E-Voting Problems Are Mostly User Error, Says ITAA

grcumb writes "InfoWorld is carrying a story today which mentions a press kit being distributed by the Information Technology Association of America. Its purpose? To 'help journalists put election equipment-related snafus in context.' Most e-voting problems, they insist, are [l]user issues, where people who don't know how to deal with the new technology cause delays as they seek assistance. They don't seem to feel the need for journalists to understand basic system design issues (like making sure your computer and human processes work), why testing didn't identify these problems, nor why this is better than paper ballots."

Comments

Not very subtle, these folks

[erick99]

These people need to learn some lessons in human relations. I am sure they have some valid points to be made, however, the way they went about it was condescending and insulting to the journalists. I mean, really, I cannot imagine telling journalists that I am going to "help journalists put election equipment-related snafus in context." Journalists feel that it is their job to collect info and put things into context themselves. The ITAA shot themselves in the foot.

Re:Not very subtle, these folks

[Mysticalfruit]

Exactly. Everybody in 2000 made a big deal about the butterfly ballots in FL.

What the media forgot to mention was that 96% of the people who used the butterfly ballot were able to figure it out just fine.

The reason the other 4% couldn't figure out the ballot was because they were stupid. Yet the media make it sound like the populace at large was dumbfounded by these "freakish" ballots.
They also forgot to mention that these ballots had been in use for years.

The bigger issue is that in presidential elections in the past, it's generally a landslide, so having ~5% of the votes going uncounted for technical reasons (i.e. voter stupidity) really didn't impact the election.

I suspect, as with 2000, this election will be so close that 5% margin really will matter. Especially in a winner takes all type of electoral college system. Which further underscores why I think we should dump the electoral college system and go with straight representative elections.

Ummm....

[antifoidulus]

this is the ITAA? Aren't they supposed to advocate GOOD software design? Guess what, if the user is making errors, then it's the problem of the software maker. Obviously they didn't design their interface right, obviously they didn't write their instructions well enough etc. The user isn't supposed to have to study a user's manual before voting.
Come on, this "blame the user" bs is getting really old. Appearently corporations are allowed to be totally incompetent with their own products, but it's always the users fault if they don't know how to use them......

Re:Ummm....

[dbitch]

Well, what I find interesting, is that the /. crowd, who are aguably the most informed and knowledgable about computers, are the ones who are arguing against evoting. Why is that?

1) /. knows that the users ARE stupid, and nothing can change that, so go for the least common denominator (paper ballots).

2) They know that, despite assurances, there's always another bug, and that none of them trust their vote to a damn computer (despite the fact that their livelyhood depends upon it).

There is no such thing as "User Error"

[mumblestheclown]

There is no such thing as "user error" in such systems. There is only "design error and failure to adequately test."

A fundamental design feature of any voting system must be that the expected "user error" rate must be well, well below the expected vote differential otherwise the system fails in its primary task of capturing the wishes of the voters.

User error can be engineered away. Not by "genius" engineers sitting in some back room coming up with better UIs, but "average" engineers with clipboards field testing the system, watching where users make mistakes, and adjusting the system to compensate.

Re:Well it's true

[los furtive]

I think with any new technology there is a certain level of justifiable distrust, but sooner or later we all need to move on.

We all need to move on to a system where no paper trail is kept? Oh for Christ's sake you're a fool and a root cause for your nation's democratic demise! What is so hard with putting a mark in a circle on a piece of paper and have it either counted by hand or fed into a scanner?

I have yet to see any benefit from the electronic voting process besides profit for the people who sell them and a chance for the news to wrap up it's election coverage by 11pm (and look what ended up last time they tried that).

People like you need some real perspective. The voting period in India was a month long. In Afghanistan they didn't even start counting the ballots until days after it was over, and in Canada people still vote with a paper and pencil, and it is no more complicated than putting an X in the correct circle. Whether it is hand counted or run through a machine at least there's something available to audit if a recount is necessary, and rarely do pencils or paper break down and when they do it takes a hell of a lot less time and money to get them working again.

Diebold

[UdoKeir]

Take a look here:
http://www.itaa.org/about/members.cfm

Diebold is one of their member companies. This group is just shilling for the e-voting machine manufacturers.

I am amazed

[rben]

People should be marching on their state capitols demanding that the current e-voting machines be replaced with verifiable voting methods such as paper ballots until such time as everyone can be satisfied that the e-voting machines are fair and reliable. (Which probably means when they produce a clear paper trail.)

The foundation of our system of government is put at risk by sloppy or malicious coding and we all sit at home and go about our lives as if nothing is truely at risk. The degree of apathy that has been shown on this issue is astonishing.

Avi Rubin, the leading authority on e-voting, gave a great interview in the recent Dr. Dobbs Journel. I think what he says is something that every voter should hear. (His writings on e-voting are here.) The problem is not whether or not a certain political party or company has rigged these machines to fix the election, it's that the very design and nature of these machines makes it possible to do so in a way that is undetectable.

Up until now, if you wanted to steal an election, you had to coordinate the work of a large number of people in across a large number of states unless you could blame it all on a bunch of people voting incorrectly in one county in Florida. Now, you could subtley alter the programming of these machines and shift a small percentage of the results produced by each one. It would be almost impossible to detect.

It's not just the presidential race that is affected, its all the races. Think of the money that is controlled by these politicians and the incentives available to people who want to make sure they get the "right" political climate in the future. If this type of cheating doesn't happen this election, it will happen in another, and soon.

The only way to make sure that these machines can be trusted is to:

• Make the source open to viewing by anyone who wishes to see it. The source should be posted on the Internet and paper copies should be supplied to voters on request.
• Run the software on an operating system that is also open source. It's already been shown that the Diebold machines can be compromised via the Microsoft Windows operating system.
• Produce a paper audit trail and a printed voting receipt that can be used to verify the results the machine reports.

They say we get the government we deserve. If we don't raise hell with out state governments and election boards over the use of these machines, you can be certain of it.

Re:user error

[MyHair]

Oh come on. I'm a very technical guy and good with geometry, and I don't know which way to swipe the card. They're all different. They have a little pic with the stripe on one side, but I still have to stop and think to spatially imagine it.

The buttons are in different locations, and the procedures are different for different machines.

ATMs are more consistent than those things.

And they're stupid to begin with. WTF? It says to hand my card to the cashier to verify signature? Why didn't the cashier just swipe it him/herself in the first place?!?!