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.'"

Comments

Open the damn source.

[grub]

from the article: "The core of our American democracy is the right to vote," Shelley said. "Implicit in that right is the notion that that vote be private, that vote be secure, and that vote be counted as it was intended when it was cast by the voter."

In my thinking this should mean the source code should be opened to the public to ensure continued trust in the system. "Trust us, we're the government" doesn't carry any weight these days.

Re:Open the damn source.

[Jeremi]

In my thinking this should mean the source code should be opened to the public to ensure continued trust in the system.

Looking at the source code would be interesting, but it shouldn't give you any confidence in the system. Even in the (practically unattainable) ideal case, where the code is thoroughly analyzed by all the experts and they all agree the code is correct... there is still no proof that the code everybody looked at is the code that will actually be running on the voting machines. Even if you stand over the Diebold employees and watch them compile the source code and install the resulting binary on the machine, you still don't know if that code is what will be running on the machine during the election.

The point is, having access to the (alleged) source code is no guarantee of accuracy. The only reliable guarantee of accuracy is having the system print out a paper receipt that the voter hand-verifies and turns in at the poll. Once you have that, the vote can be recounted by hand, if necessary, and any inaccuracies will be detected. Without that, no electronic system will ever be trustworthy.

Re:Open the damn source.

[SpaceLifeForm]

The source code should be open for another reason.

Auditors couldn't examine eight machines in various counties because they failed to boot up when turned on. Another 12 machines were in the Diebold plant in McKinney, Texas, being repaired.

Make them 'broke' so they can't be audited.
Ship them out of state so they can't be audited.

A great method to cover up a fixed election.

Re:Open the damn source.

[innocent_white_lamb]

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.

Re:Open the damn source.

[dpilot]

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.

Re:Open the damn source.

[Anonymous Coward]

The lowtech solution is often the better one. Rather than ask how we can make the process more high-tech, we should ask how we can improve it, whether or not it is hightech

No thanks

[jbardell]

Sometimes the most advanced and easiest way of doing something isn't the best. I'll take pen+paper sign-in and handle-pull voting machines, thank you very much.

solving a non-problem

[Tom]

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.

Re:solving a non-problem

[Steve B]

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)

Old Wizard of Id cartoon:

"Sire! The voting machines are broken!"
"Well, can't they be fixed?"
"No -- that's the problem."

Re:solving a non-problem

[stewball]

Actually, if you look at who wants more registration and who wants to make Election Day a national holiday (or, hell, moving it to a weekend day), it's pretty clear that the left wants more participation and easier voting, and the right wants more restrictions on registration and harder voting.

The reasons are pretty straightforward -- people who are well off and have high-end salaried jobs are more likely to be able to get past registration barriers and to take time off from their weekday jobs (which are salaried, not hourly) to vote. By comparison, the less well-off are typically less educated and less likely to be able to take time to vote without a financial hit.

Now, the interesting thing about all of this analysis is that it's kind of backwards, because, IIRC, the more education and (to a point) income someone has, the less likely they are to vote conservative, and vice versa. There's a distinct lack of class consciousness in America, probably because the right has been really good at playing to the emotions and non-economic beliefs of the lower economic classes, while really pursuing agendas destructive of their actual economic interests.
----------------

Why is it....

[instantkarma1]

That we hear about this from Wired, as opposed to CNN? MSNBC? New York Times? Washington Post? Fox News? (well, the last is a rheotical question).

My point is, what does it take for the mainstream press to pick up on this?!?!?!?

Re:Why is it....

[FFFish]

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.

Productivity Uber Alles!

[glomph]

Since the current government is committed to increasing efficiency wherever possible, the following plan will be pursued:

1) Get 75,000 WinCE-based Diebold machines built (and paid for!)

2) Send them to India and have lower-cost labour do the "voting"

Makes stealing elections MUCH more cost-effective!

I am committed to delivering ...

[leoaugust]

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 ....

back to paper

[woverly]

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.

Simple answer

[corebreech]

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.

"Power Assist" voting

[nehril]

exactly. A car may have power-assisted brakes and steering, but the power systems are not required to be operational. they are nice to have and make life easier, but if they cut out you can rely on your own muscle to continue functioning in an emergency.

So sure, go to electronic voting for fast initial tallies, clearer voter instructions etc, but definitely have your human-readable paper ballots as backups and for spot-checks.

the stakes are so high in certain elections that fraud attempts are already commonplace and guaranteed.

Radio

[Triv]

Jack Hitt did a story on Diebold for This American Life a few weeks back. It's a good listen and neatly sums up all the problems with untrusted computerized voting. I know WE know what the issues are, but it's refreshing to see this out in the public eye.

A description of the show and a realaudio stream (yeah yeah, I know) is available here.

Triv

Re:Diebold completely at fault?

[leftie]

Wrong. Jeffrey Dean and John Elder are still working for Diebold. Dean was given 24/7 access to the King Co. elections office and compter room in order to program the Diebold software. Diebold presently has Elder managing a division of the company working in elections, too. http://www.blackboxvoting.com/bbv/1216presskit.pdf

Re:META: Please someone explain to me . . .

[vajrabum]

>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 ?

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=New 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).

http://www.blackboxvoting.com/modules.php?name=New s&new_topic=4

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.

Please support the Open Voting Consortium

[laird]

If you're concerned about reliable voting in the US (and elsewhere) based on an open, auditable system, please go to http://www.openvotingconsortium.org/, read up on what they're doing, and volunteer to help out.

To quote from their web site:

The Open Voting Consortium (OVC) is a non-profit organization dedicated to the development, maintenance, and delivery of an open voting system for use in public elections.

We are currently developing free voting software to run on very inexpensive PC hardware. The OVC voting system will accommodate different languages and scoring methods, as well as voters with special needs.

We expect to be fully operational by 2005, with the certification of version 1.0 of the Open Voting software. Meanwhile, we have demonstration software under development at http://sourceforge.net/projects/evm2003, which should be ready by the end of this year.

If you want to Help make it happen, then mailto:alan@openvotingconsortium.org to send us an e-mail.

Bill Could Rule Out Open Source Voting Software

[TheShrike]

Risks Digest is reporting that Sen. Barbara Boxer (D - CA) will introduce a bill requiring stringent background checks on all electronic voting company employees who work with voting software.

Propenents of Open Source solutions for electronic voting systems should be concerned about this. I see no mention of this at Boxer's website, so it's hard to say exactly how this might be worded. But clearly, the process of performing and verifying such a vetting could be problematic for a distributed, volunteer development effort. Would it be just the "official" maintainers who would be subject to such constraints, or would such requirements require that patches submitted by non-vetted contributors be rejected purely on those grounds? My concern is that voting software should be evaluated and put into use on technical grounds, and in the pursuit of using the best available methods, we shouldn't be placing barriers into place which preclude the selection of well-written software.