Indecision 2002

The most common story submission about the U.S. elections held today seems to be that the consortium which typically conducts and reports exit polls has encountered technical difficulties. If only they'd had an open beta program... There have also been a number of stories highlighting problems with new electronic voting machines, a topic Slashdot has hit several times in the past. CNN, the NY Times, and essentially every other U.S. news outfit are following the election results as best they can.

Comments

MARIJUANA IN NEVADA!!!

[corebreech]

Track the results.

Re:MARIJUANA IN NEVADA!!!

[dirvish]

It certainly helps if it isn't locally enforced. If local officials don't press charges or a local judge throws cases out the feds may never catch wind of it or bother to deal with it.

Obviously is isn't just about "one's ability to get high." It is about our civil rights and about people being able to get proper medical treatment. What the hell is the point of making a plant illegal?

Re:MARIJUANA IN NEVADA!!!

[_KhlER3L]

there's more important things to worry about than one's ability to get high. Besides, people will do it regardless of the law anyway.

I disagree. Hundreds of thousands of people have been made criminals by the pot laws, yet pot itself is practically harmless. It's not anywhere as addictive as cigarettes, and it doesn't induce rages like alcohol does. But you've heard all that before. Hundreds of thousands of lives damaged over a harmless experience..

It's a great danger to society to allow the infringement of other people's freedoms because 'it doesn't effect me.' People should work together to overturn bad laws, not turn their backs on one another. The American policy on pot is a bad policy, therefore, it's important to fight it, even if you are not a pot smoker -- I'm not.

As well, the United States is pressuring Canada on it's internal views on pot, to try to get a more conservative momentum there. This unimportant pot law may turn into a long standing greivance between citizens of Canada and the USA. Did you know that in Montreal, 65% of people support legalization or decriminalization?

_khl

Open Beta Program

[mrbrown1602]

I thought this was interesting. In Lafayette Parish in Louisiana, they are "beta testing" new electronic voting machines for absentee voting.

Electronic Voting analysis by a CompSci prof

[sakusha]

There is a series of very interesting papers on voting theory, both on paper and electronically, written by a computer science professor and election commissioner. I recommend them highly:

http://www.cs.uiowa.edu/~jones/voting/

In particular, I recommend the essay on Paper Ballots, that's the theoretical basis for the current electronic systems.

Re:A bone to pick with the dept.

[Otter]

I vote. People like me vote. People like Michael are too smart to waste their time voting.

Candidates who agree with my views get elected. Candidates who support the views of people who are too smart to vote don't get elected. People who are too smart to vote conclude that they're even smarter than they'd realized.

Sucks for them that the system rewards cornball values like citzenship and responsibility instead of snideness and cynicism...

Re:kind of convenient

[nomadic]

They're not a monopoly; they're just very big and very well-funded. If you want to create your own exit poll system, feel free. In fact, many networks and newspapers already do this, even some that also contract VNS.

Re:good

[Anonymous Coward]

In a word, No

Look at the "socialist paradise," "world's first welfare state" Sweden. If it were admitted as the 51st state, it would have a standard of living less than that of Alabama.

In fact, the average African-American enjoys a greater standard of living than the average Swede.

Put that in socialist crackpipe and smoke it, why don't you.

Proof?

[ArchieBunker]

Any proof to these claims? No links from salon please, we all know which direction they lean. By the way I read a book about how the holocaust was faked. Its not true but yet its a book. I can't believe people like you can continue to exist without imploding from the vacuum in your head.

What actually happened

[wmspringer]

hmm, I just read the actual article. It says:

Democrats asked for the initial order because some precincts in Pulaski County ran out of ballots.

In other words, people are showing up on time and not being able to vote because the equipment isn't working/available. The Democrats are trying to fix the problem, and the Republicans are trying (successfully, it seems) to stop them.

Florida, anyone?

CNNs election calls...

[cyberwench]

Well, it's hard to tell how well it's working. At the very least, I think they've improved their prediction system. It seems to be a combination of exit polls, a calculation of how close the race is, and how the vote goes historically. There's a page on CNN about it, but I have to admit I only skimmed it. =)

http://www.cnn.com/ELECTION/2002/pages/how.html

Re:Fritz Hollings out as commerce committee chair!

[gad_zuki!]

> No matter what your party affiliation is, you have to be encouraged by the growing possibility of Republicans taking back control of the Senate.

Umm, no. The worse anti-technology legislators are Republicans. List from the Worst Coders in Washington article: http://www.aotc.info/archives/000152.html

See all those little R's?

The Lawmakers
These lawmakers in the House of Representatives and the Senate wrote more anti-technology legal code than any of their co-legislators.

1. Rep. Charles (Chip) Pickering (R-MS 3rd district) 3 bills $230,900
DMCA, COPA, CIPA
2. Rep. Lamar Smith (R-TX 21st district) 2 bills $87,112
P2P Piracy Prevention Bill, COPA
3. Sen. Ted Stevens (R-AK ) 2 bills $375,339
CBDTPA, CIPA
4. Rep. Bill Paxon (R-NY 27th district) 2 bills $200,938
DMCA, COPA
5. Rep. Howard L. Berman (D-CA 26th district) 2 bills $212,991
DMCA, P2P Piracy Prevention Bill
6. Rep. Michael G. Oxley (R-OH 4th district) 2 bills $184,998
COPA, CIPA
7. Rep. Howard Coble (R-NC 6th district) 2 bills $114,747
DMCA, P2P Piracy Prevention Bill
8. Sen. Ernest F. Hollings (D-SC ) 2 bills $532,980
CBDTPA, CIPA
9. Rep. Bob Franks (R-NJ 7th district) 2 bills $661,784
COPA, CIPA
10. Rep. Asa Hutchinson (R-AR 3rd district) 1 bill $99,350
COPA
11. Sen. John McCain (R-AZ ) 1 bill $1,050,321
CIPA
12. Rep. Roscoe G. Bartlett (R-MD 6th district) 1 bill $50,500
COPA
13. Rep. Jack Metcalf (R-WA 2nd district) 1 bill $185,377
COPA
14. Rep. Barbara Cubin (R-WY 1st district) 1 bill $115,980
COPA
15. Rep. Dan Schaefer (R-CO 6th district) 1 bill $145,162
COPA
16. Rep. Henry J. Hyde (R-IL 6th district) 1 bill $83,500
DMCA
17. Rep. Paul E. Gillmor (R-OH 5th district) 1 bill $107,849
COPA
18. Rep. Dave Weldon (R-FL 15th district) 1 bill $139,759
COPA
19. Rep. John R. Kasich (R-OH 12th district) 1 bill $235,185
COPA
20. Sen. Conrad R. Burns (R-MT ) 1 bill $506,126
CIPA
21. Rep. Roy Blunt (R-MO 7th district) 1 bill $175,636
COPA
22. Rep. Mark W. Neumann (R-WI 1st district) 1 bill $167,765
COPA
23. Rep. John T. Doolittle (R-CA 4th district) 1 bill $78,765
COPA
24. Rep. Vince Snowbarger (R-KS 3rd district) 1 bill $106,774
COPA
25. Rep. James C. Greenwood (R-PA 8th district) 1 bill $98,185
COPA
26. Rep. Heather Wilson (R-NM 1st district) 1 bill $232,960
COPA
27. Sen. J. James Exon (D-NE ) 1 bill $0
CDA
28. Rep. Steve Largent (R-OK 1st district) 1 bill $98,852
COPA
29. Rep. Stephen E. Buyer (R-IN 5th district) 1 bill $115,160
COPA
30. Rep. Collin C. Peterson (D-MN 7th district) 1 bill $126,499
COPA
31. Rep. Mary Bono (R-CA 44th district) 1 bill $76,604
DMCA
32. Rep. Jon D. Fox (R-PA 13th district) 1 bill $200,834
COPA
33. Rep. Cliff Stearns (R-FL 6th district) 1 bill $92,743
COPA
34. Sen. Dianne Feinstein (D-CA ) 1 bill $389,544
CBDTPA
35. Rep. Peter Hoekstra (R-MI 3rd district) 1 bill $47,719
COPA
36. Rep. Ronnie Shows (D-MS 4th district) 1 bill $210,650
CIPA
37. Rep. Robert B. Aderholt (R-AL 4th district) 1 bill $266,944
COPA
38. Rep. John M. McHugh (R-NY 24th district) 1 bill $92,380
COPA
39. Rep. Jon Christensen (R-NE 2nd district) 1 bill $230,552
COPA
40. Rep. Max Sandlin (D-TX 1st district) 1 bill $215,450
COPA
41. Rep. Barney Frank (D-MA 4th district) 1 bill $55,500
DMCA
42. Rep. Greg Ganske (R-IA 4th district) 1 bill $177,885
COPA
43. Rep. J. C. Jr. Watts (R-OK 4th district) 1 bill $135,705
COPA
44. Rep. Nancy L. Johnson (R-CT 6th district) 1 bill $279,554
COPA
45. Sen. Christopher S. Bond (R-MO ) 1 bill $477,360
CIPA
46. Rep. Michael Bilirakis (R-FL 9th district) 1 bill $92,011
COPA
47. Rep. Jr. Nethercutt, George R. (R-WA 5th district) 1 bill $142,127
COPA
48. Rep. Nathan Deal (R-GA 9th district) 1 bill $106,339
COPA
49. Rep. Linda Smith (R-WA 3rd district) 1 bill $52,494
COPA
50. Rep. Bart Gordon (D-TN 6th district) 1 bill $248,500
COPA
51. Rep. Ed Whitfield (R-KY 1st district) 1 bill $169,715
COPA
52. Rep. Tim Johnson (R-IL 15th district) 1 bill $383,959
CDA
53. Rep. Jay Kim (R-CA 41st district) 1 bill $116,574
COPA
54. Sen. Kay Bailey Hutchison (R-TX ) 1 bill $422,932
CIPA
55. Rep. Dan Burton (R-IN 6th district) 1 bill $145,282
COPA
56. Rep. Michael Pappas (R-NJ 12th district) 1 bill $80,749
COPA
57. Rep. Mark Foley (R-FL 16th district) 1 bill $106,699
COPA
58. Rep. Mark E. Souder (R-IL 4th district) 1 bill $75,534
COPA
59. Sen. John B. Breaux (D-LA ) 1 bill $343,769
CBDTPA
60. Rep. David L. Hobson (R-OH 7th district) 1 bill $104,922
COPA
61. Rep. Bobby L. Rush (D-IL 1st district) 1 bill $177,481
CIPA
62. Rep. Thomas J. Manton (D-NY 7th district) 1 bill $118,494
COPA
63. Rep. Ken Calvert (R-CA 43th district) 1 bill $127,625
COPA
64. Rep. Joseph R. Pitts (R-PA 16th district) 1 bill $103,800
COPA
65. Rep. John Jr. Conyers (D-MI 14th district) 1 bill $99,110
DMCA
66. Rep. Elizabeth Furse (D-OR 1st district) 1 bill $248,322
COPA
67. Rep. Fred Upton (R-MI 6th district) 1 bill $121,673
COPA
68. Sen. Bill Nelson (D-FL ) 1 bill $442,151
CBDTPA
69. Rep. Jr. Istook, Ernest J. (R-OK 5th district) 1 bill $93,284
COPA
70. Sen. Spencer Abraham (R-MI ) 1 bill $732,850
CIPA
71. Rep. Joe Barton (R-TX 6th district) 1 bill $162,944
COPA
72. Rep. Sue Myrick (R-NC 9th district) 1 bill $147,741
COPA
73. Rep. Pat Danner (D-MO 6th district) 1 bill $112,950
COPA
74. Rep. Pete Sessions (R-TX 5th district) 1 bill $207,111
COPA
75. Rep. Bill McCollum (R-FL 8th district) 1 bill $326,487
DMCA
76. Rep. Benjamin A. Gilman (R-NY 20th district) 1 bill $149,306
COPA
77. Rep. Jerry Weller (R-IL 11th district) 1 bill $200,075
COPA
78. Rep. Robert Wexler (D-FL 19th district) 1 bill $107,500
P2P Piracy Prevention Bill
79. Rep. Sue W. Kelly (R-NY 19th district) 1 bill $168,550
COPA
80. Sen. Jesse Helms (R-NC ) 1 bill $386,450
CIPA
81. Rep. Richard Burr (R-NC 5th district) 1 bill $118,275
COPA
82. Rep. Charlie Norwood (R-GA 10th district) 1 bill $185,621
COPA
83. Rep. Phil English (R-PA 21st district) 1 bill $163,562
COPA
84. Rep. Gerald B. H. Solomon (R-NY 22nd district) 1 bill $164,098
COPA
85. Rep. Ralph M. Hall (D-OH 3rd district) 1 bill $94,000
COPA
86. Rep. Gary Miller (R-CA 41st district) 1 bill $148,450
CIPA
87. Sen. Slade Gorton (R-WA ) 1 bill $376,525
CDA
88. Rep. Rick Lazio (R-NY 2nd district) 1 bill $214,076
COPA
89. Rep. Sonny Callahan (R-AL 1th district) 1 bill $109,835
COPA
90. Rep. John E. Peterson (R-PA 5th district) 1 bill $60,556
COPA
91. Rep. Sonny Bono (R-CA 44th district) 1 bill $0
DMCA
92. Rep. Charles H. Taylor (R-NC 11th district) 1 bill $90,864
COPA
93. Sen. Daniel K. Inouye (D-HI ) 1 bill $247,429
CBDTPA

Wickard v. Filburn may not strictly apply

[yerricde]

owned his own land, consumed his own food, raised his own seed and even made his own farming implements. Yet when he grew a federally banned crop they cracked down.

Wickard v. Filburn was not about a banned crop but rather about private growth and consumption competing with a rationed crop. Marijuana, on the other hand, is banned; therefore, the precedent may not strictly apply.

Besides, the Lopez case seems to represent a turnaround in the Supreme Court's view of the loose interpretation of Congress's enumerated powers. A win for the "good guys" in Eldred v. Ashcroft would also show that there still exist some things outside Congress's enumerated powers.

Re:Saw this one coming

[dave_c]

What is up with all this, anyway? I mean, is this really a lot more complicated than a simple database?

Yes, it's a lot more complicated. (I worked for VNS in the '96 election.) Under the 'old' system, ~2,000 people are sent to selected precincts around the country and hand out questionnaires. ("Are you a Democrat/Republican?" "How old are you?" "Who did you vote for in the Senate race?") Each exit poller is told to hand the questionnaire to specific individuals (e.g. every fourth person who comes out of the precint). Throughout the day, the exit poller phones in their reponses, which are tallied and compared.

This is where the big software problem comes in. You've got a sample size of about 2,000 precints that are combined with past voting behavior and used to make projections on today's voting behavior in many thousands of precints (providing real-time results). Results phoned in by exit pollers are compared to voting behavior over previous decades. Polls may show a Democratic candidate winning by a landslide in District A that has elected Republicans for the last 30 years. Polls may show low voter turnout in Precint B, which has had 65% turn out in the past 7 elections. Etc., etc. Results that don't match predicted voter behavior is investigated, and since the consortium members (ABC, CBS, NBC, FOX, and AP) want the data NOW, your software has to do a lot of that work for you.

So the big software problem is not so much storing exit poll data, but making that information useful based on past voter behavior and providing it in real-time.

Re:Write ins?

[jx100]

I saw one of these machines on the news. They do allow for a write-in. When "write in' was selected, a qwerty keyboard would pop up on the screen, and that would let you enter in the candidate.

Georgia voting process issues

[sstamps]

I went and voted earlier, and it went pretty smoothly. The machines were made by Diebold (go figure). However, I must say that I am not comfortable putting my vote in the hands of a completely unaccountable corporation.

However, much worse than that was what happened after I finished voting. The machine used a smart card, that was locked into the machine while I was voting. After I was done, it was ejected, and one of the nice volunteers took it from me -- by hand -- while another handed me an "I voted" sticker.

It appears that the smart card does nothing more than "enable" the voting machine, and the votes are stored in the machine until read out. The question is, I have no info on how that process works, so I have no idea if my vote is even being counted properly. Further, I don't think that the State is very forthcoming on all the gory details of the process, for fear of someone finding a weakness and exploiting it. So, again, no accountability.

While I do understand and appreciate the need to replace the tedious and often error-prone manual processes in our voting systems, I am still uncomfortable with trusting in methods and equipment which have ZERO accountability anywhere in the chain.

I predict the obvious here.. lots of lawsuits by angry losers contesting the election and the new processes utilitized in it.

Oh well.. such is the way of "progress".

Re:Electronic voting ... where's the code?

[jafuser]

Does anyone have any information on how (and to what extent) voting machines are audited?

Basically, they're not. Not only that, but they're typically being designed in other countries; and they're protected by the DMCA from anyone to even attempt to audit them by opening the voting machines up and taking a look around inside (including the government itself!).

Rebecca Mercuri did her CS PhD thesis on this very topic. Here is her summary. She's often quoted on this topic.

VNS has Content Problems Too

[billstewart]

Maybe they've gotten better, but in the past, they not only counted only the votes for Democrats and Republicans, but made the totals add up to 100%. On tonight's election results, I saw one channel reporting the California governor's race results as 53%-47%, but another channel reporting 47-43-5-2-2-1. The Greens particularly took votes that Davis would have otherwise gotten many of, and the American Independent took votes that would otherwise have been Republican, and the Libertarians and Natural Law probably would have split.

To get back to software issues, some of the stations had a fixed display format that could only handle two candidates (whether the numbers were correct or not), while others were more flexible (which they also needed for things like city council races, which here in California are usually Vote-for-N-of-M non-partisan.)

Re:New voting method being used in Nevada

[Jin Wicked]

This was probably invented by Wallace & Gromit, right? It sort of reminds me of the NASA program to create a pen that could write in space. NASA (and american taxpayers) "invested" close to one million dollars on that. The russians used pencils.

Actually, that is an urban legend.

Electronic voting has been used since 1996

[rednaxel]

The system has been used gradually in Brazil. This year's presidential elections were 100% electronic. You can even try a simulator (Java Applet) with fake candidates (one of them is Carmen Miranda):

http://www.tse.gov.br/eleicoes/eleicoes2002/

The results were known within hours. The code is digitally signed, and the parties were allowed to check the source code. There is no wires, the device generates a diskette that is encrypted and signed before being sent to TSE. Some cities was experimenting a printer attached to extra security.

Diebold voting terminals

Brazil's vote - fast but fiddly

Wicard's wheat

[goombah99]

In the case of Wicard's wheat, the supreme court ruled that if a man was growing his own wheat then obvioulsy he would not be buying any wheat, and his failure to consume affected interstate commerce. Therefore the Feds have the authority to regulate what and how much he can grow. And from there it was all downhill.

Congress's ability to make laws the regulate personal behaviour and practices entirely within a state ALL stem from the constitution's allowance for the feds to regulate inter-state commerce. And this was originally put in the constitution as a sweetener to join the union (i.e joint a free trade zone! much like reason everyone joined the EU or why nafta happened. scary).

Excerpted from www.fff.org: Enter Roscoe Filburn, an Ohio dairy and poultry farmer, who raised a small quantity of winter wheat -- some to sell, some to feed his livestock, and some to consume. In 1940, under authority of the Agricultural Adjustment Act, the central government told Mr. Filburn that for the next year he would be limited to planting 11 acres of wheat and harvesting 20 bushels per acre. He harvested 12 acres over his allotment for consumption on his own property. When the government fined him, Mr. Filburn refused to pay. Wickard v. Filburn got to the Supreme Court, and in 1942, the justices unanimously ruled against the farmer. The government claimed that if Mr. Filburn grew wheat for his own use, he would not be buying it -- and that affected interstate commerce. It also argued that if the price of wheat rose, which is what the government wanted, Mr. Filburn might be tempted to sell his surplus wheat in the interstate market, thwarting the government's objective. The Supreme Court bought it. The Court's opinion must be quoted to be believed: [The wheat] supplies a need of the man who grew it which would otherwise be reflected by purchases in the open market. Home-grown wheat in this sense competes with wheat in commerce. As Epstein commented, "Could anyone say with a straight face that the consumption of home-grown wheat is 'commerce among the several states?'" For good measure, the Court justified the obvious sacrifice of Mr. Filburn's freedom and interests to the unnamed farmers being protected: It is of the essence of regulation that it lays a restraining hand on the self-interest of the regulated and that advantages from the regulation commonly fall to others. After Wickard , everything is mere detail. The entire edifice of civil rights legislation stands on the commerce power. Under this maximum commerce power, the government has been free to regulate nearly everything, including a restaurant owner's bigotry. The Court has held that if Congress sees a connection to interstate commerce, it is not its role to second guess.