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Super Tuesday Not So Super For Electronic Voting
October_30th writes "It's Super Tuesday in 10 states (including California, New York and Ohio) and various reports are coming in that the equipment built by Diebold and various other manufacturers is proving more troublesome than previously anticipated."
This quote from the article demonstrates the comeplete lack of attention to security that runs throughout the products:
Among their surprises: all of Maryland's machines had two identical locks, which could be opened by any one of 32,000 keys or be easily picked.
They all should have done as gmhowell and asked for paper. 'course that was troublesome in and of itself. At least Joe got some cookies :-)
/* oops I accidentally made a comment, sorry */
Few members of the general public seem to have any concerns about electronic voting, but every computer professional I know thinks this is a lousy idea.
There are some things that computers are good at, and some that they aren't. Just because something is newer doesn't make it better.
It's expensive, insecure, and complicated (and thus prone to failure).
Whose idea was this anyway?
I read a similar article on BBC News a few weeks ago and went and did some more digging. Apparently the CEO of Diebold is a staunch Republican and contributed heavily to the Bush campaign. This may also be coincidence, but partisan elections in Georgia using the new systems also heavily favored Republicans. Call me a right-wing conspiracy theorist, but the current state of electronic voting scares me.
---- Just another spud server.
Who is the genius putting Windows on these things?? If ever there were a place for a custom operating system, this should be it. Normally I would even promote Linux (SELinux), but even it is way too mainstream in this application. Windows????
Since the machines can be reprogrammed it has a lot to do with the tech.
If they were just the old style punch cards sitting on a table and someone altered prior to voting starting for the day then it would be a bit obvious when they were passed out to the voters be the election judges.
I'm a Diebold basher as well. They've completely screwed the pooch, so to speak, on electronic voting and public trust.
However,
It's not so much the company 'Diebold' that is at fault as the small company they bought out that was doing electronic voting development. And had started the shit that has been hitting the fan.
Diebold is a lock and security company that happened to buy a terrible, untrustworthy little company for a forray into electronic voting.
For what it's worth.
RD
I voted today in greater Cleveland. We had punchcard ballots, which was good, since the power was flickering all afternoon.
Excuse me, but even listeners to the BBC (British Broadcast Corporation) are assumed to know what "Super Tuesday" means... are Americans more ignorant about the American politcal system than Europeans?
"Freedom means freedom for everybody" -- Dick Cheney
The real problem with electronic voting is the fact that what you see and what you think you voted for could simply not be the case. Maybe input was screwed up so when you click on one radio button another's value was submitted. I spose there really is no simple way except maybe instead of the paper receipt idea you just display it on the screen for the voter to confirm.
With all this talk about potential election fraud, with these electronic voting machines, I was wondering whether a certain idea could work:
When you fill in your voting form you get a receipt with a record of your voting and a unique number (generated on the spot). At any time you could visit a validation web site, where you would type in the number you were given and check whether the entry matches what you have. Sure you could type in a random number and see someone else's record, but since its not tied to any personal info, it wouldn't be much of an issue. If at any time there is an inconsistency, you have proof in your hands.
Jumpstart the tartan drive.
A quick google search for Diebold Bush will return more than 3,200 results.
o ld-money-to-bush_x.htm.
Among the most noteworthy ones are:
http://www.usatoday.com/tech/news/2003-12-05-dieb
As such, it's no suprise that Microsoft is one of the top "contributors" to the Bush war machine.
It makes sense then, that Bush's mandate for electronic voting machines (based on Microsoft technology) would follow shortly thereafter.
But I digress, a quick google search will provide much more research data than I could ever provide here.
On the bright side, Sen. Edwards (my candidate of choice) is now openly supported by Howard Dean (which is a very good thing). However, I can't help but think that it's a little too late for integrity and values.
They've been bought and sold out right out from under us. Our responsibility to our democracy is to make sure the same thing doesn't happen in November 2004.
The questions are:
Are we done discussing it?
Are we willing to do something about it?
2000 was cakewalk compared to what's going to happen this year. We've had 4 years to bitch and moan about our rights.
Talk is cheap.
Are you guys ready to defend our rights?
"They that can give up essential liberty to obtain a little temporary safety deserve neither liberty nor safety."
Benjamin Franklin
Don't think that a small group of dedicated individuals can't change the world. It's the only thing that ever has.
I've been listening to talk radio, and poll troubleshooters are calling in. I didn't realize it up to now, but the machines, at least in my city, are using Windows CE for the OS. Apparently a lot of the systems were booting to the desktop instead of the application (the app is on a flash memory card in the machine). I infer from the symptoms people are describing that some machines were allowed to sit unpowered and unplugged for a long period prior to the election, and the batteries ran down, erasing the script that would have executed the application when the machine was turned on. The poll workers aren't trained on what to do in this unexpected circumstance, and have to call the troubleshooters who were trained in how to get the app running. Naturally, the troubleshooters are inundated.
The issue is not the fancy interface. (So changing to a keyboard would just add the problem of how you are supposed to collect votes from people who don't grok keyboards.)
It's not like it's hard to press "1 ". Anyone can understand the instructions if they were clear. The idea of moving it to a keyboard based system is just simply a request I've heard from a lot of people, and a simplifing overcomplicated hardware.. (what if your monitor crapped out?)
The issue is: How do you KNOW the software that grabbed the vote (from the keyboard, touch screen, or what have you), encrypted it or not, and stored it in the database, ACTUALLY STORED THE VOTE THE VOTER CAST, rather than making up its own vote? And how do you KNOW that the database ACTUALLY SAVED THE VOTES THE VOTING MACHINES FED IT and ADDED THEM UP CORRECTLY, rather than making up different values or being altered by some human intervention?
Time to get out the tinfoil hats everyone, this answer's gonna shock and amaze: Use RFID voting tags, and a distributed key encryption system (something with a keyhash that's incredibly, insanely long, how about a flash memory chip containing a 128 meg file used to digitally sign the vote?). Do this at all levels of input (make the keyboards sign the vote, make the computer program sign the vote, make the database sign the vote), and you really defeat 90% of the problems in the system. Printing onto a spool of paper inside of the device on keypress wouldn't be that bad of a jesture either.
The MAIN problem with computer voting machines is that, along with hanging chads and dimpled ballots, they've eliminated any paper trail (actually checked by the voters themselves) of how each voter actually voted. If the software is broken or corrupt, how do you do a recount? Ask it to give you the corrupted numbers a second time?
Again, how hard is it to borrow from dated techology: The typewriter left a paper trail for the some odd 100 years it was used, why not turn the computer back into one of these devices?
(Interestingly enough, that's EXACTLY how Diebold proposes to do a recount: Have the database print out the corrupted values as separate printed paper ballots for people to hand-count. B-) ) This is another example of gross incompetence. Why not simply print the thing ON INPUT, onto a huge drum of paper, stored inside of the same safe the computer's stored inside of? Nobody's gonna get to the machine to modify it, nobody's gonna hack into the system or cause some kind of buffer overflow if the software's written right [ NOTE: I AM STRONGLY AGAINST NETWORKED VOTING SOLUTIONS, Networking computers is simply too risky, too many different ways to hack this kind of system ]. Write it right once, put it in a bulletproof box, change the combination to the box, and change the digital signatures every election, and you're done.
"Victory means exit strategy, and it's important for the President to explain to us what the exit strategy is." G.W.Bush
As usual, it's the physical security issues that pose bigger issues than electronic security. At my High School in San Francisco, CA, which is a polling place for all elections, including this one, voting machines are delivered to the school about two weeks before each election, and simply left in a small alcove off of a main hallway. See this for further details on this problem In short, I (or anyone else who enters the unlocked school building) have had many opportunities to simply wheel the entire kit out the door and to bring it back in some time later (this would of course violate state law, so it is left as an exercise to the reader).
Cities need to take basic physical security precautions with their voting equipment as well.
What's really quite disturbing is that the unreliability of these voting systems has been well covered in the mainstream press, ... yet the voting officials still have no clue or interest in considering the liabilities of using these systems. It just defies reason,and makes me lean ever closer to my paranoia / tinfoil hat and wonder about payola.
Why are you worried about payola?
Worry about ballot boxes stuffed by corrupt election officials working for political machines.
That requires NO paranoia to be concerned about. When the enormous power of government is handed over to the winners of elections, the historical NORM is for the election process to be corrupted.
The battle is to keep it clean. The ONLY way to do that is to ASSUME it's dirty unless you can PROVE it's clean - in a way that's believable by every non-tech-savvy member of every losing faction.
When somebody can say, of an election, "Trust me, it's clean." - and you have to believe him because you can't check, it's almost CERTAINLY dirty. (The only thing that might keep it from being hacked is that the political machines haven't got their hacks finished in time.)
And when the election officials ignore mainstream press coverage about how it can be cheated and how simple it is to fix, you shouldn't be wondering if you're hearing a little alarm bell tinkling. You should be hearing air raid sirens and artillery bombardments.
Bantam Dominique roosters crow a four-note song. Once you've heard it as "Happy BIRTHday" you can't NOT hear it that way
Why do anything more special with the software than: digitally sign the vote from the keyboard, print it to a log file and then physically PRINT it onto paper. The digital signature can be checked against a hardware key, like Adobe uses to safeguard some of it's products. The system wouldn't be costly *could use a bunch of 486's with 1 gig hard drives and an LPT port*, would be fast, effective, and a lot more secure than current systems.
I also don't disagree with the current paper ballot system, just as long as it's not "poke paper here for xxxx", but instead "fill in this bubble clearly" or "circle this person with a bright red marker" or something foolproof like that.
"Victory means exit strategy, and it's important for the President to explain to us what the exit strategy is." G.W.Bush
Forget the machines, the ballots, whatever. My voting experience scared me and I don't even have to mention electronic voting.
I arrived as a Non-partison voter. Three people manned the booths. I waited in line to get my electronic voter card, and the person in front of me was asked "what affiliation are you?" They responded "neutral". OK, so that sounds like me, I guess that's what I'll say (I didn't know to say specifically "non-partisan"). My turn comes up, I'm asked what affiliant and I say "neutral" too.
I put in my card, and of course the ballot screen is in plain view of everyone, but whatever I don't really care (yet). My choices come up, and I was dumbfounded. I didn't recognize any of the names, I couldn't make any choices or anything. I scanned the screen thoroughly -- the eballots themselves are simple but the interface obfuscates certain important things -- and finally noticed at the top that it said "Natural Party Ballot." Holy shit, they gave me the wrong ballot!
But wait a second, they gave the person in front of me the wrong ballot too, then! And sure enough, that person had already gotten themselves 3 screens deep into an electronic keyboard to try and type "Kerry" (I could see her screen, bogus) because none of the choices allowed her to.
Summary: the guy who gave me my voter cards must be a moron. Oh my god, this can't be an isolated occurrence. But wait, there's more.
I finally get my card settled and go vote. This time I recognize some of the names, but again I couldn't vote on the democratic primary. What gives? I flip open my voter booklet and on the second or third page it stated something to the effect of: "non-partisan voters can vote in 3 of the 7 party primaries, just request a ballot to do so".
So I requested the ballot. Moron #1 had no idea what I was talking about, asked me if I'd voted, I said "yes of course but" and he cut me off and said "well then you're done." No I'm not, look right here in YOUR BOOKLET, SEE? "Gee, I don't know anything about that." OK, done with you, let's try door #2.
The second guy was a little bit more intelligent but still had no idea. "But it's right here in the voter registration booklet, and the details take up this entire page, how can you guys not know what this is?" He still had no idea, but at least he had the good sense to ask person #3.
Person #3, the youngest of the three, was outside taking a cell phone call and came back in to help me. She at least was willing to consider that I and my voter pamphlet might be right. Rummage rummage rummage, shuffle shuffle, oh, the directions state he can vote a paper ballot. Moron #1 insists "we ain't got any", starts looking around. A short period of chaos ensues, the line stops moving forward. A box under Moron #1 contains something; he insists they aren't ballots. Person 2 gets the box, Person 3 opens it and whoa! Look at that, paper ballots.
But they're still uncertain, and it's freaking me out. Well, they reason, I must be allowed to fill out a paper ballot if that's what the booklet says. Huh??????? You guys don't *know*? WTF?
I fill out the paper ballot and hand it back to the 3rd person, who seemed the most intelligent and most aware of what was going on of the three. Of course, she took the ballot from me and folded it, put it in a corner and that's the last I saw of it. It didn't go into a box, it didn't go into any safe place. Who knows what its eventual fate might be.
Now listen, I understand that the electronic voting systems have vulnerabilities and problems and (for the most part) whackjob morons designing them. But you know what? After my experience today I am *really* more concerned about the process, the training, and the people.
They're volunteers, and man thank you, the world could use more of a helping hand in general. But they were soooo ignorant! Where did my paper ballot go? Was that even the right ballot to fill out? And the electronic one? WTF happened to
1. The person must be able to select the name of the person they want to vote for. (check)
2. Now count which person received the most votes. (check)
3. Announce a winner. (check)
You missed a step:
4. Prove the system counted the votes correctly. (Oops!)
To do this you need:
1a) The machine must make a hardcopy record of how the voter voted.
1b) The voter must be able to check that the hardcopy is accurate.
1c) The hardcopy must be preserved (along with the hardcopies of the other voters' votes), until the recount opportunities have expired.
4) When the loser says "I don't believe it!", the hardcopies must be manually counted, under the eyes of the loser's teammates, to prove that the loser really lost.
1a, 1b, 1c, and 4 are all missing from the Diebold system (along with most of the others).
Instead they have:
1d) Fiddle with the database to move votes from one candidate to another.
along with other possible problems.
Bantam Dominique roosters crow a four-note song. Once you've heard it as "Happy BIRTHday" you can't NOT hear it that way
Politicians, voter-rights advocates and even some secretaries of state have acknowledged that the systems could theoretically fail
Stating the nature of the technical concerns with these machines this is profoundly misleading. Usually "theoretical" refers to something that basic principles could happen but that practically speaking is not worth considering. It sounds to me like some of these people may have got the message, but the amplitude is way too low. It reminds me of the joke where the engineer states an idea is a "crock of shit", and the news is softened at each step up the ladder until the CEO is told "It will promote growth."
Over the years I've learned that we technical folk use language which is too open to being misconstrued by nontechnical people. Important conclusions get lost in explanations and caveats.
The message we need to communicate is this:
Post may contain irony: discontinue use if experiencing mood swings, nausea or elevated blood pressure.
Valid points.
4. Make sure that no person voted twice
I suppose this wouldn't be too hard if each voter has a unique identifier, say SSN.
5. Make sure that everyone that voted is registered
Again, if identities are verified then this is a simple database lookup.
6. Make it impervious to hackers yet easily usable by your 95-year-old grandmother.
I think the user interface for this would be pretty simple, like an ATM machine. Just a list of people and a button that says "Vote". Not much to hack and I think Grandma could manage. Maybe I'm wrong, but I can't think of a time when I heard of an ATM getting hacked.
7. Make it error-proof and virus-proof (tell me when you create the new OS it will need).
Simple applications can we debugged pretty well. With something as simple (IE. lacking complexity), I think it could be done. And as for viruses, I refer again to ATM machines. These are not normal PCs. These are specialzed embeded devices. Outlook isn't normally installed.
Truthfully, this isn't something I can do in my garage, but the point of my hyperbole was to show that I don't think it's rocket science.
One bad monkey spoils the whole barrel.
Well I voted this morning in Maryland on one of the new DieBold machines. When I came in, I registered just like always, signed a pink card and was given a little credit card sized card with a copper colored chip on it. It's the same type of chip you've probably seen on American Express cards, military ID cards, or maybe even at your laundromat.
:) It's not a matter of the technology, but how who is in charge of it and how they use it.
After being handed my paper and card, an election judge took me over to one of the machines. All the machines were in the cafeteria of a local school. All machines were in plain sight by anyone walking into the room, and there was only one door that was unlocked to allow access in and out. At the machine, I was instructed to insert the card into a small slot until it clicked. Then the election judge opened the tutorial on how to use the new system. It amounted to "touch the box on the screen for who you want to vote for." Nothing difficult about that.
So I went through, chose my votes, and before it allowed me to confirm my votes, it showed me who I had voted for, ommitting any candidates I had not chosen. Then I confirmed my choices, the card popped out, the election judge took my card and that was that.
It doesn't seem to me that the your actual votes are stored on the voting machine itself, but instead on the actual card. If that is the case, I would assume that the cards are later read into a different machine that tallies up an entire location at a time.
What happens with the cards after that is an interesting question. Logically one would think that the cards themselves are archived, stuck in boxes and stored for however long before they are reused. That way after their data is tallied with everything else, if a recount is required, the cards themselves would be used and the data that was collated from different locations and stored on the central server would be overwritten.
I wouldn't say that it's any easier to tamper with the voting results than it has been before. Even mechanical voting machines have been tampered with in ways to vote for someone other than who you though you were voting for. It seems to me it's more likely it's possible to have more safeguards in place with electronic voting.
As for companies such as DieBold and their possible nefarious plots, well you better get a tinfoil jumpsuit.
The absentee voter system already opens the door to bribery. I am not a resident of California, but I believe that you can register to be a permanent absentee voter in CA, for no grounds beyond you feel like it. So, if I were a CA resident and wanted to sell my vote, I would register to be a permanent absentee voter. Then, I would fill out the absentee ballot, show it to the person buying my vote, and then drop it in the mail while they watch. They get one confirmed bought vote, and I get my cash...
Therefore, bribery is equally possible under the current system. I don't even need the California law I cited, it just makes it easier to sell my vote election after election instead of having to obtain absentee voter status for each election.
I think it was an Asimov short story which was predicated on a future where the candidate was chosen based on just one voter each year. In fact, I'm sure it was Asimov because the outcome was determined by feeding the results of a serious of interview questions, biometrics, etc. into a Multivac computer (an Asimov creation). The computer calculated the popular opinion through extrapolation from this single voter, chosen randomly each election year. IIRC, the story was written over thirty years ago. Pretty scary stuff.
---- Just another spud server.
All voting for a given election should happen on the same day.
The problem with this is that the only very well funded, insider candidate with national name recognition would have a chance. The candidates that drop out in the current system wouldn't have even bothered running if it was a one-day national election. The current system allows for lesser known, poorly funded outsiders to make their case in smaller states that they have a chance of contesting. If they do well (which they often do) they can carry on and contest the larger and larger states that come later and have a chance on the "super tuesdays" which are essentially national elections.
Most of the problem I have isn't with the system itself but with how it is covered by the media. Horse-race style coverage is perfectly acceptable - it is news after all. But the complete avoidance of coverage of the candidates positions is a problem. Also, the horse race coverage should be about actual results - actual delegates won versus how many are needed, NOT reporting on the endless chatter of pundits chattering about the chattering of the pundits. Winning Iowa is newsworthy and the winner is entitled to some good press out of it. But (in this current race for instance) it only won Kerry 21 delegates, Edwards won 19 and Dean won 11! All that media hype practically anointing Kerry the winner just because he won a net advantage over his nearest competitor of 2 delegates! out of 4,332!!! Lets have a little perspective!
VxWorks would probably be the best choice. It's very minimal and doesn't share an API with the second most common OS.
There are 4 boxes to use in the defense of liberty: soap, ballot, jury, ammo. Use in that order. Starting now.
I'm in Orange County, California. We are one of the many counties in CA using the electronic voting machines, except mine was actually quite spiffy. No touch screen, first off. Instead, there was a scroll wheel that you were supposed to use. Perhaps a bit more complicated to the user than a touch screen, its still easier on the program. The UI was actually quite simple. Scroll to select option, hit enter, scroll to get to next area, and repeat. It gives you a chance to review your ballot, and then you hit the big red button to submit your ballot. Easy. As for accountability, there's an easy way to do it that should be in place. Throw in a cheap laser printer into each one, and print out the ballot results. The voter checks the hard-copy to confirm, and turns that into the election center. If the ballots are ever questioned, you have a large stack of print-outs to confirm! Sure, its a cost increase, for both the printers and paper, but that should remove almost all doubt.
Uh, forgive an AC for what may be gross oversimplification, but what's wrong with this scenario?
1) Voter uses computer touchscreen/keyboard/whatever to select a candidate in the language of his/her choice.
2) Voting machine automatically prints/punches/whatever a physical ballot in the language of his/her choice.
3) Voter is given ballot to review. If incorrect, voter shreds ballot, and revotes. When he/she gets it right, voter places the physical ballot in the ballot box.
This leaves a voter-verifiable paper record, and it eliminates the chance of people incorrectly marking ballots. With the exception of disappearing ink, I see no problem. It even allows existing vote counting techniques to remain in use, eliminating some of the initial cost.
Write your Congressman!
scripsit CleverNickName:
... and some dumb bastard modded it Offtopic. If the discussion is about ignorance of politics, how is an ironic comment about citiz^H^H^H^H^Hconsumers' apathy for the topic Offtopic? It strikes right at the central point the grandparent was making...
Unfortunately, I've already wasted my mod points for today...
In principio creauit Linus Linucem.
Hey, look at that, I made Slashdot!
I'm Peter Sahlstrom, the Georgia Tech student who took the photos. I thought there were a few things I should mention.
1) A friend of mine pointed the conspicuous pile of voting machines out to me, and although I took the photos, he made the phone calls. We contacted the voting people, the press, and campus security; we received almost no response. The voting people told us the machines were locked (apparently they were...but not to anything. The mainstream press ignored us. And Campus Security said that, although they had complained to the voting people previously, they kept leaving the machines out like that.
2) The thing that finally drew attention was an article I posted to Dave Farber's "Interesting People List", (here) and to Declan McCullough's Politech (here).
3) I've made the best photos available to anyone interested. The Associated Press has two; I've got about 13 more of the highest quality (or most relevant) photos available, if someone wants to throw some bandwidth at me.
If anyone else has questions about things, let me know.
I was going to put a sig here, but I had already submitted the message.
I do believe the whole primary thing came about in the early 1900s as a result of the corruption prevalent in American politics at the time (and now, of course, but that's a different issue). This was so that candidates would not owe favors to the party bosses that appointed them, so the party bosses would not have the power they did at the time. One important reason for this is that America has only two major parties-- we don't have much choice in going to another party. In the Swedish parliamentary system, I assume you have rather more choices.
Hmmm well technically all parties have equal access to state run primaries but the system is deffinatly streamlined for the two major parties.
Mostly a function of the support infrastructure in place for them. IE its not a problem for them to organize 25,000 ( random number ) names on a petition for placing candidates on a ticket. Most 3erd parties do not have national infrastructure to assist with running primaries or doing the leg work to get on the tickets.
Its much less of an issue with the primaries than with the national presidential elections. First off there is rarely much dispute about who the candidates are for 3erd parties which often negates the need for a primary. However for the presidential election it is a very hard task for 3erd party candidates to get on the ballot nationwide.
You just have to remember the primaries are technically not a part of the voting process. It is a mechanisim that has evovled for whitling down the major party candidates which have nationwide memembers that have to unify support behind a single candidate to have any chance of taking the white house.
As for the state invovlement in administering the primaries it boils down to the fact presidential primaries are major events and due to the reality of the two party prominence in the US political system it is important to make sure the major party presidential nominees are fairly selected. Parties could run their own but they would loose legitimacy and would have to expend more money to do so without the help of the state electoral officials.
The months long rolling elections is an aritifact of the days when travel limited how fast candidates could stump around the nation for nationwide support. It has evolved into an endurance litmus test that slowly sloughs off the pretenders. Its alomst like a sports season.
Its incestuous and not entirely perfect but so far it has served its purpose. The system is far from inviting for 3erd parties but there are several realities which bias america towards a two party system and it probably does more good than harm. So long as the two party system provides sufficient choice and responsiveness to americans as a whole it will likely remain in place.
I don't ask you to be me. I only ask you not expect me to be you.
I have posted this before, but I am intersted in setting up a panel on Technology and Democracy, with a focus on e-voting:
:
I am interested in setting up a panel in NYC (New York, New York, USA) somewhere between July 9 and July 11.
Some topics that color my view of e-voting systems briefly follow
My concern is that any system be appropriately thought out, formally and precisely defined, using rigidly designed systems (not necessarily off-the-shelf), made to precisely and verifiably conduct voting tansactions, without being able to disclose, leak, or bleed any information that is not supposed to escape the system.
The Johns Hopkins study is an excellent reference and resource on the issues that have to be addressed.
I am personally interested in setting up a panel in New York in Mid-July (not much - just about an hour to an hour and-a-half), but at an interesting venue. I am not offering funding, but there could be some visibility.
I would welcome hearing from anyone who is doing interesting work in this area - in the US or overseas, that would be interested in participating on such a panel, to include related topics on technology-and-democracy.
I can not promise or expect to provide any funding, but there could be some visibility.
Thank you,
Sam Nitzberg
sam@iamsam.com
http://www.iamsam.com
Why not simply print the thing ON INPUT, onto a huge drum of paper, stored inside of the same safe the computer's stored inside of?
Wow. Just like every cash register on every retail counter in the country. A retailer may turn off the printed customer receipt, because no-one wants them, but he'll NEVER turn off the continuous paper log, because that provides an audit trail of all the transactions. This is so simple, primitive and necessary, that I have to wonder if it was left out of voting machines on purpose. Any idiot would provide that simple audit trail.
--Hi. I'm in Portland and it's raining. This appears to be a permanent condition.
All that said :) I realized upon reading the first part of your post that we may be misdirecting our energies here. As you pointed out, the primaries only exist to help the parties narrow down their candidates to the one they want to field in the real election. The primaries aren't "real" elections in that the "winners" of primaries aren't granted any office -- in fact the results of the primaries probably aren't even legally binding in any way. There's no real reason a political party couldn't have a rule that they'd hold elections, but then if the Grand Poobah In Charge decides he wants to overrule the results of the election, he can do so, and select whatever candidate he wants to be the candidate in the real election. (Of course, such a party would probably not do too well.)
If the party you choose to belong to isn't representing your interests, then you should bitch at that party to try and get them to do so -- but bitching at the Democratic National Party to change its primary method is unlikely to ever work. What would be more useful, and probably even infinitesimally more likely to succeed, would be to try and get the national election rules changed so that third parties actually do have a chance. Hmm.
"Destroy science and religion. Science would re-emerge exactly the same; but not religion." - Penn Jillette, paraphrased
I've been working as a Chief Election Officer since 2001 in Fairfax County and I have worked a precinct with the new electronic voting machines as of last November.
The new machines take some getting used to but they do have their advantages.
The machines we use are WinVote machines. I can't remember the manufacturer but it is not Diebold. While I can't speak for other states and counties where voting takes place, I can speak for Fairfax county's methods.
There are a number of checks and verifications that take place before the polls open in the morning with the machines that we receive. We first have to verify that the correct machines have been sent to our princinct, as they all have serial numbers on them. The use of metal sealing bands with an imprinted number on them guarantee that we have received the voting units intact, and without tampering.
We have two types of smart cards that are used for voting. Two precinct smart cards are kept by the Chief and Assitant Chief of the princinct. Session smart cards are assigned to the precinct, one for each machine we're issued.
These smart cards are programed to only function for the election held on that particular day. Also, once the machines are initialized by the precinct smart card, the machine goes through a configuration that certifies it to our precinct and loads the appropriate ballot.
The machines are touch screen accessible, and use a form of embedded Windows XP. There is the ability to present ballots in large type for the visually impaired, as well as an audio ballot (where the computer instructs you to touch one of the four corners to make selections) for the hearing impaired. The entire unit has a battery backup like a notebook and can be detached to assist elderly and the disabled by bringing the machine to them, allowing us to satisify our mandate to provide curbside voting.
Internally, the machines have an access cover that requires a key to protect the sensitive areas of the voting unit. There is a thermal printer, which records the machine stats at the start of the day: a protected counter that shows how many votes the machine has cast in its lifetime, a session counter that identifies the number of votes on that machine for that polling session (0 at the start of the day), and the current memory counts for every candidate or issue (also 0 at the start of the day). A USB flash disk also is connected which actually stores the data. It is protected by a seal that must physically be cut before removal.
One interesting thing I learned is that when the polls are opening, the units switch on a wi-fi connection to communicate with each other. One machine is designated the master, and the others become slaves. We set which machines we have been assigned and that is set in memory until the polls close. I asked the question about security issues but was assured that the wireless link only activates for a short time when opening or closing polls and is deactivated the rest of the time.
If a voter is ready to vote, one of our Election Officers will use a session card to activate one instance of voting (a ballot). We not only instruct the voter, stand by the machine and answer any questions, but the county was nice enough to provice a video tape that loops so that people when they come in can see directly a demonstration of how the machines work.
If someone would like to start over, or decides they require the large type ballot, the session card can be used to cancel the current ballot. In this case protected and session counters do not advance.
We had one case last election day where a guy got fed up and left in disgust with the system, and we asked him if he would like to restart the ballot process. He declined and asserted that he wanted his ballot cancelled, which we did, as is his right.
Some success stories are that a few senior citizens, probably in their 80s, tried the new machines and actually were very pleased at these new "high-tech contraption
Elections are run (and funded) by the state governments, not the individual parties. That's why the state gets to set the rules about how primaries and caucuses are run and how to avoid penalizing small parties.
-JS
Vanity of vanities, all is vanity...
You are absolutely right. I was canvassing for Edwards in Augusta, GA last weekend and a lot of people I talked to said they were considering voting for Kerry because they saw him on TV the most. Fortunately, we were able to change at least a few minds. Unfortunately, we didn't get to personally talk to every person in GA.
There's one more problem, though, in the Southern states: Pastors tell their congregations how to vote and the people do it. The church fills up a bus with little old ladies, drives them to the polls, and says "Go in there and vote for X." This mostly happens at historically black churches, and the Democratic establishment in the South depends heavily on this vote. When you read that Kerry got a large percentage of the black vote and are scratching your head wondering why, this is why.
Your fantasies contain the seeds of important concepts.