Diebold Insider Comments on Voting System Flaw

Call Me Black Cloud writes "A Diebold insider is blowing the whistle on the company's continued lack of concern about security holes in its voting software. The insider wrote to Brad Friedman, a somewhat shrill political blogger, claiming the company is instructing technicians to keep quiet about the security flaws. This is despite the vulnerability being listed on the US-CERT website for the last year. A Diebold company rep admits the software can be remotely accessed via modem, but states, "it's up to a jurisdiction whether they wish to use it or not...I don't know of any jurisdiction that does that." The insider disputes that, claiming several counties in Maryland made use of the feature in 2004." This in addition to the fact that Blackboxvoting already hacked the system using a chimp last year.

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Scary

[mysqlrocks]

The CEO of North Canton, Ohio-based Diebold, Inc., Walden O'Dell has been oft-quoted for his 2003 Republican fund-raiser promise to help "Ohio deliver its electoral votes to the president next year." O'Dell himself was a high-level contributor to the Bush/Cheney '04 campaign as well as many other Republican causes.

Is this not a conflict of interest?

Re:Scary

[garcia]

Is this not a conflict of interest?

No, but it's fucking shady as hell -- that's for sure. What's even worse is that they know about flaws and not only do THEY not care but both the government (duh) and the PUBLIC don't care either.

We have hashed out what needs to be done to make this a secure system and one is to allow all the code and hardware to be opened to the public that will be using it.

Of course that will never happen and I will continue to use paper ballots like every other sane American should.

Re:Scary

[Alex P Keaton in da]

Without starting a conversation about how everyone on Slashdot could hack into the computerized voting system undetected...
Keep this in mind. Many would say it is much easier to tamper with a paper ballot election. Ballots dissapear, ballots materialize out of nowhere etc. Burning boxes of ballots in fields is nothing new. One could postulate that tampering with computer ballots leave much more of a trail than traditional tampering.

Re:Scary

[MindStalker]

Well not everywhere in America. Some states are starting to require paper copies of e-ballots. While I heard a while back about one state that is requiring publically available source code. I can't find the state though right now.

Re:Scary

[Jherek Carnelian]

Many would say it is much easier to tamper with a paper ballot election. Ballots dissapear, ballots materialize out of nowhere etc.

Perhaps you are unfamiliar with the law of conservation of energy?
Physical ballots do not spontaneously materialize and disappear. Electronic ballots, on the other hand, can do just that.

Burning boxes of ballots in fields is nothing new. One could postulate that tampering with computer ballots leave much more of a trail than traditional tampering.

The difference is that if you want to burn ballots in the field, you have to physically go get the ballots, physically transport them, and physically destroy them. All of which carries some amount of risk of being caught by widely-understood, traditional methods of security.

Electronic voting systems are pure voodoo to 99.99% of the population. Remotely tampering with them, especially when the security on them is made of swiss cheese, involves much less risk of being caught and can be done on a muchc broader scale -- one person can only haul of and destroy so many physical ballots, but one professional electronic vote-rigger can conceivably modify every single ballot cast.

Re:Scary

[saskboy]

And unless the paper is printed before your eyes, and deposited into THE ballot box in front of your eyes, then I wouldn't trust the system either. What are the scrutineering laws [observers for each party/candidate in the room with the voters and ballot box] in the United States? Are there observers overseeing the ballot takers and counters in each polling place like in Canada?

Canada's system works quite well, and it would scale to work in American consituancies quite well, since we have the same system in Toronto, as we do in Nunavut with no complaints that I'm aware of in either location.

Re:Scary

[Alex P Keaton in da]

Okay- I see your point. Not to be argumentative- but my friend,
The difference is that if you want to burn ballots in the field, you have to physically go get the ballots, physically transport them, and physically destroy them. All of which carries some amount of risk of being caught by widely-understood, traditional methods of security.
Vote tampering is almost an institution in the US. From the very dawn of America. I really don't want to get into giving a history lesson, but I suggest doing a google search for vote tampering and only clicking on the .edu's.
I know that your points are great in theory, but unfortunately history disproves you.

Re:Scary

[doublem]

I think the quote is: "Those who cast the votes decide nothing. Those who count the votes decide everything."

Re:Scary

[MindStalker]

Well truthfully the states don't even have to run an election they can just let their legislature pick the president. Of course almost every state has state consititions forbidding this and requiring an election. Just saying that presidential voting isn't exactly as federally controlled as you would hope. The federal government does have voting requirements, most of these are enforced simply through purse strings though.

Re:Scary

[smyle]

Is this not a conflict of interest?

It depends largely on his intent. His full quote was "I am committed to helping Ohio deliver its electoral votes to the president next year." Was then emphasis on "I" (as I took them to be) or was the emphasis on "to the president" (presumably meaning the current president, then running for re-election).

Yes, the guy's a Bush contributor, but that doesn't mean he's a perpetrator of fraud.

FWIW, I'm a registered Republican, and I am as paranoid as anybody else about this. I'm 100% behind blackboxvoting and VVAPT, because I sincerely believe not only in the voting process, but that what goes around comes around.

Re:Scary

[CaptainBaseballbatBo]

Remember the quote from Stalin about elections? He said, and please forgive my inexactness, "The candidates on the ballot don't matter, what matters is who counts the votes." Even Stalin had elections.

It's actually: "The people who cast the votes decide nothing. The people who count the votes decide everything."

Stalin has some other quotes too that fit. Scary.

Re:Scary

[Jherek Carnelian]

Vote tampering is almost an institution in the US. From the very dawn of America

Never said it wasn't - just that electronic tampering has the potential to be even easier to pull off than the physical kind. On the other hand - well designed and implemented electronic voting systems can greatly assist in preventing the physical tampering you are talking about.

It is basically a situation where if you implement electronic balloting poorly, then you greately increase the risks compared to paper balloting. But implement it robustly and you greatly decrease the risks instead.

So far, we've had way too much of the poor implementations.

Re:Scary

[Anonymous Coward]

One could postulate that tampering with computer ballots leave much more of a trail than traditional tampering.

One could postulate that the sun will rise in the East. If you postulated that "that tampering with computer ballots could leave much more of a trail than traditional tampering.", you would have an argument (a weak one but something). The facts are:

1) At least one existing system (the Diebold system in the FA) is not only not tamper evident, it appears to have features specifically designed to conceal tampering (a timestamp mod utility, separate DBs and functionality for voting and auditing and no tx sequencing spring to mind).

2) Physical tampering does not scale. In order to affect the presidential outcome, one would need to have a number of people in each of 10000+ locations involved. A single skilled individual can achieve the same effect with electronic voting.

3) Virtually all methods of tampering with physical ballots still work on electronic systems! In light of the fact that in the last election an apparently malfunctioning balloting machine was removed to a private warehouse and returned to service while the polls were open, I'd like to see you justify your implication that somehow e- machines are harder to tamper with than plain ballot boxes.

To give a real world example, there is very strong statistical evidence that Ohio's results were tampered with and in a way that could not be done with physical ballots.

Re:Scary

[saskboy]

"The fact is that a self respecting population would have Bush so far behind in popularity that a win by him would immediately be declared bogus."

The trouble is that the US population is not self respecting. Look at average weights of people, teen pregnancy levels, and I suspect also declining literacy, and you have a population ripe for the picking if you're a power crazed family like the Clintons or Bushes. Things just aren't that bad in most of the country, so it would take a widespread depression over several months before uprisings would even take place. It's nothing like Ukraine where a fishy election had the population massing in the streets until justice was served to them with the help of democratic countries like the USA and Canada sending election representatives who knew what they were doing.

I think EVERY democratic nation should conduct their elections with international observers in some polling places. It would serve a two fold purpose:
1) Keeps the country's election honest, or at least flagged.
2) Distributes electoral HOWTO to nations with less experienced, or imperfect electoral systems.

Every nation could benefit, including Canada and the USA.

Re:Scary

[Carewolf]

The the US election in 2004 was monitored by outsiders (OECD) which considered it _almost_ as fair as the last election they monitored in Venezuela.

Ha! I knew it!

[Shadow Wrought]

I just knew that Bush didn't receive 130% of the vote, I knew it.

To the plank with the Diebold Scaliwags! Arr!

Re:Two words

[dancpsu]

Many Democrat Slashdotters are just hoping for a different version of "selected not elected" for the '04 election.

00' - selected by SCotUS
04' - selected by Diebold

Chimp

[ackthpt]

Blackboxvoting already hacked the system using a chimp last year.

And the voters in Ohio were made chumps.

Yes, it's been all over the news. What's discouraging is the lack of recount efforts.

Re:Chimp

[It doesn't come easy]

Can't. No paper trail.

Re:Chimp

[Adult film producer]

It's even worse than that, as I understand most counties won't do recounts unless the final result between the candidates is a narrow 1% (ie. 50% 49%).. and on top of that, it's illegal in many states to do a recount if the result isn't within those narrowly defined boundries....

Why are people scared of recounting? Why is it this way ? Even if someone wins with 95% of the vote, why not have a recount to verify it????

Re:Chimp

[hungrygrue]

What recount? Predominately Democratic districts like those in inner city Cleveland and Columbus had too few polling places with people often forced to stand in line for six hours or more. An enormous number of people just couldn't vote at all because they didn't have the option of waiting that long. The sub/ex-urban areas had no lines at all - and are much more Republican. A recount won't do much good because the missing votes are those that never got to be cast to begin with. The media kept painting the long lines as a good sign of great participation and turnout - what it was was a breakdown of the voting system and a desaster that excluded anyone would couldn't afford to lose their job for taking six hours off to go vote or who couldn't afford to find a babysitter on such short notice to watch children too young to wait in line with their parent(s).

Re:Chimp

[afidel]

Uh, manu Sub/Ex urban areas had significant lines, although nothing like the inner city polling places. The Republicans were out in force in Democratic polling districts challenging a large percentage of voters. This led to voting taking an average of nearly double what it had in the past. I personally had to wait over an hour to vote. My mother was almost arrested when she requested the listing of all Democrats that had voted in her precint, as is required by law. Luckily the county prosecuter happened to show up and told the officer that he was to do no such thing and that in fact he was requesting that the Republican challenger be removed from the voting place for illegal interference.

Re:Chimp

[Chyeld]

A recount is to catch tabulation error. Not to catch fraud.

There are many reasons why places shy from allowing them that have nothing to do with coverups.

• A recount implies that the results are in question. Leading to questions of the legitmacy of the power of the person holding the office and the election itself.
• A recount allows a 'sore' loser to stall the 'offical' results. This is never good in the sense of maintaining a well ordered government.
• There is no guareentee the recount will be any more or less accurate than the original count. Leading to a situation where people just keep demanding recounts till their opposition gives up.
• Although it is counter-intuitive, it's easier to rig a re-count than it is to rig the original count. For the orginial election you need access to the votes, for the recount you just need access to the counters.

Most people just want it to be over with once the election is done. Dragging it out over months while the votes are re-counted and re-re-counted just rubs in the fact that the losers lost and makes the winners feel nervous that their win will be taken away from them. And in most cases, you aren't going to discover anything that would significantly change the outcome.

Re:Chimp

[OldManAndTheC]

None of these are valid reasons to oppose recounts, IMHO. I couldn't care less whether my government looks "well-ordered" or illegitimate. I want the winner to win, and the loser to lose.

Recounts are more accurate than the original count. I know this is hard to accept, especially if you happen to be a resident of the State of Washington, which went through a nightmare in the Governor's contest. But a recount is far more deliberate and transparent than the "election night" count, when election officials are pushing ballots through the process to get results in time for the 11 o'clock news.

...it's easier to rig a re-count.. Maybe you are thinking of a "machine recount", where the original ballots are merely pushed through the counting machines again. A hand recount, which is what losing candidates ask for (when the law allows it) cannot be rigged as you suggest. Observers are allowed to be present at all times, and may challenge each ballot as it is counted.

Most people just want it to be over with once the election is done. So? Most people don't even vote in the first place. Why should we care about the desires of the impatient, the uninterested and the apathetic?

If you want a argument against recounts, the best one is that they reveal the ugly truth of elections: that each one is riddled with irregularity and inaccuracy, and only when results are close do we bother to look under the hood and see how bad things are.

Re:Chimp

[stinerman]

I participated in the Ohio recount in Greene, Shelby, and Clark counties. During the Greene county recount the chairman of the board of elections and I had a chat. He basically told me that the board dropped the ball as far as getting extra machines in the precincts. I paraphrase:

"We saw the increases in voter registration, but didn't make the connection that we'd need more voting booths."

This, to me, is simply incompetence.

He also told me that if cities need extra equipment, they tend to borrow off of neighboring counties. If they can't find anything, they have to put in a formal request to the secretary of state in order to get more machines. So as much as I'd like to blame Blackwell (the Ohio SoS), the locals had their far share of blame as well.

Getting back to your lines, I've heard anecdotal evidence that people were still in line at 3AM waiting to vote in at least one precinct (the one that encompasses Oberlin college, IIRC) since Ohio law stipulates that anyone in line to vote when the polls close will not be turned away. But you are certainly correct that rural and suburban areas tended to have many more booths/machines per capita than urban areas.

War Dialing

[PacketScan]

Will we see a rekindling of war dialing?

I have a question.

[Sheetrock]

Why are the handful of people who identify problems and try to get them solved "shrill"?

I'm not taking issue with the submitter because I hear the term applied to liberals alot -- but I wonder when the alternative of stubborn complacency and "going along to get along" became ideals in our democracy.

Because you don't get things fixed thinking like that.

Re:I have a question.

[Red Flayer]

"Why are the handful of people who identify problems and try to get them solved "shrill"? "

Because of the method and tone of the discussion. Shrill, in this usage, means "betraying some strong emotion or attitude in an exaggerated manner." Obviously, shrill is generally a subjective descriptor.

Many pundits and bloggers use a shrill manner to draw attention to themselves and their arguments -- Limbaugh, Coulter, Franken, etc.

The reason being shrill is looked down upon by a lot of serious politicos is that the message can be overwhelmed by the tone -- if the argument needs to be shrill to get attention, how valid can the argument be?

"Because you don't get things fixed thinking like that." [re: 'going along to get along']

Although shrillness can draw attention to an issue, it won't get anything solved either. The ideal is that we can all pay attention to issues and work on resolution, without resorting to exaggeration.

Re:I have a question.

[veg_all]

Why are the handful of people who identify problems and try to get them solved "shrill"?

Because they have animated of gifs of rotating police lights on their websites? I dunno.

Re:I have a question.

[Blue Neon Head]

The reason being shrill is looked down upon by a lot of serious politicos is that the message can be overwhelmed by the tone -- if the argument needs to be shrill to get attention, how valid can the argument be?

You say this as if arguments or ideas gain attention in our society on the merits of their content alone. This is plainly absurd, as anyone with any familiarity with politics, media, or marketing knows far too well. Sometimes screaming is the only way to be heard.

Re:I have a question.

[ErikTheRed]

Why are the handful of people who identify problems and try to get them solved "shrill"

This is +5 Insightful?!?? They weren't referring to the whistleblowing in this piece as 'shrill', they were referring to the blogger and the blog overall. Personally, when I read this piece and checked some of the rest of his blog (always helps to find the context), I also found him a bit ... shrill. That is, I find him to be one of those people from the extreme ends of the political spectrum (although it's sadly becoming more and more mainstream on both sides) that rant and scream about topics rather than discussing them in a calm and rational manner.

Even in this particular instance, the topic was written up in a rather sensationalistic manner (complete with an annoying animated GIF of an emergency vehicle light at the top). That doesn't mean the information is incorrect or not worthy of consideration, but it does make it more difficult to take it seriously as unadulterated fact when it comes from an obvious partisan with a penchant for sensationalism.

One's 'shrillness' is an entirely nonpartisan attribute, easily applied to liberals, conservatives, and those that belong to sundry other groups. Personally, I think we'd all be much better off without it.

Re:I have a question.

[Call Me Black Cloud]

Hi. I'm the submitter. The reason I wrote "shrill" is because when I read through his site the image came to mind of my wife berating me. If that's not shrill, I don't know what is (and I can safely write this non-anonymously because she's probably never even heard of slashdot.)

I wasn't referencing his point of view or that he isn't "going along to get along." I applaud his efforts at bringing this issue to light and I'm very happy the article was accepted for the front page. I'd hate for this to fall off the radar, especially since I live in MD. It's just that I found the tone of his writing a bit grating...

Depressing

[Concern]

I don't know what's worse: the frighteningly bizarre concept of a voting machine with no voter-verified paper trail, or the small group of people who defend this literally indefensible practice. It fills me with a sense of dread every time I hear another round of this story hitting the news, and it hasn't involved anyone going to jail yet.

Unfortunately, as geeks know better than journalists, there is no sane, moral, or legal reason for paperless touchscreen voting machines to even exist. Almost everyone who is knowledgable in this discipline gets it pretty quickly - because it's extremely obvious, and also because paper is integral to secure systems everywhere, from secure logging on printers in machine rooms to ATMs and even slot machines... You just don't store things like votes on non-user-verified, let alone rewriteable, media.

In fact, if I recall, the state of Nevada was a little while ago in the awkward position of having vastly superior standards enforced for gambling devices than they had for voting machines... although I think now they are one of many states that has put this craziness under some scrutiny...

Yet there really are a few people out there (I've met some on slashdot for instance) who argue to defend this practice anyway. These days, ignorance and stupidity is no longer funny. It's becoming terrifying.

If we lived in a sane country, the people who made these machines would be prosecuted, since their level of negligence certainly rises to the level of criminal even if they have no intent of their own to rig elections, and all of the politicians and bureaucrats who ordered, "evaluated," "tested," and approved these systems should follow not long after. We would know all this, prima-facie, even if Diebold hadn't had a pants-down security incident and exposed their internal emails to the world, showing us their gaffes in first-person detail. We would know even if direct results of their incompetence weren't widely documented

The simple, bedrock need for secure voting systems, and the absolutely impeccable engineering doctrines involving voter-verified paper, are almost universally accepted among credible experts. All explained many times before, better than I could anyway. It's inconceivable there is any debate at this point. Why would we have a voting machine that was deliberately made insecure?

The most credible argument I've ever heard (relatively speaking) is, "Who would cheat anyway? You're just being paranoid."

But you all know the answer to the question of who would cheat at election time: probably, the first person who thought they could get away with it.

Re:Depressing

[ArsonSmith]

So, what verfiable paper trail is left by other methods of voteing?

I'll give you a hint, none. You'll never be able to go back see your vote and insure it was counted correctly if at all.

Re:Depressing

[garcia]

The most credible argument I've ever heard (relatively speaking) is, "Who would cheat anyway? You're just being paranoid."

It's very sad that this is such a commonly repeated phrase. I really want to know why people think it's *so* horrifying to be labelled "paranoid" -- especially when it comes to the state of our nation.

I realize that paranoia is looked down upon, especially in a time where everyone is more interested in the voting results of Survivor, American Idol, or (ironically) Big Brother, but it saddens me deeply when I am looked down upon for being behind our country's values.

PARANOIA IS WHAT WE NEED! Especially when people just have NO DESIRE to understand the goings on behind political power.

"Seacrest out!"

Re:Depressing

[L. VeGas]

In fact, if I recall, the state of Nevada was a little while ago in the awkward position of having vastly superior standards enforced for gambling devices than they had for voting machines

The quality control on gaming machines is crazy high. You know why? If there was any faintest whisper that the gaming corporations were not playing a fair game with the suckers, I mean gamblers, people would play less.

But voting? Nevada cares far more about the bottom line than it does about the politician of the week.

Re:Depressing

[Concern]

They also can't be systematically rigged without visiting each of them physically.

Re:Depressing

[garcia]

You'll never be able to go back see your vote and insure it was counted correctly if at all.

You take your paper ballot, after you touched the screen, and put it in a box. Unless ALL vote counters from ALL parties are compromised (a definite possibility) then you have a backup way to manually count the votes.

When you JUST have a machine that's storing the votes (which are easily modifiable and untraceable) there's no way to manually count the votes that the VOTER verified were the same.

That's how.

Re:Depressing

[Concern]

I'm not saying I like lever pull machines either, but... FYI, it's much easier to do that kind of hack with software than with gears. Think about how hard it would be to design a new mechanism that would do this, yet not be visible when the cover came off and the machine was inspected. Think about getting in there grinding in this modification on the voting machine without being seen. Now think about doing this for not just one voting machine, but hundreds or thousands...

This is why the lever pulls are still around in a few places...

Re:Depressing

[temojen]

I've been a scrutineer at the same polling table where I cast my ballot. Not only do I know that my vote was counted correctly, I know that all the votes in that box were counted correctly. And an aquaintance of mine was the scrutineer at the Elections Canada office, so he knows the totals were added correctly.

Re:Depressing

[Greger47]

Becasue the vote is handled by an organization that is kept as independent from the executive government as possible?

Becasue ballots and rules are kept as simple as possible to minimize the risk of confusion and the need for interpretation after the fact when there's a close call?

Or maby, just maby it's because the participating parties all have observers at each stage in the process to make sure there's no cheating?

Ofcourse, in a country where's there only 2 parties, collusion among the observers would be pretty easy to get away with...

/greger

Re:Depressing

[ShadeARG]

Questioning the integrity of your democratic process is the most patriotic thing you can do. If you don't (or can't) question it, then your system is fatally broken and bad things will happen.

Perhaps one of the scariest moments imagineable is when paranoia and common sense intersect. That's when you know something obviously isn't right, and there's nothing you can do to reverse the situation since any notion of your dissent will automatically label you paranoid.

The sad thing is that all of this should be redundant, but only a small few realize.

Re:Depressing

[HangingChad]

I don't know what's worse: the frighteningly bizarre concept of a voting machine with no voter-verified paper trail, or the small group of people who defend this literally indefensible practice.

If they don't defend it they have to admit the election was rigged. What's really frightening is the right wing has no moral problem rigging elections.

• No moral problems tromping on the poor
• No moral problems starting a war on false a false pretext and getting a lot of good people killed
• No moral problems selling the American people to big business like there's no tomorrow
• Replacing good science with bad religion.
• No moral issues with implementing state support of religion

Wow, I guess it's lucky these are all Christian people or I'd think we were being taken over by the Taliban.

Re:Depressing

[zoltamatron]

Paranoid? When has it not been okay to be paranoid? What do you call the Department of Homeland Security? The war on terrorism? Cameras on every streetcorner?

Why the hell is it not okay to have the same level of paranoia when it comes to electing our public officials?

Re:Depressing

[temojen]

Because the other candidates also have scrutineers.

Re:Depressing

[learn fast]

You can't delete paper with rm -rf *

Re:Depressing

[OldManAndTheC]

Three major voting methods exist in the U.S: DRE, optical scan and punch card. Both optical scan and punch card produce a paper record of each ballot cast. While individual voters cannot review their ballots after voting, candidates can challenge the results and ask for a recount.

The only way to invalidate paper ballots is by tampering with them to create overvotes or "spoiled" ballots. This can't be done on a large scale without being detected by simply comparing the numbers of invalid ballots to those cast in other elections. So while the paper trail is not "verifiable" by the voter, it still goes a long way towards preventing fraud, and is far preferable to DRE systems.

Credibility

[goldspider]

If this guy had anything of substance to say, he'd have written to a more credible/influential outlet than "a somewhat shrill political blogger".

Where is the outrage?

[_am99_]

"In my opinion Diebold's election system is one of the greatest threats our democracy has ever known, and the only way this will be exposed is with a Congressional investigation with subpoenas of not just Diebold officials but Diebold technicians."

Yes, I'd agree with that. But good luck with a congressional investigation, they probably won't even be able to get a real room to have meeting about it. Just like Downing Street. Karl Rove is a genius.

What butthole did the democrats have there heads up when let this scam be part of the 2004 election? They had 4 years! How you can have a company with the contract to build paperless voting machines being run by a loyalist to the incumbant party and not have the opposition do anything about it - IS RIDICULOUS!

I hope there is an upset in 2006, or it is going to be another 2 years of a radical Whitehouse running around unchecked, digging the US into deeper holes at every turn.

But really, were is the outrage? I mean this is your democracy?!

Re:Where is the outrage?

[Pxtl]

You don't understand. Left wing organisations aren't allowed to be outraged - when they get loud, they become shrill whiners, and laughed at. You get things like the crybaby-seal for the Democrats, or the "Michael Moore Is Fat" meme. Only equal-time-giving responsible centrists are allowed to discuss issues on the left.

Meanwhile, right-wing organisations are oppressed by the liberal media monopoly and must struggle to get their messages out. After all, white folks are oppressed by affirmative action and political correctness, Christians are oppressed by the secular school system and the activist judges, and the right-wingers are oppressed by the liberal media. As such, it's only appropriate that they can be voluminous and angry.

So of course, any outrage from the left wing is absolutlely preposterous. Don't suggest something so insultingly unamerican.

Re:Where is the outrage?

[kfg]

As someone who is obviously in sympathy with the left you are not taking into account that all they do is complain about the directions America is taking, which is treasonous America bashing.

Whereas those on the right spend all their time complaining about the directions America is taking, which is proud patriotism.

See the difference?

KFG

Exact same words...

[mindaktiviti]

will be said when you start to complain that Hitler v2.0 gets elected in the US Gov't.

"So what? You voted, you had your chance. *snicker*"

Are you sure it's an insider?

[artifex2004]

There's no proof offered, yet. I only skimmed the page, because it's in a crazy-blogger color scheme, but everything I saw seemed to be stuff seen on /. within the last year. Give us something new, something groundbreaking and (newly) newsworthy.

Keeping Vulnerabilities Quiet

[lukewarmfusion]

I don't think it's unreasonable for employers to demand that their employees keep a security information quiet.

However, keeping it quiet because they think that will improve security rather than fixing the problem is NOT reasonable. That's why we have whistleblower protections. A company that has this much of a role in our country - by way of their products - should be held to the highest standards. And from what it sounds like, they are not.

Which Diebold exec was the roommate of which politician?

Re:Keeping Vulnerabilities Quiet

[mOdQuArK!]

If it is really an issue of National Security concering "sensitive" information covering up misuse/loss/theft/etc is ALREADY a criminal activity. Voting is NOT that kind of life/death issue of national security.

I disagree with your assertion that voter fraud is "merely" a criminal act - I think the current U.S. administration has already demonstrated how voter fraud can result in compromised national security.

Unless they are doing formal proofs on the software or testing every possible path and range of inputs no one can say for certain the software is perfect.

The issues of voting are _not_ that complicated, compared to something like the avionics for the space program, and we have many, many real-world examples of solutions that were successful or unsuccessful throughout history.

If they have to do formal proofs and/or test every single possible input & output, and/or pay armies of hackers to try and break the system in any way possible, then they should do so. Systems which are used to make decisions which can have catastrophic effects on a society should be as near perfect is it is humanly possible to create.

"It's too much trouble" is the excuse of people who either don't care, or who have ulterior motives.

Re:It had to be said.

[Dynedain]

It's only been a year?

Oh God, we are soooo screwed.

Kerry Won Maryland by 9%

[Black-Man]

So much for the conspiracy theory.

Re:Kerry Won Maryland by 9%

[Daniel_Staal]

If he hadn't, it would have looked odd. Maryland is one of the most Democrat states in the Union.

A good vote-rigger would only swing the votes a few percentage points. Not enough that the 'actual' votes are extremely different from the 'expected' votes. So, you don't win every race and district. You just have to win enough...

If you want to talk conspiracy theory, you could point out that the exit polls were unusually innacurate in the last election. Not quite out of possiblity, but definately out of the ordinary.

Which would be the only sign of a wide-spread, intelegent, vote-fixing scheme.

it makes sense

[kevin.fowler]

If there were tight security, it would be too hard for dead people to vote. Wouldn't that be a shame?

Somebody please tell me

[instantkarma1]

why THE FUCK Diebold can make secure ATM machines but are such blithering idiots when it comes to securing their Voting Machines?

Putting on my tin foil hat, I don't think they are idiots at all. I think it was done on purpose. The bigger question is, why aren't WE doing more about this? The integrity of our democracy is at stake. How can shit like this be allowed to happen? How can we 'help' Iraq setup their new democracy when we are so utterly fucked up?

Yes, I'm mad. Mad at this happening, mad at this not getting more attention, mad at people who think I'm crazy for bringing it up. This is unacceptable.

Re:Somebody please tell me

[keesh]

What makes you think Diebold can make secure ATMs?

Re:Somebody please tell me

[learn fast]

ATM machines print out all of their transactions on an internal paper roll as they are being used. You can usually hear the printer Bzzt!ing away whenever you use one.

Re:Somebody please tell me

[ShawnDoc]

First, there have been reported vulnerabilities with ATMs in the past. Do a search on the Internet. But I think in general you are right, the ATMs Diebold makes probably are much more secure than their voting machines. Why? Banks demand security. They don't want someone hacking the system and making off with large amounts of money. So they won't buy an ATM from Diebold unless they feel that it is farily secure.

Based on what I've seen, most local voting districts don't care about security. They're interested in making the election process happen for as little money as possible. Quick and dirty is fine for them. Since they aren't demanding security, Diebold sees no reason to spend the time making a secure system.

Besides, if there's going to be any vote tamering or fraud, it's most likely to be conducted by the same people who decide what voting systems to purchase.

Re:Somebody please tell me

[kfg]

Clients will catch maybe 25% of those errors against them. . .

Because they don't trust them.

. . .the bank will catch 75% of the errors against them and successfully have them reversed.

Because they really, really don't trust them.

The OPs post had two parts. I responded to only one of those parts. You responded as if I had responded to the part to which I did not respond.

KFG

Re:Somebody please tell me

[Lifewish]

What makes you think that banks have a clue about computer security? There exists evidence to the contrary.

Re:Two words

[daniil]

Who thinks USA has anything to do with democracy?

*raises hand* I do. In a non-democratic state, you couldn't even make such accusations without having to fear imprisonment or death.

Comment removed

[account_deleted]

Comment removed based on user account deletion

I want my fucking piece of paper

[Dark Paladin]

I know, I'm asking for a lot. I was told by a coworker that it's a stupid request. After all, if I have an electronic voting system, isn't that suppose to eliminate the need for paper?

Bullshit. I'm sorry, but no - voting is not about how to do it the cheapest and most convienient for the government employees. The John Hummel Voting Ranking System goes:

1. Accuracy
2. Speed/Efficiency
3. Cost

So with that, my dream for the Ultimate Voting System goes like this.

1. Person shows up at the voting center with their ID. They are authenticated (whether this be by picture, or some sort of card reader, not important). If they can not be authenticated, then they get a physical slip of paper to vote with with the mark "Verify ID" and a number. If the ID is later verified, then the vote is counted. If not, then it can be placed in the "not counted" bin. (Not destroyed until 60 months after the election - this is to prevent too many "Whoops - we couldn't authenticate anybody"!) Granted, this ties into the problem with the "secret ballot" idea, but if you can't authenticate the user before voting, this is the next best thing. I'm sure someone could suggest a better method.

2. Assuming that authencated == true, then they are pointed to the voting machine. Voting machine is simple enough - a touch screen for "pick your candidate" with a picture, name, etc. If you're voting on a bill, then you can push a "detail" button to have a copy of it show up for your reading pleasure. Let it be handicap enabled with enlargeable text, comfortable seats (no forcing people to stand) and adjustable screens so folks sitting in wheelchairs can still access the screen.

3. Upon finishing, you are presented with a table of all of your votes and results, and a message reading "Is this correct?" If you select "No", you can change anything, otherwise "yes" means it's all good.

4. When you select "yes", three things happens. The vote is recorded to a local write once ROM device with a unique ID. This ID and voting information is transferred via an encrypted link back to some central location, so election results can be monitored in real time. The third thing that happens is a piece of paper is printed out with this unique ID and the voting information plainly printed out in the same table format you just read, perhaps with a bar code encoding the same vote results for quick tabulation later. You then drop this piece of paper into the voting box. The unique identifier is not related to the voter - just to the vote, so you can't tie in who voted for what, only that "some authenticated person" voted for something, and the unique ID is what they voted for.

5. Votes are now instantly counted. Upon finishing, all of the ROM media is removed and forwarded to a separate voting office - say, a separate division of the government - for validating. If the central office and separate office validate results, then the election is good. Just for kicks, a random sampling of the paper ballots are removed and compared (using the unique identifier) to the votes. If there's a descrepancy, you can pick it out quickly.

6. ROM and paper is stored for 5 years, then thrown out (by then, it's too late anyway), and available for public access by media groups/indepdant analysis.

7. Said above system should be written with GNU software, with MD5 and SHA1 hashes of compiled code made using standard GCC - version agreed upon by government officials at a specific date. Code is locked well before election date, and a copy of source and compiled code used is stored on the same write once ROM system (CD's should be fine) so anyone can compared and complain if they need to.

Whatever happens, no "proprietary" voting code, no "oh, it's secret to protect you dumb little voters" code - open, clear, and simple to validate and completely open to access. Anything less is asking for abuse, and I don't trust either party in the US not to have less-then-honest individuals hoping the screw things in their favor.

Of course, this is just my opinion. I could be wrong.

Re:I want my fucking piece of paper

[multiplexo]

I think your system is brilliant and sensible. Which of course means that we could never adopt it in America.

I know, I'm asking for a lot. I was told by a coworker that it's a stupid request. After all, if I have an electronic voting system, isn't that suppose to eliminate the need for paper?

Want to know how to shut him up? Take his printer access away and when he bitches say "Hey, that's a stupid request after all, you have a computer and weren't computers supposed to eliminate the need for paper and usher in the era of the paperless office?"

Re:I want my fucking piece of paper

[TykeClone]

1. Person shows up at the voting center with their ID.

This will never fly because of #1. And #1 alone would likely eliminate a whole lot of fraud.

I think that Georgia is attempting to require an ID for voting and it is being fought tooth and nail by various public interest groups (or perhaps "public interest" groups).

Re:I want my fucking piece of paper

[Bassman59]

"I think that Georgia is attempting to require an ID for voting and it is being fought tooth and nail by various public interest groups (or perhaps `public interest' groups)."

It's being fought because this special ID is not free -- therefore, it's the equivalent of a poll tax -- and the Georgia gov't doesn't have plans to put registration locations in convenient areas. Do some research on the subject before you dismiss the reason for fighting this out of hand.

Re:I want my fucking piece of paper

[deviantphil]

What's the argument against having to show ID?

In Michigan, as well as most states, a Driver's License or State issued ID costs money (albeit, $12 for 4 years in MI). Still, this constitutes a poll tax and as such is unconstitutional.

Re:I want my fucking piece of paper

[veg_all]

I think that Georgia is attempting to require an ID for voting and it is being fought tooth and nail by various public interest groups (or perhaps "public interest" groups).

Georgia is attemting to pass a law that requires voters to have an official state ID, namely a driver's license or, barring that, a surrogate state ID available for a fee. People are opposed to it because the effect (if not the intent, but really the intent too) is to disenfranchise the kinds of people who don't have driver's licenses and for whom buying a replacement ID is an onerous burden, namely the poor, which is to say to a great extent, the black residents of the state. In the 19th century this was called a Poll Tax and it served exactly the same purpose, namely to disenfranchise minorities. It was ruled unconstitutional then and hopefully will be again if Georgia insists upn promulgating this 21st century version.

Re:I want my fucking piece of paper

[American AC in Paris]

Are you kidding me? I got a replacement NJ driver's license two week ago; the out-of-pocket cost to me was $11. Are there really people with so little money that they can't afford to spend a Hamilton once every 4 years to affirm basic rights of citizenship?

It isn't just the cost; Georgia's scheme is seriously flawed in a number of ways. For example, there is currently no place in the city of Atlanta to get one of these cards. They have plans for opening one location in the near future. All told, there are roughly 150 (if memory serves) locations in the entire state where you can get these cards.

Let's say you're 68 years old and you live forty miles from the nearest ID registration area. You have no car, and you're living on a fixed income. There is no mass transit in your area, and to hire a cab would cost you three weeks' worth of "disposable" income. What do you do?

Let's say you're a twenty-two year old mother of two; your husband is stationed overseas. You're lucky to have time to brush your teeth in the morning, let alone spend seven hours of buses and queueing to get this ID card you'd only ever use to vote. Is it really worth sacrificing one rare day of vacation in the pursuit of a voter ID card rather than in the company of your kids?

The reality of life for millions upon millions of people in our country is that something that is so seemingly trivial to you or I is actually a fairly significant task. It just so happens that the folks who have the most trouble with this kind of thing tend to be poor, old, overworked and non-white.

I'm all for pulling ones' self up by the bootstraps, but you gotta have the boots in the first place. Go visit at our inner cities. Go visit our rural backwaters. Go speak to these Americans, and witness first hand just how hard life can be for your fellow countrymen. There exist people who, through no fault of their own, simply cannot afford to spend the time or money necessary to jump through hoops that you or I consider mere inconveniences.

Georgia's scheme is disenfranchisement coated in a thin layer of identity verification. Why else would a ten-year ID card ($35) cost significantly more than a five-year card ($20)? Shouldn't it cost the state less if they only need to process a voter once every 10 years rather than twice?

Re:I want my fucking piece of paper

[Zak3056]

People are opposed to it because the effect (if not the intent, but really the intent too) is to disenfranchise the kinds of people who don't have driver's licenses and for whom buying a replacement ID is an onerous burden, namely the poor, which is to say to a great extent, the black residents of the state.

Here is the Georgia State DMVS fee schedule.

A non-driver ID costs $20 for five years, or $35 for ten. That's $3.50-$4.00 per year. This is NOT an "onerous burden." This is four cans of soda. What's more, is they offer an ID card "for voting purposes only." Cost: free. Tempest, meet teapot.

For god's sake, Jimmy Carter is on board with this. While I often disagree with the former president's politics, I have no doubt about the man's integrity and honest desire to do the right thing. I would certainly trust him to not craft a system that disenfranchises poor voters.

Lobby Consumer Reports to check this out

[Safe Sex Goddess]

When I think about well respected non-partisan organizations, it seems Consumer Reports would be the organization to prove or disprove this.

Let's end the debate once and for all and lobby Consumer Reports to evaluate electronic voting machines. Following is a link to their feedback form.
http://custhelp.consumerreports.org/cgi-bin/consum erreports.cfg/php/enduser/ask.php?

Re:Interesting article

[bersl2]

Yeah, Diebold would love a face transplant; it's a bit too late for them to save the current one.

Re:Two words

[daniil]

Many Democrat Slashdotters are just hoping for a different version of "selected not elected" for the '04 election.

Unfortunately, their chances of getting their candidate selected retroactively are quite low. So far, all the evidence seems to point that Bush was, indeed, elected for the second term (suck it up!). As far as I know (I must admit that my knowledge is based on what I've read from the press), there's no real evidence of any vote fraud. Even this 'insider' has no evidence of actual fraud.

Re:It had to be said.

[saskboy]

You know the old computer saying:
"Garbage In / Garbage Out"

I'm not surprised that the Diebold model number of the voting machines last election were GIGO 5000s.

Why are we accepting this fraggin' mess???

[teutonic_leech]

Okay, I've heard it all - how difficult it's supposed to be to deliver a concise vote, and that we all 'have to live with a certain amount of misvotes and irregularities'. Well, NO - WE DON'T!!! Look at banks - they process billions of transactions on a daily basis and almost NEVER get any of them wrong. Are there irregularities and mistakes sometimes? YES, but they usually figure out what went wrong and the numbers are precise at the end of the day. How often have you gone to the ATM and got a printout stating that you've got somewhere 'around 3000 bucks - give or take'? LOL!!! Seriously - I'm not saying we should privatize this essential aspect of our democracy, but if the banks can setup a system that's nearly flawless and does the same work on a daily basis that our government needs to do ONCE every 4 years, then I feel like we're all having the wool pulled over our eyes.
Damn I'm really pissed about this eternal bul...it - counting votes is so important these days and we all are acting like fuc...ing sheep...

Re:Why are we accepting this fraggin' mess???

[OldManAndTheC]

While I'm not apologizing for the poor state of vote counting processes, part of the reason banks are good at what they do is that they do all the time, day in and day out. Elections happen once or twice a year. That's a long design-implement-revise iteration cycle. It's more like launching a missile than making a bank transaction - you have one chance to get it right, and if it blows up it makes big news. You never hear about ATM's making mistakes (although they do on rare occasions - it happened to me once). Another difference is that there is a natural check against mistakes, in that the account holder verifies his bank balance against his checkbook. There is no similar relationship between a voter and his vote - once it is in the ballot box, he cannot check his "account" to see if the vote registered properly.

Having worked in elections for many years, I'm convinced that most voting errors are committed by voters who are not able or not willing to follow the instructions. The voting system can only go so far to prevent a voter from making an error when he is determined to do so. This is not to say that the systems are perfect - there is much room for improvement.

And as for privatizing the system, this is largely true already. All DRE systems, machine readable ballot counting hardware and the vast majority of central tabulating software is produced by private companies. I personally know of one company that does contract election work for cities and counties, that is, they take over the entire vote counting operation. They do a fine job, but no better or worse than their government counterparts.

Re:Two words

[Alex P Keaton in da]

Who thinks USA has anything to do with democracy?
Wow- not to be an ass- but the US isn't a Democracy. It is a representative republic.
A true Democracy in the US would be sort of scary- Imagine mob rule. Think about it.
A well Written article on Democracy v. Republic
http://www.wallbuilders.com/resources/search/detai l.php?ResourceID=4
Republic v. Democracy
by David Barton
We have grown accustomed to hearing that we are a democracy; such was never the intent. The form of government entrusted to us by our Founders was a republic, not a democracy.1 Our Founders had an opportunity to establish a democracy in America and chose not to. In fact, the Founders made clear that we were not, and were never to become, a democracy:
[D]emocracies have ever been spectacles of turbulence and contention; have ever been found incompatible with personal security, or the rights of property; and have, in general, been as short in their lives as they have been violent in their deaths.2 James Madison
Remember, democracy never lasts long. It soon wastes, exhausts, and murders itself. There never was a democracy yet that did not commit suicide.3 John Adams
A democracy is a volcano which conceals the fiery materials of its own destruction. These will produce an eruption and carry desolation in their way.4 The known propensity of a democracy is to licentiousness [excessive license] which the ambitious call, and ignorant believe to be liberty.5 Fisher Ames, Author of the House Language for the First Amendment
We have seen the tumult of democracy terminate . . . as [it has] everywhere terminated, in despotism. . . . Democracy! savage and wild. Thou who wouldst bring down the virtuous and wise to thy level of folly and guilt.6 Gouverneur Morris, Signer and Penman of the Constitution
[T]he experience of all former ages had shown that of all human governments, democracy was the most unstable, fluctuating and short-lived.7 John Quincy Adams
A simple democracy . . . is one of the greatest of evils.8 Benjamin Rush, Signer of the Declaration
In democracy . . . there are commonly tumults and disorders. . . . Therefore a pure democracy is generally a very bad government. It is often the most tyrannical government on earth.9 Noah Webster
Pure democracy cannot subsist long nor be carried far into the departments of state, it is very subject to caprice and the madness of popular rage.10 John Witherspoon, Signer of the Declaration
It may generally be remarked that the more a government resembles a pure democracy the more they abound with disorder and confusion.11 Zephaniah Swift, Author of America's First Legal Text Click link for more

Does it matter?

[Anonymous Coward]

We have only two parties that can get elected in almost any election in almost any state (the Libertarians and Greens win one or two once in a while, but very seldom).

Both candidates are given "campaign contributions" by (often foreign-owned) corporations.

The copyright "reforms" in the last 20 years were all passed by 100% of Senators and (iirc) 100% of the house.

The bankers were able to buy bankrupcy "reform" whereby a corporation can declare Chapter 7, but you can't any more.

As long as both viable candidates hold the same views on all the issues (views that have been paid for in cash), what difference does it make which candidate wins? And besides the possibility of jail or fiines, why should I obey their bought and paid for laws? Is it any wonder why so many young people these days profess themselves to be anarchists?

I, for one, would like to see some viable third, fourth, and fifth party candidates like they have in more civilized countries.

Here's a hint: why is the US the only industrialized nation without universal health care? The corporations own the government.

Were we to have a half dozen parties instead of two, perhaps fewer corporations would be able to afford to bribe all teh candidates, and maybe we would have a viable choice.

Now, here's a question: in the last Presidential election, the Libertarians were on the ballot in all fifty states. Ralph Nader was not.

So why was Nader talked up so much by the media, while the Libertarians were never mentioned? Could it be that the news outlets are all owned by the same people as the rest of the corporations?

Behind every evil corporation is a million evil shareholders. Are we going to continue to let them run our lives?

I, personally am not voting for any more Republicans or any more Democrats. I'm going to "waste" every single vote, from now on. Because the way I see it, wasting your vote is the only way to not waste it.

You know what would be cool?

[CrackedButter]

Is if a third party won and not legitimately either, if it was hacked in their favour. Both big parties expect to win, so it'll kick up a huge stir if neither of them did. Imagine the media attention over the winner and then the diebold system in use.

Compromised election systems

[bl968]

Get the facts read Project censored's No Paper Trail Left Behind:The Theft of the 2004 Presidential Election

And who is going to rig an election?

[alexhmit01]

Jherek Carnelian writers, "The difference is that if you want to burn ballots in the field, you have to physically go get the ballots, physically transport them, and physically destroy them. All of which carries some amount of risk of being caught by widely-understood, traditional methods of security."

Most cases of election fraud aren't "rogue anarchists," its the local political machine. Generally, it is done by the police, the Sheriff's office, or someone else in the local political establishment.

Online liberalism only focuses on the national political scene, but politics is a rough sport, and generally takes place on the ground... busing people to polling stations, driving around neighborhoods to "get out the vote," and the Sheriff's office losing/finding ballots...

It's a fantasy about how democracy works from an online-only world that ignores the reality that all politics are local, and there is only one election in the US that is semi-national (the President/Vice President, because while the mechanics involve electing electors, people vote for a national candidate). All the OTHER raises from school board/city council, through state legislatures, through the Congress, are all LOCAL or at most state-wide elections.

Alex

I for one...

[Zaurus]

I, for one, welcome our new...wait...that's odd. I thought I voted to _welcome_ the new hackable overlords, but it says here that I actually voted to boil them in oil. Weird.

It's worse than a modem ...

[Anonymous Coward]

Now, I'm not sure if the units that were in polls in VA were the Diebold units, but I did ask the polsters about the ones in my local poll station. They were "running Windows 2000 with wireless network access." I laughed all the way out of the door after I submitted my paper ballot.

Re:Two words

[agurkan]

:: Who thinks USA has anything to do with democracy?

: *raises hand* I do. In a non-democratic state, you couldn't even make such accusations without having to fear imprisonment or death.

That kind of retaliation would happen only if you pose a real threat or they have nothing to lose by imprisoning/killing you. For the US, the mass media ensures to show criticisms of the government and big corporations (which is becoming more and more the same thing), so you are not a real threat; on the other hand if government acts on you, they may wake some people up who have the illusion of democracy, so they do not. I gues when they really need to act they label you as a terrorist first. There are already many new restrictions on free speech. There are designated free speech zones during meetings etc. in the US! What the fuck does that mean?

this says it all....

[KillShill]

http://www.electiledysfunction.org.nyud.net:8090/C onyersOhioHearing_chunk_1.wmv

right click and save as.

glad to know there are so many Diebold and ES&S supporters on slashdot... :-)

it's in wmv format but mplayer will play it just fine.

Openvoting.org

[fishfish]

Support -

http://openvoting.org/

Not only open voting, but open source for the firmware that takes your vote.

They have been doing good things in California.

It's still getting better

[Lispy]

I hear the next version will vote itself. No more getting up and leaving the house. You get all the presidents you deserve just by sitting in front of the TV and complaining about the outcome.

Re:Two words

[geoff lane]

Fraud doesn't have to be obvious, especially when using an electoral college system. In a close election a hundred votes here and there in a couple of counties may be sufficient to swing the college one way or the other. Such small manipulation would be extremely difficult to detect. Indeed, in an insecure voting machine you would cheat by deleting votes for the "wrong" side rather than by adding votes for the "correct" side. If someone complains, the machine has "malfunctioned" and without a full audit nobody is aware of all the missing votes.

Because it's a very different kind of security

[Sycraft-fu]

With an ATM machine, nobody has a reason to want to alter the results, except the person using it. The bank wants the ATM to be accurate. Ripping off consumers at the ATM would be supremely stupid since the amount is the proverbial fart in the windstorm, and they'd get caught and shut down.

So ATMs actually have essentially.no protection against the bank being fraudlant They contact the bank (via an encrypted channel, using IBM crypto cards) and ask how much money you have. If you have enough, they dispense it. The bank could easily lie to them, they'd never know. But that's not in the bank's intrest to do so, and banks are watched by eachother, the feds, etc, etc.

In essance, with an ATM, you can trust the operator.

Voting machines are different. You CANNOT trust the operator. It may well be in their intrest to alter the voting records. Perhaps they have been bought off, perhaps they have very strong feelings towards a party, etc. Point is you have to assume that the person who operates the machine ants to tamper with it.

Well that's a whole different problem. Now you have to design a system that is capable of not only keeping users (who only have access to a limited UI) from messing with it, but operators as well (who have access to the internals). That's a much tougher design spec.

If you give me a computer and tell me someone will only have screen, keyboard and mouse access, and ask me to secure it, I'll whip something up in a couple days and pretty confidently say there's nothing they can do to break in. If you tell me they'll have physical hardware access, I'm sorry, I'm afraid that's out of my league.

unfortunately people could care less

[moxley]

What's really upsetting is that so many people think all of these things are just coincedences or accidents, or are do to laziness. All of the information about Diebold's lack of security and the ease to which their machines could be tampered with was available to the entire world before the election - as well as the insane conflicts of interest involving the ownership of the company and their promises to deliver certain states to Bush. This, along with all of the reports (by credible sources including city and state governmental workers) of misconduct in Ohio and still ...barely a peep. I mean, really, i'm not a democrat or a republican - but damn - I am sick of the US being run by criminals and corporations (of which many are run by or for the benefit of criminals) - and when I say criminals - these people are criminals - white collar or otherwise. People think Enron was the eception rather than the rule - well, sorry, that's not quite the case - it's more prevalent than that. I'm not saying all corporations are evil or anything like that...I'm just sick of people being in denial about how corrupt America business and politics and the incestuous relationship between them is. Apathy reigns. I know the answer, but I can't help asking: Don't people know their history? When business and government collude to this degree where business basically calls the shots with profit above all else it doesn't end well. There is a word for it actually. Diebold needs to be put in check - seriously. Evoting with no paper trail or verification system is absurb - it pratically guarantees misconduct on some level.

Re:Two words

[Scrameustache]

In a non-democratic state, you couldn't even make such accusations without having to fear imprisonment or death.

For the love of all that is good and holy, will you PLEASE stop confusing concepts like that. "Democratic" is not the anti-thesis of "opressive", etc. It is for the purposes of proganda, but dammit, stop.

Not to mention the complete illogical nature of your statement "In a non-democratic state you couldn't even make the accusation that the state is not democratic". Come on!

If people didn't go all wide-eyed and emotional everytime a politician says "freedom" t them, then you might be able to actually have a functionning democracy, and not a bunch of sheep voting for who they're told to vote.

voting is immaterial

[zogger]

because it is not what is important as to how things are done or the real political process or the real governance (rule is a closer term) of peoples. We have a technofeudalistic society currently, basically two classes, the so-called middle class is just in serious denial that they are still relevant to any political process.

Here is the quote that matters:

rothschild - "Give me control of a nation's money and I care not who makes the laws."

Hardest comouting task EVER!

[SQLz]

I can see why making an electronic voting machine is such a difficult task. I mean, the code to add numbers together depending on what button was pushed sounds like some really hairy stuff.

Lets see

if(button==1)
      TirdSandwitch++;
else if(button==2)
      GiantDouche++;

As you can see, there are millions of bugs that could happen in this scenario.

Hennepin County Minnesota changed procedure

[Anonymous Coward]

For the two largest counties in Minnesota, one has some sort of response to election security problems.

In Hennepin County the scanner system, not Diebold scanner machines, the precinct results were no longer modemed in to the county office but hand delivered in the September election.

Ramsey County Minnesota uses Diebold scanners with the suspect central counting software. Public Test of Ramsey Voting Systems

Not quite so shrill,

[quarkscat]

so much as right on target.

But when all the other "dirty tricks" are factored in, the electronic voting machine fraud that occurred in many other states besides Ohio, begin to look like a coordinated and concerted effort to effect the outcome of national elections by illegal means. The number of states employing fraudulent lists of felons to be barred from voting increased considerably from the 2000 election fiasco in Florida and Georgia -- the same company's database was employed in a dozen states in the 2004 national election to disenfranchise voters. Upon passage in Arizona of Proposition 200, which (among other things) increased the penalties for illegal aliens registering to vote, the voter registration lists in only one AZ county dropped by nearly 10%. (Check the archived news links at "www.cis.org" for details.)

The Republican controlled US Congress passed a $6 Billion USD piece of legislation to furnish electonic voting machines across the country after the "hanging chad" problem became public in FL in the 2000 election, but without establishing the appropriate standards and guidelines for security or recount capability. Until the US government investigates the increasing number of vote count fraud cases that independent investigators keep uncovering from the 2004 national election, this country would be far better off (small "d" democratically speaking) to revert to individual paper ballots (perhaps validated with the Iraqi equivalent of an indelible ink thumbprint.

The regime currently in power in the USA seems to have a very flexible and pragmatic view of what constitutes a democracy, here or abroad. Bolivia and Venezuela (both oil rich) have "corrupt" democracies that tend to favor the majority (poor) over the wishes of the elite. Taiwan has a democracy that the US Department of State finds "problematic" when they publically express their desire to remain independent of Communist China. The appearance of democratic "principles" in Egypt and Pakistan are far better than the Islamic revolution that would occur in either country with true democracy. But a neighboring country (Iran) that has a more valid claim to democracy is somehow another "corrupt" (but oil rich) oligarcical regime. Anyone else beginning to see the Dubya/neo(Con)artist hypocracy at work?

Something stinks in the USA, and it isn't the dead , bloated bodies of poor people in New Orleans. The $2 Billion USD it would have taken to fix the levee system there was diverted to the Iraqi war. The National Guard troops (and their equipment) were in Iraq instead of being available to aid the people of Louisiana and Mississippi in theri time of need. But the Dubya regime can NOW find the $200 Billion USD to fix the results of the hurricane disaster. It does not make up for the loss of life in any way, shape , or form. And watch the same defense/government contractors scrambling for their piece of this pork pie as have been feeding at the USA's Iraqi $$$ trough.

Blackboxvoting hacked the Diebold optical scanners

[JimMarch(equalccw)]

Anybody seen the Hari Hursti report yet?

http://www.blackboxvoting.org/BBVreport.pdf

Re:Two words

[lgw]

There is no evidence because there is NO paper trail...

And this is why Diebold must go. I don't for a minute thnk election fraud in 2004 was any more widespread than any other presidential election, but can anyone *prove* it? OK, admittedly, even with a paper trail you can't prove there was no fraud, as ballot boxes can be swapped out in transit and such, but in practice this can't be done on a large scale without it becoming obvious due to screwups by the fraudsters.

With no paper trail, someone committing vote can have a huge impact with a very small chance of being caughtin the act, and no chance at all of finding the fraud afterwards. We absolutely need a system where intense scrutiny after the fact is likely to turn up evidence of the crime. This will be a much greater deterrant, but more importantly will give us a much higher confidence in the system.

Computer *aided* voting is a great idea. Have a touch-screen with pictues to help roor readers, have adjustable finst to help the vision-impaired, have an interface that allows the blind to vote in private, print a ballot that is guarenteed to be properly marked. But the result needs to be a marked ballot, not a set of bits. A completely seperate process can automate counting the ballots -computer-printed optically-scanned ballots work extremely well, with no sacrifice of a paper trail.

Halloween is coming up...

[homebrewmike]

In addition to the Knoppix CD's we'll be giving the little ghosts-n-goblins, perhaps we ought to include a position paper on Electronic Voting.

Heck, at the next big game, chat with your non-geek friends about it.

Things are getting worse not just because the elected people are twits (there are a few good ones...) things are getting worse because the American people are electing jack-asses.

When was the last time YOU actually went to a library and did some research on what's happening?

How about Israel? Why are the Jews there in the first place? What's the big deal about Gaza? What do Moslems really believe?

If you can answer, how about your brother-in-law? He have a clue?

To pick up a current conservative thread - let's stop blaming other people, and take some responsibility ourselves.

Educate, people, educate!

Worse than scary

[plover]

Thanks to the electoral college system, all it takes is one state to cheat. As long as it's the right state.

Then, within that one state you just have to swing enough votes to tip the scales.

That means flipping half the difference. Using a made-up example, if the state of Bushsylvania has 10 million likely voters and polls show they'll vote 49% D and 47% R, you have to reverse just over 1% of the votes to push it to the R column. That's only 100,000 fraudulent vote reversals, or 110,000 if you include a 10% safety factor. Hell, it wouldn't even take much money to outright BUY that many votes, much less rig the voting machines. (Note that "ballot box stuffing" is less efficient than "flipping" -- to win Bushsylvania, for example, would require 220,000 phony ballots to be added, which is a much bigger task.)

And you might not even have to spend that much. If there are (say) four undecided states with the power to affect the outcome, go to the two with the narrowest margins, and twiddle theirs.

Remember to limit your exposure as much as possible. Restrict tampering to as few districts as you can. Prefer those with the highest numbers of voters, but with historically low turnouts. (Poverty stricken areas are ideal for this kind of tampering.) You don't even have to make every tampered-with district put in "wins" for your candidate -- you just have to reverse a total of 110,000 votes.

You want to keep it local as much as possible. Run it like a terrorist cell -- tiny groups of insiders who each know very little about the overall plan or about other people. Choose your fall-guys in advance, maybe plant some evidence 'in reserve'; in case someone turns coat you can blame a few overzealous campaign workers, and cut them loose before they start reporting further up the chain.

Re:Worse than scary

[Anonymous Coward]

Sounds like our last two presidental elections. Al Gore wanted "all the votes counted" in all of 4 Florida counties that were all between 55-65% democrat. "Votes" counted by democrats, in areas where a fat bell curve would make hiding fraud easy. IIRC, John Kerry wouldn't concede the election till the provisional ballots in Ohio were counted. Both men engaging in very suspicious looking behavior in paper based systems.

The Diebold system would probably make hiding fraud easier. Compromise a couple of people where the *ouch* MS Acess files are send to, and you're in business. Even if I were a neocon, this would make me nervous. If Diebold is part of a "vast right wing conspiracy" who's to say that the Diebold system won't be used by the other side someday to keep neocons out of office?

Until politicians suddenly get honest, paper ballots have a lot going for them. So does having statewide balloting to decide what our voting districts look like. Our current system lets politicians decide amungst themselves who's in their home district; give me a safe district, and I'll give you one. If congressman actually had to worry about their re-election prospects more, special interest money would have to lose some of it's power in the process.

Re:Two words

[msblack]

So far, all the evidence seems to point that Bush was, indeed, elected for the second term (suck it up!).

Maybe you forgot about Florida's Kathleen Harris. Harris hired a private company--Voter Identification Services--to purge Florida roles of all the "darkies" because of their tendancy to vote for Democrats. VIS purged some 57,000 voters from the roles claiming they were ex-felons [more credible sources available--search left to reader as an exercise] and, therefore, ineligible to vote. Nevermind that their accuracy rate was a dismal 5% because their system passed judgment on name alone. If gross incompetence by the head of Florida Bush/Chenney isn't fraud in your book, I wonder what you require as proof.

Re:It had to be said.

[Penguinshit]

There is another election in 2006. This one is Congressional. Depending on the outcome of that one, Dubya may not have another two years.

There is plenty of evidence for impeachment, but only a few Congress-critters who don't have their own asses also hanging in the wind of corruption.

Re:Huh?

[Sycraft-fu]

It's still tougher. I didn't say impossible, I said tougher. I think Diebold just tried to whack their ATM technology to do votes.

50% + 1; or, hate to burst your bubble

[DanTheLewis]

Anyone who thinks there is no difference between the Republican 50% + 1 indictable money-hungry lobbyist-happy cronified upper-class-tax-cutting postmodern-PR national-debt-dollar-crisis bubble hellhole and the Democrat hellhole needs to look at a few more pictures of poor black people starving to death in New Orleans.

There's a reason you don't let the inmates run the asylum, and there's a reason you don't drown the government in the bathtub, and there's a reason you don't let the generals run the prisons, and there's a reason you don't give the executive uncontested fiat in "wartime".

At least the Democrats aren't trying to turn Social Security into a giant game of Zapitalism, extend the estate tax into the blue horizon, lead us into destructive wars for no real reason, destroy their political opponents in ways that endanger our national security (Plame is one of many), gut Medicare...

Who could possibly say that if Al Gore had won in 2000, America would be in the same place it is today?

Re:It had to be said.

[Captain Splendid]

Depending on the outcome of that one

I've got ten bucks says it's a Republican majority. Any takers?

Only problem is you named the wrong party

[bigtallmofo]

Your example was an amazingly accurate rendition of how the Democratic party steals elections.

The bottom line is that both parties will do anything they can to either get or stay in power. It's shameful on both sides. Anyone claiming that cheating is only occurring on one side or the other is a partisan hack.

(similar to how anyone that claims their party is 100% moral while the other is 0% moral is a partisan hack)

Re:It had to be said.

[vsprintf]

Actually that is why it appeared that so many people voted for John Kerry, I mean cmon, I know that alot of people said they were going to vote for, but when push came shove, no one in their right mind voted for him.

I'm a real Republican (not a neocon) who voted for Kerry. Being a choice of lesser evils, it wasn't an easy decision, but I believe events have shown that I was in my right mind. If we get Hillary in '08, it will be due to Bush in '04.

Those who ok the use of such systems....

[3seas]

...are themselves corrupt.

There is no other reason to put in use or allow the use of such a system that can and has been used to misrepresent the public vote.

Re:It had to be said.

[Penguinshit]

You're on.

Folks are tired of all the bullshit that's been going on the past 5 years. There is nobody to blame except the party which has made a big deal about how they are in complete control. All of the spin trying to place blame elsewhere merely gets them in deeper. It's political quicksand, and nobody is interested in throwing a rope.

Re:It had to be said.

[Captain Splendid]

Folks are tired of all the bullshit that's been going on the past 5 years.

It's been going on longer than that, far longer than ol' shrub's been in office. Viewing politics through a big blurry W lens only hurts you.

There is nobody to blame

There's always somebody to blame. Hell, they don't even have to be a Democrat or a liberal, just painted that way.

All of the spin trying to place blame elsewhere merely gets them in deeper

The situation fell of the edge of cliff ages ago, and you think a few extra feet's going to matter?

I'll leave you with one last thought: A Democratic win in either House or Senate will just provide a bright shiny new target, one long caught in the headlamps. A win in both will only provide false comfort in them thinking the system still works, and that's it. I mean, be honest, do you really think they'll get anything accomplished between '07 and '09? Not only are the Republicans going to win, I want them to win. Things need to get a lot worse before they ever have a chance of truly getting better.

Re:It had to be said.

[Penguinshit]

Wow.. have you always been such a nihilist?

I kind of agree with you regarding worse-before-better. However, I don't see how things can get much worse without some long-lasting harm coming to the nation.

What I foresee is a repeat of the late 70s, where a national hangover from an unpopular elective war and the implosion of a thoroughly corrupt administration drains the national morale. I only hope that the American voters don't get further lulled into seeing some insane nationalist as a savior again, since that is what got us into our current mess in the first place.

Re:Two words

[Kohath]

From the post you linked to:

Of the 3,258 names on the original list, therefore, the county concluded that more than 15 percent were in error. If that ratio held statewide, no fewer than 7,000 voters were incorrectly targeted for removal from voting rosters.

Bush's margin of victory in Florida in 2004 was 380,978 votes.

Re:It had to be said.

[Master of Transhuman]

Given that humans are 98.5% chimp anyway, there's not much of a choice.

As the anarchists says, "No matter who gets elected, the government gets into office."

We Transhumans modify that to: "No matter who gets elected, an alpha chimp gets into office."

My story from Ohio

[Deitheres]

I voted in a suburb of Columbus (pickerington, fairfield county) that is predominantly republican. I voted in a gymnasium of an elementary school... there were ~50-60 machines in the room. It took me 20 minutes to vote. I have friends that live on OSU campus and other precincts in Columbus that are traditionally predominantly democrat, and they had to wait anywhere between 2-6 hours to vote.

What has our democracy come to when those who vote a certain way are given precedence over others who vote differently? Was there a link between Blackwell being both the Sec. of State *and* the co-chair of Bush's ohio re-election campaign? If there wasn't, it certainly didn't do anything to help his credibility-- especially once stories surfaced about the horribly inept (intentional?) placement of voting machines by precinct.

It's deplorable, inexcusable, and I think they should be brought up on trial for it. And I'd say the same if all those being discussed were democrats rather than republicans.

Re:Two words

[Marxist Hacker 42]

And assuming the machines can be tampered with it's just as likely machines were tampered to favor Kerry as Bush

Not just as likely- the President of Diebold didn't promise to do everything in his power to deliver Ohio to Kerry. It wasn't Republican counties that were shorted machines and given confusing lines without signs to make sure that people who got in the wrong line couldn't vote within the 24 hours alotted. And eyewitness reports didn't see the cursor jump to Kerry from Bush- but they did see the Bush button "click" when they pushed the Kerry button.

All of these suggest that Kerry MIGHT have taken Ohio- but since the head of the elections board was a Republican who refused to investigate these and other such anomalies in a reasonable amount of time, you're quite correct that there will be no day in court for Kerry. Add to that of course that Kerry's a wimp who decided not to press the issue.

Personally, there was enough circumstantial evidence that any county using Diebold in the future will be facing court challenges to prove the verification of their votes. As well they deserve.

Re:It had to be said.

[Marxist Hacker 42]

American voters don't have any real choice in the matter- it's always between Candidate R who has been bribed by the multinational corporations or Candidate D who has been bribed by the multinational corporations. Either way, us human beings are just second class citizens- slaves to the profit machine that Hamilton started and the Supreme Court made our masters in 1886.

Re:well DUH

[operagost]

Of course, some are doing a good job of cheating without hacking a single voting machine.

Re:Imagine the Response...

[randyest]

And what if he had exposed the corruption and incompetence in Louisiana state and New Orleans city government that diverted federal levy funds to cronies and failed to follow it's own evacuation plans?

What if he predicted that a city that can mobilize the poor to vote with the aid of city and school busses wouldn't bother to do the same to move those same voters out of harm's way because the school busses weren't comfortable enough according to Mayor Nagin and they wanted to wait for the feds to send greyhounds?

And what if he had screamed "murderer" at Clinton and cried "where was FEMA?" and "the federal government and the president are racist because they didn't evacuate or help the 1,000 mostly poor, old, and black people who died in the Chicago Heat Wave?

What about those? Or are those points not on your anti-Bush agenda?

I'll be the Devil's Advocate....

[popo]

I'm a hardcore democrat, but ... just for purposes of discussion, I'll be the flamebait:

"Diebold threatened violators with immediate dismissal," the insider, who we'll call DIEB-THROAT, explained recently to The BRAD BLOG via email. "In 2005, after one newly hired member of Diebold's technical staff pointed out the security flaw, he was criticized and isolated."

Ok... so this whistle blower who worked for Diebold went to The New York Times? No. Went to The Washington Post? No. Went to a... newspaper? No. This whistleblower went to The Brad Blog. Any questions?

Democrats have been cheating for years

[ccmay]

Of course, some are doing a good job of cheating without hacking a single voting machine

That's for sure. I have to laugh at the Democrats. They blow off concerns about dead voters, illegal-alien voters, and repeat voters as just so much unavoidable noise and friction in the system, or at worst, a chance for the "disadvantaged" to level the playing field a bit.

But if anyone proposes a requirement for a picture ID, or cutting back on lax absentee voting rules, or weeding the rolls of dead people, or God forbid a white policeman should pull over a non-white driver on Election Day, and oh my god it's Voter Intimidation and back to the days of Jim Crow.

One is the flip side of the other. Adding an invalid vote for one candidate has exactly the same effect as suppressing a valid vote for his opponent, all else being equal. If one is immoral, so is the other.

-ccm

Republican precincts have long lines too

[ccmay]

Predominately Democratic districts like those in inner city Cleveland and Columbus had too few polling places with people often forced to stand in line for six hours or more.

So what? I stood in line for four hours in my heavily Republican district in 2000. I made my kids stand in line too, as a lesson in civic responsibility. In the whole four hours, I only saw one person leave the line. We are broken-glass Republicans around here.

If these districts you mention are heavily Democratic areas, then someone needs to take the issue up with the presumably Democratic local election officials. Just like in Florida during the 2000 elections, when most of the alleged vote tampering for Bush took place in localities that were run by Democrats from top to bottom.

And I have no sympathy for any Democrat who finds a quart of malt liquor and a Jerry Springer Show rerun more appealing than taking a few hours every four years to exercise their right to vote. Fuck 'em, they don't deserve representation.

-ccm