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More E-Voting SNAFUs
tassii writes "Looks like Diebold is in yet more trouble. In this article from Wired.com, an audit of the Diebold E-Voting machines revealed that the company installed uncertified software in all 17 counties that use its electronic voting equipment. While 14 counties used software that had been qualified by federal authorities but not certified by state authorities, three counties, including Los Angeles, used software that had never been certified by the state or qualified by federal authorities for use in any election. And in this article, Wired.com is reporting that at least five convicted felons secured management positions at a Diebold, including one who served time in a Washington state correctional facility for stealing money and tampering with computer files in a scheme that 'involved a high degree of sophistication and planning.'"
So what exactly is the problem with the way the rest of the civilized world does elections? (i.e. pen and paper and counting by hand)
It works, it has a paper-trail, any idiot understands the ballots, there are no hanging chads, and the entire voting system is entirely political and not commercia... oh, I see.
Assorted stuff I do sometimes: Lemuria.org
It takes people writing their newspapers and demanding the story.
Pick up the phone and talk to the editor, then pick up a pen and write to the editor. Then get a half-dozen friends to do the same, and get them to get a half-dozen of their friends to do it, too.
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Don't like it? Respond with words, not karma.
Walden O'Dell, head of Diebold Election Systems, wrote a letter to Republican contributors in August that said "I am committed to helping Ohio deliver its electoral votes to the president next year."
Maybe there really was much basis for his confidence ....
To see a world in a grain of sand, and then to step back and see the beach where the sand lies
The often suggested idea that we return to paper ballots misses an aspect of US elections that would make such thing difficult, namely the complexity of our elections. Although the national offices get most of the attention, ballots may include 20-100 other things to vote on. Everything from state representatives down to obscure changes in county and city charters that most don't even take the time to read.
These ballots have always been tedious to count by hand. Perhaps we could outsource the hand-counting to some third world country.
Woverly Harris Gooch, IV CTO American Fire and Bomb, LLC
The point of the acquisition of media, or the concentration of media power, is to influence the electorate.
And no greater influence can be held over the electorate than replacing them outright with programmable machines.
So basically what you are asking for is to have the same people who aspire to control the electorate to call attention to their efforts at achieving even greater control over the electorate.
It's just not going to happen.
They see where America is going. They see the exodus of jobs going overseas that is to come (what we've seen to date is nothing), and they realize that the result will inevitably be the electorate veering hard to the left. And since they can take all their capital with them overseas that would be fine, except for one thing: the U.S. military.
They can't simply cede America to a reactionary leftist because there's no telling what kind of retribution would be exacted.
So they do this instead.
Is this truly the only Earth I can live on?
>Yes, it's technology, so in that sense it may be of interest to nerds, but why front page stories about every single minor event that occurs WRT e-voting several times per week ?
w s&new_topic=8
3) Oh, and don't forget that along with the uncertified software on the Diebold machines in California, and the felons on the payroll reported in this sotry there are apparently some irregularities with certification records from the 2002 election in Georgia where Max Cleland was defeated (despite his having lead the all the polls up the election).
w s&new_topic=4
What's more basic and important to a democracy than voting? The message that this equipment and the companies involved are questionable doesn't seem to be getting out to the major media as much as it should. This is cheap publicity and many Slashdotters feel strongly about the issue. That by itself should be enough but if you want more detail or excuse: 1. The Diebold machine's software seems to have been designed to make fraud easier:
http://www.blackboxvoting.com/scoop/S00065.htm
Any competetant secretary who knows MS Access could jimmy this software without much help at all.
2. One of the other two companies that makes voting machines, ES&S, is owned in part by a Republican senator, Chuck Hegel, who was elected Senator two years after Nebraska bought his machines. He didn't see fit to disclose his substantial interest in ES&S, or the fact that he had formerly been chairman and CEO of this company in his FEC filings. Moreoever, there was an attempt to supress the publication of a story on this topic by a Republican political lawyer.
http://www.blackboxvoting.com/modules.php?name=Ne
http://www.blackboxvoting.com/modules.php?name=Ne
Don't you think that important criteria chosing the vendor for voting machinery should include the appearance of trustworthiness, and that the machine's be designed with security in mind and audited by software industry accepted outside experts? With the voting machine companies that appearance is entirely to the contrary, and the every reputable expert that has looked at them has concluded that they don't meet basic security criteria. Rather than attempting to remedy these shortcomings they've hired PR companies to spin the news.
Electronic voting would need the same - having a unique number for each vote - and no duplicate numbers - to rule out the same person voting twice.
Why would you need to have ballot serial numbers to prevent that? Strike a person's name off of the voter's list when he shows up to vote, hand him an unmarked ballot and let him go and vote. Done. He can't vote twice because his name has now been stroked off of the list.
No serial numbers or ballot identification required.
If you're a zombie and you know it, bite your friend!
Seems to me that perhaps the Freedom Of Information Act is applicable, here. It has been used in the past to gain access to many other documents that were relevant to the public good.
As for "Trust us, we're the government!" that's something the founding fathers would NEVER agree with, as they didn't completely trust the government they themselves were creating.
The living have better things to do than to continue hating the dead.