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Interview with Voting Machine Company Reps
laupsavid writes "Here's an interesting interview with government and industry reps on the Black_Box_Voting site. I think it's funny (yet terrifying), almost like an extended Shark-Tank Unclear on the Concept item. They interview Paul Miller, Registration and Systems Manager of the Office of the Secretary of State. Black Box Voting is dedicated to informing people of reasons to reject electronic voting systems. I believe Bev Harris runs the site, and she claims to be an expert on accounting fraud. Also, see this area of the a site called Ecotalk for a list of instances of purported fraud by electronic voting."
That might not be a bad idea. If only I had an oil corporation....
Well, I live in Brazil, and the elections here have used electronic voting "booths" since at least 2000. In 2000, there was a big mayoral election here in São Paulo. São Paulo is an enormous city in terms of population (about twice the population of NYC) and in terms of spatial size (significantly larger area than Los Angeles, which is also huge). In that election, the reliability of the electronic machines got a better test than many would like to admit it got.
The two candidates in the run-off election were Marta Suplicy and Paulo Maluf. Marta Suplicy represented PT, the same Workers' Party built up by now-President Luiz Inácio "Lula" da Silva. Paulo Maluf is the strongman of PPB, a right-wing party concerned with further enriching billionaires like Maluf and imprisoning the rest of Brazil. Maluf was appointed Governor of the State of São Paulo during the Military Dictatorship in Brazil that ran from when the US military helped support a coup in 1964. This bit of history is extremely significant, and I need to expand on this point a bit here.
I found it funny that despite Colin Powell admitting to it, the US State Department released a separate statement recently saying that the US and Kissinger were not involved in the military coup in Chile that ended the elected Allende government and put Pinochet in power. But it is significant that nobody has ever denied US involvement in the 1964 military coup in Brazil. I guess the pictures of US Navy ships off the Brazilian coast supporting the military coup are hard to deny. Not to mention the fact that Castelo Branco, the first Brazilian Dictator, was trained at West Point.
When the first free elections were held in Brazil in 1985, Tancredo Neves, a legitimate anti-Dictatorship candidate, ran against Maluf, who represented the Military Government. PPB, Maluf's party, basically grew out of that-- holdovers from the Military Dictatorship. Interesting side point: Tancredo had foolishly taken on a VP candidate (José Sarney) who until only months before was pro-military. Tancredo won the election, but died on the night before he was to take office. This is generally accepted throughout Latin America as having been the work of the CIA. In any case, Sarney became President and real advancement of Brazilian democracy had to wait for several years.
Well, Maluf, having been a bigwig in the Dictatorship, still has friends in the Military Police. We know he had special Death Squads he formed and used when he was Governor of São Paulo, and he openly used the Military Police to beat, kill, and imprison striking teachers, among others.
So despite the fact that all polls showed Marta winning easily in 2000, I got a chill when I heard that the electronic voting machines would be guarded on the night before the election by the Military Police and that the MP would oversee the security of getting the results to where they would be counted. I said "I think it's going to be Maluf..."
Fortunately, I was wrong. Marta won by the expected margin. This was a bigger test of the security of the electronic voting scheme used here than most would like to admit. Even so, I'd like to see the whole thing made even more tamper-resistant. Digital certification and signature technology make this possible, and Brazil has a complete modern PKI (It's called ICP-Brasil --"Infra-estrutura de Chaves Públicas-Brasil"--, which means "Brazil PKI").
I think the key stats I've seen on the value of electronic ballot boxes from the US are these: in rich neighborhoods, where electronic ballot boxes are used, the error is on the order of one hundredth of a percent (I recall reading 0.03%). In the po'folks neighborhoods, where mechanical voting is still used, the counting error is on the order of 1% (I recall reading a stat claiming an almost absurdly high 3%). I've been avoiding the racial element in this, but we all know there is a strong correlation between skin color and income, and so there ends up being a strong correlation b
"It is nice to know that the computer understands the problem. But I would like to understand it too." --Eugene Wigner