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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."
Happy Trails!
Erick
http://www.busyweather.com/
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.
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?
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.
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).
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
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.
...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?
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.
I Am My Own Worst Enemy
He has also started construction of a massive sign extending right across the Indian sub-continent proclaiming "0wn3d" in large black lettering.
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.
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.
An Indian-American Hindu committed to non-violent thought/speech/action alarmed by the global explosion of radical Islam
Can be found here at the BBC.
I am pro-lifechoice.
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.
http://efil.blogspot.com/
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?
Drill baby drill - on Mars
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.
I'm in the hole of the broadband donut.
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.
Hey, John Ashcroft lost an election to a dead guy in Missouri, too!
Bill Clinton: Pimp we can believe in. - The Shirt!!!
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.
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.
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.
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