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CA Secretary of State Bans Diebold Machines
Etcetera writes "The CA Secretary of State has just announced that they're pulling the plug on the use of Diebold voting machines (thank you KNSD) as a result of the flaws that came up where they were used during March's elections. More background on the issue (not updated yet) from the Secretary of State's perspective is available here."
THANK GOD.
You know its scary when legions of geeks are overwhelmingly against a new form of technology....
According to wired
. ht ml
http://www.wired.com/news/evote/0,2645,63191,00
Wouldn't it be easier just to build some sort of error checking device for paper ballots, and have that at the polls when you submit your ballot? There's got to be a better way to fix the problems with paper ballot voting than moving it to computers.
I thought this would never happen..
How CA goes so goes the nation..
We may actually have an election, just like a real democracy!
Delivering militantly anti-commercial music to all two people who care!
Myself and my family are from Napa, CA (one of the cities that had some serious problems with Diebold), and I can't explain how frustrating it is to not be sure if your vote was counted properly or not. For democracy to work, you must have faith in the security and validity of the elections. Diebold has seriously undermined this, especially in my hometown. The jokes and grumblings have been raging, not to mention the rumors of the end of our Registrar of Voters' career. Although "no harm, no foul" has been claimed, confidence has been undermined, which IMHO, is one of the most important aspects of a good democracy.
I'm an Australian, so I'm not particularly sure what the 'status' of the election is/was, but could this mean the result may be overturned? This could lead to undesirable consequences such as new state/country level laws being made defucnt couldn't it? Please enlighten me if it was overturned, as this is the first that I've heard of them.
If it's on paper, you'll have my vote next election.
I can only hope that MD is next in line to dump Diebold. Don't get me wrong, I love technology, and I'd really like to see the voting system automated, but lets do it the right way. Now if I were a true geek, I'd have a link to the John's Hopkins study on the Diebold machines.
D
It was only Diebold's machines that were banned, not black-box voting machines in general.
Diebold will spin off its voting machine division, and it'll be bought out by some other manufacturer like Sequoia or AccuPoll. You'll see these machines again. They'll just have another name on them.
I live in San Diego and was one of the guinea pigs in the last vote. Although there was no "start" button, the machines had all the hallmarks of Windows... the buttons and navigation system, the data entry fields, everything. The interface was basic, just a few colors, radio buttons, and text boxes (much like one of those demo machines with IE in full-screen mode). There was a card reader/writer on the side that you stuck your card into. They were actually quite large too, perhaps twice the size of a standard laptop and looked to be quite heavy.
The part that really scared me was that you just put your card in the machine and take it out when you're done. There is no physical change on the card itself to indicate that anything was written to it. It is one of those smart-card type things, not the magstripe kind. There should be, at a minimum, a changed color on the outside when data is written, and in a perfect world there would be some sort of e-ink or lcd on it that displayed your choices when you took it out.
Based on all this, how am I supposed to know that my vote was cast? Even if the data was written to the card and there was a vote cast, how am I to know that the data written to the card is the same data I entered? Why is there no paper receipt? I really hope these machines are premanently banned. They really do scare me.
Ads? What ads?
The've banned it for the next elections, and only in certain counties....they're in the only counties that had the machines up and running, but that doesn't mean another county couldn't push for it that isn't on the list of banned.
Personally Diebold should have taken initiative and just attached a printer to the machines and used the printed ballots as proof-of-vote/voting-means. But it seems like they get the money and then they don't think to fix their problems...initially when this whole fiasco came up I was supportive of the whole electronic initiative because it made it SO much less confussing and set a standard for the entire state. But i guess they screwed that up.
Unfortunately, and I speak as a California resident, they are not being banned in all counties...yet.
http://www.wired.com/news/evote/0,2645,63191,00.ht ml
Hmmm, multi-billion dollar company with close connections to Bush Administration. Anyone care to give odds on criminal charges?
Cemil.
of all the intelligent and objective people on Slashdot, and in so many other forums, who saw all of these issues two years ago:
WE TOLD YOU SO!
Now... if you're ready to implement a reliable, trackable, scalable and secure electronic voting system, I think we're all still willing to help you. If you'll just listen this time.
Article X: The powers not delegated... by the Constitution...are reserved...to the people
I seriously don't get what the big idea is. Most people I've spoken to agree that the Diebold machines are almost as reliable as the system that the slashdot polls are run on, and we all know that slashdot polls are top-notch scientific polls!
Wh47 d1d j00 541, 31337 15n't t3h r0xor5 ne m0r3???
Representative Democracy
Republic
Diebold will appeal this to the 9th circuit court, which will uphold the law... The supreme court will then overrule the 9th circuit, as usual, and also as usual allow the plaintiff free reign to not only disregard the new law but to throw out any common sense related to the law and set a precedent for wide open fleecing of the American voter. Don't believe me? Here's a couple of examples:
9th Circuit Rules in Favor of Medical Marijuana (overruled by SC)
9th Circuit Votes that Recall Election must be postponed (overruled by SC)
Well, you get the idea. They are the most overruled court in the land.
By the end of this case, the Supreme Court will have Diebold sitting on the board of the California Elections commission and charging voters $5 to vote. Okay, that's an exaggeration, but forgive my cynicism -- this isn't nearly over yet.
The baby's fine -- please stop sending business cards.
electronic voting machines are being used successfully (ie. w/o any major incidence) in largest ever task undertaken in history... namely, general elections in largest democracy - India!
Oh and Brazilians have been successfully using electronic voting for a decade, and India has been using them on and off for half a decade.
You know, sometime over-engineering sucks.
- mritunjai
I'm not registered, but per the second article:
In fact, I recall reading the first article in the San Jose Mercury News when it was printed, and evidently the machines Diebold installed were a second-generation set. Their first-gen. machines had been approved a while ago, and so they evidently tried to cut corners, assuming the second-gen. ones would certify as well, and went ahead and installed the machines before they were certified.
On the other hand, I think it's interesting to wonder whether or not they really would've certified. Is it possible that the circumstances that led to the failure of these second generation machines may've also lead to the failure of the first generation machines, as well? I suspect the CA Gov't officials are dodging a bullet here, since Diebold seems to come out as the only fall-guys here (and rightfully so, as far as they're concerned).
I defer to anyone who has read more about this than I, which isn't much to begin with.
Moo
I am fulltime techie for a California election office, and one who fully supports the measures taken today. I attended all three days of hearings the last couple of weeks, felt like i had fallen into watergate.
e w. pdf
There were many conspiracy nuts there, however as one who is closer to the situation I can tell you that it is a lot simpler than that. It is a story that most people in the high tech industry have seen played out many times.
Diebold bought a company a couple of years ago that was on the verge of bankruptcy. This company (Global election Systems) was a typical high tech startup, they spent a tiny bit on engineering a product, a little more on making it LOOK good, a little more on sneaking it past certification, a little on marketing it to election officials, and a LOT on trying to sell investors. And then the Vancouver stock market scandal hit. And took some of the founders to jail.
Diebold released that the product stank, but also that the timeline for getting a better product certified would cost them big in the marketplace.
So they shuffled the unfinished, untested, uncertified, glamourous new product with the kludgy, limited, but certified old product. Always answering a question by referring to the product that would give the best answer. It was an elaborate shell game of trying to misdirect the responsible agencies until they could finish the new product. And in an old high tech story, product delays left them high and dry, with all of their marketing lies exposed. The engineers just could not keep up with the marketing peoples card tricks.
They will almost certainly be prosecuted, and almost certainly will be out tens if not hundreds of millions of dollars in California alone, just in false claim lawsuits.
All of this was almost a given on March 2nd, when their untested tech crashed and burned on them.
The bigger news is that it looks like most of the other Counties that used an Electronic Voting System in March will opt to NOT use one in November, as the requirements to use the DRE voting systems are so onerous as to be impossible in this day of tight budgets and tight deadlines.
For a very good, balanced, view of this from the election officials point of view look at:
http://www.electionline.org/site/docs/pdf/EB7_n
What do you know? The system works.
Dodgy company does dodgy things. This goes unnoticed at first but eventually enough people take notice and the powers that be move to make amends.
I'm always amused by the hysterical ranting of, slashbots. Take this example...
Headline: "Corrupt politician introduces bill that gives excessive power to corporation X"
Slashbot response: "It's the end of democracy as we know it!"
Reality: The bill hasn't even been debated and has zero chance of passing.
Basically, there always have and always will be people who try to subvert the system. Eventually, they get noticed and changes are made to stop them from doing it. This, my friends is the endless cycle of human existance.
I know that Slashdot is a media outlet and likes a beatup, but do try to chill out a bit more; we're supposed to be more intelligent than tabloid readers.
That's what they say, the problems are overstated because voters like the machines? Hell, I like a lot of things that are easy to use, but that doesn't mean they're good for me! Think about these:
* beer
* cola
* sweets
* credit card
* slot machine
* M$ software
What rubbish you speak. Election counting is and always has been simple.
When you get a complex system like a computer you need to be sure thats all its doing and thats all its ever doing.
When steel ballot boxes are being stored they can be stored in a warehouse. Its hard to tamper with ignorant steel boxes in a meaningful way.
To subvert thousands of humans who count ballots manually leaves, lets say, thousands of human witnesses.
When electronic voting machines are being stored they need to be watched carefully to make sure they aren't modified, don't have their guts swapped out, etc, this between-election security is also very expensive.
Its expensive before you start, its expensive to run, and expensive to store with many possible points of subversion.
It will do humans good to count votes and realise they don't want to delegate safeguarding their democracy to fickle machines.
Sam
blog.sam.liddicott.com
No, I'm afraid you are incorrect. I think you'll find the Diebold Accuvote-TSx is completely decertified throughout the State of California, with immediate effect.
c er t.pdf
http://www.ss.ca.gov/elections/ks_dre_papers/de
This only affects 4 counties, as the others use earlier models or other companies machines. but then the slashdot article didn't say "eVoting banned in CA" did it?
--
Good for democracy
Bad for Diebolds Business
Which one do you prefer?
Grundgesetz * 23. Mai 1949 - 30. November 2007 - http://www.vorratsdatenspeicherung.de/
It should be quite possible to make ballot readers and verifiers in a similar way. The verifier can be operated by the voter (so the vote stays secret) to verify that the ballot will be read correctly.
Remember those achievment tests in school?
You get a number two pencil and blacken in the dots for your choice ( no hanging chads)?
Why not use those? You would get the best of both worlds: electronic voting...and an easily verifiable paper trail.
Listening to the radio last night ( Air America ) some congressman introduced a bill offering a similar ( but not the same ) alternative in a bill.
( about time ).
He said out of 400 members, 140 jumped on the bill with him to cosponsor it.
Guys, Gals, if you care about your vote and your country now is the time to write your US Representatives to get them off their ass:
http://www.congress.com/
Well I get a Paper Receipt for my $0.99 Slurpie
at 7-11,
why can't I get a Paper Receipt when I am voting
for THE LEADER OF THE USA ?!?!
Is that Too gosh darn much to ask for in a Democracy?
After reading from a small sidebar article in the November 2003 issue of Popular Science magazine, it appears that the best method is something akin to the Scantron sheets used on the SAT and ACT college-entrance exams.
:-)
Remember the controversial ballot punch card machines? Well, instead of punching holes in a ballot it allows a small space for you to put a small ink stamp mark on the ballot at certain point. I emphasize the use of an black ink stamp mark because it makes it very unambigious what you chose for your ballot selection.
The result is a ballot sheet with clearly-readable ink marks, something that will allow for both machine and hand counts with no worries about things like hanging and dimpled chads.
... that Diebold will now attempt to sue the state of California for one reason or another.
The basic problem is ensuring that the vote is correct and not tampered with. How can you trust a company to not tamper with something as profitable as a vote when you can not trust them to keep to the terms of the contract?
Diebold has proven beyond a doubt that they can not be trusted. They not only did not fulfill their contract, they tried to sneak a patch into a certified machine (thus de-certifying it) before an election. Hmm... If they had not been caught at that, what else could they have gotten away with. How much are local elections worth in bribe money? How much are national elections worth? If all you have is a small number of people to work with in the bribe, how hard is it? Oh, and they have a vested interest in seeing people get elected who support them. They may not use it today, but what about when times get tough and they are comfortable?
I love using computers for work flow. I help companies manage work flow for a living. Yet, there are those who have no business using these technologies at this moment. I would not trust my voting to any computer system yet.
My reasoning has to do with complexity. The more complex a system is the easier it is to pull something off. Complexity hides errors and cheats. A voting system would need to be based on something very simple. It would need to have very strong security safeguards. And, it would have to be completely open to inspection, by anyone at anytime. Anything short of this simply allows mischief to be hidden more easily.
Look at all the fallout in the Florida presidential elections. Most of it was introduced by a company that "messed up" buy disallowing people to vote in the elections. All computer based with little or no over site, tied directly to the winning family. There may be nothing to be seen in this case, but the appearance of impropriety is bad enough to damage the operations of government.
The problems with elections is not liberal or conservative. It is American. People who are drawn to power tend to do what they can get away with to keep power. Why give them one more option to illegally wield power by putting an untrustworthy system into place?
InnerWeb
Freud might say that Intelligent Design is religion's ID.
The Wired article shows that many of the system's vulnerability were due not to the GEMS software itself, but to the W2k operating system.
So from now on, if anyone insists on choosing MS over other solutions for mission-critical system, and says "nobody ever got fired for choosing MS", we can point them to the Diebold debacle. Not only were they fired, they got it rubbed in and on national headlines!
--
Mad science! Robots! Underwear! Cute girls! Full comic online! http://www.girlgeniusonline.com/
The other side's just as dirty, and in the USA, that kind of thing goes on all the time.
... which is essentially what my country (the United States) has become over the last four years.
Gerrymandering is a national past-time with our elected officials.
What happened in Texas was more dramatic, and sinister, than that.
No, Gerrymandering doesn't go on "all the time." It is however fairly common, and occurs generally once every ten years when districts are redrawn as a result of census results (populations move from state-to-state, changing the electorial and congressional map, and from region to region within a state, changing local and state electorial maps).
What happened in Texas was that the Republican controlled congress conspired with the Republican governor to redraw district lines just three years after they had been redrawn (as a result of our last census)...the difference this time being that there was no democratic majority in one of the houses to force a reasonable compromise on the ruling party's governor (back then, Dubya Bush).
Because such an extraordinary action required a quorum to be present, and various other parliamentary machinations, a number of Democratic state senators made a point of not being around when the Republicans tried to steamroller these changes through. The result was the governor putting out an arrest warrant on the senators (with the idea of taking them to the capitol in chains and having the necessary quorum present), forcing the senators to seek asylum in neighboring states.
It was positively banana-republic-esque
In the end other parliamentary maneuvers were taken, and I believe the Gerrymandering (without the need to compromise with the opposition) went through, guaranteeing the republicans several seats in the Congress that are currently held by democratic constituencies now divided into Republican-majority districts.
We are watching the the decline (and probably, ultimately, the fall) of a once great nation. Four years ago, after Bush Junior had stolen the election, I argued that, while we have to endure four years of a usurpur running our country, we will survivie this, and can elect a replacement in four years.
Now I'm not so sure. Even if Kerry does win, the mess they've created in four short years (the strategic and political blunders that have cost us the world's sympathy, the world's respect, and most of our non-military influence in the same world, and left the middle east a shambles, not to mention the (possibly irreversable) erosion of our fundamental constitutional rights in this country) is so tremendous that, while he at least will probably not inflict further damage, it will probably be more than one presidency, or even several, can adequately repair.
Add to that the fundamental attack on our democratic institutions, of which Diebold, Florida, and Texas are but a part, and one wonders just how much longer our civil society will survive, in any form.
The Future of Human Evolution: Autonomy
So the Supreme Court said that the first amendment guarantees the right of association in political parties. I don't see why Democrats or independents should have a right to vote for my Republican nominee. I am sure you would hate to see non-Democrats choose the Democrat nominee.
For example, I would've chosen Zell Miller as the Democrat presidential nominee. That would've left a competition between Zell Miller and President Bush. What choice would people have then?
The open primary system was flawed from the beginning because of this. The parties would actually direct their members to cross the party line and vote for a weaker candidate for the opposing party. (This is how the Socialist party hijacked the Democrat party, in fact.) This is not representative government, and it is not fair to have to put (R) next to a person nominated by Democrats.
The radical sect of Islam would either see you dead or "reverted" to Islam.
Florida did not scrub all the voters who shared birthdays with felons. They scrubbed all voters who shared names AND birthdays from any felon, FROM ANY STATE! Therefore if John Jones was a convicted felon in New York then ANY John, Jonathan, Johnny Jones with the same birthday in Florida was prohibited from voting. To make sure this disenfranchised more Democrats than Republicans, this rule was only applied to black Floridians with similar names and birthdays. White voters with similar names were not scrubbed.
t id=217&row =2
Florida did scrub voters as felons who had only had misdemeanor convictions.
Florida scrubbed voters who had been convicted of felonies in other states. This was not legal as only Florida felons could be prohibited from voting in Florida.
Rural votes in the poorer counties (presumably more Democratic) had a rejection rate of 1 in 8 for "spoiled ballots" while more conservative counties only had rejection rates of 1 in 100. In the conservative counties ballots were run through the optical readers many times until they were accepted while the poorer counties only had the ballots run through once before they were invalidated.
Here is a summary:
http://www.gregpalast.com/detail.cfm?ar