California Grills Diebold Over E-Voting Foul-Ups

orthogonal writes "Electronic voting machine producer Diebold admitted today that 'thousands' of voters were turned away from the polls during the Super Tuesday Presidential Primary because of flaws in Diebold's machines. Diebold Election Services Inc. president Bob Urosevich said 'We were caught', and answered 'yes' when asked 'Weren't [California voters] actually disenfranchised?' Today, California officials may recommend decertifying some or all of Dielbold's machines for the November General Election." Reader TargetBoy adds: "Diebold knowingly used uncertified software in California elections. Especially interesting is the comment that, 'The law firm's memos reflect a corporate defense firm on a $500,000-a-month campaign to protect Diebold.' Wonder how much it would cost to just fix the problems?" Apparently India is having evoting problems of its own: purple writes "The world's largest democracy is in the midst of a 4-month election marathon. Except this time around the whole thing is run electronically. And, surprise surprise, things seem to not be working perfectly. Some polling booths have been ordered to re-poll due to malfunctions in the electronic voting machines. In another article, 191 voting booths were ordered to re-poll. Other polling locations seem to be operating on voter lists from 2001. I suppose the good news is that these errors were caught before they could have really screwed things up."

Comments

Here's the rub

[American AC in Paris]

OK, all conspiracy theories off to the side. Forget the whole "Getting votes for the Republicn Party" bit. Ignore whatever political motivations may be surrounding Diebold at the moment. Assume that Diebold has no desire to commit or facilitate election fraud.

The simple fact is that, while Diebold does indeed care about producing accurate voting results, they are more concerned with making money. If Diebold is forced to choose between increasing their profit and making the system better, they'll choose profit.

If you put voting machines in the hands of the private sector, the private sector will try to maximize profit. Corners will be cut. There simply isn't any way to avoid this, so long as the people making the machines are doing so to make money off the venture.

So long as the design and development of voting systems is left to the private sector, voters will be disenfranchised for the sake of profit. That's all there is to it.

Re:Here's the rub

[Liselle]

You bring up an excellent point!

Makes me wonder though, if corporate greed can be used to our advantage. Knowing that profit is the motivator, and not altruism/patriotism/whatever, means that hitting them in the wallet is the best assurance that they will play nice. It's a known target.

Maybe it's naive to assume it will work, and there will be a horde of ACs to inform me as such, but while we're in fantasy land: strict government guidelines for how electronic voting functions. Even paper ballots have a margin of error, your electronic system has to do at least as well, with a certain amount of guaranteed uptime. Certified this, authorized that. Otherwise, you'll never get that check to cash, or maybe get hit with some stiff investor-frightening fines.

Hmm, maybe strict rules like that will scare away the private sector from making voting machines, though... Hell, that works for me, too.

Re:Here's the rub

[corbettw]

Not to excuse the incompetent greedy fucks at Diebold, but they're only a symptom of the larger problem. The real problem is that the government types who are making decisions about going to evoting know fuck-all about how computers work, and are not interested/capable of any real oversight (the "magic box" can't be wrong, can it?). Couple that with the natural human tendency to get as much return on as little investment as possible, and it's almost as bad as setting up a dingo farm next to a day care center.

Afterall, consider that Diebold is one of the largest makers of ATMs in the world. Ever wonder why they can make ATMs that don't screw up your checking account balance every time you withdraw funds? Simple: banks are accountable to their customers, share holders, and various government agencies to not screw up people's finances. If someone went to the ATM and it reported they only had $18,181 (a reference to a previously reported bug on the upper limits of counted votes), when in fact they had ten times that much, there'd be a huge outcry (if the reverse happened, the bank would eventually catch it, and again there'd be a huge outcry, at least internally to the vendor). So, again, the problem isn't that Diebold is greedy (which they are) or stupid (which they are), but that the people to whom they are directly accountable (the various county registrars) have no clue what the hell they're doing.

Re:Here's the rub

[trentblase]

This isn't a downside of the voting machine itself. It's up to the person inputing the candidate info to leave a "abstain" or "no confidence" option. Surely the software could support such an option (even if you had to hack it by putting First Name: No, Last Name: Confidence)

Re:Here's the rub

[Catbeller]

but to make a buck on a cheaper system

That doesn't track logically. The system already costs $5000 per voting machine. If the printer was added, they'd simply add another few thousand for the work and hardware. Memos have surfaced taht confirm this: they were instructed to charge HIGH to add that capability, if it came to it.

No, from the minutes of a meeting inadvertently attended by a publisher, and from justing oogling Diebold's 500K/month legal fund, itcan only be said Diebold's ONLY aim is to prevent the addition of printed ballots for verification purposes.

So they don't want an audit trail. Now, why?

They know that if the system is audited, ie a recount made and results from counting paper matched to election tallies, the numbers won't match up. OR, they are making sure the machines can secretly alter election vote totals, and don't want it known.

Since there is no profit motive, it must be incompetence, or cheating, or both.

Re:Here's the rub

[flossie]

I'm not sure what the solution to the problem is, but somehow investors need to start holding corporations responsible for long-term success, and long-term sacrifices to yield short-term gains need to be severely punished.

You have hit the nail squarely upon the head. The complete lack of regard for the long-term that is now endemic in the US and, increasingly, the UK is a recipe for disaster.

Assuming that there is absolutely no chance of investors (whether individual or institutional) getting a sudden attack of morality, the best way that I can conceive of to fix the problem is to use the tax system. Increase the capital gains tax on stocks and shares which are sold without being held for long and decrease the tax on long-held stocks and shares.

If taxes decayed to near zero for investments held for 25 years or more, you can bet that pension companies would start taking the long-term view. This would exert a significant beneficial pressure on the behaviour of company directors.

Re:Here's the rub

[Catbeller]

Not a huge conspiracy at all. It's right out in the open. They don't want the printers. They're spending fortunes and dragging in their favorite legislators to block the audit trail.

They're not claiming it's expensive, or complicated, or anything logical. They claim it's not necessary.

Now, we've plenty of data at this point, from negative tallies in Indiana to system tests by computer scientists. The tallies are not working even by Dielbold's standards. The scientists cracked the system in 5 minutes in one case, and found multiple hacks in all others that permitted them to own the voting machines, the aggregation machines, the modem communications, the voter smart cards... their conclusion: minumum effort to change vote totals at will!

Doesn't take a "conspiracy theory" to stare the truth in the face. The machines don't work as they are supposed to. The basic idea is unsound and an invitation to cheat. The system is already hacked, and the vote counts can be changed. Strange results have occured in Georgia and otherplaces: wild swings for candidates that don't match the polls. The company has fought like a rabid hyena to prevent an audit trail, even though doing so means extra profit.

I don't think the entire company is out to cheat the voters. But I find it easy to believe that either the machines don't work as advertised, or the company bigwigs may be terrified that an paper audit was run and cheating occured. I also find it humanly certain that someone in the Bush-fanatical company has it in their head to use the easy methods already known to tip a race in the Republican's favor. Why not? It's untraceable.

In any case, extremely robust printers are available for use,so fallibilty of hardware isn't an issue. Do ATM's fail to print very often? It's Diebold, they specialize in tough hardware.

Cost isn't an issue. They can charge whatever they like.

Time wasn't an issue, until they ran out the clock.

The audit trail IS the issue for them. They fundamentally deny they need one. Their reasoning is nonexistent. They simply assert it isn't necessary.

It boils down to this: they are blocking the ability to hold recounts. They don't want recounts. There must be a reason. They are capable, can charge what they like. So... they have something they don't want known. It can onlybe that tthe possiblity exists that the recount tallies won't match the original totals. Think what kind of hell would explode if the new, bulletproof system was shown conclusively to be completely untrustworthy. It would be a scandal unlike any other, especially seeing how hard they tried to hide the problem.

Fear of esposure as incompetents or fear of exposure as the enablers of a falsely elected government, take your pick. And ALL previous elections would be invalid on the evidence!

I don't think most Americans would even care, but some would. Enough to send people to prison.

I wonder.

[Neil Blender]

Did India outsource its voting machines? Seems like maybe it's not just a matter of incompetent programmers. Maybe e-voting is actually hard to accomplish.

#2 pencil

[Anonymous Coward]

Complication does not equal sophistication. Sometimes, a number 2 lead pencil really does work best.

Who's not surprised?

[ctishman]

See, the sick part about all of this is that nothing will actually happen. Diebold will stall and complain and fling their influence around, The Governator will promise to look into it and do nothing.

"The general election is too close to fix anything now! If ONLY we'd learned about it sooner!"

Tehnology is not the root problem here.

[Muda69]

Machine voting isn't the problem, Diebold is. They've created a horrible, insecure system. It's simple enough to create a more secure system that it's hard not to believe Diebold is deliberately enabling fraud.

A system where votes were printed to a machine-readable piece of paper, verified by the voter, then deposited in a secure box, would be simple and secure. By printing votes you create a self-verifying system -- voters can check their vote is correct, and an audit can easily verify that votes were recorded as voters intended. Management of the printed records would be just like the ballots we already are using, but without the reliability problems of punch-card systems. Tallying could be done mechanically, as a barcode could accompany the printed text.

The whole system is very simple. Even if they just used an ATM style of security (printing to an internal paper log) they would be far superior to Diebold. But using logic is difficult in this case, because Diebold is clearly making absurd claims, and it's difficult to refute absurdity.

EVM 2003 is trying to create a complete open source voting system (not just machine). I wish them the best of luck. This is more than just philosophy about copyright and IP, it's the defense of democracy from those that want very much to take away even the slight accountability that currently exists. They've already made it into office with one fraudulent election (2000), and very possibly kept control of congress with another (2002, with many states being won with unverifiable votes that didn't match up with predicted results).

Fraud

[lspd]

Personally I don't really care about glitches, crashes and other problems with the machines. What I do care about is the use of uncertified software and the fact that these companies are more or less getting away with it. It sets a bad precedent for the future. Who cares if a few voting machines get decertified if you get to rig an election as a result? Any use of uncertified software should bar that company from ever producing voting machines in the US again. Do we really have to wait until someone is caught rigging a major election before real efforts are undertaken to stop it?

I have to ask

[Le Marteau]

Once again, I have to ask - what is the big goddamned rush to get election results that requires electronic voting machine? Why are people so frickin' hard to get the results of an election, like, on election day.

People should just chill, let a team of little old ladies count PAPER BALLOTS marked in PENCIL or PEN, and get the VERIFIABLE RESULTS a week or so later.

Re:I have to ask

[Civil_Disobedient]

Why are people so frickin' hard to get the results of an election, like, on election day.

I believe it's a case of a hammer in search of a nail. Or, to quote a sig I saw once on /., "Just because you fixed it doesn't mean it was broken."

It's not like the country will come to a stand-still if the results aren't known three minutes after closing the voting stations.

Alright, I have a question.

[unformed]

Allin all, how difficult would this --really-- be? At least getting the part right about who's allowed and who's not allowed to vote? I'm a programmer, I've studied cryptography, I understand the problems associated with voting, but what if they made an open system, hired good programmers, and hired other good programmers to check the first programmers work, without having a private company do the work. (or at least force the private company be open).

Lave the code open, let people look at it themselves, fin problems or what not .... test in in some *local* elections for a few years, and when those work, start moving it up to larger (ie: statewide) elections ....

Jesus, people have created some insane stuff back in the day, what's the problem now?

Re:Improper Apology

[Maestro4k]

• Nothing about apologizing for the problems with the product, or the fact that they didn't work. He appologizes for getting caught.

Which speaks volumes about Diebold as a company. Using the phrase "We were caught" implies they willfully put the bad machines out, etc. Having the head of the company say this makes it very hard for even the most forgiving of souls to trust them.

Tossing the Baby With the Bath

[Kozar_The_Malignant]

>Today, California officials may recommend decertifying some or all of Dielbold's machines for the November General Election.

Sadly, this will include the Diebold optical scanners used in my county. Like much associated with this issue, this would be JPFN. The optically scanned ballots are much like the machine scored tests used in university classes everywhere. You fill in a bubble with a black felt pen to vote for a candidate. Simple, quick, readable with either the optical scanner or the Mark I eyeball in the event of a power failure.

I am totally at a loss to understand this rush to electronic voting. As a citizen, I demand that my vote be:

• Secret
• Subject to verifiable recount
• Free from fraud

I realize that these are the ideal and that abuses have occurred under all forms of balloting yet used. However, the paper ballot and voting lists have stood the test of time. Reducing costs is not be a valid reason for mucking about with the very foundation of the democratic process.

Re:Tossing the Baby With the Bath

[demachina]

"I am totally at a loss to understand this rush to electronic voting."

Its pretty simple really. The party in power wants electronic voting without an audit trail. They approved billions of tax payer dollars to be thrown out to local election officials to insure it was instituted and at the same time insured all the electronic voting machine manufacturers bidding on said systems were controlled by Republican partisans who no doubt went out of their way to propose systems with no paper trail. WHO COULD POSSIBLY WANT A NASTY OLD PAPER TRAIL WHEN YOU CAN HAVE THESE NIFTY ALL ELECTRONIC SYSTEMS. Votes go in here, get turned in to electrons and you magically get a vote count out the other end. Pay no attention to that man behind the curtain.

The Diebold incident in California really sounds like they were practicing for how to steal the election in November, in particular the part about installing uncertified software and getting caught. This is the #1 thing you need to accomplish to steal an election with electronic voting, installing uncertified software. I imagine they chose California to practice because California isn't likely to be a swing state and the primary didn't really count for much. The place they want to smoothly and successfully install their rigged software is in all the close swing states in November when it counts. They also want it in all the states with crucial senate contests.

Bottomline is electronic voting is a way to insure the people who control the machines, which happens to be the Republicans, can hold power if, god forbid, the majority of the electorate realize they are either incompetent or serving the interests of a minority at the expense of the majority and try to, god forbid, vote them out of power. We just can't have that. The Republicans are the only ones we can trust to save America and make the world safe for American hegemony. Those Democrats are dangerous, can't be trusted(well they can't but thats another story).

I don't imagine there are reliable statistics but its a near certainty that the default state for elections is for them to be rigged every time the opportunity exists to do so. The right wingers will no doubt lob out the standard accusation now that the Democrats are the one with the history of stealing elections. Well yes they've stolen them, the Republican's have stolen them, every party and politician, in a close race and with the opportunity to rig an election with a reasonably good chance of not getting caught will do so. Power is the ultimate drug, once people have it they will generally do anything to keep it and get more of it. Its only by nonstop tireless efforts by a large number of volunteers, concerned voters, that elections are made fair and secure. Relying on incompetent bureaucrats and politicians with mixed motives just doesn't cut it.

The gold rush caused by the billions of dollars the congress threw in to the market as a knee jerk reaction to the 2000 fiasco was certain to not create an environment where a reliable voting system would be produced and the rate of change is so high its pretty hard for concerned citizens to do much about it, though a few people are making a noble effort.

A couple nights ago one of the network news shows ran a piece on how unreliable the military mail system is and how its disenfranchising the brave warriors who are defending democracy around the world. They raised the possibility once again that the all votes of the military should be done electronically, so they could be cast in seconds. The end result being millions of votes being run through the Pentagon, with no paper audit trail, under the control of the Secretary of Defense whose job is at stake in the presidential election so he can adjust the outcome as necessary.

To be honest the U.S. in particular is reaching the point it doesn't really deserve a democracy. Maybe the Republicans should just declare a state of emergency and put democracy in the U.S. out of its misery. What's left of it at this point is barely worth saving anyway.

Hold Them All Accountable

[NickFusion]

So, Diebold gets off with a half-assed apology, sorry about yer democracy, Mate! My bad!

And nobody on the federal level is making a fuss because...hmm, now I wonder why?

And it'll probably just tool along all status quo-y until...what? Massive, undeniable fraud? Some kind of grassroots "Hack the Vote" movement?

I think it was Heinlien that said, "It may be rigged, but it's the only game in town."

So keep the pressure on, and hope it makes a difference before November.

(Where's my EFF renewal form...)