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

International observers in Florida

[Black Parrot]

The most interesting thing I've heard on the news today is that one of the international organizations that monitors elections in the Third World is monitoring the election in Florida this time.

Re:International observers in Florida

[fobbman]

In 2000 the election of our national leader was decided by a state who was run by the eventual winner's brother and the person in charge of certifying the election was a state campaign leader for that candidate. The candidate's father also was the president who was supplanted by the ticket that had the eventual winner's opponent on it. Prior to being president that father was the head of the nation's secret police.

Are you kidding? Those third world countries are in Florida tonight to see how a corrupt election is run by the Greatest Nation on the Planet. They wanna learn from the big guys how to do it and get away with it.

Saw this one coming

[PizzaFace]

The Washington Post reported in August that, while VNS management was blowing sunshine, VNS's programmers were quietly doubting they could finish the system by the non-negotiable deadline of election day. Although this was one of the most significant and closely contested congressional elections in decades, there was no option of falling back on the old system, which made two notoriously erroneous projections in the 2000 presidential election.

Now, if VNS were as good at predicting the outcome of software development projects, as they are at predicting election results... Hmmm, maybe the problem is, they are.

Goddamn but /. is late

[Henry V .009]

Speaking of elections--Today was the election, but slashdot didn't even run a story asking geeks to vote. You'd think that a site that cares so much about "Your Rights Online" would at least point out a couple of candidates who have either very bad records on such things or very good records. You know, if all we do is whine about the DMCA, congress-critters will continue to screw us over. Voting, and getting other people to vote will make them sit up and take notice. Well, maybe 2004.

Re:MARIJUANA IN NEVADA!!!

[nelsonal]

Sounds like what Montana did with their speed limits during the 55 era. If you never drove through back in the day, it worked like this. If you get pulled over, coverage is pretty limited here, they only time I still see a highway patrol is near a city, or highway patrol HQ, you paid the cop a $5 ticket that didn't get written up to your insurance. Most people in the state, drove with a stack of of 5s in the glove compartment. Technically the speed limit was 55 so they got their highway money, but enforcement was very limited.

And Jeb wins in Florida

[fobbman]

The 93,000 people that were not allowed to vote during the 2000 election in Florida were still on the list this time around. The company who created that list of supposed felons and dead people for Katherine Harris says that if Harris had not crossed off most of their checking processes off of the contract and they were allowed to process that list that the end result would be a list of approximately 3000 names. Ninety-one thousand people (mostly African American Democrats, curiously enough) would be allowed to vote today (and two years ago) if they were allowed to do their job.

The State of Florida, when confronted with this information, admitted that the list was flawed and that they would get it fixed...some time in 2003. After the current election.

For more information check out Greg Palast's book "The Best Democracy Money Could Buy". It's a heck of a read. There was also an article over at Salon late last week but it is in their premium contect section.

Re:And Jeb wins in Florida

[workindev]

Ok, here are the facts behind your supposed Florida election scandal.

It was found in the 1998 election that a large number of convicted felons voted, which is against Florida state law.

As a result, Florida hired the services of ChoicePointe to compile a list of possible felons to prevent this in the 2000 election. The list included about 100,000 names.

Every one of those 100,000 people were notified by mail that they were included on the list and they were given a proceedure to dispute the listing (it was simply to go to you local police station with a photo-id and provide a finger print).

These names were given to local county election officials, who had the option of using the list to bar people from voting. Not every county used the list.

It is not known how many people were incorrectly banned from voting.

A total of 5 people claimed they were incorrectly not allowed to vote because they didn't follow the proceedure to remove their names. There could have been more, but only 5 people formally complained.

Here is the official settlement agreement from the NAACP. Read on the bottom of page 1:

Defendants have taken an oath to support, protect and defend the Constitution and laws of the United States and of the State of Florida... Plaintiffs have not alleged that Defendants acted in a purposefully discriminatory manner toward any group

It clearly states that nobody was accusing Katherine Harris or Jeb Bush or anybody else in Florida of any wrongdoing or fraud. So, your (and this Greg Palast fool) entire claim is the following: In 2000, Florida compiled a list of 100,000 convicted felons to prevent them from breaking state law and voting. Of that list of 100,000 people, an unknown number were legitimate voters. Of that unknown number of legitimate voters, an unknown number did not follow the proceedure to dispute their name being included on the list. Of that unknown number, an unknown number lived in counties that did not use the list in the election. Of that unknown number, an unknown number would have even bothered to show up to vote (expect about 40% for voter turnout averages). And, the official legal settlement as shown on the plaintiffs web site makes no accusation of fraud or wrong doing.

Is this seriously the best election scandal you can come up with?

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

[rodgerd]

No, you can't.

And the company that manufactures the most widely used ones is owned a major Republican supporter. There is at least one shareholder who is an actual politician. They've started suing news outlets publishing this information, though.

Proper computing solution superior

[dh003i]

A proper voting system administered via computing with adequate security measures would be fine. This means primarily NO INTERNET CONNECTIONS. If the voting machines were hooked up to any network, then the results could be tampered with by crackers or others.

A proper voting system also means using Linux or OpenBSD as the OS, not Windows 2k/XP, both of which aren't nearly as secure (or as stable) as a well-configured Linux or OpenBSD system. Also, they aren't controlled by proprietary interests like MS which would find nothing wrong with tampering with an election.

Also, of course, a proper program is needed, with an easy to use interface, with clear instructions.

Something like this would do for electing the Congressman:

1. Choose a Candidate for the Congressman by touching his name with your finger: X, Y, Z ...
Click preview to preview your voting selections. ...
2. You have selected:
For Congressman: X ...
3. If these are the candidates you want to vote for, touch YES! with your finger. If not, touch NO! with your finger.

If person touches NO!, back to #1, with previous selections highlighted, and allowing user to change it.

Very simple. Very effective. Even someone in Florida could figure it out. At the very least, you won't be counting divits and chads.

Computer voting system in Colorado

[Geeyzus]

I voted earlier this afternoon in Colorado (city of Lakewood). The system was very easy to understand, much as you alluded to.

There was no internet/network connection to each voting booth box. The people running the voting would take a hardware cartridge (like a Nintendo cartrigde of old) and plug in into the voting booth tablet to activate it, and then they remove it. Apparently they first "activated" it in some main computer. It was a touch-screen tablet PC with a straightforward interface... click the candidate you want with your finger. It then showed a big X next to who you voted for. If you wanted to change it, you could click a different candidate, and the X would move to their name.

Several pages of votes later, you get to review a list of all of your votes. If they look satisfactory, you push a "VOTE" button at the top of the tablet, which flashes red when you are ready to finish voting. Press it and you are done. I didn't see what happens after that. I imagine the computers keep a tally of votes on each, and they are plugged into the main server at some point, or the "cartridges" can be used to download the vote data and they plug into the main server.

But the main point is, there was no internet connection, no keyboard, a proprietary "cartridge" system for passing some kind of voter data or to activate the terminal for voting. Obviously I don't know the OS it was running, but it did seem fairly straightforward with no obvious ways to mess with it. Not to mention that there were 4 election representatives there overseeing everything and it would be way obvious if anyone tried to mess with the machines in any way.

I don't know if they had any kind of built in UPS, because someone could pull the plug out of the wall easily... but overall they looked like good voting machines with proprietary hardware, which is a good thing IMO...

Mark

Wrong on one important point

[overunderunderdone]

For example, why is it a federal crime to use a hand gun near a school,

because it's NOT! This law was overturned on exactly the 10th Amendment argument you are making. Sadly there are still lots of laws that completely ignore the concept of federalism but at least the Supremes are *starting* apply it here and there.

From that point of view last night's election is good news. With control of the senate GWB will likely get to appoint much more conservative judges than he would otherwise - judges who are strict constructionists and much more likely to uphold the 10th ammendment in all it's chaotic decentralized glory. States will be much more free to follow their own course - more libertarian in AZ, more theocratic in GA, maybe even more progressive in VT.