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BlackBox Voting Tests California Diebold Machines
Doc Ruby writes "The California Secretary of State has invited Black Box Voting to hack away at some Diebold voting systems. The testing is set for Nov. 30, 2005. Evaluations conducted by Black Box Voting in San Joaquin, Marin, and Alameda counties (Calif.) reveal that a critical paper audit component is missing for all absentee and mail-in ballots, and also for recounts. (Black Box personnel were hired by the Libertarian Party to conduct inspections.)"
Unless there is third party auditing at the time of voting, or access to the source code with definitive proof that the shown code is compiled on the machines, and the machines haven't been updated, then it's an exercise in futility.
We want a paper ballot. Sure, we could have a computer voting system, but it has to spit out a paper ballot with my choices marked on it. THAT is the ballot that should be counted, either manually, or with an optical scanner.
If the paper trail that I look at is not the same ballot that is counted, I can't be sure that a programmer decided to print one thing and tally another.
Fascism trolls keeping me up every night. When I starts a preachin', he HITS ME WITH HIS REICH!
Some people have mentioned that receipts might be valid, however this raises issues of people selling votes (or being harassed). The anonymous paper and pencil system is the best --- while corruption can lead to large numbers of fraudulant ballot papers, if the corruption is at this level, there isn't much that can be done anyhow.
Unpretentious Sydney reviews by unqualified Sydney reviewers
If there's a backdoor of some kind for someone to specifically tamper with the voting results, that would be BAD, but I'd be surprised. I will not, AT ALL, be surprised, however, holes in the operating system, programs underlying the voting software proper, or so-called "middleware" are chock full of holes that someone could use. For that reason, I am very much against this process.
My suggestion to fix the system: There is nothing wrong with filling out (or sending in, for absentee voting) a paper ballot, which, in my opinion, should be produced with anti-counterfeiting and anti-tampering technologies, similar to those employed in our currency. An electronic system could be used to optically scan and process the votes, with individuals verifying the optical scan, and this information should be entered into a database for any kind of processing that the government needs to do, along with the optical scan of the original paper ballot. Most importantly, however, is this: Each paper ballot should have an attached "carbon copy" of some type that the user keeps, which will come with a special user ID and passphrase that the user can use after the election date to log in to a secure site and verify that his individual vote was counted as he intended. This sort of public watchfulness on the voting process will create a situation in which it will become extremely difficult to alter the results.
I, for one, don't care if they want to. This is about my country, my democracy (I know not a true democaracy, blah blah blah). If they want to sell products that ensure no cheating in elections, people need to KNOW, not assume, KNOW, that it is a system beyond reproach. It's about my democracy not some stupid companies profits.
Androk
No one said it had to be released under the GPL. They're welcome to retain their intellectual "property," they just have to allow public inspection. If anything, this would limit competition for Diebold because it would be a simple matter for them to accuse any upstart undercutting them of having seen the public source code.
I too have felt the cold finger of injustice.
As the democratic process has to be, in essence, totally transparent (during ballot counting, candidates can appoint witnesses who closely watch the ballot tallying process), it is no mystery that voting machines should likewise operate in a totally transparent manner, that is, not only that the source code be available for inspection by anyone who wishes to, but also that there is a verification process to enable anyone to verify that the actual compiled code in the voting machine has actually been compiled from the source code (yes, this is possible - it is being done for slots machines).
Some croporate sockpuppets on slashdot tend to forget that "intellectual" "property" is not an absolute thing like gravity or matter, but a convention that is GRANTED and, thus, can be witheld for specific reasons. Like, for example, insuring that the democratic process remains transparent.Now, if a company does not like the idea of writing open-source software for it's voting machine, it is entirely free to refrain from doing so and leaving the market to those who do not mind.
And, besides, the software would be totally useless without the hardware, so why should one care if anybody can "steal" it???
Finally, since the specifications given by the government for voting machines should clearly state that the source code shall be available for anyone who asks, if the company wants to make money, nothing prevents it from bidding a higher price to allow releasing the software.
Diebold is not entitled to an automatic profit. Nor any other business for that matter. If it cannot factor in the fact that the software will be lifted by other companies, and goes bankrupt for this, well it only has itself to blame. This is bullshit. Others manufacturers would have to make their machines identical to Diebold machines, and there, Diebold would have a very good case for suing them. To make a profit, given that their software will be released as I pointed out above.How would you protect the company's IP but allow an independent and honest study of the code to take place?
Have them release the source to the public. Not LICENCE the source to the public, just release it.
Sure, it makes it eaiser for other companies to copy what they're doing, but it is no less legal simply because it's easier. And if we apply the same standards to everyone, any company wanting to get into the elections business would need to release code, so it would be at least sorta easy to detect copying.
"whereas you'd need some engineers with logic analyzers to really track everything a totally computerized system is doing."
And they couldn't possibly monitor the situation. Are all the voting machines running approved code? Impossible to know. Is the code locked down, or is it being replaced dynamically to cover tracks? Unknown. Is the code, a closed binary, full of triggers and cheats that only activate within certain parameters? Human nature says probably. Have the flash card couriers been tampered with? Who knows. Are the MS Windows machines acting as accumulators tampered with? Shrug. Is the easily modified Access database on the accumulator protected from tampering with Notepad? Impossible. Is there anyone around who is both 1) suspicious 2) knowledgeable enough to spot gross tampering? Nope. Are the vote totals modified when the technicians are called in to fix the machines during elections? Yes, Virginia, they are and it is a fact.
Even paper backups won't work, and here is why: Paper ballots would not be counted unless a recount is triggered when the vote total could go either way because of a minute spread, OR obvious fraud is committed. If one is controlling the vote tallies at a district level, all you have to do, say, if the trigger is 1%, is to make sure the spread is greater than 1% -- and the RECOUNT NEVER HAPPENS. The paper ballots are not manually counted under scrutiny and compared to the computer counted votes.
And this is beyond the maddening fact that Americans don't understand computers, cheating, or how to avoid this mess. The persistent idiocy I always hear from officials or reporters is the "print a receipt to take home with you" concept. Hair. Pull. Out. Receipts are useless! Paper ballots must be printed for each vote, shown the the voter, and placed in a ballot box.
Here's a simple fix for the recount trigger problem: random manual recounts for every election. IF even ONE of the races turn up as fixed, the lid is blown and we go back to hand counts. I can only hope.
Diebold has fought a manual recount system so ferociously that (Occam's Razor) they have indeed fixed elections. Their have been a lot of stories and sources stating that the employees know something is crooked, altho they are afraid for their jobs. Jobs in IT are scarce. The top management is far-rightist and saw it's duty as electing Bush; the details are tiresome.
Notice exit polls are no longer conducted? They "broke" during 2000, so no news organization will have them anymore. This in spite of the fact that statistics don't "break" during only one extremely critical election, and no other. They didn't break, kids, the election totals were altered and no longer matched reality.
Now we have these damned cheating machines in my precinct. I will vote absentee. To stop me, they'll have to "lose" boxes like the last election.
The defunding of public schools has produced a nation of incurious people who can't understand how simple it now is to change election totals to suit those who run the machines.
They didn't break, kids, the election totals were altered and no longer matched reality.
What's ironic here is that in some countries, the exit polls determine the outcome of an election. The voting process itself is more a formality. I think this lends some strong credibility to your comment.
d they couldn't possibly monitor the situation. Are all the voting machines running approved code? Impossible to know. Is the code locked down, or is it being replaced dynamically to cover tracks? Unknown. Is the code, a closed binary, full of triggers and cheats that only activate...
Guys... it's really not this difficult. Think about it for a second. If the machine prints out a HUMAN-READABLE ticket that the voter can verify and stick in the ballot box, no amount of computerized shenanigans can significantly affect the vote. Then, it's a simple matter of counting up the votes on the tickets (whether automatically or by hand) and comparing that number to the number recorded on the computer.
And that's just a simple system. Far better have been lined out and even discussed at length on slashdot. It can be done.
Diebold has fought a manual recount system so ferociously that (Occam's Razor) they have indeed fixed elections... Their have been a lot of stories and sources stating that the employees know something is crooked, altho they are afraid for their jobs. Jobs in IT are scarce. The top management is far-rightist and saw it's duty as electing Bush; the details are tiresome.
Bullshit. We all hear lots of stories. I want to see evidence to your claims. The whole part about people losing their jobs is such a red herring. There's enough people wanting to know this information that no whistle-blower at Diebold would ever have to worry about getting another job or money for that matter. They'd become an instant hero (with movie rights) and would probably receive vast political and financial support from the great number of people who absolutely hate Bush. Think about it. They'd be bigger than Cindy Sheehan--before she went crazy.
But how about we use Occam's Razor again? The fact that SO many people are looking for tangible proof that fraud occurred and that none has been found leads to the conclusion that no evidence exists--which further leads to the conclusion that no fraud occurred. What's wrong with my logic here?
Don't get me wrong. I'm not saying that some fraud didn't occur (it probably did) or that Diebold isn't a morally bankrupt entity (they're pieces of shit). But making these outrageous claims that fraud, on an unprecedented level, affected the outcome of a national election without any sort of evidence is ridiculous. Not only that, but such accusations are dangerous. Public trust in the elections is paramount in a democracy. You wouldn't want the same kind of accusations being thrown seriously around without evidence if your guy won, would you?
Don't be surprised if your candidates keep losing elections if you (their supporters) keep promoting such ideas. The majority of Americans don't like extremists--and they HATE poor losers. Throwing those accusations without any sort of reliable evidence makes you look like both.
Notice exit polls are no longer conducted? They "broke" during 2000, so no news organization will have them anymore. This in spite of the fact that statistics don't "break" during only one extremely critical election, and no other. They didn't break, kids, the election totals were altered and no longer matched reality.
Maybe you should've paid better attention in STATS 101. Statistics based on unrepresentative samples are worthless. This is a classic problem with statistics.
Nobody is saying that the statistics "broke." It's just that they're inaccurate for one very simple reason: people motivated by different reasons tend to vote at different times. Those highly motivated tend to vote early. Those less motivated vote whenever it's convenient. In other words, the anti-Bush crowd rushed to the polls early in the day, and when polling services extrapolated from this sample set, it got a Kerry win. But later in the day, when the Bush voters showed up, it became clear that Bush was going to win--thus the discrepancy.
What
The first poster was paranoid, but you're wilfilly oblivious.
Exit polls have been used the world over to predict election results for decades .
The 2000 and 2004 elections were widely suspected to have been corrupt, and there's a positive litany of discrepancies, sketchy behaviour and incredibly convenient "co-incidences" around the personnel involved and results obtained. Then, after these useful and reliable exit polls disagree strongly with the "official" result, the administration says it doesn't want to do exit polls any more?
Have exit polls returned perfectly usable, useful results for the overwhelming majority of the time they've been used? Yes.
If "exit polls" had suddenly and spontaneously broken in this one case, does that justify not using them in the future? No, because statistical outliers aside, in general they're still very good.
Have we discovered any new maths, or a statistical theory that suddenly proves exit polls are dangerously misleading? No.
Were the exit polls wrong disproportionately more often in districts where Diebold machines were used? Yes.
So we have a single event where the long-working exit polls (which are normally accurate) are suddenly and significantly different from the final official tally. This could be written off as a statistical fluke, but the Diebold and ES&S machines are already suspected of widespread insecurity and/or deliberate tampering, and then when it all hits the media the administration announces it won't be conducting exit polls any more?
Why, when they've been used for decades without problem, are exit polls suddenly considered dangerous or misleading? Apart from, that is, their potential to provide an indication of election-tampering?
Everything in moderation, including moderation itself
"I want to see evidence to your claims."
It's on every diebold machine, just fish it out of the bit-bucket.
Insightfull, WTF? Your whole argument about statistics is based on the administration's official straw men (ie: exit polls were taken only in the morning, sampling is not as reliable as the official total). There were at least three sets of numbers, Rove's predictions, Diebold's count and the Exit poll stat's. Two of them were a very close match but they were not the two sets everyone (except Rove) had expected, the explaination is Rove101, stats101 has it's money on the exit polls.
"The majority of Americans don't like extremists--and they HATE poor losers. Throwing those accusations without any sort of reliable evidence makes you look like both."
Off course if I point out your statistician has no clothes I am a loser extremist and it is every American's patriotic duty to hate me. ( The "hate" bit may one day become the definition of "irony" ).
"Not only that, but such accusations are dangerous."
In other words, allowing people to voice concerns when they have no "evidence" is dangerous, therefore it's better to shun them than to answer their concerns. Modern doublethink: Provided you don't live in a cave with suicidal nutcases, it's ok to start a war without sane reasoning.
And did you exchange a walk on part in the war for a lead role in a cage? - Pink Floyd.