Indian Voting Machines Compared with Diebold

Hanuman_Ji writes "The Indian general elections, 2004 is now complete - and the result is an upset. As reported earlier, this election was conducted entirely through Electronic Voting Machines (EVMs). This article gives a nice overview of the machines used in this process and also adds a comparison with the Diebold machines. More information is also available at the equipment manufacturer's website."

Comments

Elegant

[erick99]

What an excellent and well written article! It all comes down to this: The folks in India are using a simple system that seems quite secure and uses assembly language only. They had a national election where nobody traveled more than 2KM to vote. The hardware and software are of the K.I.S.S. school of thought. They (Indians) don't spend millions and millions of dollars to stamp out the remote possibility of someone bringing high-tech equipment into the voting booth and hanging out a while while they copy cards, hack the system, etc. inorder to cast more than one vote. Prior to reading this article I had no idea how complex and cumbersome the Diebold system is. God, no wonder there have been so many problems with it. All-in-all, the Indian solution is very elegant in comparison.

Happy Trails!

Erick

Re:Elegant

[mind21_98]

At the same time, can that many people in India afford equipment that would let them crack the system? Considering how much one makes there on average, I would probably say no.

Re:Elegant

[Wun Hung Lo]

Not only cumbersome, but considering Diebold's CEO's comments that he would whatever he could to get King George II re-elected, it would seem to bring Diebold's impartiality into question. Hanging chads seem like a good idea compared with this kludgy mess.

Re:Elegant

[stephenisu]

Not everyone in India is poor. Kinda like not everyone in the US is a cowboy. Besides, you don't need a ton of people to stuff a bollot box. You need one person and a lot of votes. Besides, someone that politically motivated has connections or they are willing to aquire things by shady means anyways.

Re:Elegant

[shadowkoder]

I second that. I dont think I've seen such a good article discussing how the machines work in such an easy format to read. The US could learn a few things from these Indians. I think the most important things they have over Diebold are: Simple (technical and user interaction) interface, the control unit idea/system seems to work rather well, physical security is the concern rather than hacking, and a rediculous lower cost compared to Diebold ($230 vs $3300 I think).

Re:Elegant

[foistboinder]

At the same time, can that many people in India afford equipment that would let them crack the system? Considering how much one makes there on average, I would probably say no.

Why? With over a billion people, even if a small percentage can "afford equipment that would let them crack the system", that's still a lot of people.

Re:Elegant

[sybert]

Elegant, as long as you can keep the ballot extremely simple.

The article says that the system can have 16 candidates, and machines can be chained for a max of 64.

That wouldn't exactly work over here.

135 or more candidates in one race for office.

Different primary ballots for multiple parties, with different rules on who can vote in each race.

Multiple votes in a race (party central committee)

Lots and lots of races: national, state, local, judicial, etc.

Yes, we do need the massive complexity of Diebold or similar systems to run American elections.

Re:Elegant

[Mostly a lurker]

I am very much an advocate of simple methods. However, I am not sure if the Indian model (or the Diebold machines for that matter) would handle the practicalities involved in a typical US election.

The Indian machine seems to handle voting for a single person for a single elected post. If someone needed to cast votes for many different electoral positions, they would need to move from machine to machine (and presumably would end of with a long of inky fingers in rainbow colours). It is not clear how "propositions" would be handled. It should be noted that many electoral systems require voting for multiple candidates for the same position. Here, the Indian system would clearly not work.

One objection to the Indian system, for use in the U.S., relates to the ink itself. Someone, somewhere would have an allergic reaction to the ink and would sue for about a trillion dollars.

I agree with other posters that an open source solution of some kind is needed. The process needs to be 100% transparent while protecting the secrecy of individual votes. I disagree with those that say it is not difficult: it jolly well IS.

Re:Elegant

[TyrranzzX]

You have to understand tho, the indian goverment isn't even halfway as ursurped as ours is. You'll notice that our goverment seems to think that if it isn't expensive, it isn't worth spending money on, especially if it isn't run by a buddy of someone in power. Not to mention the fact that Diebold is run by republicans, and there's proof of loss of votes. The only reason they're able to get away with it is, well, our country is falling apart and most of the media is owned by 6 corps, and within 10 years, 1 corp.

If the American people knew what their goverment has done to them, there'd be a civil war no doubt. Infact, as the middle class dissapears I think more and more people will begin asking pesky questions, and our gestapo FBI won't be able to handle it all.

Re:Elegant

[sameerdesai]

LOL, I laughed at that rainbow comment. I have voted on EVMs before and it is not machine to machine or getting your hands sprayed by ink. You get your finger marked once and in the same EVM you cast multpile votes. As for example when I was voting I was voting for State elections as well as national elections and I did it on the same EVM.

Re:Elegant

[tjw]

At the same time, can that many people in India afford equipment that would let them crack the system?

If you had read the article, you'de realize that the voters don't have physical access to the equipment to crack it. Only the election official has physical access to the device that stores votes. The polling station is simply a peripheral input device.

Re:Elegant

[tau_]

I am very much an advocate of simple methods. However, I am not sure if the Indian model (or the Diebold machines for that matter) would handle the practicalities involved in a typical US election.

Yes. Allow an overcomplicated procedure to develop, design a system to implement the procedure, act all amazed when system does not work. Describes a lot of things besides the US election system.

Why is it again that elections can only be held once every four years and every possible decision must be made at the same time?

Re:Elegant

[ThomaMelas]

Why is it again that elections can only be held once every four years and every possible decision must be made at the same time? Elections aren't just held every four years. National elections are held every two years. Senators are elected for six year terms, and every two years, one-third of them have to run for office again. Members of the house serve two year terms. States can also have special elections, and many cities will have a number of referendums during the year. It's only when you have presidental elections that you have alot more intrest in voting.

Re:Elegant

[d34thm0nk3y]

Yes, we do need the massive complexity of Diebold or similar systems to run American elections.

no, we need something simple yet scalable. The two are not mutually exclusive. Anything built on top of Windows is needlessly complex.

Re:Elegant

[morleron]

The thing that I like best about the Indian system is that it essentially duplicates the old-fashioned paper ballot, without the paperwork. Instead of a box that the voter puts his ballot in there's a little electronic box that adds up the votes as it goes along. The control boxes are physically taken to the central voting registry and manually unlocked to record the vote counts, with interested parties having immediate access to the results and the ability to do a precinct-level recount almost immediately.

Notice what's not there: no network to expose data to possible manipulation between voting machine and central server; no fancy machine lacking tamperproof seals; no fancy database with built-in unpassworded backdoor "for support purposes"; no MS software anywhere in the loop; no manufacturer's president sworn to "delivering the vote" for an incompetent incumbent. It's those last couple of items which will prevent the adoption of the Indian system in this country.

Just my $.02,
Ron

Re:Elegant

[dbIII]

I am very much an advocate of simple methods. However, I am not sure if the Indian model (or the Diebold machines for that matter) would handle the practicalities involved in a typical US election.

Very true, every state in the US has their own system, and there is a lot of pride, jobs and serious lobbying money that stops it all from being a simple, scaleable and secure system.

Someone, somewhere would have an allergic reaction to the ink and would sue for about a trillion dollars.

If it doesn't happen with a sample size equal to that of the entire Indian voting population why would it be likely to happen in the USA? Plus, most nations take abuse of the court system for frivolous lawsuits very seriously.

Re:Elegant

[eastern]

Sure, the exact same system wouldn't work. But a system designed to US needs along the Indian K.I.S.S. principle would, wouldn't it.

By the way, western countries have nothing to complain about now--India has outsourced its prime minister's job to Italy!

Exploit

[dtfinch]

Print out an alternate list of candidates, with your opponent swapped with an unlikely candidate. Stick it to the front of the voting machine. Anyone with 3 seconds unsupervised access to the machine can pull this off, and it may go unnoticed if it otherwise looks exactly like the original.

Re:Exploit

[bfields]

Print out an alternate list of candidates, with your opponent swapped with an unlikely candidate. Stick it to the front of the voting machine. Anyone with 3 seconds unsupervised access to the machine can pull this off, and it may go unnoticed if it otherwise looks exactly like the original.

Interesting idea, but I think it would be hard to pull off (especially on a sufficiently large scale to have a reasonable chance of influencing an election) without detection. And it would be relatively easy to defeat if it proved necessary. (According to the article they limit votes to 5 a minute, which would leave plenty of time for poll workers to check the machines periodically.)

--Bruce Fields

Re:Exploit

[snakeCharmer]

I am pretty sure they would have thought of this. They might have pasted the actual list of candidates under a thick glass cover so that another list pasted on top will show up pretty clearly. The tamperer will then need to unscrew the glass cover to replace the original list which will take more than "3 seconds"

Re:Exploit

[kroyd]

With only 1500 votes cast per machine this would be a rather high risk / low reward way of cheating.. It is safe to assume that if it is worth switching the candidate (i.e. the candidate might win) the candidate would also be well known among the voters. So, chances are that at most a handful of voters would vote wrongly before it got discovered. (And then you might spend some quality time in an Indian prison! Who would want to miss that! ;)

The Indian system seems easy to verify, if the software is just a few hundred lines of assembly each major party can hire their own team who can verify the software. Try that with the Diebold system.. There would never be any elections at all then.

Of course, the central counting office might still be compromised, but it seems this is made hard by simply following the old way of counting paper ballots. (I.e. looking at each machine as a ballot box)

Re:Exploit

[Paulrothrock]

There would never be any elections at all then.
I think that's the point.

Re:Exploit

[carlmenezes]

Yeah, sounds simple, but believe me when you've seen the number of party symbols and the number of languages, it doesn't seem that easy at all. Besides, making a copy of the list would be along similar lines of difficulty as counterfeiting currency. Once you've seen the lists, you'll know what I'm talking about :)

EVM Success

[aacool]

The Indian elections - all-electronic - a few hundred million voters seems to have gone off with few hitches. This does kind of validate EVMs.

For those with concerns about security, hacking, etc. there are possible solutions. A good, low cost, locked-down EVM can be deployed on a standard PC - running any OS - the UI needs to be only a radio-button-type list box, with a submit/cancel button, and a tracker for each entry in the list box. The Admin views can be kept on a separate machine, and downloaded into the actual EVM PC. Top-class encryption can be thrown in with no additional complexity. A basic reporting app can tabulate and display results. No network cards needed on the EVM

What other features would ensure better acceptance of EVMs?

Re:EVM Success

[zoo]

It's not possible to add encryption to any problem without also adding complexity. Or, more precisely, the complexity is inversely proportional to the strength of the system.

Key management in a massively distributed system is a hard problem. It WILL create additional complexity.

EVM's aren't the problem (IMO). Unauditable systems are the problem. India appears to audit a vote count and ensure that there aren't more voters than expected. But I don't see how their system allows someone to ensure that their ballot was thrown to the correct candidate.

And because the Indian election spans multiple weeks, it's feasible to call for a re-election in certain locales. This would be a major change to the US system, which expects results within hours of the polls closing.

Re:EVM Success

[jwdb]

Actually, I don't see why it has to be a pc based solution at all? Why an OS and all the extra hassle and security holes that it brings (yes, even with Linux).

I'll take the Indian system over any pc-based setup any day. No exploits in the software, no network connection to attack, and just as secure as paper ballots (ie relying on the officials not to tamper with the box). And if you want to make the tallying automatic too, it's as simple as putting a jack on the back that gives read access to the internal memory.

The only downside, as someone previously mentioned, is that it's quite easy to stick something over the names on the machine itself. Layer of plexiglass on top, maybe (to make it obvious that the names should be *under* the glass, not on top)?

Jw

Re:EVM Success

[zungu]

In the Indian voting scenario, there is a separate register where a vote has to sign or put his thumb impression (for illiterate voters) after the election officer has verified their identity. Hence, there is a paper trail for number of votes casted if votes are to be re-counted. Yes, there is no way to audit individual votes in the Indian system.

India's setup is fantastic

[Sarojin]

Elections in India are generally marvellous exercises in democracy. In national elections, hundreds of millions of people of many different kinds cast their votes and elect their representatives. Many people doubted whether democracy would flourish in India, but they are proved wrong after every election. However, the fact still remains that there are still a lot of irregularities in the electoral process.

The bulk of the states have generally free and fair elections. The poorest states, especially those in the North, do not. There, the local strongmen actively use force to swing voted to their side and in a lot of constituencies it is not the most popular candidate who wins, but the most popular. In the poorest of the poor states, this fraud happens on a very large scale.

Today, vote rigging is a very simple exercise. All you have to do is get a bunch of very strong men with weapons of some kind and visit each polling station one by one, threaten the officers there and stamp the ballot papers in your favor. The more organized efforts include printing fake ballot papers and having them counted.

Now that EVMs have been introduced, the potential for localized fraud will be several restricted in some ways. Fake ballot papers cannot be printed, votes cannot be changed or removed. However, the local strong men and criminalized parties will still be around. They will still be able to threaten/cajole/buy people and subvert the democratic process. These problems are more systemic and will solve themselves with the passage of time.

Centralized election fraud is a very different matter. On paper, it looks like EVMs can take care of it. The results of "electronic" elections can be easily verified repeatedly and it should be somewhat difficult to systematically rig EVMS. I'm sure that people will find some way of manipulating EVMs, but it shouldn't knew the results much.

Finally, EVMs have delivered a lot of tangible results in India already. For example, results have been tabulated almost instantly, considerably shortening the political and economic uncertainty associated with elections. They definitely help democracy at every level in India.

Upset?

[Famatra]

"...and the result is an upset. As reported earlier, this election was conducted entirely through Electronic Voting Machines (EVMs)."

I see no reason why using EVMs would necessarily result in an 'upset', unless of course they are using closed source voting machines in which no one can review the code to see there isn't any hanky panky.

Things that should be open source: voting machines, encryption programs, anonymous p2p applications, the majority of things dealing with security.

Fraudulent voting is still doable ...

[burgburgburg]

as was discussed in this NYTimes from April 27 article (sorry, only abstract here, unless you're willing to pay). The Police were overwhelmed and the whole site was taken over by party workers, who then proceeded to push the button for their candidate again and again and again. The Times even had a photograph of it.

Remote voting

[flend]

Certainly a big advantage of electronic voting is seen as being able to vote remotely, over the internet or whatever (it's certainly been used in the UK for local council elections). The Indian system just seems like small non-networked computers at the polling stations as a replacement for boxes of paper. It's got big advantages for counting etc. but it doesn't do what a lot of people would want (secure internet voting).

Re:Remote voting

[R.Caley]

it doesn't do what a lot of people would want (secure internet voting).

Thank god. What's the point of internet voting? If someone can't be arsed to walk 100 yards to vote, why do we want to know what they think -- they probably don't. We have proxy and postal votes for people who really can't make it to a polling station.

in any case isn't `secure internet' a conradiction in terms?

Re:Remote voting

[vidarlo]

I don't really see how you could use secure internet voting. As a part of a democracy, it is important that the election is a) secret b) and that the voter ain't forced in any way.
This goes into a ring. If the voter is ensured that the election is 100% secret, ie. no one can _ever_ get to know who you voted for, then it's also more difficult to force someone to vote for a certain candidate.
This is allready becoming difficult to ensure, as the bad guy might force the voter to bring a video cam, and film the list as he fills it out. However, the bad guy can't come with the voter, into the voting booth, and stick a gun to his head. If voting via the internet, from home, becomes possible, we suddenly have this problem. The bad guy can be standing behind the voter, with a shotgun pointed at his head. And even if you imply such things as a cam, it still can be faked relatively easy. And it is easier to steal a digital signature or something, as it either matches, or don't. A handwritten signature can be faked, but it is still possible to check further if things points in direction of fraud or not, by comparing the signature with others that you have positively done. With a digital signature, it either matches or not. There's no grayzone between a fraud and a real. So I don't think decentralized voting is a thing for the future. We still need the centrals, the voting boths, with a controlled envirorment.

Re:Remote voting

[R.Caley]

OK for townies. In the country people have to travel further.

OTOH, they presumably do so on a daily basis, so it just becomes `go 100 yards out of their way'.

There is a widely recycled assumption that we need to get more people to vote and/or `become involved in politics'. This seems to be to be amazingly stupid. We need to get more people to think about politics. The voting etc will come as a natural consequence. Getting them to vote without thinking first is just a way to reduce the average information content of an election.

Re:Remote voting

[coyote_oww]

Thank god. What's the point of internet voting? If someone can't be arsed to walk 100 yards to vote, why do we want to know what they think -- they probably don't. We have proxy and postal votes for people who really can't make it to a polling station.

I don't know about your locale, but where I live (and most of the United States) people have the option of casting an "absentee ballot". This essentially amounts to voting by mail. You get a form from the registrar's office, fill it out, and mail it in before a specified date. Then, election day, your ballot is actually counted. (Thus fulfilling the constitutional requirement for elections to be held on a single day.)

Absentee ballots were originally intended to allow people who would not be in the vicinity of their homes on election day to vote anyhow. It has evolved into a tool for a substantial chunk of the electorate to vote from home.

Secure internet voting would be a logical replacement for absentee ballots.

Also, keep in mind that there really isn't much fraud protection in the existing system. Nothing stops you from registering your dog, getting an absentee ballot for him, and casting a vote in his name. When we're evaluating voting systems, keep that in mind. The present system is very insecure - it's ultimately reliant on people being honest. In places and times when people haven't been as honest, fraud has occurred. Yes, in the USA. Yes, in democratic strongholds like New York and Chicago. I don't know about LA, I think they are too laid back to cheat very much (as cheating does require _some_ effort.)

Re:Obviously there's something wrong with them

[aacool]

Sonia Gandhi is not related to Mahatma Gandhi(Mohandas Karamchand Gandhi)

Jawaharlal Nehru, the first Prime Minister of Independent India had a daughter, Indira Priyadarshini Nehru who married Feroze Gandhi, a Parsi(Iranian)and took his name. Sonia Gandhi is the daughter-in-law of Indira Gandhi.

Interestingly, Feroze Gandhi's name was originally spelt Ghandy or Ghandi - this may have been changed to play on the allusion to Mahatma Gandhi.

There is a great book "The Nehrus and the Gandhis" that has interesting information on the dynasty. A bit out-of date as it does not refer to the new generation - Rahual, Priyanka and Varun Gandhi

Re:Oops!

[ankit]

I dont understand why everyone keeps calling this an "upset". We all know what a farce these exit polls are. Even Vajpai expected defeat in these elections.

Diebold system should have been...

[deadmongrel]

outsourced to India!

Re:Diebold system should have been...

[nizo]

Better yet, lets outsource our candidates (heck even the voters) to India, certainly they can't pick a worse lot than we have been picking lately.

Re:Diebold system should have been...

[dcavanaugh]

"outsourced to India!"

Maybe it was. Does anyone know for sure who wrote the code?

FYI

[Anonymous Coward]

Sonia Gandhi is in no way related to mahatma Gandhi. Jawaharlal Nehru was the first PM of India and his daughter , Indira , also a PM ,married a guy whose last name happened to be Gandhi.

Re:FYI

[bennyraphael]

It was not by accident that Indira's husband name happened to be Gandhi. Nehru would not approve of Indira's marriage with Feroze because he was parsi and his parents were Muslim. Mahatma Gandhi adopted Feroze as his son to facilitate this marriage and Feroze became Feroze Gandhi. Indira Priyadarshini Nehru became Indira Gandhi after marriage to Feroze Gandhi.

Hmm....

[Rick Zeman]

...it was a big surprise upset? In the US elections last fall when it happened, they're still saying that the upset was due to the machines being misprogrammed/miscalibrated/0wned.

Who really knows?

Blaster - This is damning, if true:

[StrawberryFrog]

"Diebold system works on Microsoft software, it has no seals on locks and panels to detect a tempering. It has a keyboard interface (!!!) and the server was tested to have "Blaster" virus."

The claim is that a Diebold box was insecure enough to be wide open for use by any passing hacker via the back-door.

India own3d

[Sanity]

The new Indian President, known only as "2K00l4Sk00l", in his first act of office has announced that the dating process will be replaced by a obfuscated C code competition.

He has also started construction of a massive sign extending right across the Indian sub-continent proclaiming "0wn3d" in large black lettering.

Not a fair comparision

[Anonymous Coward]

Each machine has its own strengths and weaknesses based on various design goals. If you happen to be looking for fair and accurate voting tech, by all mean go with the Indian setups. Diebold's customers have different requirements is all.

About the new Indian PM

[GillBates0]

I'd just like to point out that the new Indian Prime Minister is Mrs Sonia Gandhi. BBC has a profile on her here.

And while we're talking about Indian Election results, I would like to point out that she was an Italian citizen till 1983 when she obtained Indian citizenship - she's still a Roman Catholic - though she follows Hindu practices (for example during former PM Rajiv Gandhi's (her husband - no relation to Mahatma Gandhi) funeral).

In addition, India, a primarily/traditionally Hindu country has a Muslim president - Dr. Abdul Kalam - who's an all around great guy and a scientist/genius - and an open source advocate. RMS met him personally when in India.

I know I'm tottering a little OT, but I think it's something to be proud of, when a country and it's citizens can be secular/open-minded enough to ignore religious/cultural differences and choose their leader based on personal merit - moreover with today's world affairs.

Re:About the new Indian PM

[KrisCowboy]

I know I'm tottering a little OT, but I think it's something to be proud of, when a country and it's citizens can be secular/open-minded enough to ignore religious/cultural differences and choose their leader based on personal merit
OT. The leaders are not selected on personal merit. Had it been the case, no Indian leader can parallel Shri Vajpayee's clean, moral and inspiring career. Active in national level since 1957 - a lifelong bachelor - he's beyond doubt the last leader with moral obligations. Well, I'm in no authority to criticise the millions of democratic voters of India. Just to let you know, if it's personal merits, Vajpayee can kick anybody's ass.
I totally agree with you that India is a truly secular and open-minded country. But, the secularism is being abused in some cases.

Re:About the new Indian PM

[ek-1000-ek]

Dr. Abdul Kalam is a token Muslim.

Why is he a token muslim? Or he does not follow islamic rehtoric? or becasue he was elected because the 'secular' congress party (one that is now head by sonia) did not support the first candidate of 'hindu nationaists' becasue he was a chtistian and she saw a risk that is president is christian then people will not want PM to be one too? inspite of fact that anthony was from congress too?

They rose to national power largely on feelings risen by anti-Muslim riots & the destruction of an ancient mosque, and many of the worst criminals rose to positions of power.

yes, like the lallo yadav and mulayam sigh have been saints now that 'saintly' congress needs their support?

India has a large Muslim minority, so the eccentric-scientist-Muslim was given the powerless position of President,

if you have been in India you will know the influence this person has been. his books on future vision of india have been best sellers.

It's vaguely equivalent to allowing one black guy who doesn't play golf into an all-white country club.

mind you language and i pity your ignorance!

Because the responsibility still rest with...

[toesate]

The hardware and software are of the K.I.S.S. school of thought.

It works because the main responsibility still rest with the election officials, not the electronic device.

The main difference from a normal electoral system is that the "box" is a button-based data recorder here, instead of a ballot paper box. Everything else is the same, no roles were being replaced.

Btw, anyone knows if there is a button for casting invalid vote?

Re:Because the responsibility still rest with...

[zungu]

This was a topic discussed in Indian newspapers a lot. In pre-EVM times you can just cancel or cast a blank ballot or stamp at some random place to cast an invalid vote. However, rules indicate that you can cast a protest vote by asking officer for form and then he will put your invalid or protest vote in a sealed envelope to be counted later on. Hence, it is still possible to cast a protest or invalid vote.

Machine Pictures and More Information

[Kalgash]

Can be found here at the BBC.

Don't forget the paper trail...

[manavendra]

Along with the use of EVM's in India, at every polling station, there are usually representatives of all parties and/or independent candidates besides the Election Commission's representatives, who have with them the voter list for that constituency.

Every voter has to produce a proof of identity. Upon verification, his/her name is called out, and all the representatives go through their individual paper lists, as well the EC representatives, and they mark that person has cast a vote.

After you cast the vote, an indelible ink mark is put against the fingernal of the index finger (or other fingers if you have any handicap), which takes a few days to dissolve and disappear.

The number of people that cast the ballot is then verified against the number of people who have been marked as "voted" in these individual paper lists at the end of the polling day.

On the final counting day, of course the EVM provides the actual votes cast, but the count of votes is re-verified against EC representative's list.

Re:Don't forget the paper trail...

[Anonymous Coward]

After you cast the vote, an indelible ink mark is put against the fingernal of the index finger (or other fingers if you have any handicap), which takes a few days to dissolve and disappear.

This system allows someone to vote up to 10 times. All that has to be done is to remove the finger that has been marked, then they could cast the next vote as someone else. Repeat until out of markable parts. Please note this will only work for 1 election...

Here's what's missing in the US:

[fiannaFailMan]

Both systems are identical, and are developed to the specifications of Election Commission of India.

Is there any such commission in America? I get the impression that your voting system depends on which county you're in.

I saw Greg Palast in Berkeley a few weeks back and he was talking about the 'systems' in place in Florida. In one county if you spoiled your vote, the machine spat the ballot back at you and you got a fresh chance to vote. In another county, your ballot disappeared into a chute and if you spoiled your vote, you never knew about it. In the case of the former, the county was overwhelmingly white (and Republican-voting) while in the latter the county was overwhelmingly black (and Democrat-voting). But then invesitgative Journalists like Mr Palast are just 'conspiracy theorists,' aren't they?

Re:Here's what's missing in the US:

[fiannaFailMan]

the highest election official in Florida during the Bush-Gore elections was also a Dem

Er, Katherine Harris was not only a Republican, but she was Bush's campaign manager.

Re:Here's what's missing in the US:

[CustomDesigned]

In one county if you spoiled your vote, the machine spat the ballot back at you and you got a fresh chance to vote. In another county, your ballot disappeared into a chute and if you spoiled your vote, you never knew about it. In the case of the former, the county was overwhelmingly white (and Republican-voting) while in the latter the county was overwhelmingly black (and Democrat-voting).

How did this overwhelmingly black Democrat voting county end up electing Republicans as local officials? Is it the opposite of Virginia, where we vote Republican Nationally, but Democrat locally? Or is it possible that the election officials were simply incompetent Democrats? (Like the Florida party workers who gave out voting guides with Nader and Gore switched to their elderly "get out the vote" patrons.)

Re:America bashing poll options:

[Paulrothrock]

Diebold suxx0rs, Dubya shoulda lost!
Diebold does indeed suxx0rs. Even if you ignore their obvious bias in favor of the Republicans, their code is bad; it runs on Windows, and transmits results over a network. All of those are insecure. Dubya should have lost, but Al Gore ran a pretty bad campaign.

America sucks!
As any physicist can tell you, nothing sucks. Things can only pull (with gravity) or push (with pressure). Sucking is just a function of creating a low pressure zone. Higher pressure moves to fill it, and can move things that get in its way.

India is great, they have a Communist party!
So do we. But in India they have a possibility of winning, which does make them better. Two party systems produce very poor results. People vote for one candidate because they hate the other guy, rather than because they love their candidate. Creating more options stops this and allows people to voice their opinions. Eliminating winner-takes-all elections is a good way to do this. I'm sure there are some republicans out there who don't want to be associated with the Theo-cons.

India is great, they are poorer than we are!
That didn't make any sense. If you are intimating that "unpatriotic" Americans want everyone to be poor, you're wrong. Actually, I would like to see a minimum wage in India, larger union activity, and better programs to help the poor and the environment in India. This would bring the poverty level down and increase upward mobility in the nation, which is good for their economy.

America is proud, they deserve to have egg in their face!
We already have egg on our face. We deserve it for electing Bush and not stopping his revenge/oil/Freedom (as in beer) war. Disagree? Great, that's what being American is about.

America is too successful, they need to be taught a lesson!
And how will having massive voter fraud teach America a lesson about being successful? By saying that Diebold hacking their own system so Bush can win again would be a lesson to not be so successful, you are admitting that Bush's economic policies are void.(Bush's plans don't work, therefore if he gets reelected it would be bad for the economy, therefore we would be taught a lesson about being successful.)

Whatever, I still want my tinfoil hat!
There's a difference between paranoia and questioning of a corporation who have been shown to be biased and produce poor-quality goods. I don't want Diebold casting my votes. If I knew they were going to be used in my district, I would vote by absentee ballot.

The system that India uses is very similar to the one used in my district. It's customizable for every election, has a simple interface, and is very tamper-proof. We don't need networked voting machines when I've been using this kind of equipment since I could vote.

Read the article

[Intraloper]

There is a votes-per-hour limit on each machine, and a total-votes-per-polling-place limit of 1500 votes.

So even if you managed to capture the entire output of a polling place, you only affect 1500 votes maximum. With the votes-per-hour limit, you have to hold that polling place for hours to do even that.

Thats a lot of risk for a pretty uncertain and limited advantage.

Re:Obviously there's something wrong with them

[Rude Turnip]

Hey, John Ashcroft lost an election to a dead guy in Missouri, too!

Casino Game Machine Engineers

[Oriumpor]

Why aren't we purchasing our voting equipment in the US with the same rigid standards as casinos take to their games machines? I mean honestly, some of the stupidity taken with some of these (for instance the wifi access to an MDB file ...) is just ludicrous if you had offered the same level of "security" to a casino with their electronic poker machines they would have laughed you out the door.

Simplistic devices with a single input method and a disabled output method until the machine is closed out for voting. At that point only those responsible for the voting machines can even transfer the votes. On top of which a verified paper ballot is essential in any election with electronic devices.

Sadly the US populous is far less informed than the rest of the world. Most don't even care how big an upset the Indian election was, nor the fact that it is historic for it's electronic voting methods. I doubt this will have much of an impact on the Diebold hotbutton of the week.

Re:Casino Game Machine Engineers

[payndz]

That's because in the case of the casinos, hacking the system loses the Powers That Be money. In politics, hacking the system gains them money. After all, if they're not in office, how can they collect their bribes, uh, kickbacks, I mean, 'lobbying contributions'?

Open and closed

[carvalhao]

I am not an Open Software fundamentalist, as I use interchangeably Windowns and Linux in the course of my work. But I always get to see the direct result of my actions, even when they don't occur in the exact same manner I intended them too (sometimes, it's just because I did it wrong :) )

But as far as software-only e-voting, how the hell can I trust my vote, of which I have no feedback, will be registered right by a system whose source-code I have no access to? In this case, I believe that OS is clearly the way... and I agree with the article on the need for simple solutions. Such a complicated architecture is bound to have errors!

But, I live in Portugal, where e-voting is still just not an issue :) It just scares me that elections in such an important country, as far as the world equilibrium is concerned, might have it's leadership stolen

Last elections in Liberia were won by a candidate which boasted a full 1500% votes. :))) Hope I never hear anything similar from that side of the Atlantic

Amazing.

[DrEldarion]

In an address on national television Mr Vajpayee said he accepted the verdict and said it was a demonstration of India's strong democractic roots. "My party and alliance may have lost but India has won," he said.

This is amazing. Why can't our politicians act like this when they lose? Maybe I'll move to India. It's probably easier to get a job there anyway.

Re:Amazing.

[sevensharpnine]

Maybe I'll move to India. It's probably easier to get a job there anyway.

One of the principle reasons for the upset was the fact that much of India's economic progress was due to their "in-sourcing" of foreign tech jobs. Well, at least that was the appearance to the working poor in India. The new party is going to try to spread out India's economic success to a greater percentage of the population. In short, there's a very good chance India's economy is about to tank. Between that and your snide melodrama, your employment opportunities aren't very good.

That's a farce

[vijaya_chandra]

Off-Topic
"choose their leader based on personal merit "

Anyone with something between their ears'd tell you that this doesn't apply to Ms. Sonia Gandhi

Everyone and his/her dog knows that she's becoming the PrimeMinister only because of being the widow Mr.Rajiv Gandhi who happened to become the PM only because of being the son of Ms. Indira Gandhi who again happened to become the PM only because of being the daughter of Mr. Jawaharlal Nehru

Enough said
now flame me

Mod parent funny

[Wehesheit]

nt

simplicity/reliability isn't Diebolds problem

[bl8n8r]

It's just too hard to fix an election if the system is simple or reliable. It seems there is a need to keep voters confused and distracted, and this would fit perfectly with the Diebold design.

Re:Election Upset + E-Voting = Suspicious

[arkanes]

It didn't make news at the time (and makes only a little news now), but e-voting was in fact used in Florida and there were signifigant irregularities with the machines. One district reported massive negative votes for Gore, for example (and although this was noticed and 'corrected', there is no way whatsoever to verify that the 'corrected' results were in fact correct). The hanging chads and whatnot weren't the ONLY election problems in Florida.

Tap tap tap. These Indians are crazy:

[gabbarbhai]

They build their own electronic voting machines, and outsource their prime ministers :)
Shouldn't it be the other way around? no wait.. Humm..
All said and done, we've just witnessed how a real democracy ought to operate its elections. No hanging or pregnant chads, or dimpled and pimpled ballots.. Importantly, a minority vote cannot decide the fate of a government and that of thousands of innocent people elsewhere in the world.
And most importantly, a robust, self-governed machinery that operates the elections, NOT county officials who can be influenced by the local political establishment (Florida, remember?). The election commission of India answers to nobody but the president who has luckily so far has been someone with little autocratic ambitions, and anyway there are constitutional safeguards against that. Election officials operating the poll booths are school teachers mostly from the neighborhood, meaning that they'd likely know you by name anyway. I remember seeing my primary school teacher ticking off my name at the poll booth, just as she used to do in the classroom when I was younger.
Talk about first-world and third-world democracies ;)

Re:Tap tap tap. These Indians are crazy:

[cygnusx]

Election officials operating the poll booths are school teachers mostly from the neighborhood, meaning that they'd likely know you by name anyway.

Which means they could be susceptible to local influences, just like Florida. They probably aren't in large parts of India, but how do you think local chieftains threaten people with hookah-paani boycotts in North India? The perception that villagers have is that at least in some places, the ballot is not so secret after all.

amount of paper saved

[quadrocerebra]

One also should not fail to notice the amount of paper and trees saved by india's shift to the electronic voting machines.

Batteries

[Anonymous Coward]

In India, the demand for power far exceeds the capacity for generation. At any given time, a many districts are experiencing a complete power cut, though this is properly distributed so that no town goes without power for more than a few hours each week. I guess it would not be possible to have uninterrupted supply from morning to evening in all places going to polls on a particular day.
Sometimes if any generating station is overloaded, the entire regional distribution grid collapses, plunging a quarter of the country into darkness, and this happens every few months and needs hours to resolve. Currently the only city in the country which can disconnect itself smoothly from the grid is Bombay, and that is the only place where you can bank on electricity.
Also, the system uses simple box-type EVMs which are more like calculators than computers! There is no networking - every machine is tallied separately on a particular day at the district headquarters. So batteries are really the more sensible and reliable option. And as somebody mentioned elephants, portability is not a problem :)

Thought

[netigen]

I think a small change will help to make rigging more difficult - The order of the listing of the candidates should be changed after every vote is casted. This will make it more difficult to rig false votes.

Re:eVoting stock spam

[cygnusx]

The Indian EVM machine appears to use the same single plurality vote, supporting up to 16 candidates.

4 EVMs can be chained together, to support 64 candidates. I believe the Election Commission was prepared to have more on standby if there were more than 64 nominations from a constituency. In the last few General Assembly Elections there haven't been more than 34 nominations per constituency. (Nominations cost money, which one forfeits if one doesn't get enough percentage of votes.)

If someone wants to win, they'll convince a dozen other candidates with the same beliefs as their opponents to run and fill up the rest of the candidate list.

The best part about a functioning democracy is that while this sort of ballot-DDOSing is fun to talk about, the legal system ensures that in practice they're not worth doing: Candidates found guilty (after due process, of course) of messing with the poll system get debarred from contesting elections upto 5 years.

What about people with disabilities? Quick story.

[sampson7]

One thing that really bothered me was the statement in the article that blind people could just take someone in with them to help cast their ballot.

Sure. This works. And it's what was done in most American polling places until the advent of the electric machine.

We have a large blind community at the polling place where I usually work - and I asked one how the new machines worked. She was practically in tears because she was so excited - she had just cast a vote by herself for the first time in her life (and she wasn't no spring chicken).

I realize in the scheme of creating a fair election system, this may seem like a minor point, but it certainly wasn't to her or anyone who talked with her and cares about the human dimension of democracy. Just a quick thought :)

Examples: how does India "abuse" secularism?

[ianscot]

As far as personal qualities go, I understand Pol Pot was a heck of a family man. Not to be too flip, but sometimes that isn't the best predicter of your ideal leader.

But tell me --

...totally agree with you that India is a truly secular and open-minded country. But, the secularism is being abused in some cases.

-- what specifically are you saying there? I'm not trying to strike up sparks, here, just curious what "abuses" we're talking about in "some cases." What harm's recently been done under the banner of secularism in India?

(I'm having some trouble imagining similar abuses in the US. Armies of secular people doing what? Marching in Pro Choice rallies, or something?)

Re:Examples: how does India "abuse" secularism?

[KrisCowboy]

But, the secularism is being abused in some cases.

Ever heard of religious riots in India? I've seen a couple of them. It's nothing like they show in movies. People slaying each others - friends, relatives, children, old people...and why? I'm an orthodox Brahmin and 2 of my best friends are orthodox muslims. We have no problem getting along. That's the everyday case - hindu people helping their muslim neighbours and vice versa. Then a dirty politician comes up - he wants to win the elections - he stirs up the crowd saying that the other religion is stamping all over his religion and fights start.

The Indian elections are fairly complex too

[doodlelogic]

"You can have president, senator, congressman, governor, state senator, state representative, mayor, sheriff, district attorney, judge, and other people to vote for."

Yes, but not in the same election! They may be on the same day, and even (if you have a paper-ballot) on the same voting sheet, but fundamentally what you are doing in most parts of the US is voting for one candidate over others for one office. Then another one candidate over others for another office...n

Plus in many parts of India there were more than one election held. For instance the sacking by the locals of the tech-savvy Chief Minister of Andhra Pradesh, which may impact that state's ability to invest in infrastructure for the IT industry (or to put it another way, will probably help poor local farmers with free electricity).

Re:Electric?

[HenrikOxUK]

They still do not PRODUCE (generate) electricity.

Yes they do. I didn't say produce energy; that can only be done by converting matter to energy. I said produce electricity. When I feed grass to a cow, I produce milk, as all would agree, though I don't produce matter, just transform it (OK, odd example). When a water turbine transforms mechanical energy to electrical energy, we commonly say that it produces electricity. The same aplies when converting from chemical energy: You don't produce energy, but you DO produce electricity. Oh, and a battery is NOT a capacitor of sorts. They work on different principles.