Touch-Screen Voting Snags Continue

micromoog writes "New touchscreen voting machines caused problems last night in the suburbs of Washington D.C.. Several machines failed and had to be rebooted, and nine were actually removed from the site, repaired, and returned, in violation of election laws. The machines also failed to report their results correctly due to network problems. At least one lawsuit is pending. Interesting quote: 'County elections officials said it was the slowest performance in memory for counting votes on election night.'" Read on for more on how the current crop of electronic voting machines are faring.

Not every electronic voting machine misstep comes from Diebold; reader zznate points out that the Virginia machines came from Advanced Voting Solutions (dcw3 butts in: "The slogan on their home page really gives you a warm fuzzy: 'Helping Shape American History for over one hundred years.'"), as well as that the EFF won a decision for an accelerated court date of November 17 in their attempt to stop Diebold from shutting down sites that make the infamous memos available. Let's all hope this is the first in a series of many wins for the EFF against the Diebold folks and crappy e-voting schemes in general. Have you donated lately?"

Reader meadowreach writes points out more trouble on the other coast: "From news.com: 'As voters in California go to the polls, the state is launching an investigation into alleged illegal tampering with electronic voting machines in a San Francisco Bay Area county.' Diebold upgrades software without letting the state know? How reassuring."

Generic Guy writes "CNN is running a story about California not certifying the Diebold voting machines and instead opening an investigation into the use of uncertified systems. Maybe there is still hope for democracy in the U.S."

And from Cambridge, Massachusetts, Peter Desnoyers writes "Cambridge uses an optical scanner system, where you fill out SAT-style ovals with a pen and the election officer feeds them into a scanning machine. From last night's preliminary results on the Cambridge website:

'In two precincts at 7:55 and 7:59pm the memory cards reached capacity. To ensure that every ballot was counted , the Election Commission has decided to rerun the ballots for 9-1, Lexington Avenue Fire House and 11-3, Churchill Avenue. We expect that it will take between one to two hours.'

I interpret this to mean that they took all the paper ballots out of the box and ran them back through the reader. (with a bigger memory card?) In the mean time, voters were able to continue voting and no votes were lost."

Comments

Rebooting the voting machine

[Anonymous Coward]

"Aww man, Windows crashed again. We probably lost 3000 votes due to the reboot."

"Don't worry about it, 3000 votes isn't enough to make a difference!"

Re:Rebooting the voting machine

[Jhon]

I'm sorry -- systems like diebold leave no audit trail. As a voter, this is unacceptable. There needs to be a way to verify the vote count.

The only way I can see that happening is if a verified (by the voter) paper receipt listing the voters choice going in to a balot box and stored. Let the machines tally. Audit random counties every election. Let recounts count the printed votes. At least this way a "crash" wont result in any lost votes.

I just dont trust anything that isn't transparent.

-jhon

Re:Rebooting the voting machine

[katre]

we have to think this through all the way.

Actually, that's been done. Do you thinks banks that set out ATMs aren't worried about a lot of the same issues? Those things all print paper receipts internally, and you can bet the bank won't let it lose those records for a little thing like ink. We need to get the same level of accountability for voting that we do for getting $20 to buy movie tickets.

Re:Rebooting the voting machine

[Dielectric]

Oddly enough, Diebold also makes ATMs. I wonder why the same accountability standards weren't used for the voting machines?

This just gets murkier the more I think about it.

Re:Rebooting the voting machine

[nahdude812]

No kidding, voting with only an electronic record is so foolish, what is to be done in the event of a recount?

The voting machine should print a clearly defined receipt for each vote cast. This receipt is tossed in to the box that only election officials have the key to, after the user can preview it through a piece of glass. The receipt can contain a human readable printout of results, as well as a barcode machine-scannable printout of results. Auditing can then be established on a variety of levels, recounts can be done by scanning the barcodes, and failing that, by the human readable printouts.

It looks like with out some sort of actual dead tree paper trail, it'd look very similar to the Simpsons Bart vs Martin for class president election. Let's do a recount. Yep, Martin won.

Re:Rebooting the voting machine

[Lemmeoutada Collecti]

As many times as I have gone to an ATM and not gotten a receipt because the paper was curled inside the machine, or it was out, or whatever, and given the number of times I have had to contest an ATM transaction that I canceled and still went through, my hopes for the stability and accountability of the Diebold (and other) machines is rather low.

The primary thing to keep in mind is simple. The more complex the system, the more places it can break or be broken. Redundancy helps, but only to a limited degree, as the addition of the redundancy also complicates the system more. The best way I ever heard it put is 'The more they overhaul the plumbing, the easier it is to clog the pipes.' - Scotty, Star Trek.

What we need is not a more complex way to vote, that only benifits the politicians and voting machine companies. We need to apply the KISS principle. Keep It Simple Silly. Quit trying to get instant results, exit polls, and the like, and focus on getting complete, accurate votes and counts. Introduce a concept that, though unfashionable right now, is well proven to increase accuracy and efficiency. Have some patience.

Re:Rebooting the voting machine

[Illbay]

Funny. It takes a Democrat to keep spouting the lies that "corporate types" are all Republicans!

Check your assumptions, VERY VERY CAREFULLY!

You'll find, for example, that Enron gave equally to Republicans and Democrats.

Now that we have that settled, let's talk about the century-long legacy of Democrat vote fraud--which is what my original post was about.

Re:Rebooting the voting machine

[Anonymous Coward]

Why not? Because they're nearly different companies... That is, Diebold bought the firm that makes the voting machines, and I doubt that Diebold the ATM guys made any sweeping changes to the new Diebold Election guys (DESI), especially since they made the purchase in January 2002..... yahoo .com link for more info

Re:Rebooting the voting machine

[Illbay]

Corporations give to whomever is in "power." When Pubs have the upper hand they give to Pubs. When Dems, they give to Dems.

This whole pile of **** that "corporations give to Republicans and not to Democrats" is just that: Shit.

And corporate giving isn't even the problem. The problem is that the citizenry gave up its obligation to remain educated and informed. That is the basis upon which this Republic was founded.

If we allow shysters like Bill Clinton to pull the wool over our eyes, then we deserve what we get.

I appreciate George W. Bush--though he is FAR from a Conservative, which I am. He does his job vis a vis protecting this nation, but he is as bad as Clinton ever was about allowing further erosion of our Constitution.

But I reiterate: My comment was about the sterling legacy of vote stealing that belongs almost entirely to the Democrat party. They have done it for years, and the crocodile tears they shed in 2000 was almost too much for me to bear, particularly when you had stuff like what happened in St. Louis and Milwaukee--that DIDN'T get any media scrutiny.

Violation of election laws

[macemoneta]

OK, I keep hearing about the violations in election laws going on, but I never hear about people being taken away in handcuffs and being brought to trial. If the laws aren't being enforced, then they don't really exist. Might as well vote 50 or 60 times while you're going out; it looks like a free-for-all.

Re:Violation of election laws

[kiwimate]

Such a good point! One of the most telling points was the tale of nine machines being removed from the site for repair and then brought back onsite in violation of election laws. Forget for a moment the problem of the election machines failing. Aren't there supposed to be people supervising who know that you can't do this and who should've stopped the machines from being removed and brought back on-site? If there is a problem, then there needs to be a protocol to follow, and the people in charge at each voting site must know that protocol and enforce it.

By the by, I live just outside of Philadelphia and we had an election yesterday (mayor and various other positions). Listening to the news, I kept hearing the news casters talking about how wonderful it was to be able to participate in this democratic process and just about going into tears over how fabulous it was to have this right. They sounded like they were somewhere that had only had free elections for a few years and everyone was still getting used to the idea.

Re:Violation of election laws

[pvt_medic]

people need to get the news out. While the washington post is a news worthy organization... how many people really know about this. Send the article around to friends, family, to just random people you know on your address book.

and especially write to your senators and people in washington. If they argue that they represent the people and they get enough voices saying this is absurd. then things will happen.

We can just complain about what happens or we can spread the word. even the smallest amount of votes make a difference

Thats my 2 cents worth... now i got to go return my soap box

Re:Violation of election laws

[Joe Decker]

Tempting thought, isn't it? I'm curious who took the machines to repair, the registrar's office or the manufacturer.

As a learning experience and a lark, I worked a polling area in San Jose, California yesterday. The machines were "Sequoia Edge", and worked well, save that some people had trouble figuring out that they needed to push a bit harder to get the voter card into the voting machine.

Had a machine gone down, I can easily see how the folks in that polling place might have allowed the machine to be taken, repaired, and brought back. Each of the four folks full-time at the polling place was required to have only a few hours of training, much of it centered around operational issues and not legal issues. Poll workers are mostly retired folks who do elections for fun or small profit ($95, covering fourteen hours of work and three of training.)

I couldn't tell you if such a removal and return would be illegal under California law, I bet that's true for most of the poll-workers in California last night.

I do know that down machines would be reported to the registrar's office, where presumably they would have some legal responsibilty to insure the right things happen. How many people would be watching the machine at any given point during the process is open to question.

In my opinion, for the systems I used and the procedures and people in place, the easiest way to cheat the system would be to get a couple poll-workers in on whatever you wanted to do. With that, it'd be easy to tamper with results no matter what voting system was used.

You want fair elections, nine machines whose votes are subject to concern just doesn't bother me to the extent that more fundamental problems with election procedure do. In California at least, in most cases (there's an exception in a corner case called Fail-Safe provisional voting) there's no requirement that you demonstrate identity when you vote. You just have to sign in. No IDs, etc. Big deal. Given that voters are never removed from the registration roles in California (I believe this is true even after death, but the cases I've heard of may have been glitches), I'm suspecting there's a lot more vote fraud caused by folks voting who aren't legally entitled to than there is by subversive maniuplation of machines in that particular case.

Not that I'm not bothered by the various Diebold scandals. And I do agree that significant violations of election law should be punished severely. But I hear a lot of this electronic voting discussion as hysteria, and that concerns me as well.

Re:Violation of election laws

[Joe Decker]

Yes, no ID. With the exception of a corner case (where a voter has moved into a new polling area but stayed in the same county in the last 90 days and wants to vote in their new polling place, and is willing to cast a provisional ballot), it is illegal for California pollworkers to ask for ID.

Now, you do sign in, and the vast majority of folks who vote either bring in their sample ballot or just present their driver's license. But if you know "old Fred" won't be voting, you could walk in, say you're Fred at 321 Iris St. (if that's his address), sign his name, print his address, and be allowed to vote.

Now, that's dangerous to do, because there's a small chance that Fred is known to one of the poll-workers. But yeah, you can't ask for ID. I can't even begin to imagine why.

Re:Violation of election laws

[Urox]

I'm in San Jose also. There are two polling places in the apartment complex where I live (because it it THAT huge). They said they'd tabulate the votes after the polls closed.

Around 8:30, the power went out in the apartment complex. The whole thing. *IF* the machines were still attached, I'm not sure they had UPSes. What does that do to the tallying? What does that do to the data stored? What will a reboot do to the system?

It was a little frightening that when I dropped off my absentee ballot, that there was no lock on the box to go to the registrar's office. The guy was able to open that puppy up completely (without me needing to drop it into the provided security slot) and show that I was the only absentee drop off so far. I can definitely see how ballots could be "lost" there.

Re:Violation of election laws

[Joe Decker]

Around 8:30, the power went out in the apartment complex. The whole thing. *IF* the machines were still attached, I'm not sure they had UPSes. What does that do to the tallying? What does that do to the data stored? What will a reboot do to the system?

Power: The Edge machines have internal batteries good for a few hours, built-in. The machines are left plugged-in the night before the election to make sure the batteries are fully charged. You know you've lost power even if you're outside because a yellow bar appears at the bottom of the LCD, it goes red when your internal battery pack gets within ten minutes of failing. We also had a separate external battery pack. We also could call for additional battery power (we'd have hours) if it looked like we were going to run out. Finally, in case all of this fails, there's a backup plan involving paper and the box you dropped your absentee ballot in.

So, it's unlikely you'd actually reboot due to power failure. Still, Reboot doesn't seem to kill the results card in most cases. We didn't do that catastrophically, but we did turn (in training) the machine off and then on while the polls open/closed switch was left open, the right thing happens there (it notes it on the log, the counts stay there.)

I wouldn't want to try it during the period immediately after the user presses "Yes, I really want to cast this ballot.", it appears that some sort of NVRAM is written there. FYI, The results cartridge looks kinda like a PCMCIA card, not precisely, but that's the basic idea.

You don't need extra power to tally the results, etc. The machines have a small printer in the back, they print out totals at the beginning and end of the election (as determined by the turn of a knob.) The internal battery pack could run the printer. You've still got the results card, as well.

It was a little frightening that when I dropped off my absentee ballot, that there was no lock on the box to go to the registrar's office.

We had a small blue plastic seal, it's a little plastic doodad that connects the two zipper pulls, you can close the seal through the zippers but you can't open the seal without breaking it. It's just a small #'d piece of plastic, that seal should have been put on after the first absentee ballot was cast (after showing that first abs. voter that the box was empty), and should have only been taken off during the closing of the polling place. It's more likely they forgot (or didn't know to) put it on.

Similar seals are used to protect against various bits of tampering on the electronic machines and in the final "bag of results" that is driven to the registrar's office (or some local field centers). The one that protects the results cartridge has its code # paid special attention to.

If you didn't see a blue plastic thingee (it wouldn't have been big, like a master lock), it's worth mentioning it to the registrar, but more likely mistraining of the poll workers than actual malfaesence. (We had a mistake in our own implementation there, we used a yellow one instead of a blue one, but no real harm was done to the system thereby, it's just a piece of plastic.)

Note that losing an absentee ballot would be possible after the poll-workers open the box after polling, as well. As during the day during aan election, there'd be some chance another poll-worker would catch you at it, unless you're in cahoots. Still nice to lock the ballot box during the election, though. (If nothing else, it saves you from having to tell someone you won't retrieve their ballot when they cast it and then say they made a mistake!)

What's wrong with

[reboot246]

using paper ballots that are scanned? You can have the results instantly and the ballots are locked inside the box in case of a recount.

Just because the technology of touchscreen voting is considered "cutting edge" doesn't make it better.

Re:What's wrong with

[Shakrai]

using paper ballots that are scanned? You can have the results instantly and the ballots are locked inside the box in case of a recount.

My idea (as noted in a previous article about this subject) is to use touch-pad voting machines that print a paper ballot that would then be scanned. In the event of a recount (or a dispute with the e-voting machine) these ballots could be counted by hand.

The machine prints the ballot so there is no chance of user error (unless they can't figure out how to use the bilingual touchscreen). The user gets to see the results before he drops the paper into the ballot box.

Isn't this the best of both worlds?

Re:What's wrong with

[Flarenet]

This leads to a question I have: why isn't pencil and paper good enough in the United States?

I'm only familiar with elections here in Canada. Here we have a ballot with X number of names on it with a circle beside each name. You're handed your ballot and a pencil and then go into a booth to mark an "X" beside the name you want. The the ballot is folded and placed in the ballot box. No problems with hanging chads or ballots that are confusing to read. Why isn't a low tech system like this used in the States? Is it a population problem? (Too many people to allow this to scale well?)

Re:What's wrong with

[Sylver Dragon]

But that's an old way of doing things. Its not flashy and shiny and new!
Seriously, the main argument against it here in the US is scale. The belief is that, we have 250 million people plus or minus a few. Now, if all of them vote, counting that by hand will take longer than an hour, and our news media would be screaming about that, afterall Americans want their results NOW! Unless, of course, it provides for good TV drama (see 2000 election). This entire argument is bullshit, of course, with only 20% of voters actually voting the number of votes to count is not that large. Also, its not that hard to hire enough people to count votes by hand.
The only other problem with such a system, is in voter fraud. Its very easy to go to several polling locations and cast several ballots (At least here in California, I can go to any polling place as long as I can confirm my identity). The hope is that, with an electronic system they will be able to catch this sort of fraud. Which again is a load, but it sells well. Unless all of the polling places are linked, and once I vote in one, it keeps me from voting in another, and maintains the amnominity of my ballot, then we can talk.

Re:What's wrong with

[Greedo]

My idea (as noted in a previous article about this subject) is to use touch-pad voting machines that print a paper ballot that would then be scanned. In the event of a recount (or a dispute with the e-voting machine) these ballots could be counted by hand.

Hey, how about a touch-pad voting machine, that prints an empty paper ballot, which you then fill in by hand, and then put it through a scanner?!

Foolproof, I tell you!

Re:What's wrong with

[SVDave]

This leads to a question I have: why isn't pencil and paper good enough in the United States?

One factor is that ballots in the United States tend to be quite long, due to our multiple levels of government and the fact that elected officials serve set terms (with terms at the various levels being synchronized). In the general election next year, for example, I'll be voting for three federal office (President, Representative, Senator), a state equivalent of a Representative, city council positions, a county council representative, various other boards (e.g. school board), probably a dozen statewide referendums and maybe one or two local (city- or county-wide) referendums. And it generally takes a month to certify an election, even with an automated counting process (which is why Arnold Schwarzenneger hasn't been sworn in as governor of California yet).

What's it like in Canada? Does a general election include anything other than federal MP? Do you have separate elections for sepearate offices?

Re:What's wrong with

[Llyr]

why isn't pencil and paper good enough in the United States?

Two words: synchronous elections.

In Canada we elect different levels of government at different times; we also don't have as many elected positions. So the most different ballots that might have to be counted at once are for municipal elections, where you might vote for mayor, a couple of councillors, and some school board members. Contrast this to voting for President, US Senator, US Congress, State Senator, State Congress, various municipal positions potentially including a local judge and sheriff and other local officials in addition to the usual mayor + councillor + school board, *and* various referenda. All to be counted at once. We, on the other hand, have asynchronous elections, and probably reuse the same counting volunteers a lot. Plus we have more positions that are appointed rather than elected, and very few referenda.

Basically they have a lot more counting that has to be done at once, and as usual repetition leads to attempts at automation. Too many elections to scale well, rather than too many people.

Re:What's wrong with

[wrenkin]

In municipal elections in Toronto, we also have pencil and paper ballots, which are then optically scanned. You fill in an arrow next to your candidate's name:

Joe Schmo [== ==

like this

Joe Schmo [==#==

And then it is fed through a scanner. Results are available soon after the polls close, and you have all the ballots if you want to recount (which you could do manually if you wanted to.)

Re:What's wrong with

[LeftOfCentre]

I have to agree with you. That's how we do it in Sweden as well (however, we can also vote at the post office if we want, making it possible to vote from other places). I'm puzzled by this American tendendy towards high-tech elections for little gain and enormous risk.

Re:What's wrong with

[iabervon]

The third section of this article actually talks about Cambridge MA, which does exactly that. Somerville, next door (where I voted yesterday), does that as well. And Cambridge actually did have a hardware problem and rescanned the ballots.

As for the capabilities of this system, you can actually do ranking quite easily (and Cambridge actually does use ranking in their voting, although Somerville does not); you don't write numbers, but you fill in an oval in the grid for each rank, like on the SAT.

Cambridge City Council elections have an "instant runoff" system, which uses some algorithm that eliminates candidates who have either won or lost, and moves votes to candidates the voter ranked next until the right number of candidates have been chosen. It's what you'd expect for the city that has both MIT and Harvard in it.

Re:What's wrong with

[steveg]

At least here in California, I can go to any polling place as long as I can confirm my identity

Not in my part of California. I have to go to the precinct that contains the address at which I'm registered. They have my name and address on a list, and they check it off.

If I go to the wrong precinct (last election my polling place handled three precincts) they tell me I'm not listed there and to go to the correct one.

I suppose if you were registered multiple times at different addresses you might be able to scam them, but you don't just have your choice of polling places. Not in Bakersfield, anyway.

Re:What's wrong with

[IM6100]

I'm not sure what you mean about 'enormous risk.'

Elections in Chicago, for example, that are conducted with complicated mechanisms aren't risky. They're a sure thing proposition for the people running the election.

Re:What's wrong with

[DunbarTheInept]

While I too don't like the "one vote" system, as it tends to make people polarize into two parties, you have to realize that a ranking system doesn't work either because (in theory) in the USA a write-in candidate should always be an option. So, how do I rank *your* write-in candidate low when I didn't even know you were going to write it in? So, to vote *agaisnt* a candidate by ranking it low, that candidate has to be printed on the ballot. It could be possible to make a grassroots campaign unfairly sneak a write-in under the radar such that people don't know to vote against it.

This is a non-issue

[Hard_Code]

Really, you guys are getting all worked up over nothing. Polls clearly show:

Americans in favor of unregulated electronic voting: 25%
Americans in favor of strict auditing and accounting of electronic voting systems: -75%.

So clearly this is nothing to get bothered about.

Oh no.

[DrEldarion]

Scantron sheets for voting? That's NOT a good idea. I'm currently working for a company that deals with standardized tests, and those things are a PAIN to clean up in the database becaues NOBODY can fill the damn things out correctly. I'd say at least a good 5% of them have messed up bubbles in the user/test-ID field ALONE. The answer fields usually fare much worse.

These aren't just 2nd graders, either. High school tests are usually WORSE in this aspect.

Re:Oh no.

[kaybi]

They seem to be working okay in Oregon.

Re:Oh no.

[cmowire]

My personal model for the best system is what my county uses.

There's a big fscking arrow with a gap in it, not a little bubble. You have a big black marker of the correct optimal type. They tell you to connect the arrow. We're talking about a broadsheet-sized ballot card here, so space is decidedly *not* a problem. There's no key, everything you need is on the ballot.

When you are done, you put it in the machine. If you screwed up or made some incorrect marks, it tells you, so there's an immediate feedback loop. If you don't mark a candidate, it will require an election official to make sure that you did, in fact, mean to leave it blank.

Paper record, cheaper than a computer, a check to make sure that it will scan before the ballot leaves your sight.

Re:Oh no.

[zenyu]

The bubble-sheet voting in Leon County Florida where I live works flawlessly, I don't see why the rest can't its just a matter of good equipment.
As I assume you are going to require me to define flawlessly I will.
When I go to vote, the ballets simply have each canadates name with a bubble right after their name that you fill in, it is a large bubble and each name is well spaced from the next. Anyways once you are done you put the sheet into the scanning machine yourself, and if it is unsure how you voted, or you double voted, it will spit out the ballet so you can make corrections. Or get a new one and try again.

Those machines work great if you want them to. One of the problems with the Florida election was that Kathrin Harris had all those machines sent to Tallahassee where she programmed the ones in mostly Republican Counties to spit out the ballot for revoting if you made a mistake, and to swallow the ballots in mostly Democratic Counties. Same hardware, different software. This was reported widely in the British press, but came out on the back pages of American papers eight months after the election. (Jeb denied he fixed the election so CBS didn't have the guts to report what his workers said they had been ordered to do, until a government investigation confirmed the irregulaties were real. No I didn't vote for Gore, but fixing elections on a grand scale is much more dangerous than any differences between which cracker screews us over this time around.)

I say go back to paper ballots filled out in pen and counted by hand by all the parties involved. Locked boxes, etc. It's not like we have elections often enough for this to be expensive in the scheme of things.

A solution that cant fail.

[blanks]

Line the two (or more) candidates next to one another, voters stand in line.

Each voter gets to walk up and hit the person they are against winning to, aka the one they do not want to win. Last man standing wins the election.

Re:A solution that cant fail.

[jareds]

No wonder Schwarzenegger won California!

And the Cambridge optical scanners are....

[jdreed1024]

... made by Diebold, it should be noted. They are the AccuVote OS models. This is not indicated in the article summary, however it is the case. I voted in Cambridge last night, and noted with mixed emotions the little Diebold logo as I slid my ballot in, and then the machine rejected it. (It worked on the second try)

The March of Technology

[schmidt349]

One potential problem with the rollout of electronic voting hardware and software in this country is that many people automatically assume that electronic devices are more reliable and less prone to failure than the older voting hardware, when it certainly appears that this is not the case.

I'm sure that at least some non-tech-savvy election officials are content with the Diebold machines on the basis that "at least they won't have dimpled chads," or something similar. As a result, the people in the know (ie, anyone who knows the inherent unreliability and insecurity of the Diebold devices) should be making it very clear to everyone else that the superiority of newer technology ain't necessarily so.

Sign the HR2239 petition!

[Eraserhd]

... and talk to your representatives in the house to get them to sign on. HR2239 requires touch-screen voting machines to print a receipt which the voter can read, then drop into a lock-box. This receipt is then used for recounts, and in a mandatory recount of .5% of districts chosen at random to verify the accuracy of the machines.

While you could theoretically build a cryptographic system to do something similar, I'd rather not have a theoretic democracy!

(Petitions are linked to at the bottom of VerifiedVoting.org.)

Re:Sign the HR2239 petition!

[Eraserhd]

The point is that, if the machine does not produce a voter-verifiable ballot, you cannot guaruntee that your vote was recorded. We have instances of machines loosing up to 100,000 votes due to software errors (Florida, 2002) since all they have to do is print totals at the end of the night.

While a manual recount can have issues, these issues aren't of the same order of magnitude and are controllable. Not to mention that we still have the paper trail if we have any evidence of foul play.

Re:Sign the HR2239 petition!

[Councilor Hart]

You don't need paper for that.
In belgium it's recorded on a chip (creditcard-size).
You can re-insert the card into the computer and verify (not change) your vote.
Afterwards the cards/chips can be recounted.
I understand that there are problems in the US since the 2000 presidential election and the us is searching for a new system.
But you don't have to re-invent the wheel. It's working in Belgium, come take a look. It's working to that extent that no mayor problems are known, such as losing 100000 votes.
Nothing works a 100%. not even doing everything with paper, because that leads to counting problems. You can't count accurately several hundred million votes.

Politics Over Performance

[goldspider]

Since the 2000 debacle, politicians seem to have been clamoring all over each other to be the first to bring electronic voting to their constituants. It is obvious from reading this article (did you?) that these systems are far from ready to be used to determine something as important as the leader of the free world for 4 years.

So a few old goats in Florida don't know their right from their left. Big deal! It was hardly a symptom of a problem that, had it really been a problem, would have plagued the voting system since John Adams was elected president.

So now our politicians have decided that the solution to fix a complicated system is to replace it with an even more complicated system. How this kind of logic keeps these idiots in office, I will never understand, but it is clear that these new voting systems are not ready for next year's election.

Re:Politics Over Performance

[Bendebecker]

In the end it is prett obvious the outcome: every year there will be contested electiosn where very close vote will need to be recounted ad infinitum. Gore eventually realized he lost and conceded. What if he didn't? What if both sides decide never to concede and are both popularly supported? Elections were a means to choose our leaders. If we one day decide that an election was so flawed that thier results aren't reliable, what will we do? Hold another one? What makes you think the loser will conced to that one? Contest a vote until you get a revote, and then contest it again until a revote declares you the winner? That was the scary thing about 2000. We had a presidential election and the results were contested. Fortunately, one backed down. If we keep on contesting elections, the day will come when neither will back down, not even at a court order.

Re:Politics Over Performance

[Chris Burke]

In the 1800's, life expectancy was around 45; now it is about 74. There were no old goats back in John Adams' day.

"Expectancy" is the same as "average". In the 1800s the infant mortality rate was much, much higher than today, and this drags the average down. There were plenty of old goats in John Adams day. John Adams himself lived to be 81!

The problem with averages is that few understand them. As evidenced by the joke you may have heard: "Oh no! It says here that 50% of Americans are below average!" If you think the humor is that someone would exclaim that rather than that the author thought the exclamation would be funny, then I'm talking about you.

Why don't we get our system from Australia?

[adamfranco]

Electronic voting in the US is in horrid shape.

Seriously, why don't we get/license the well working system that was put in place in Australia? Yes, its not domestically produced, but the source is there and can be verified. If domestic production is an issue, do we have any reason to believe that all of the Windows code in the Diebold machines was written on American soil? Also, it works. When our own system can say that a switch could be considered, but for now I'd like my vote to be counted on software that has proven itself.

Re:Why don't we get our system from Australia?

[wrmrxxx]

Actually, we've got another well working system down here that we could probably arrange for you to licence. We call it pencil and paper, and it has worked without fail at every election I have ever voted at. The results have always been counted very fast, and there's a good audit trail.

Every adult in Australia votes (it's the law), so we know the system works well even with lots of voters. The voting system is a preferrential system, which is more complicated to count that the 1st past the post system used in some other countries. The ballot papers are counted entirely by hand, yet we get results out on election day.

One of the things that helps make Australian elections very smooth (apart from the fact that politicians keep getting elected) is that we have a federal body (the Australian Electoral Commission) to oversee elections. They control the process in every state - we have nationally consistent rules and processes. They seem to be very organised to an outsider like me: they pop up at election time and run the whole show like clockwork.

San Francisco uses optical scan

[sulli]

and results were extremely fast last night. Done by 10:31 pm. (And my candidate came in first and my initiative won, which was nice!)

Many SF voters mail in their ballots, which makes it easier with optical scan as they can all be processed immediately after the polls close.

I have heard rumors that SF wants to switch to touch screen, but if they propose this I'll lobby against it. If it ain't broke, don't fix it!

unexpectedly overloading computer servers

[jdunlevy]

My favorite part of the Washington Post article:

The problem came when precinct workers tried to electronically send results from the 953 new machines to election headquarters, unexpectedly overloading computer servers.

(Italics mine)

"Unexpectedly"?? What, the servers hadn't been set up with the expectation that they'd be receiving results from lots of new machines at the same time?

Coming soon...

[mishehu]

...to a cemetery near you in Chicago! Now the dead can vote, even earlier and more often!

removing the machines?

[DavidH_Mphs]

ok -- so the fix-it people removed some of the machines, took them away to the fix-it place, repaired them, and then took them back to the voting sites?

This raises serious questions about the accuracy of the count, no matter how many machines had to be fixed. One machine or twenty machines, if you've got to take one away for repair & then bring it back, the accuracy of the data must immediately be called into question.

If someone has to physically remove a machine, then something must be seriously wrong with it. What if they accidentally erased the data & then, in an effort to cover their mistakes, 'fudged' the votes?

On top of that, election officials made a stupid error -- a preventable error. [Some] memory cards were full before the close of the polls.

Election officials know exactly how many people are registered to vote in a given precinct. Therefore, they have the ability to determine the amount of memory they'd need on the machines. They should have asked the software folks, "how much memory will I need for each registered voter?"

Instead, voters are left to fend for themselves as inept voting officials stumble their way through technology.

This is completely absurd & inexcusable!

How hard is it...

[ThisIsFred]

...to design a reliable electronic voting machine? Why does it need a full operating system basic on modern hardware? Why does it need a touchscreen? And for heaven's sake, why does it have to be networked? Maybe I'm just showing my ignorance here, but I would have approached the problem entirely differently. I probably would have ditched any type of video output for a number of labelled buttons, made a simple mainboard based on a reliable, cheap 8bit CPU, and had the results stored in EEPROM, not sent down a network. I also would make the firmware and hardware available to everyone, far in advance of the election. I also would have tested it under many bogus elections, and would have accepted input in the form of peer review.

I can't believe we can't make an electronic voting machine that is as reliable as a slot machine. If we're going to do it this way, I'll show my support for the older, mechanical machines. What are the benefits?

Re:How hard is it...

[zod1025]

Exactly, man. A voting application is maybe ONE step above the ubiquitous "Hello World". You present a list of choices, accept and record the input. Repeat.

How can this crash? Seriously! You can code up something in MINUTES that uses off-the-shelf hardware (say, a Dell box) to present a menu of choices 1,2,3. They send the results off to a server, too, so there's nothing to eat up the local memory. The most complicated part is validating the voter's registration, which is handled by human volunteers anyway.

We are stuck deep in the dark ages of computing, surely.

Hmmm...

[The Fanta Menace]

You know, I'm quite happy with voting on paper... why do we need electronic voting?

Hmm...

[Kedisar]

I predict for the 2004 election, there's just going to be 2 buttons:

Bush.

Please send me on a rocket to the moon to work in a rock goulag.

And then Iraq will invade US and say they're liberating us from a leader who always wins. ;)

Jebus jumped up christ

[YrWrstNtmr]

it's not that hard, people!

You want 'electronic voting'?

Fine, here it is:
Registered voter gets handed a paper ballot. Completely human readable. Little circles next to each person/issue.
Voter enters the booth
Voter inserts paper ballot into the slot below the (oooh, shiny!) touchscreen.
Voter selects, each person issue they want to vote for. Change at any time.
At the bottom, the voter presses "Done". Maybe even a confirmation "Are you sure?"
Paper ballot is spit out of the slot, with the circles filled in for each item the person has voted for. The touchscreen is merely a printer.
Voter can verify the paper against what is on the screen.
Voter walks out, slides the paper ballot into a ScanTron. Said Scantron counts and tabulates as necessary.
The paper ballot goes into a locked box for future verification if necessary.

Done.

Re:Jebus jumped up christ

[YrWrstNtmr]

What happens if the box runs out of ink, or the paper jams, or I fail to insert it all the way, or pull it out as the paper is printing...


or the paper jams,

Valid. Call an election official to unjam. Print again.

I fail to insert it all the way, or pull it out as the paper is printing...

Change the system slightly. Don't insert, just a rack of blank paper. When you're done, it prints the whole thing. Nothing to insert, nothing to pull out early.

What if I insert the paper a second time?

See above.

What about a power-failure during the printout?

Makes no difference. The 'voting' does not happen until the paper ballot runs through the optical scanner.

What about a power-failure during the printout?

That does not work well now. People would put an X or a checkmark instead of filling in the circle.

All this does is failsafe the printing process. Don't like what got printed on the paper, or it screwed up? Shred that one, and print it again. Each person only gets to put one and only one ballot through the optical scanner.

Filling in a circle or punching a hole is not rocket science. But people still screw it up, as witnessed with pregnant, hanging, multiple, dimpled chads. Take that screwup option away.
In case of a power failure...you can fill them in manually. But since there seems to be such a push to 'eVoting'...this might be an end run around that.

Now, remember...

[Jerf]

Now, remember, those hundreds of educated Computer Scientists scared of current E-voting trends are just morons, and the election companies have it all under control. (more info)

These events prove beyond a shadow of a doubt that the election companies are completely trustworthy, and public officials should continue to poo-poo the concerns of people who know what they are talking about. After all,

"I don't know what the holdup is," Margaret K. Luca (D), secretary of the county's three-person elections board, said late last night. "I thought we had it covered. We tested all week in the county."

They tested the machines all last week . Obviously electronic voting is working.

(Satire aside: This points out the problem very nicely; the "secretary of the county's three-person elections board" is simply not qualified to assess the ability of a voting system to perform in advance of the actual vote. This is intended as an elitist statement, it's just simple truth. "Secretaries of county election boards" should probably put a bit more trust in the concerns thousands of knowlegable citizens have with no vested interest in selling anything, and a lot less trust in companies trying to sell them snake oil. For one thing, they obviously don't know how to test these systems, or they would have found these problems.

"Stress testing", anyone? If the news report linked to can be trusted, this was nothing more then a bog-stadard "lack of resources" issue, the kind easily diagnosed by a knowlegable tester, and fixed in advance given enough time, but something that most people have no clue about. The idea of "stress testing" may be obvious to most of us, but we are not average.)

GOP suit

[cluge]

Wait the GOP is suing? What about all that stuff I read on the internet that Diebold is in the pocket of the GOP? How can I believe anything I read on the Internet any more? Does this mean that Diebold is in the Democrats pockets?

Answer:Yes, it's ture, Diebold isn't in anyone's pockets - they are simply incompetent.

I will not vote on any machine that doesn't produce a verifiable paper trail at the time I vote. Neither should you.

Re:GOP suit

[Ungrounded Lightning]

Wait the GOP is suing? What about all that stuff I read on the internet that Diebold is in the pocket of the GOP?

That's just FUD to sucker the Democrats onto the bandwagon to pass laws to fix the problem, rather than hiding in the back room figuring out how to use the bugs to cheat. B-)

Re:GOP suit

[dtaciuch]

The machines in question (in Virginia) are not Diebold machines. They are AVS.

Re:GOP suit

[cluge]

The refusal to admit a partisan bias isn't nieve. It's just plain dumb!!!!

In palm beach county, which is using the Diebold machines, the officials that ordered them, and the officials that approved said order are all DEMOCRATS. I guess the democrats have been paid off, and are actually secret Bush supporters. (Ooops damn tongue got stuck in my cheek)

Side Note: The appearance of inpropriety doesn't make it so. Every citizen should keep a sharp eye on ANY company involved with the election process. This should be thoroghly investigated, BUT the rants of obvioulsy biased commentators hurt the process.

I've read and seen tremendously outlandish claims all over the internet, most not even backed up by a hint of evidence. If people become numb (and they already are) because there is so much chaff, then everyone looses. With a jaded and sceptical pulic it becomes easier for the big power types to pull the wool over our eyes.

Claims to be investigated are one thing, vitrol and unfathonable (unless you think I shot kennedy) claims of corruption don't help, they hurt the process.

A court challenge to the voting machines would probably be the best idea. Followed closely by not useing them (ie get an absentee ballot and bitch at your local eletion officials until they give in)

cluge

Voting

[Bendebecker]

Which canidate will you vote for: 'Carbon Copy Canidate #1' or 'Carbon Copy Canidate #2'? Just don't vote for the independent 'Carbon Copy that got stuck in the printer Canidate #3' cause he'll never win and you'll just be wasting your vote. What if your candiate loses? Doesn't matter, he wouldn't have done any of the things he promised anyway...

But seriously, the fact that the whole country is not in an uproar about this is evidence of the continued decline of our democracy. Quite simply, it appears no one cares anymore who you vote for cause who wins doesn't change anything. The last time I voted, I found half the canidates were running unopposed, most of the other voters were not only uninformed but seemed to have gone out the way to remain ingnorant of the issues, the canidates had almost no distinguishable differences from one another, and just about everyone of them was doing it not to serve the people but to serve themselves. The only difference nowadays is which special interest group gets its needs met at the expense of the public good this time around. Do your duty as a citizen: wipe your ass with your vote - at least it will make a differnce. Don't like the current system? Get yourslef elected by selling your soul to the lowest bidder, do your duty as an purchased official, and then wipe your ass with the consitution.

What should have been done

[phorm]

When the first "electronic voting" machines went in, I think that they should have accompanied a paper-vote, or perhaps put out a paper receipt indicating the vote that could be stuffed in a ballot box. This way, you could use the physical (paper) votes to compare to the accuracy/loss in the electronic ones.

First-hand account

[Anonymous Coward]

Okay, I work as one of two computer consultants responsible for overseeing the election tabulation process in my county. Yesterday's election was the first time we used the new electronic voting machines (iVotronic).

Things went off without a hitch. We began tabulating at about 6:30 and were done by 8:00. We used to use punch cards, and would normally get done around 11:00. So you can see why a lot of government officials are praising these things. They are faster, easier to use, and less prone to voting mistakes. Last year there were dozens of cards punched backwards or upside-down, hanging chads, and whatnot. That really slows things down a lot.

That said, I don't like these machines. There's a fundamental flaw in the construction that makes the whole thing insecure. Given the incentive ($$$), it would be incredibly easy for an employee of the manufacturer to slip some deviant code into the machine that said, "on election day make every fifth vote go towards this candidate".

I think the best analogy was one I heard on NPR the other day (I believe it was David Dill). The current process with electronic voting is akin to walking into a booth and telling your vote to a person on the other side of a curtain. Did he write down what you told him to? Who knows.

new war driving challenge...

[pixelpusher220]

from the AVN web site

These things are wireless.

All those that think this is a BAD idea raise your hands...

Re:new war driving challenge...

[YrWrstNtmr]

From their website:
"Helping Shape American history for Over One Hundred Years"

We don't want you to help shape history. We'll do that. You just count it.

On second thought, no, we don't want you. Wireless voting terminals? No thanks.

Help Protect Democracy from Diebold!!

[buck09]

Diebold is using the DMCA to serve takedown notices to service providers. Mirror sites in the .EDU domain are needed to keep Diebold's memo's online and availible to the world.

Go to why-war.com and find out how you can help.

Actually using the systems myself..

[color of static]

I voted in the State/county election in question Fairafx Virginia and I can tell you these things really troubled me.

We have been using a combination computer mechanical system for years which I felt very comfortable with. Yesterday we walked in to find the new "WinVote" machines. They offered no privacy and were actually slowing down peoples vote entry by quite a bit (I saw most people take over 10 minutes to vote compared to one or two I would normally see).

The officials were telling me about how one machine stopped working and couldn't be revived. The others they had apparently been able to reboot multiple times to keep going. They of course didn't know how the vote count was protected in these cases. I have a guess though.

Before each person votes, an official inserts a smart card. The application restarts, displays some statistics and proceeds to allow me to vote. My guess is that the results are copied to the smart cards. In that case the state of the machine isn't really in question so long as the tally increases as the voter voted.

What worries me is the use of smart cards. Now these tend to hold a handful of memory (8K to 64K in general), and can run some code internally. My question is, if a machine crashes then could it alter the contents of the smart card? A write only smart card would not have enough room for a busy polling location. A card where a count is updated would be vulnerable to coding or transfer errors.

Like the user who asks for a database when they need a filing cabinet, I think this may be an idea to early for its time.

Tamper-proof machines in India

[rsidd]

The machines' manufacturers in India claim that the machines are tamper-proof. This is 1980s technology (and the article I link to is from 1999).

I'm not an expert but it seems reasonable. These machines are standalone units, not networked; they have hardcoded (machine-language) software on their chips, with no facility for modifying it or running an external program. To tamper with them you'd have to replace the motherboard with your own, on which you've embedded your own program, and even then it probably won't work since the machine has various safeguards for tampering. And these machines are extremely rugged and sturdy, and easy to use (I've handled them) and inexpensive (around $100 each).

Sometimes antique push-button technology is better than the latest cutting-edge stuff (anyway, who needs touchscreens, what's wrong with buttons?)

In Britain

[mrsev]

In Britain we ahve all our votes on paper and they are all hand counted and stored. We get our election results by the morining. Even for small Scotish islands. It is not such a big job to count a few votes. Each person can count several thousand per hour. This means that you need only need 500 counters per million votes and it is done in a night.

When the result is close there is a recount and I have never seen the second result to be out by more than 5-10 per 60,000 votes.

There is an important principle that every person has the right to have their vote counted. Errors above 1 per 1000 are not acceptable. The system must not only be fair but be seen to be fair. Furthermore there must be a permanent record of the votes cast. How else can we be sure that all was fair.

This system works...

[temojen]

so much more reliably when you replace "printer" with "pen" and "scantron" with "cardboard box".

Really, why do you need anything else?

Re:This system works...

[TonyZahn]

"Really, why do you need anything else?"

Because, apparently some people have problems following simple instructions. Even with something so simple as filling in the circles, there will be people who can't figure it out and instead put and 'X' or check mark and then complain that their vote wasn't counted correctly.

This phenomenon (sp?) is explained in today's news

Because the eVACS system is not an improvement.

[jbn-o]

Seriously, why don't we get/license the well working system that was put in place in Australia? Yes, its not domestically produced, but the source is there and can be verified.

Because there are serious problems with that system. The software issues are virtually a red herring and do not make their machines trustworthy. Although it seems ironic to some, the same issues exist with free software-operated and non-free software-operated voting machines. Wired revealed big problems with eVACS but buried the description of the problems midway into their article and then posted their eVACS article under a misleading headline which is probably why you reached the conclusion you did. I commented on this system in that thread and responded to one of the system's developers when the software trustworthiness question was raised.

The Australian system you refer to does not allow the voter to verify that their vote was recorded correctly and there is no permanent non-computer record of the votes to recount after the election. Even though the article quotes one of the system developers saying as much, this showstopper revelation is midway into the article and then apparently ignored for the purpose of writing the article's title. From the article:

The [eVACS] machine does not include a voter-verifiable receipt, something critics of U.S. systems want added to machines and voting machine makers have resisted.

A voter-verifiable receipt is a printout from the machine, allowing the voter to check the vote before depositing the receipt into a secure ballot box at the polling station. It can be used as a paper audit trail in case of a recount.

Green [Phillip Green, electoral commissioner for the Australian Capital territory] said the commission rejected the printout feature to keep expenses down. The system cost $125,000 to develop and implement. The printouts would have increased that cost significantly, primarily to pay for personnel to manage and secure the receipts and make sure voters didn't walk off with them.

Quinn, however, thinks all e-voting systems should offer a receipt. "There's no reason voters should trust a system that doesn't have it, and they shouldn't be asked to," he said.

"Why on earth should (voters) have to trust me -- someone with a vested interest in the project's success?" he said. "A voter-verified audit trail is the only way to 'prove' the system's integrity to the vast majority of electors, who after all, own the democracy."

As for the costs of securing and storing such receipts, Quinn said, "Did anyone ever say that democracy was meant to be cheap?"

There's no way to determine if only the software you trust is running on the machine you vote with. Your /. post is vastly overrated (+5 Insightful).

Neither Democrats nor Republicans deserve votes.

[jbn-o]

When Al Gore sued over voting irregularities, these same GOP groups were some of the most vocal in opposing it.

When Greg Palast revealed that 64,000 Floridian voters were denied the ability to vote in the 2000 US Presidential election, what did the Democrats do to restore their voting rights? What did the Democrats do to verify Palast's story and expose Jeb Bush and Katherine Harris' fraud?

I hate hypocrites.

I don't trust the Democratic or Republican national parties. So I won't vote for parties that hurt me, assuming my vote will be counted accurately at all.

My experience voting yesterday in Mississippi

[pudge_lightyear]

There were two big problems with the new machines yesterday here in Mississippi.

1. The lines were very, very long... Now... we did have record turnout yesterday. But, not in the fashion that would cause 2 to 3 hour waits to vote. I was perfectly happy to wait an hour to vote, until I saw what I assumed the reason was that I was waiting. When I got to the front of the line, I saw that most people were standing at the machines for more than 5 minutes each. There's no way the old process would have taken that long. Of course, in my district, and at the time I went yesterday, most of them were older... but IT'S A TOUCH SCREEN WHERE YOU TOUCH A CANDIDATES NAME!!! I think (and saw) many people turn away from voting because of this wait.

2. I finally made it to a machine. First vote... (don't hate me for it if you don't like him) I clicked on Haley Barbour... his name did not check... instead, a democrat on the other corner of the screen checked. I clicked his name to remove it... Clicked Barbour again... same problem. This happened with about 6 candidates on the first screen. Finally, I was so frustrated that I had to call someone to help (which is bad because of privacy). She said that it had been happening a lot today and was supposed to be fixed. Then, she showed me how to "RUB" the machine so that the candidates would highlight (which worked most of the time, not all). I almost had to vote for a candidate in an uncontested race that I didn't want to. I said, "I don't want to vote for him." A vote helper person said, "He's going to win anyway."

Total time voting... 10 minutes.

Do the touch screens work? Not at this time.

Re:Exit Polls

[WEFUNK]

I await the day when the independant exit polls that the media conducts deviate by a statistically noteable amount from some non-verifiable voting machine. What will happen? The media's polls, while "unscientific" tend to be decent approximations, and the sampling error should be calculable. How much would the "real" results have to be off to raise eyebrows or, worse, to raise fists?

This isn't too far from what happened during the 2000 American Presidential elections, where news services flip-flopped between calling the election for Gore and Bush and then finally recognized that their polls results and eventually the actual results placed each side well within the margin of error. This link has bit of information, although it was apparently posted before the final resolution.

I remember tracking the results on the web while watching it on TV and CNN's online coverage made it perfectly clear that the results were well within the margin of error at all times. So I think they were well aware of that a margin of error existed, but I guess the pressure to call it first was just too high on TV.

It still boggles my mind that the new election machine companies are against paper trails -- why is printing out a receipt and putting it in a box _just in case_ such a big deal?

Exactly because it isn't a big deal, and in fact it seems to be the best way to do it -- but without the computer. For this to work, they apparently need to get rid of the paper -- without the redundancy of computer + paper, it's harder for people to argue that the computer is actually the redundant part. I love new technology, but only when it's useful (well, usually). Throw out the computers and punch card machines, spend more on voter education, and go back to a technology that works better, faster, and for less -- paper and pencil.

zero knowledge proof and E-voting?

[anwyn]

Would it be possible to use the mathematical technique of
zero knowledge proof to create a voting machines that would allow the following:
(1)Each voter could individually verify that his vote was used (as he voted) in the count.
(2)Anyone could verify that the numbers add up correctly.
(2a) But no one except the individual voter could know the individual votes.
If this could be done mathematicly and implemented in voting machine software, it would make backup paper trails unnecessary to prevent voter fraud!
I believe the zero knowledge proof allows a proof to be checked without knowing the individual statements of the proof! What is election vote count checking but a particular kind of proof checking! It would seem the technique might apply!

Its so bloody simple its complicated

[t_allardyce]

e voting could have been implemented decades ago, and they probably would have come up with a better name for it. NASA uses old proccessors for some systems because they are simple and have been tried and tested for years. e voting isnt about pushing the edge of what technology can do its about making the most an effecient, secure, easy to use system without blowing the bank or having anything to do with any party.

Dead people vote in San Francisco

[manchineel]

Last time I worked at a polling place, lawyers showed up from the ACLU, because there had been rumors of harassment at the polls and voters being turned away for bogus reasons. The lawyers had to be there all day and basically retrain the inept Polling Place supervisor. She was turning away people just cause they weren't on the register (there are many reasons why the wouldn't be on the register, but would be allowed to vote). The scariest thing to me was that the polling supervisor's best defense was "But I have been doing this for 30 years!" Electronic voting machines are horrible, and should not be used until the technical (moral, social, and political) problems are sorted out. But we are very far from having a perfect system. When I lived in San Francisco, there was an election where a whole bunch of dead people voted. Now that's democracy!

My letter to the editor

[JohnA]

This is the letter to the editor I sent to our local paper, The Merced Sun-Star.

Yesterday after voting, I was given the wrong sticker by a poll worker. It said "I Voted" when it should have said, "I may or may not have voted." The uncertainty of the disposition of my vote comes from the fact that instead of marking a paper ballot and verifying that it was inserted into a locked ballot box, I touched a computer screen and pressed a flashing "Vote" button.

I asked a poll worker if I would receive some sort of paper confirmation of my vote, and she replied that I did not. How then can I be sure that my vote was actually counted, and that the system reported my vote for the proper candidates? Quite simply, it cannot.

As a computer programmer by trade, my bread & butter comes from the design & implementation of new computer technologies. But creating an all-electronic system with no voter-verifiable audit trail is one of the worst threats our democracy has faced.

First, how can I be sure that the software powering the voting device is free of defects? Next, how can I verify that my "ballot" is not corrupted in the transfer from the device to whatever central system is used to count the ballots? Finally, what happens if a recount is requested? By virtue of the fact it is a computer, a system making a mistake the first time is likely to make the same mistake the second time.

Our democracy is too precious to be entrusted to the hands of some overworked software developer answering to a bottom-line driven management. If we truly want honest and open elections, we must first insure that the technology driving it is open, honest, and voter-verifiable.

Regards,

John Anderson