeps coming up.
P.S. it's spelled "Holy Moley" in the Captain Marvel comics where (as far as I know) that phrase originated.