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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."
"We're sorry for the inconvenience of the voters," Urosevich said.
Nothing about apologizing for the problems with the product, or the fact that they didn't work. He appologizes for getting caught.
Papaer Ballots..
Doesn't ANYONE use Sound Software Engineering Methodology any more?
It's pathetic, really, that these companies can't get it right. I can't tell if it's due to their own incompetence, or because governments are so fearful of technology that they over-compensate by making the requirements too demanding.
I mean, heck, you'd think the governments would WANT flawed software, to increase their chances of getting elected. Or perhaps, if you were conspiracy inclined, you'd think that the governments want the public to THINK the software is flawed, so they can return to the tried-and-true election rigging tactics.
Either way, the solution is to use proper software engineering principles - most likely with a strict formal specification.
I mean with all the problems I have been hearing about how some county's voting problems vary from county to county.
Here in Texas, we have communities hand counting, some use optical scanning, and some even used the punch cards. We don't have to worry about shipping the votes though the Pony Express anymore, so why has there never been any effort to make standardized, open standard machines for everyone? Is it just because the states don't want to lose that power?
Decertifying some (or all) of the machines is an ok start. What about fines? Criminal charges for violating state election laws?
Maybe if the company and the persons who run it were actually held responsible for their actions it might make others more likely to comply with the law.
All in all though, I'm glad California is aware of the problems and hasn't just ignored them.
You know the one thing I feel I lack when I read (with great interest) peoples concerns about electronic polling is just how bad were previous low tech systems. We all remember the Florida presidential debicle, but I wonder if there is somewhere much more info collected across many elections and systems that gives us something to compare with.
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.
Well, only in the case where the government is too trusting to draft a suitable contract to protect voters' rights.
All that's really needed is for government to stipulate that a single foul-up will result in zero payment. You can bet that would get Diebold's act together pretty quick. If they don't like that we can go back to paper ballots which have a pretty good track record; statistically reliable error is much better than the possibility of wholesale errors or even fraud.
Unfortunately, this whole electronic voting movement is just companies capitalizing on the mishaps of the 2000 election. If legislators knew anything about how computer systems actually worked, they wouldn't be so easily convinced that it's better than hanging chads.
The problem isn't the private sector. If it were true that quality in the private sector was always hurt by profit motive, then private sector businesses would always produce substandard quality vs. public works. However, in the private sector, quality does get produced, because there is a segment of the market that demands it, and therefore there are companies that are motivated by profit to produce that quality (e.g. Apple Computer, BMW, Rolex, etc.). The problem is not that the private sector can't produce a quality product, but rather that the government doesn't demand it. If the government were to take into consideration more than just going with the cheapest bidder in all instances, we would get better quality. Of course, that has to be balanced against the unfortunate side-effect that if more subjective issues than price are taken into account, you are more likely to get croneyism, but I really think there's a better balance than the way the government operates now.
"If English was good enough for Jesus, it's good enough for everyone else."
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.
The problem isn't really with having the machines in the hands of the private sector. Moving them to the public sector just opens up other motivation to cut corners or alter results (think political). The real issue is that the driving force behind the private sector no longer has the strong balancing factor that was historically attributed to investors. A few decades ago, businesses had to carefully plan for long-term viability. Investors held them to that, and a company that made short-term gains was not necessarily considered a good investment. Enter the day trader, and everything changes. Now companies are motivated to make decisions that yield short-term gains in profits because investors unwisely jump on the short-term gains. Look at how quickly a CEO comes and goes and it becomes obvious. The incentive provided to a CEO is short-term. They come in, make a quick gain, get their compensation, and then head off to destroy another company. It doesn't matter that three years later the company they left will be in the toilet when the irregular accounting and outright lies to the public are noticed.
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. Believe me, if the management at Diebold knew that regardless of how much money they make now, it could all be taken away from them for unethical business practices, they would focus on quality and customer satisfaction.
GreyPoopon
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Why is it I can write insightful comments but can't come up with a clever signature?
If voting were truly privatized, you'd see a system where private firms collect and certify votes from people for a fee. Counting votes would merely be tabulating all the voting firms. This would work because if a voting firm fucked up even one vote, everyone would run to another voting firm for the next election, and you can bet that these firms would all be watching each other like hawks. Obviously you'd need a unique identification system and a way to verify that your vote was registered properly with the government.
Sound outlandish? Think IRS and e-filing through a tax-agency.
The meek shall inherit the earth, in 3 by 6 plots. - Lazerus Long
The problem isn't the private sector. If it were true that quality in the private sector was always hurt by profit motive, then private sector businesses would always produce substandard quality vs. public works.
Yes, the problem IS the private sector. Efficiency, quality, and reliability DOES NOT automatically follow when profit is the motivation.
The problem is not that the private sector can't produce a quality product, but rather that the government doesn't demand it
The government did demand it, they were promised it, and Diebold lied about it.
but I really think there's a better balance than the way the government operates now.
No, there isn't. Diebold does a hell of a lot worse than the government does.
What's happening here is all the people with the anti-government, pro-privatization bias are scrambling to make it look like somehow it wasn't the private sector's fault.
What about a system the combines computer voting stations with optical scanning:
1) Voter uses touch screen computer voting station to select candidates
2) Voting station prints a paper ballot
3) Voter checks ballot and;
a) If correct, inserts the ballot into the slot and presses an ACCEPT BALLOT button, the ballot is fed into a storage bin, and votes are stored electronically
b) If incorrect, inserts the ballot into the slot and presses a CHANGE BALLOT button, and the ballot is shredded and process repeats from 1)
After the election a random X% of the electronic records are compared with the corresponding paper ballots and if they don't match all paper ballots are recounted.
If God had had a computer it would have taken him 7 months to create the earth...if he even bothered to do it at all.
Here in germany we draw marks into circles next to the names of the candidates. The votes are counted by hand. The results are faxed to a central bureau where they are aggregated.
This system has several advantages:
ITAA has "gone on the e-voting offensive" to protect the industry. If Diebold is so concerned about producing voting accuracy, why did they go and hire a lobbyist like Harris Miller to protect their image?
And the services aren't cheap...." annual dues are calculated (they range from $600-$44K, depending on a company's sales. "Deliverables" will cost up to $200,000+". Why not pour that cash into securing their systems instead of their image?
The 1910's were tied up with WWI. If you were in the war material business, you did well. Investment capital was tied up in the war effort.
The 1920's made the dotcom era look sane in comaparison. Everyone was kiting "Aeroplane" related stocks, until the market tanked.
So through the 1930's and 40's you had the twin devils of the Great Depression and WWII.
The 1950's saw the birth of the Cold war.
The 1960's ... we have all seen the moves.
The 1970's was the birth of Voodoo economics and hyper-inflation as we know it, continuing on to the 90's.
The 90's we a recession tailed by a... well we all were there.
"Learning is not compulsory... neither is survival."
--Dr.W.Edwards Deming
I live in Brasil. We have had voting machines in the last 12-14 years (yes, twelve to fourteen -- it depends the size of the city you are in). For the Brazilians here: the first election here in Belo Horizonte to use the machines were the mayoral (and city council, state representation, governor, house and senate) before FHC was elected (as I count it, 2 years + 8 years + 1 1/2 = 11,5 years). I know it, because I was "mesário" (election "table" official? election "clerk"? what is a good English translation?) in the previous election, and in the two subsequent elections). IIRC, there were electronic ballot boxes in Rio and Sao Paulo in the election before that (the only two cities larger than Belo Horizonte). ... when you get your first job. If you are a mandatory voter (literate person from 18 to 65) you have to go to Electoral Court and register to vote. In the process of registering, you receive the "Título de Eleitor" (voter id), in which you have the number of you voting section. To change jobs, and specially to get a government job, you have to prove you are a registered *and* *regularized* voter (you voted in the last election, or regularized your voting situation after it).
Our voting machines are mainly of three different (internally) models: (a) the old ones, that use VirtuOS (*) as the OS, (b) the new ones, that use WinCE as the OS, and (c) the newest and deprecated ones that have the second printer to print your vote, show it to you inside a clear acrilic case, and mix it with others inside the machine.
Externally, all of them look roughly the same: a box similar to the old "portables" of the eighties, with a 5-6" diagonal LCD and a big numerical keypad in the right side of the screen, that has, besides 0-9 keys, "confirma" (ok), "erro" (cancel), and "branco" (white).
The electoral process (from the point of view of the voter) begins
In the election day, you scan the newspapers (or the Superior Electoral Court website), search for the address of your section, and go there. No, there is no transit vote, you can only vote at that address. If you can't get there, you'll have to "justify" your absence.
At the section, you will present your voter id to one the "mesários", and if you don't have it on you, you can still vote (you can show other valid id), but will be delayed. The mesário will search for your name in the vote-ticket sheet, and annex it to your id while you vote. You will sign a receipt in a sheet, and proceed to the voting "booth". Another "mesário" will type your voter id # in a remotely connected keypad, setting the machine in the "ready to vote" mode.
The voting "booth" is really a desk with the voting machine over it, facing nobody else in the room, and sometimes with a cardboard "cover" around it. You will "dial" the numbers of the candidates, in order. when you dial all the digits of one candidate, a star-trek-like chime rings, his/her face will show up in the screen, and if you digited it right, you hit "ok". otherwise, you hit "cancel" and start over. After typing all the candidates, you hit "ok" one last time, the machine chimes again, and goes to "stand by" mode. You have voted. If you don't want to vote for nobody, you can hit "white" instead of the candidate ## (accounted as a "white vote", or "none of the above" -- this is the equivalent of putting your paper ballot in the box without marking anything), or if you really want to protest you can type 9999 or other non-existent-candidate-#, and your vote will be accounted as a "null vote", or "I'm really pissed of" (the equivalent of drawing pictures or writing "improper expletives" in a paper ballot)
Then, you get your id back, your ticket (keep it together with your voter id!!), and you go home. Ah, bars do not open (theoretically) in the election day, so hope you have bought your beer in the day before).
From the point of view of election officials, things are more complicated. The machines arrive to the Electoral Judge (yes, a Judge of Law) pre-prepared one to two months
It's better to be the foot on the boot than the face on the pavement. ~~ tkx Kadin2048
I am of the opinion that machine voting IS the problem. Voting is too critical to not have on the spot, verifiable with your eyeballs 1- an empty ballot box on poll opening (easily checked by anyone there), and 2-a count that anyone who can add can perform and check at the end of the period. And we have an archaic short voting time period, it needs to be 24 to 48 hours. I have seen and heard of too many examples of people who simply can't make the polls, typically blue collars who are required to be at work from much earlier than "business hours" until let go in the evening. I once had to QUIT a job and walk off to go vote, they would not "allow" me to come in late, nor leave early, and that day we had overtime I wasn't expecting. And lastly, instant runoffs, no more "voting for the lesser of evil" styled voting, people will have a lot more incentive to vote their REAL first choice in elections.
I love computers, but with voting, nope, I want to be able to verify it with a paper ballot, not even punch cards,a mark in the bubble ballot is quite sufficient. And I don't mean a receipt from some black box voting machine, either, this is just thousands of dollars a precinct busy work with electronic voting. More government waste (and kickbacks),easier fraud potential and inefficiency. Selling the smell and the sizzle, not the steak, typical advertising crap.
If it is not readable by any human who chooses to poll watch or if there's a dispute immediately and a human can't read it, then it is not secure, and I don't care what "guarantees" they give. "They" ALREADY swore up and down that "it was secure and worked properly", and they have been proven to FAIL IT in not a very long time.
Government and government connected contractors have a long history of being liars and crooks, and with something like voting, using computers??? WAY too much temptation there to ignore, after all, what is it woreth in potential dollars and power over other humans to "adjust" who wins?
This is just another way for that to happen,a much easier way, and as you can see it has happened, exactly like it was predicted by folks like me several years ago when it was being discussed, and I remember the arguments then that it "would just work and be better". Phooie. I was right, they were wrong.
"Computerised Voting" came pre-broken and crooked right out of the box. And with a real voting period and not this half a day deal we got now,and some sort of instant runoff deal,and third parties being covered in the news, we might see more people voting. the way it is now is 50% voting roughly, that is not any sort of success figure. It would reduce lines and the wait,the longer period, and not discrimnate against workers who can't make it to the polls, or people who have emergencies come up they have to go deal with, etc. and "counting" is a normal human thing, I doubt there's any precinct out there that lacks people who can count. Yes, there's trouble with that too, but stricter enforcement of the laws on the books with severe penalties could knock that down considerable.
And then MAYBE if the paid off FCC can see fit to REQUIRE the networks to cover third parties and candidates in their day to day so-called "news" reports and in the so-called "official national debates" we might not only get more votes, we might get more voting enthusiasm and some constructive change in this nation, instead of this "new and improved and it's so shiny!" scheme which will only go to elect the same tired old parties and candidates who have caused all the mess in the first place. And FUNNY it was *their idea* to switch to "computerised" voting. I certainly don't recall seeing any private citizens approaching me with some petition to beg the government to please switch us to computers, because it didn't happen. It was shoved down our throats and sold to us just like beer or cornflakes on the TV. The "controllers" wanted computerised voting because it's more hackable than the old original system.
Hard tech is great, I love it, for SOME things, but in other circumstances, you can't replace normal human actions.
Remember that there were three debacles in Florida:
1. Diebold machines used in one county registered -16,000 votes (yes negative) for Gore. When that was corrected, and the media eventually picked up the new numbers, Gore called Bush back to rescind his earlier concilliation. I suspect that recognizing there could be an error this large inspired the idea of asking for recounts, on the hope that similar errors may have changed the outcome. Of course, there's no way to recount the electronic districts, so we'll never know if there were more Diebold problems or even if the -16,000 votes were undone correctly.
2. The butterfly ballot created confusion. How much we'll never know, but some people probably voted for someone other than who they intended to. If this was the cause of the surprising number of votes for Buchannen, then it's likely this issue alone cost Gore the election, regardless of the next point.
3. Hanging chads and the whole problem of reading intent from a punch card was the center of media attention, even though the first two issues probably had a much bigger affect on the election than this one. Yes, there was lots of debate and unstable numbers, but the official recounts and the after-the-fact audits by the media indicate that the problems with punch cards didn't skew the vote enough to make a difference.
I suspect that if the first problem didn't happen or wasn't detected, then we'd never have heard about the other two, and we wouldn't be spending millions on contemptuous, incompetent e-voting vendors like Diebold.