New Closed Source Voting Systems Malfunction

LowellPorter writes "Miami-Dade and Broward counties are having voting problems. After the 2000 election problems, new voting methods were installed including touch screen technology. Some times the problems were with workers not showing up, poor training, or mechanical problems. It doesn't look like they cleaned up the system there." Not all of the problems mentioned in the article are due to the new proprietary voting machines, but many of them are.

Comments

This doesn't make sense...

[jsonmez]

How hard is it to make a voting machine that works? All it does is count votes, it's not like it does rocket science!

Re:This doesn't make sense...

[Zathrus]

If it's so amazingly simple, feel free to go ahead and make it!

Don't forget that it has to be insanely easy to use, with extremely clear instructions and adaptable to an infinite number of configurations for different polling uses.

It also has to be capable of verifying that the voter is valid, that the ballot is valid, and that it itself is valid (i.e. - has not been tampered with).

You either need secured local storage or a secure connection to another storage facility (whether that be onsite or offsite). If local, you need to make sure the data won't be destroyed by substandard handling (see below).

It must be rugged, portable, easy to setup, and low cost.

It must save state, so that if it does crash the current voter doesn't get screwed. Optimally they should be able to go to another voting machine to finish their ballot.

Let us know when you've finished. Don't forget this is both a hardware and software solution. We'll be waiting.

Re:This doesn't make sense...

[anthony_dipierro]

What's wrong with the system that works so well and reliably in other places: using a pen, put a big cross in the box next to the person/answer being voted for. Any other marks invalidates the ballot slip.

One thing that's wrong with that is it makes it ridiculously simple to invalidate ballots after they are cast.

Re:This doesn't make sense...

[david.given]

If it's so amazingly simple, feel free to go ahead and make it!

Okay. Let's see. Let's use cardboard voting slips, with pencils.

• Intuitive --- check. Everyone knows how to make marks on paper. Put an X in the box next to the name of your candidate. Because the slips aren't machine-read, you don't have to cater to the machines, so you can put the boxes next to the candidate's name.
• Self-validating --- check. The human who counts the voting slip can tell at a glance if it's been filled out correctly. You can verify that each person has voted only once by keeping a list of people eligable to vote at each polling station, and crossing their names off the list.
• Secure storage --- check. Well, not quite. You need a box with a padlock on it and a slit in the lid, and a seal to indicate tampering. Seals are old technology. Trivial money from your local hardware store.
• Rugged, portable, low cost --- check. Carboard is cheap. Printed cardboard is cheap. It's also tough; if you use pencils rather than pens, then even if a filled box is submersed in water, the votes can still be read (carefully).
• Saves state --- check. Each vote is physically encoded on to a piece of cardboard, which can be counted as many times as is necessary to get it right. Won't crash. Ever.

So: we have a cheap, simple, secure voting system that's hard to spoof (with adequate physical security), easy to use, and with excellent accountability. You still need to count the votes, of course; here in the UK, we use volunteer bank tellers, who are really good at this sort of thing. The system scales really well, because each voting region is sized by population, and each area has about the same ratio of bank tellers to non bank tellers. The votes are counted in O(n) where n is the number of votes in the largest area, and then the results are phoned in to a central location.

And it all still works if the power goes out.

Why do we need machines, again?

What's with the headline?

[anthony_dipierro]

Would any of these problems be solved with an open source solution? Do these problems have anything at all to do with the fact that the solution is closed source? Is the fact that these systems are closed source ironic, or telling in any way?

Your headline is about as biased as "Microsoft User Commits Murder"

Journalism By Telepaths?

[reallocate]

1. The article doesn't tell us that the software is proprietary. Nor does it tell us that most of the problems are due to the use of closed software. Anyone wondering if Slashdot is an example of journalism or just a bunch of poseurs-for-hire tossing words around need look no further.

2. So anyway, why would we expect open source to work any better?

Oh, yeah, open source v1's are SO much better

[Brento]

Have you *ever* seen v1 of a system work flawlessly? It's so immature to toss the word "proprietary" in here, as if to insinuate that being open-source would fix anything. There's tons of open-source programs in v1 status with bugs. Anybody see any news headlines when Mozilla 1.0 came out and there were bugs in it? No? End of story.

Comment removed

[account_deleted]

Comment removed based on user account deletion

Openness is critical in insuring fair elections

[FreeUser]

Would any of these problems be solved with an open source solution? Do these problems have anything at all to do with the fact that the solution is closed source? Is the fact that these systems are closed source ironic, or telling in any way?

Yes, yes, and yes, it is telling.

Openness is absolutely critical to fair and free elections, and that applies to the technology as much as it does the people. Who knows what is being done with the data being collected, or how it is being massaged. Is every electronic vote counted? Do we know that the results being reported are accurate, or whether or not a systemic flaw (or deliberate alteration) in the software is causing every Nth republican or democratic vote to be dropped? No, we don't know this, because the software's source code is unavailable for public review, much less peer review.

There are all kinds of Microsoft apologists (not saying you are one, but the vast majority of posts taking a tone similiar to yours are, as evidenced by their posting histories) quick to point out that having untrained election officials has nothing to do with the closed source nature of the software, yet eagerly glossing over the profoundly obvious fact that if the election software is closed source, no amount of training can insure that the software is unbiased and the election results fair.

So the point is relevant, even if it does rub the closed source advocates and Microsoft zealots the wrong way.