Slashdot Mirror
Florida E-Voting Machine Fails
cmason32 writes "An optical voting machine memory card failed earlier today in Daytona Beach, Florida, sending election officials scrambling to secure the 13,000 paper receipts. Without the paper ballots, all 13,000 votes would have been lost. Considering how close some predict this election to be, losing that many ballots would be catastrophic. Let's hope that we won't see any more of this in the next 24 hours, and that these problems are fixed before 2006."
RTFA
The title of this article may be misleading for those who equate "e-voting" with "touchscreen machines."
The machine that failed was an optical scan machine. This is like a scantron for school exams; it's the type we use here in Arizona. You fill in little arrows and it reads which ones are darkened. There are still paper ballots that go into a lock box under the machine.
Personally, I don't think this is "e-voting" at all and that the title is just plain wrong, but since optical scan machines do, indeed, use electrons, I suppose it's arguable.
I live in Brevard county, which is just south of the county in question. The machine that failed optically scans the ballots just like a scan-tron machine does (we have the same type in Brevard county). Voters fill in bubbles for the candidates they want, and the machine scans and counts the votes. The ballots are saved for just such a problem. Honestly, I don't know why all the electronic voting isn't like this. It's incredibly simple and efficient.
As to whether more problems like this will occur that will actually lose votes, I hope it does. I hope thousands of votes are lost and that the outcome is affected. That's the only way we'll be able to get rid of the paperless voting machines once and for all.
"Save the whales, feed the hungry, free the mallocs" -- author unknown
Seriously, slashdot hasn't been working right all morning.
/. editors bitch about Diebold trying to cover up and ignore defects in the software...
And the
I told you so?
What about the fallout from this? Who's liable? Can we sue companies like Diebold (or whatever manufacturer created this particular machine) for this sort thing?
ABC News has a continuously-updated list of irregularities from around the country.
On the radio this morning, I heard something about a couple thousand votes already present on some electronic voting machines in Philadelphia before the poll workers arrived in the morning. But I can't find any stories about it online. Does anyone have any more information on this?
Use Ctrl-C instead of ESC in Vim!
the good news is that there is paper trail. It can be secured, and it can be recounted.
It also shows the importance of spot checking paper trails. What if this error had not been so blaringly obvious? Who would ever know. Since its not routine practice (its illegal) to recount paper ballots there would not be any way to know.
hence we need paper trails and we need to spot check them.
Some drink at the fountain of knowledge. Others just gargle.
Well, hell. Might as well not have elections at all, just phone up 15 or 20 people and see who they want.
Was the hardware and software for these machines transparent, freely documented and free?
/.ed /.?)
(BTW, who
Joe Llywelyn Griffith Blakesley
[This post is in the public domain (copyright-free) unless otherwise stated]
Why does not the whole country just use the same ones we ahve in Pittsburgh, they been in use for 50+ years to my knolage. you pull a switch, then when you finish you press a button and it then records on paper the results, simple and works.
Yes, the statement of the parent is weird. Why have elections when a 3% population sample is enough to have accurate polls? After all, if it doesn't change anything "statistically", why bother?
I must say that's a bit scary
What happens in 2006? Elections for sure, but not for president.
Regardless of the type of voting machine (optical readers, Diebold, or others), I'm still concerned about lost votes. I half-wanted to use the provisional ballot this morning, but when I asked the voting "official" about a paper ballot, she looked at me like I was crazy and said "we don't have any paper ballots here." Having untrained voting officials is going to bugger up this election as well.
Nothing but the finest in meaningless drivel
but that's were the logic ends.
first let's consider the statistical fluctuations that might be present in 13,000 votes chosen at random from a larger set. If the votes were 50:50 for either candidate then in the variance of 13,000 cast ballots the outcome would be about fluctuate by 50 votes, or a difference bewteen the two candidates of 100 votes. That's the average deviation from the true average the actual deviation would be much higher. If more than one candidate is running, lets say nader is getting 10% of the votes, then the statistical fluctuation in naders total would be about 32 votes with those missing votes not equaly distributed among the other candidates.
Second, this is one precint in one county in florida. it's literally an island. One shoul dave ZERO expectation that its average demographics and voting pattern represents the state average.
Some drink at the fountain of knowledge. Others just gargle.
For those considering casting their vote for the lesser of two evils, check out Inverse vote pairing.
Find a family member or friend who would cancel out your lesser evil vote. Make a deal with them to both vote third party. You get to take a vote AWAY from your greater evil, and the third paties get two votes. If enough people did this when the candidates suck perhaps we'd have REAL debates?
Service guarantees Citizenship! Questions Guarantee GITMO.... Amerika Uber Alles!
I cant speak for the florida machines. But here in new mexico the programming of logic packs for optical scan machines is awarded to a contractor. This tells me that while the programming method may be propietary its not secret; there is more than one contractor.
Some drink at the fountain of knowledge. Others just gargle.
They tested all the voting machines, and those failing were shipped into likely Democrat states...
I didn't say it was insignifigant, I said it would be unlikely to change the outcome. Apparently your sarcastic spin on what I said is insightful, while my perfectly reasonable assessment of the situation was "Flamebait" though.
It's always going to be the same. One party points to the other that is pointing back at them. It's like the only truth about politics is that no matter what we choose we still get dumped on.
Visit the Mother Site !
I'm going to go out on a limb and guess that it was in a black neighborhood......
\/\/oobie
Moreover it does no good to have voter verified paper trails in your own precint if florida or california lacks them. That paper trail only secures your one vote. You want everyone elses secure too as errors elsewhere swamp your measly vote.
So rant to the persons who could actually do something about this: the head of NASED the organization that sets voting machine standards is Denise Lamb and the head of the National Association of Secretaries of state is Rebecca Vigil-giron. Tell them you are a professional programmer and give them your candid opinion about the need for voter verified paper trails. Currently they are outspoken in nation wide advocacy agains adding paper trails to touch screen voting.
Some drink at the fountain of knowledge. Others just gargle.
We bubble in our candidate of choice, or we write in whoever we want to vote for. Therefore I can be proud knowing that I'm probably the only voter in Virginia that voted for Michael Badnarik for President and Cthulhu as a write in candidate for my congressional district...
Click here or a puppy gets stomped!
i do believe that would be because he was right, and you were wrong =)
facts are biased that way and all.
shaolin punk, activist post-industrial
A story like this should be a wake-up call to those states that are using touchscreen voting machines with no paper trail. A memory card can fail--there needs to be redundancy in the system! It is fortunate that this particular case is one where the original ballots still exist.
Also, redundant memory cards would not be sufficient. The redundancy should be such that a single type of failure (i.e., a power surge that fries a memory chip) can't defeat the redundancy.
Now that I'm thinking about this, I wonder what poll workers are trained to do if there is a fire? Are they supposed to grab the ballot box as they run out of the building?
My mom always said, "Jim, you're 1 in a million." Given the current population, there are 7000 of me. God help us all!
News for the programmers of that system- volitile memory may not be the best place to buffer 13,000 scanned ballots- you should be writing to disk after every scan.
SJW: a person who perceives an injustice, and while correcting it, commits a greater injustice.
You are missing the point. There are greater issues then who gets elected. If you dont, or cant, understand that, I cant explain it to you.
Remember that the differences came down to just a few hundred votes in some states during the 2000 elections.
Also remember that the level of support a canidate expects to recieve is going to very widely from county to county, and even polling place to polling place. If the election is anything like 2000, reducing the number of votes cast by even 5% at even a dozen polling places will change the outcome of elections.
Random errors like this have the potential to spoil the entire election, and the immediate effect would be devestating.
On the other hand, if we make it through these elections without documented random errors destroying the entire process, we have a bigger problem to worry about. Both canidates have spent millions of dollars to determine exactly which counties and polling places matter to them the most. And, a major public strategy of both campaigns this year is to employ armies of lawyers and campaign staffers to increase the "friction" at the small handful of polling locations that are unfavorable to their campaign. Simultaneously, both parties are working furiously to lubricate the polling locations that are favorable to them.
People are going to prison this year for fraudulant voter registration drives designed to increase friction at a small number of polling locations. Other efforts, like the Florida felony voter list, are diabolical and almost comic-book like in their evilness.
But in the end, both canidates would probably sell their own mother to have a chance to spoil all the votes from just a dozen hand-picked voting machines. I hope that neither campaign takes positive steps to cause a voting machine to fail. But, I pray to God that if a campaign does sabotage a voting machine that they are not caught. I honestly question if the country could survive that right now.
that is in absolute awe that something as simple as picking candidates and amendments is so painful?! We saw crap like this 4 years ago and it hasn't been fixed! Will someone PLEASE explain to me why our voting system is so craptacular?!
Best FPS gaming site on the net... ok, well maybe not the best
just phone up 15 or 20 people and see who they want
Then you have to have someone reliable to call those people. I suggest Fox News, they've proven themselves to be Fair and Balanced... they would surely do a good job!
I just saw on cnn news about a woman who voted for Kerry but when she saw the screen showed her summary report it was for Bush. She called a lawyer and reviewed her selections with the election officials and it did show she selected kerry for her answers. They say it was "computer error" *Cough**bullshit**cough*
mbonig (which is a slur for something racist) has been posting lots of GNAA trolls (search for his name, you'll see) and fake gmail invites that point to disgusting pictures.
Mod down at once!
How exactly do you know the distribution of votes on that particular machine?
should have been from the "told you so" department.
"A witty saying proves nothing." ~Voltaire
"d'Oh!" ~Homer
parent post
If you remove a ballot box from an area where the voting pattern is generally significantly different from the average - and most of the time, it will be - you introduce a bias. For example, by destroying a Martin County ballot box, I would be giving Kerry an advantage. By destroying a Palm Beach ballot box, I'd be giving Bush an advantage.
Daytona Beach is, if I recall correctly, in a red area of Florida. Bush can expect to have significantly more votes in that voting machine than Kerry. If 2/3 of the votes are for Bush, then we're looking at about 8667 votes for Bush, vs 4333 for Kerry, a 4334 vote difference. If the vote is anything like as close as it was last time over Florida as a whole, you can bet those 4334 votes will make a major difference.
I don't know what those percentages are in practice. What I can say is that Florida is a diverse state, and just because the margins are close over the state as a whole doesn't mean that the margins are close on a county by county basis, or especially a precinct by precinct basis.
You are not alone. This is not normal. None of this is normal.
From TFA, emphasis added:
Members of each political party and the canvassing board must witness the recount process Tuesday.
How is this fair? When I voted this morning some positions were competitions between a Republican or Democrat and a third party, so you'd think several different parties would get called for the recount.
Does Florida not allow more than two parties to watch recounts?
Direct away from face when opening.
That's a great stategery for the American people in the post 9/11 world. I'll bet there's 15 or 20 good Americans right here in my Cabinet. Elections cost millions of dollars, money which could be better spent fighting America's enemies in Iraq and the world. Also, think of the message it would send to our troops if they found out 50 or 60 million people voted against their commander in chief. Your plan will save money and maintain the morale of our troops in harm's way.
-- George W.
These were posted to Drudge Report, and quickly yanked.
AZ CO LA MI WI PA OH FL MI NM MN WI IA NH
Kerry 45 48 42 51 52 60 52 51 51 50 58 52 49 57
Bush 55 51 57 48 48 40 48 48 47 48 40 43 49 41
Here is the LCCR link. At first glance they look to be a social justice group not directly affiliated with either the Reds or the Blues.
sigs, as if you care.
post the link and I might consider believing this
I just find it quite amazing that a country that :-(
has had a "democratic" regime for more than 200
years can not even guarantee the correct results of
its elections, I mean, here in Europe we have
far less experience and I've never heard of
anything like what's going on in the USA, what's
wrong with manually counting paper ballots??
let me tell you, that system works great, what's
the need for electronic machines? why adding
complexity? so that it is more likey to fail?
Someone from the US please explain, here we
have the impression that people in that part of
the world have gone mad
We warned them. For 4 years we told them exactly what to expect. Nobody should be surprised. Idiots.
Let's hope that ... these problems are fixed before 2006."
Simple. Chuck machines into garbage, replace with paper ballots. Problem fixed.
could not believe this, Kerry is ahead in Florida 5 points, this must be some f**king couting error, even markets are turning over, in last 30 minutes Pfizer and United Defence dipped, my f**king portfolio is heading south, bad times ahead
-- i am being constantly offended by liberal moderators here as a notorious republican flamer --
I think you're in some strange alternate reality along with all the rest of the assholes that said I was trolling.
Try taking my comment, the entire comment, not just the first sentence, in context. Let's quote the story, shall we?
Considering how close some predict this election to be, losing that many ballots would be catastrophic.
So, how am I lacking in understanding by saying that while this is serious, it's not as much of a problem as the poster makes it out to be, because the election being close would probably has no impact on the situation?
I think it's you, sir, that missed the point.
Please look up the population of the U.S. and the population of your country and report the results back to us... Thanks!
Oh, wait. That was last time.
More to the point, not detecting election problems is not the same as no problems. I haven't heard anything on the validity of European elections, so by your logic there must not be any.
None of this would matter if we just had our state legislatures select the presidential electors. No more half truth sound bites from the campaigns, interest groups, angry individuals, or international actors. Just a peaceful discussion between the best & brightest in each state about which people should be given the job of choosing president.
Hook me up!
Trying to use sarcasm in text-based forums does not work.
At least in my district, we use the dreaded Diebold boxen. I shuddered at the sight, but stood in line anyway...
The House Between - Original Sci-Fi Series
Random errors like this WILL ALWAYS HAPPEN, AND HAVE ALWAYS HAPPENED. When you are talking about something that is as massive an undertaking as this, there will always be errors. You do your best to minimize them, but going batshit insane anytime something fucks up just isn't useful. You have to find the errors, fix them, and TRY not to let them happen again. Shit happens, you just have to minimize its effects.
'Standards' in computing only impress those who are impressed by things like 'standards'.
All the problems created in the last few years won't suddenly disappear, but at least we won't be digging the hole deeper.
Report from OSCE (Organization for Security and Cooperation in Europe)
I may be wrong, but I understand this is the first time that international observers go into the US elections, which, well... was about time.
Well, hell. Might as well not have elections at all, just phone up 15 or 20 people and see who they want.
After all, 100,000 dead Iraqis can't be wrong.... can they?
One of the Finnish election observers says he saw a touchscreen device break down (with 200 votes inside), and it was replaced and the officials were left pondering what to do with the broken one. Apparently it was one of those touch-screen no-paper-trail ones. Interesting to see if this is an isolated incident or not.
Last time I checked it was about 300.000.000 versus 34.000.000 (Spain). Of course, the surface of Spain is about 194,884 squared miles while the surface of the US is approx. 5,984,685 squared miles, are there the same number of polling stations in the US as in Spain?? If not, the process of counting is a task that can be done
very much in parallel, all you have to do in the
end is add up all the different results (I suppose
the thing doesn't scale perfectly, but still...),
Why is then the difference in number of votes so important?
Everyone who has attended public school since 1970, maybe. That leaves out a lot of voters. My parents (baby Boomers)never had scantron. My Grandparents certanly never did. My parents have since learned, my grandparents cannot. I don't mean to insult senoir citizens, but as we all get older our eyes get worse. They have problems with daily tasks that are much more important to their quality of lives that are much more embarsising than not being able to figure out scantron. So is there a better practical solution that will help the elderly/ disabled vote? I don't know. But scantron doesn't work well for them.
Well.. maybe. Or Maybe not. But Definitely not sort of.
Like I told my mom, me and all my athiest buddies are praying this jerk is thrown out on his head
I live in Daytona (actually, Ormond Beach, part of the Greater Daytona Beach area), and for most elections this county (Volusia) swings left.
The word reciept implies you take it home, you don't; the word voucher is different, it is something you turn in for it to be "redeemed", and if you don't turn in the voucher, it is worthless. This has the correct connotations.
More opportunities for things to go wrong per country. Let's say that an error happens 1 per 1000 polling places per election. If the amount of polling places is proportional, then the US will have the greatest number of hits. Furthermore a major election occurs every 4 years. This wikipedia article isn't much help in determining how often the Spanish Prime Minister is elected, perhaps you can fix that?: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Prime_Minister_of_Spa in
I didn't see any international observers at my polling place. As I mentioned in another post, I and others were disenfranchised when they removed Nader from the ballot in my county(county not country).
From your observer report: Although the election law requires secret voting, polling station procedures can compromise the secrecy of the ballot and open voting is common; these shortcomings should be addressed by the authorities.
Ahem!
Also: Because of the short duration of the Assessment Mission and its small size, it was not able to assess in detail all aspects of the electoral process. Likewise, a few brief visits to polling stations were not a sufficient basis upon which to draw firm conclusions in regard to the Election Day process of voting throughout the country.
Well, from my experience voting here, while it is
:-)
true that you pick the ballot from a table that
is open to view to everyone it is also true
that there are closed booths were you can insert
the ballot into the envelope and nobody can see it.
You could then pick all the ballots and only stick
one into the envelope, or you may come from home
with the ballot and the envelope, which political
parties usually send to you by mail.
While the second option is common, the first one
is not, so for simplicity people who take
a ballot from the table only take one. I never
liked that, however still doesn't affect the
actual count.
And yes, the report doesn't draw firm conclusions,
but I am sure if you look around you may find
other reports
I don't understand why you were disenfranchised,
I will look around for your other post.
Well of course, there may be a percentual error, ;-)
say, you can guarantee results +-0.1%
Since you have a larger absolute number of votes,
your error in terms of votes will be larger, but
your percentual error should be the same since the
"problem" is linear.
Anyway, voting in Spain takes place every 4
years also, it is fixed already in the wikipedia
Looking at the revised wikipedia entry, you don't have a popular vote for prime minister. That changes things substantially.