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CNN Reports on Diebold
An Anonymous Reader writes "CNN has finally picked up the story about concerns about Diebold voting machines. It's about time this made it into the mainstream media." If you're interested, here are a couple
of related
stories.
What are the problems with the current system of a piece of paper and an X? How would this new system overcome them? Most importantly, what extra problems would this new system cause? These are all questions that should be answered before any public money is spent on changing the way people can vote.
Video Game cheats, hints a
David Bear, a spokesman for Diebold Election Systems Inc., one of the larger voting machine makers, said "the fact of the matter is, there's empirical data to show that not only is electronic voting secure and accurate, but voters embrace it and enjoy the experience of voting that way."
This is the point where a bad reporter starts typing up the story, and a good reporter starts asking about smartcards reporting -16,000 votes. At least the AP is looking at the right story now, so hopefully eventually the right person will be looking at it.
This article doesn't have anything to do with the previous Diebold evilness...
This article is more about the general problems with touchscreen voting in general.
I think touchscreen voting is a good thing!
Yes, it will be less secure. Yes, it makes everybody nervous note to have things on pen and paper... However, you can say that about everything that is now done electronically! Heck, it just paid all my monthly bills online this am. My granddad would never trust "these new fangled machines" to send/accept his money.
There will be problems with new machines... it's good we are talking about them now. Hell, I just hope that this is another step toward online voting. Woah... talk about security problems then.
Davak
Online voting is evil and has no place in a democracy/republic. Note, this applies to mailin ballots also.
hint: you do not want others to be able to prove who you voted for...
Maneuvering to challenge the results is one thing. Being completely unable to handle those challenges is quite another. Diebolds system has no real way to audit for vote tampering. If someone alleges election fraud, there is no way to prove or disprove it within Diebold's system. And god help the situation if they do a recount and it comes up with *different* numbers than it did on election night (these are supposed to be database queries of data that doesn't change after election day, right?).
We are a Constitutional Republic NOT a "democracy".
I don't want to live under the tyranny of the whims of "the people" voting on every little thing that they know nothing about.
If everyone if so concerned about verifibility of the election results, then give them what they want. This seems so obvious to me...
Use a machine (e.g. a touchscreen based computer) to generate a paper ballot. This paper ballot should both contain a human readable printout of what you (the voter) just voted for, as well as a mag-stripe encoding of the same. Use the same basic technology as used in the airline industry - human readable on the front, machine readable on the back. These printed, mag-stripe coded ballots are then given to the kind people at the balloting place where it is deposited into a locked steel box for counting later. No electronic counting on-premesis. No "internet connections". Just consistent, countable, checkable, permanent and persistent results.
The results are electronically counted thanks to the mag-stripe encoding. If someone or some organization wishes to contest the count results, there is the printed version on the front of each card to give an actual, unmistakable account of that vote.
The ballot generating machines would be there strictly to generate a "valid" ballot. Valid in this sense meaning checking that someone isn't exceeding the number of votes per race allowed (e.g. not voting for more than 1 person for the presidential election). The machine would also generate a "review" screen before the ballot is actually printed to allow the voter to make sure that all their votes were properly tabulated.
The whole point of this mindless exercise is to produce consistent, unmistakable results, right? No more "hanging chads" or partial punch-thru's, right? No more presidential election decisions by the Supreme Court, right?
Ron Gage - Westland, MI
You hit the nail on the head. This is perhaps one of the most important aspects of elections. But consider what 'open' means in this context.
The entire process of casting and tallying votes should be open, so that every voter knows what happens in each step of the process, or that he at least can be sure that other people are keeping a proper eye on the process on his behalf. Only then will the majority of the voters have faith in the accuracy of the results of the election, even if they do not necessarily agree with the outcome. This is a key aspect in any functioning democracy.
The system of paper-based ballots is very open, in the sense that the ordinary voters can understand the process. They can also understand that the counting is fair, and that every person involved is watched by at least one other person. In most democratic countries, voting offices are staffed by representatives from every party taking part in the election.
Those who think open-source software will make electronic voting open, think again. Electronic voting is way too complicated for ordinary folks to understand. Grandma isn't going to inspect the source code. Which trustworthy person can do this for her, and inspect everything without oversights? "Of course electronic voting is safe, grandma, you can inspect the source code yourself! Oh, well you can take my word for it being safe... no... no, I have not inspected all 100.000 lines of this code, not for every single machine that was used in the election! But I am sure someone has... oh, no I can't be sure that they didn't overlook something.".
No, open-source electronic voting does not make for open elections.
If construction was anything like programming, an incorrectly fitted lock would bring down the entire building...
I mean... if you BANK online, what's so bad about voting online? Seriously.
If I bank online with a trojaned computer, and the trojan user electronically transfers money from my account, the bank has a record of where that money went which they and I can see (and investigate) at any time, and which will be investigated as soon as I notice a discrepancy in my balance or review my next bank statement.
If I vote online with a trojaned computer, then the trojan just has to get inbetween me and the voting server once, and if it does so, it's succeeded. I can't check my individual vote against the county tallies; nor will I be receiving a printed statement of my vote in the mail shortly afterward. There's no sure way to discover "Hey, someone screwed up my vote!", and no easy way to trace any discovery to the perpetrator afterward.
And needless to say, there will be lots of trojaned computers. How many internet-sweeping worms and email trojans do we get on the average year? Probably enough to throw a lot of elections.
not the story.
CNN didn't mention the leaked internal memos, the cease and desist letters, or the refusal to remove them from the internet.
Slashdot is my Mercer Box.
I've use punch card voting systems, and the problem with them is that you get almost no feedback after you've punched the card. The card itself is hidden under a template full of little holes (which in the case of a butterfly ballot, don't quite line up with the names off to the sides), and it's hard to see down into those holes to tell if you actually punched the hole. There isn't much mechanical feedback, either. Once you pull the card out of the template, it looks like just a bunch of random holes.
I've been interacting with machines a long time; I used punched cards back when they were considered to be a software development environment. If I don't feel comfortable that I didn't make an error on a punched card ballot, I don't see how someone in the general public is supposed to.
Lately, the ballots I've used are the ones where each name is next to two arrows that point to each other. You use your pencil to draw a line on the paper to connect the arrows. It seems to me that this system is just about perfect, and it's machine readable. I don't understand why anybody thinks we need anything more complex than that.
From the CNN article:
The complaints about lever machines in the early 1900's did not come from mechanical engineers. Instead, they came from groups of people who did not understand these "confounded contraptions". The election officials could, or could allow anyone to, examine the insides and workings of these machines. There was no secrecy about it.
Ironically, the complaints about punch cards have, in part, come true. This is why we are doing this rush to computer voting in the first place, because the punch card system in Florida (and as it turns out, elsewhere, too) showed the faults in the system. But despite the flaws in punch card systems, there was no secrecy; they could be examined and the flaws could be seen and understood.
Both systems above were not only "open systems", but also had various audit trails incorporated. While not perfect, punch cards could be manually counted if machine counts were suspect. The flaw with Diebold and other electronic voting systems isn't that they are electronic, nor is it even that they might be connect to, or through, the internet. Instead, the flaw is that unlike their predecessors, these systems are closed, and have no audit trails.
Unlike past systems, where the concerns were raised by people that didn't know much about the technology they were based on, the issues being raised about electronic voting systems are being raised by people who fully understand this technology, the flaws that are inherint in the technology itself, and the methodologies needed to compensate for such flaws, and ensure reliable and correct operation despite such flawed technology. All the voting systems have flaws, and they always will. What sets the past systems apart from what vendors are trying to push on us today is that those past systems were known to be flawed to a certain degree, and they could be examined to verify that. What vendors of electronic machines are asking us to believe is that their systems are absolutely perfect and that no one ever needs to "look inside" to verify anything, and that no audit trails, and no recounts, will be needed.
now we need to go OSS in diesel cars
Yes, but the design of those lever machines is available to election officials, and can be examined carefully prior to every election. Is Diebold willing to offer those assurances to election officians? Say, open sourcing everything and allowing officials to take it apart and reassemble it before the election?
The change we need to make is not allow more ill-informed people to vote on policy, but to make it easier for groups of like-minded people to select a representative, irrespective of their geographical location.
I am TheRaven on Soylent News
IMO this is by design: 2000 set a precident that in the USA elections could be rigged, and now they are just following that logic. Its all downhill from here.
Manipulate the moderator system! Mod someone as "overrated" today.
You say: "They can also understand that the counting is fair, and that every person involved is watched by at least one other person. In most democratic countries, voting offices are staffed by representatives from every party taking part in the election."
This is why Open Source Electronic Voting would be safer, because even though your Grandma and even you would not be able to check all the 100,000 lines of code it still would be available for the different political parties to check themselves and THEY have a good incentive to make sure the system is fair, or at least not biased against them, with the opposite party making sure it isn't biased against them... resulting in a system that isn't biased against anyone; i.e. a fair system.
Also note that I said safer instead of safe because you have to account for human error and the like, but it still would be a step forward to what is used today.
"The obvious mathematical breakthrough would be development of an easy way to factor large prime numbers." Bill Gates,
What are our other options here? If I go into my polling place on election day and see Diebold Electronic Voting Machines can I demand another voting method? Should I plan on voting absentee? Seriously, is there a way to refuse to use those damned machines and still participate in the election?
There is nothing so powerful as an idea whose time has come.
I disagree. Machines/Paper each have their advantages:
Machines: tallying fast and in a properly designed system more precise.
Paper: auditing is intrinsically better: the voter can see the physical representation of his vote, and if the ballots are properly tracked and handled provide a link back to the intent of every (anonymous) voter.
It follows the best possible system is one where the voter marks his vote on a piece of paper and this paper is read by a scanner and tallied.
Post may contain irony: discontinue use if experiencing mood swings, nausea or elevated blood pressure.
Didja notice the sub-heading that that quote is under? "Critics mistaken", it says. Pretty unbiased, huh?
AC posts standing up for poor, maligned Fox News?
The Fox stands up for itself pretty well - it's much better reporting than the AP story, and they got it to air weeks ago. Just because Fox sometimes comes off as a parody of a news service doesn't mean you shouldn't acknowledge when they do something right.
We can't do civil disobedience when we go to the polls. The only type of civil disobedience we can have there is not voting. And when the Diebold board of directors gave $200,000 to the Republicans over the last election cycle and Wired reports that they made an unauthorized patch with Georgia's software before the Republican upsets in 2002, that makes it seem rather fishy...