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Verified Voting

Posted by CmdrTaco on from the everybody-likes-the-eff-right dept.

Joe from the EFF writes "Verified Voting has just gone live with a number of tools for all you data-hungry election nerds out there. Amongst the goods: an election guide for geeks, a voter's guide to electronic voting, the Verifier database of county-by-county election information and the Election Incident Reporting System (EIRS) which will be used on E-day by attorneys and observers in the field to collect data about election incidents called into the Election Protection Coalition's hotline, 1-866-OUR-VOTE. The geek community is playing a particularly active role in this year's eleciton via VV's TechWatch program. However, we could still use the help of the slashdot community, and all you have to do is click: We need to test the resiliency of the Verifier database and the EIRS before the election.

17 of 363 comments (clear)

  1. hold on a second. by deathazre · · Score: 5, Funny

    did we just get someone who ASKED for their site to be slashdotted?

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    1. Re:hold on a second. by TykeClone · · Score: 4, Funny

      Looks like they've received what they asked for.

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      A fine is a tax you pay for doing wrong and a tax is a fine you pay for doing all right.
  2. Well... by aelbric · · Score: 4, Insightful

    "Cannot connect to database"

    Guess that's what you get for asking to stress test a server from /.

    --
    nos laetus epulor qui would domito nos
    1. Re:Well... by aelbric · · Score: 5, Funny

      So can we start adding little kill Icons to the /. menu bar for everytime we kill a server? Make it specific to the OS of the box that was flamed. Like fighter pilots used to do on the sides of their fighters.

      You know, clippy, tux, a fedora, Darl.

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      nos laetus epulor qui would domito nos
  3. Election Guide for Geeks by artemis67 · · Score: 5, Funny

    Uhhh... we vote for faster servers and more memory in 2004!

  4. Who hasn't voted yet? by Jagasian · · Score: 5, Interesting

    I voted early last week. Why would you risk waiting until the last second to vote? Who knows what could go wrong. You could get sick, your car could break down, you could accidentally go to the wrong polling location, etc...

    Funny thing is that on the second day of early voting, the polling location that I went to had a 30 minute wait!!! In 2000, on election day, there was no wait whatsoever! I think this year there is going to be a HUGE voter turnout. I am not sure who it is going to favor, but it is an interesting phenomenon.

  5. Yeah. by Staos · · Score: 5, Interesting
    As a Maryland resident, I've tried to do my part. I contacted my elected officials and warned them about Diebold. I sent another round of faxes and emails after we learned that Diebold planned to gouge us "out the yin-yang" if we wanted verified voting. Final results: a couple form letter replies amounting to diddly squat.

    The most frustrating part is that my county already had perfectly good voting machines: paper-based scantron-type forms where you mark the appropriate rectangle and a simple scanner tabulates the results. Effective, verifiable, well-understood, and relatively inexpensive. In other words, the complete opposite of what the state just bought for us.

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  6. Zort, Ptttzt.... by nweaver · · Score: 4, Funny

    Slashdot 1, MySQL Server 0

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    Test your net with Netalyzr
  7. Mr Wizard is broken by DunbarTheInept · · Score: 4, Interesting

    They had a nice wizard at www.verifiedvoting.org (one of the sites mentioned in the article) that would help tell you what voting technologies exist in your precinct, and what alternatives exist if you want a paper receipt of your vote. (In some places, absentee ballot by snail-mail is the only alternative to trusting Diebold, in other places there are more alternatives.) But, possibly because of the slashdot link, all the wizard tells me now is that it can't connect to the mySQL database.

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    Don't label something "offtopic" unless you know the topic well enough to tell what's on topic.

  8. Election "incidents" by Capt'n+Hector · · Score: 4, Interesting
    I'm no expert in polls, but isn't the best (only?) way to detect voting fraud is by statistical analysis? That is, compare paper ballots with electronic ones, and then those to exit polls. If those Diabolical... err Diebold voting machines differ from normal ballots by more than a few fractions of a percent, wouldn't that indicate some sort of foul play? Fire-alarm pulling, voter-registration-tear-upping aside, the worst threat to American democracy (heh, did I just say that) is a few lines of code in Diebold's server software, something like:
    $record_vote_function() {
    ...
    $i = rand(1,0, 0.000001);
    if($i=1 && $vote="Kerry-Edwards") {
    $vote="Bush-Cheney";
    }
    ...
    }
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  9. For Ohio and California Voters by ecliptik · · Score: 5, Informative

    While looking around for information on who/what I am voting for I came across SmartVoter which is run by the non-profit organization League of Women voters.

    The site is put together nicely, and by entering your street and zip it prints out a full sample ballot of what you'll be voting on and where to vote. It's completely non-partisian and has a lot of information on each issue, with arguements for and against them.

    If you're voting in either California or Ohio I'd definetly check it out before you go to the polls next week.

    I'd comment on the links themselves but they're dead.

  10. Secret Message.. by donnyspi · · Score: 5, Interesting
    Heh heh...

    Go to Verified Voting site and at the top right click "Edit Preferences" Click OK without typing anything in...

    Read the SeCrEt MeSsAgE!

  11. Well, since I can't get to the article... by teamhasnoi · · Score: 4, Insightful
    I don't want to start a holy war here, but what is the deal with you Bush fanatics? I've been sitting here at my freelance gig in front of http://www.georgewbush.com/ (blocked outside of the U.S) for about 20 minutes now while it attempts to explain to me that Bush is doing a great job, the economy is stronger than ever, that he has never made a mistake in judgement, and that America is safer under his fascist rule. 20 minutes. At home, I can see one hundred reasons why Bush is unfit for duty, which by all standards should be reason for his impeachment. If not worse.

    In addition, during this fear driven propaganda-fest, free speech is confused with anti-Americanism. And everything else that has made the US a great place to live has ground to a halt. Even the ill-conceived 'freedom zones' are getting further and further away from this war-happy candidate as I type this.

    I won't bore you with the laundry list of other problems that I've encountered while listening to mouth-breathers spouting Republican talking points, but suffice it to say there have been many, not the least of which is I've never seen a Republican machine that has run faster from the truth, all the while tossing 'loyalty pledges' and cease and desist orders at anyone who may disagree, despite the millions of people who share the need to be rid of this administration. My Tandy 102 with 32k of RAM demonstrates more resolve and better judgment than Bush most times. From a leadership standpoint, I don't get how people can claim that Bush is a superior candidate for president.

    Bush addicts, flame me if you'd like, but I'd rather hear some intelligent reasons why anyone would choose to vote for Bush over other more truthful, reasoned, smarter and stable candidates.

  12. Kevin Shelley by linuxwrangler · · Score: 5, Interesting

    I find it amusing that the quote on the front page is from Kevin Shelley (CA Secretary of State) who is up to his eyeballs in scandals including misappropriation of federal voting money on Democratic consultants, accepting checks in his Sacramento office (a crime in CA), receiving laundered campaign contributions, etc. For the curious, here's just a smattering of the articles about him:

    http://www.sfgate.com/cgi-bin/article.cgi?file=/ ch ronicle/archive/2004/09/30/MNG9U91ANA1.DTL
    http:/ /www.sfgate.com/cgi-bin/article.cgi?file=/ch ronicle/archive/2004/09/30/BAGPE91B571.DTL
    http:/ /www.sfgate.com/cgi-bin/article.cgi?file=/ch ronicle/archive/2004/10/07/EDGII94AG81.DTL
    http:/ /www.sfgate.com/cgi-bin/article.cgi?file=/ch ronicle/archive/2004/10/08/BAG4M95J231.DTL
    http:/ /www.sfgate.com/cgi-bin/article.cgi?file=/ch ronicle/archive/2004/10/11/MNGID9748P1.DTL
    http:/ /www.sfgate.com/cgi-bin/article.cgi?file=/ch ronicle/archive/2004/10/24/BAGML9F94221.DTL
    http: //www.sfgate.com/cgi-bin/article.cgi?file=/ch ronicle/archive/2004/10/27/BAGGE9FSN057.DTL

    Seems like they could have picked someone better to quote.

    (My preview is showing odd spaces in the URI - you may have to fix to view the articles)

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    ~~~~~~~
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  13. Re:Man, I'm beginning to feel so old. by mlippert · · Score: 4, Informative
    Oh wait. I forgot. I live in South Carolina where President Bush is already locked in as the winner, so would I be better off just staying at home?

    Even if you are voting contrary to your state majority, you should still vote.

    Why?

    Because you know they are going to count the popular vote anyway, and if once again a candidate wins the electoral college and the presidency, but loses the popular vote, it is that much more impetus to finally change that system.

    Mike

  14. EIRS by cananian · · Score: 4, Informative

    [I'm the lead programmer for EIRS.]

    The EIRS site seems to be holding up fine for me, with a surprisingly modest hardware investment.

    Yes, there are a lot of things I would structure differently if I were coding this from scratch -- but that's not how the Real World operates. This site was developed primarily by a single developer (me) over a period of a few months. I didn't have the luxury of starting with a clean slate; I had to build on existing tools.

    Furthermore, with no budget (because this is a non-profit) hardware is *always* difficult to come by. I would have liked to roll out a lot more machines, but it was not to be.

    The current EIRS site is two web front ends talking to a single database machine. And it's currently quite usable for me, at least.

    [Although I'm noticing that DNS seems to be very slow -- unfortunately that's out of my control.]

    Feel free to disabuse me of my naivete. And check out https://voteprotect.org/?display=EIRMapNation while you're at it -- this is a real-time map being filled with incidents being reported at the 1-866-OUR-VOTE hotline (remember that number, if you need it on election day!). The core of EIRS is the ability to respond in real time to reported incidents and dispatch lawyers and technologists.

    And, yes, the machines serving the hotlines are entirely distinct from the ones which slashdot is digilently trying to take down.

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  15. Re:This does what? by cananian · · Score: 4, Informative
    The Election Incident Reporting System (EIRS) is an integrated set of tools to assist Election Protection Organizations and their members in carrying out a number of activities, including:
    • Collect background and testing information from state & local election officials
    • Compile and track election irregularity data before, during, and after election day
    • Organize and manage teams of people and tasks
    • Dispatch attorneys and technologists rapidly to resolve election day incidents at voting places
    • Provide an on-line collaborative environment for rapid communication among advocates, attorneys, technologists, election officials, media professionals, and others
    • Support subsequent research for election policy-making
    Most of the features are for internal use. But the most visible public feature is the Real-time map of election incidents which is updated within seconds as incidents come into the 1-866-OUR-VOTE hotline. Reported incidents are acted on by our lawyer and techie volunteers, to correct those issues which can be corrected and prevent voters from being disenfranchised.

    [I'm the lead coder for EIRS, fwiw.]

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