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Diebold Threatens Wary Voting Clerk
An anonymous reader writes "From the Salt Lake Tribune: a wary county clerk called in BlackBoxVoting.org to test the integrity of Diebold voting fraud machines, part of a recent $27 million statewide purchase (to make sure that only the "Right" candidates win). Diebold goon says machines are now jinxed and it may cost up to $40,000 to fly in a company witch-doctor to make sure there were no warranty violations. Since EVERY SINGLE VOTER who uses these machines is a potential hacker looking to alter election results, why is Diebold so concerned? "
Is it me - or did that post make no sense...
With such an effective president-deciding method as the 'Good Old Boys' network, who needs Diebold anyway?
If someone looking at the machines causes them to be compromised then how on earth can you put them in voting booths when hundreds of people will have physical access to them in a private setting? If you depend on completely restricting access to the machines then you've already lost, haven't you? I applaud the clerk for taking this stand. The very idea that the machines can't be inspected by a third party shows just how fragile such systems are. If they were truely secure it wouldn't matter who looked at them or how.
Lasers Controlled Games!
Since EVERY SINGLE VOTER who uses these machines is a potential hacker looking to alter election results, why is Diebold so concerned?
Because EVERY SINGLE VOTER isn't allowed a level of access to the machines to presumably perform an audit or otherwise tamper with and/or view the inner workings of the machines.
The solution is quite simple:
- Have a permanent, voter verifiable, auditable, and recountable paper trail (a feature Diebold and ES&S both offer)
- Have an open source system (which actually isn't at all required if the above condition is met)
And I don't mean just gerrymandering.
I feel kinda sick...is Diebold gonna get away with this?
Is this a case for the ACLU?
Blar.
Witch doctors? Jinxes? I read the entire linked article and didn't see any of that. What I did see was that Diebold wants to make sure the machines still work after a 3rd party possibly tinkered with them. I'd certainly be concerned if I sent a machine out into the wild, a 3rd party took a look at it, and now it may not be functioning properly. Diebold may be a little over the top here, but their concern is certainly warranted.
Why does Diebold design these machines in such a way that they *CAN* be hacked? I think that involving an Operating System and software in the design of such a machine is a critical error. As a computer engineer, I realize that overcomplicating things can lead to errors. DSP's can make hardware extremely cheap, but there are places where analog circuits are cheaper and more realiable! Why hasn't Diebold designed a hardwired electronic circuit or a mechanical system with failsafes such that the machine can't be hacked, and the wrong candidate will not be selected if the machine fails? There are so many places where their current design can and will go wrong. I believe that it's time for these loonies (or preferrably someone else who has more sense) to come up with a more rudimentary and failsafe design!
"Since EVERY SINGLE VOTER who uses these machines is a potential hacker looking to alter election results, why is Diebold so concerned?"
Did you sleep through ALL of yor cynicism classes? Diebold is throwing a fit to discourage anyone from snooping around in the guts of their voting machines.
Someone might, y'know, find something. . . . . . . .
Because if every single voter gets to hack the election results, then it's be a fair election. Duh!
January 20, 2009: President Stallman took the oath of office today, after the GNU/ESR ticket (GNU's Not United-states!) narrowly beat the Gates/Ballmer team campaign in an election that stunned the ruling Demopublican coalition...
According to Diebold, the polling machines are suspect, and it'll cost $40,000 to verify everything.
On the one hand - what if Diebold is purely running a bluff? Then the election board is going to have to pay $40,000 for Diebold to send in someone who will attach some alligator clips somewhere, run something that flashes lights, and generally run some dog and pony show before deciding whether its in their interest to declare the polling machines as sabotaged, just damaged, or just fine.
On the other hand - what if Diebold is honest? Then the election board is going to have to pay $40,000 for Deibold to send in someone who will attach some alligator clips somewhere run something that flashes lights, and generally run some dog and pony show before deciding whether the machines are in fact sabotaged, just damaged, or just fine.
Whether Diebold is bona fide or not, they are likely to claim trade secret privilege to hide the actual workings of their machine or their testing mechanisms... and again, if they're telling the truth, then they would claim that, and if they're not, then their claim would be hard to challenge.
So the fundamental question is this: do you trust Diebold?
Strike while the irony is hot! -- The Freethinker
I guess I forgot to run them through Babelfish a few times?
I have worked in the regulated fields of avionics and medical devices. You would think that federal and state governments would have regulations governing exhaustive testing of electronic voting machines against requirements to avoid conflicts like this. What is a secretary of state's job but to prevent pissing matches like this? I don't blame Diebold for not wanting some 3rd party yahoo breaking seals on their machines. But they can't point to a documented, legitimate qualification process to allay their customer's valid concerns. This is lousy engineering of the kind that pervades traditional IT.
an ill wind that blows no good
Man Diebold looks slimier and slimier every passing week, but I'm more disturbed by Joe Demma's, Salt Lake's chief elections officer, response to Bruce Funk's actions. Granted, Funk acted by going around Demma by calling in Black Box Voting to check the Diebold machines, when presumably Demma is supposed to be responsible for that (just my guess as he's the chief elections officer).
However, Demma seems more incensed at Funk because he may cost the state $40,000 for Diebold's astronomical recertification fee. He doesn't seem to be worried that people might not trust these machines. He doesn't seem to care that a state officer was worried enough to call in a non-profit third party to verify the integrity of these machines. I mean, these things could possibly affect the outcome of a vote, the foundation for a democratic republic! But instead of worrying about these machines he's clearly more upset about the $40,000 and Funk not talking to him about his concerns regarding the voting machines.
And of COURSE Diebold is going to tell you the machines are fine and fair. Sheesh, they want to make money don't they?
Isn't it great that chief elections officers have their priorities straight?
Give me a ballot sheet and a pencil any day over these closed, proprietary black box machines.
I know Slashdot has leanings certain ways on certain issues, and I'm fine with that, but we've just officially completed the smooth transition into a 15-year-old's blog.
Christ, this is sad to see.
mods the parent as "Troll", consider this, both Bush and Gore were both members of the "Skulls" when they were at Yale. The point, both of the nominees for President where of the same socio-economic class. I don't want to delve into any class war crap, I'm just saying that I've never seen, let's say, a college professor or someone who's not a millionaire or from a family that devotes it's legacy to political life - like the Kennedys or the Bushes - getting nomiated by the major politcal parties. And even if they did, they're treated as crackpots. Every election year, our new media profiles some guy who's running for president on some wacky platform or they're running to make a statement, like "Make pot legal!"
Saturday is April 1. Slashdot will be shut down. Sorry for the inconvenience.
First what they do is print confusing ballads in florida to turn people against paper ballets and create an outrage at typical means of voting, then offer a very simple touch screen way of voting without a paper trail. Congratulations, even the symbolic act of picking between the two puppets is on its way out.
Judges and senates have been bought for gold; Esteem and love were never to be sold.
"Then the election board is going to have to pay $40,000 for Deibold to send in someone who will attach some alligator clips somewhere run something that flashes lights, and generally run some dog and pony show before deciding whether the machines are in fact sabotaged, just damaged, or just fine."
Here's where this particular lie is exposed:
1) How can a single voting machine even cost $40K? I want to see the parts breakdown on *that*.
2) Wouldn't you want all the machines recertified before each election? I mean, if they're sitting in warehouse someplace between elections, who knows who poked at them? So each machine costs $40K to use every election?
3) And if this is all T&M, lets assume a generous hourly rate of $250/hour and the guy is staying in a $500 a night hotel. That means this takes about 3 full weeks to certify a machine!
Does anybody understand the implications of Diebold claiming $40K worth of damages here?
You were mistaken. Which is odd, since memory shouldn't be a problem for you
The county clerk should just get out. He's already finished. The state has already gotten into bed with Diebold, and the clerk has already tainted himself in the eyes of the state by calling in the activists.
Even if he right about the machines (and I believe he is)... the Powers That Be have already made their mind up about the issue.
The only ones now that can change things are the voters themselves, and that's a very tall order. We can barely get a 50% turnout to vote for president... how the hell can we get enough people out to call for a change to voting devices? And then, overcome the government's (and Diebold's) spin?
The problem with socialism is that they always run out of other people's money. - Margaret Thatcher
"On the other hand - what if Diebold is honest? "
On the third hand, it is a clear confession from Diebold that third parties can't accurately verify their voting machines and that their voting machines can be rigged.
So any county that thinks it is verifying that the machine isn't rigged by runnig pre-ballot checks is wrong.
They can point to this statement and say "IT ISN'T ENOUGH THAT WE VERIFY IT, BECAUSE DIEBOLD ADMITS THEY CAN BE RIGGED IN WAYS ONLY IT CAN DETECT".
Yes, a third party should examine the machines.
However, it should be a disinterested third party, not an advocacy group. No matter how well meaning and ethical the people in the group are, they can nonetheless be painted as enemies of the vendor.
What should be done is to have a professional firm that specializes in computer security audit the machines and provide a report on whether the machines are secure; if not whether and how they can be suecured. And provided the machines can be secured, what policies and procedures are needed to operate them so that fraud can be discouraged and detected.
This is just like having an independent financial auditor come in and look at your books and your financial control procedures.
Post may contain irony: discontinue use if experiencing mood swings, nausea or elevated blood pressure.
Why is everyone so hung up on: "Why aren't these machines inpenetrable to all sorts of physical attacks?"
Who cares how physically secure the machines are or aren't? Even if the machines were tamper proof (which they should be), who cares? The real problem here is that we have a closed vote counting and verification process. That is unacceptable.
Elections and the vote counting process should be completely and utterly transparent. I trust no machine to count votes. If we use any kind of machine, it should be verified by random human recounts.
This is not the kind of problem for a clever or slick solution. The only sane solution, IMHO, is to apply the KISS principle. Keep it Simple Stupid.
This would appear to be a very one-sided article. There is no detail or statement from blackboxvoting about what was actually done. Only a statement from Diebold about what they think was done. It does seem that the Diebold machine is weak if there is no way to restore to default level without a specialist flying in for $40K. Diebold should learn a few things about customer relations. It is really bad PR if a county official quits rather than certify an election using your machine.
Joe Demma, chief of staff for Lt. Gov. Gary Herbert, the state's chief elections officer, was plainly incensed with Funk for allowing Black Box to probe the machines.
"The problem is that instead of asking us or Diebold, Bruce Funk allowed a third party to put the warranty in jeopardy,"
So let me get this straight.
Election commissioner notices an irregularity in the memory of some voting machines, from whom the owner of the manufacturing company has very clear partisan leanings.
Election commissioner calls in a third party to run testing on the machines.
Now, I do not see a problem with third parties running audits on the machines used to count my votes. In fact, I want as MANY third parties running tests on thes to insure thier accuracy, as the fate of myself, my family, mmy state, and my country will be affected by what this machine spits out.
However, here we have third party verification being spun by Diebold as being a VERY BAD THING.
Whatever happened to transparency in government and in democratic processes? Is it not one of the core values of America?
You say you want a revolution....
Clint Curtis, the Diebold programmer who says politicians paid him to rig voting machines in Florida, is running for Congress. If what he says he can do is true, who would have the guts to run against him? Alternately, since he was fired and the voting machine company has a grudge, how can he possibly win?
--
make install -not war
"The problem is that instead of asking us or Diebold, Bruce Funk allowed a third party to put the warranty in jeopardy," Demma said in a telephone interview from Emery County. "If I sound frustrated, it's because I am frustrated. We don't know what they did to the machines. If Bruce would have just asked, we could have saved this forty grand."
First the BS part. If every machine is identical and every machine went through the same testing procedure then there shouldn't be ANY discrepancies in the machines memory. This is presuming that before the elections only that data necessary to perform the tabulation are on the systems. This is total BS to say that the discrepancies are the results of fonts.
As far as the $40,000 to 'fix' whatever is wrong with them, how does anyone know what needs to be fixed if Diebold doesn't allow anyone to test the machines? How does anyone know that Diebold won't surrepticiously make changes which could alter the outcome of an election by performing this fix?
Now for the truth part. By allowing a third party to examine the machines without notifying anyone, Funk did go a bit overboard. This is not to say that he went beyond his mandate to protect the integrity of the voting process. He should be commended for making sure all the i's are dotted and t's crossed before allowing votes to be cast.
However, by not informing the commissioners of his desire to have a third-party examine the machines for flaws or outright corruption, he has invalidated any findings by Black Box since it is true no one knows what they did or did not do.
The correct process would have been to tell the commissioners of his desire for a third-party review and if they objected or if Diebold objected, he could have explained his reasonings why he wanted another set of eyes to check things out (which is pretty much what was said in the article). If they refused the request he would have a much more firm standing to say whether or not the machines will do what the manufacturer claims they will do since by not allowing the examination it would appear that they, either the commissioners or Dieblod (or both), have something to hide.
As it stands now he's shot himself in the foot because he went behind everyones back and secretly had someone else examine the machines.
What is truly interesting is that the commissioners don't appear to be interested in what Black Box found but are more concerned that they'll have to shell out $40,000. That doesn't sound like the people are too interested in ensuring that the machines will work correctly but are more concerned about bean counting.
If Funk does resign I hope he vehemently and vociferously expresses his doubts as to the capabilities of these machines and insist that people use absentee ballots to vote. He should make the rounds on tv so he can clearly explain why he has his doubts so the people can understand what is going on.
We will bankrupt ourselves in the vain search for absolute security. -- Dwight D. Eisenhower
There was a very popular book (I believe now out of print - published in 1994 - "Applied Cryptography".) In it - it had a very good example of "secure voting". (I believe this concept has been published/discussed outside of this text - sorry to those who might have came up with it.) To try to summarize (removing cryptographic references where possible) - everyone gets a "ticket" saying they voted - and everyone gets a (separate, non-trackable) "ticket" saying *what* they voted for. Lists of both "tickets" are made public. Anyone and everyone can verify that their vote was cast and recorded properly. The point here - is that the the security in the system isn't in the machine, but rather in the system. Wouldn't that make more sense??
Both Clinton (D) and Nixon (R) were born poor, and made their political careers on their wits. Neither made any significant money outside their political careers, except books published after they left office. Even though they became rich by politics, they came from a disadvantaged underclass, exploiting America's class mobility to get power.
There's lots of class war in America, where capitalism is rigged to preserve its best opportunities for rich families. But the president themself is more of a pawn in that war than an emblem of it.
--
make install -not war
Are you even suppose to be submitting stories? Where's Zonk? Is Zonk on the phone? Get him in here....
I just picture Taco in a bathrobe and slippers shuffling into "Slashdot Central" when Zonk and the others are out of the room and sitting down and submitting articles until they come back in, slap his hand and lead him back to his room to up his medications.
Put down the submit key! PUT IT DOWN!
"Leo Fender was in a 'state of grace' when he designed the Stratocaster." -- Paul Reed Smith
Over at blackboxvoting.org they have some more information about what tests were actually run on the machines, what they found, and what diebold's official response was. Apparently, BBV did not actually do the tests themselves, they arranged for 3rd party security experts to go in and do the analysis.
h .cgi?file=/1954/19743.html
Here's the link:
http://www.bbvforums.org/cgi-bin/forums/board-aut
It's on black box voting's website, so obviously it will be biased, but at least it gives more detail than the gloss-over provided by the tribune.
So in vegas there are these things called "slot machines". You put quarters in and get big money back. They are regulated. Its very hard to tamper with them. You'd think that voting by machine, which some might say is slightly more important, might be at least as equally highly regulated. This of course doesn't mean that its a good idea or that there still wouldn't be problems, just to say there are systems where machines (mostly those that track money) do a pretty good job.
only infrmatn esentil to understandn mst b tranmitd
$40K to re-image a drive and maybe poke around to make sure no key logging hardware is in place (although a lot of good that will do with a touch screen)? Sounds like easy money to me.
Wanted: witty unique signature. Must be willing to relocate.
Comparing this to other countries is pointless - nobody has as fine-grained voting, absurd expectations from the news-watching population and "zero participation". No purely paper system can keep up any longer, not because of "hanging chads" but because the news media will release "results" (real or made up) as soon as they can. Any delay for counting - by non-existent "volunteers" - is reported as potential fraud by the news media.
Sure, some kind of countable paper might be nice, but it leads to silly things. If you sit five people down to count marks on 100,000 pieces of paper you will not get one result. At best, you will get two or three. And, it is not repeatable. We have had close elections recently that have gone through several recounts only to still be decided by one party giving up. I believe it was most recently the Govenor of Washington that was decided this way because the results were less than 1,000 votes different and each count produced different results, with a different winner.
I know paper isn't the answer.
As to the reasonablness of the $40K fee, it is real simple. Diebold is being asked to recertify the machines and they can charge anything they want. Government contracts like this always result in signficant charges like this because there is no option. It is stupid and naive to assume the fee would be anything like time-and-materials for a couple of real workers. There is also virtually unlimited liability if it is done wrong or not done at all. Compare this to recertifying a heart-lung machine for a hospital and consider that it would only be one person dead if it was wrong.
As has been discussed so many times on /. most of the problems with the Diebold stems from the unneccessary complexity of the system
Other systems in use like the Indian Electronic Voting Machines or EVMs, offer all of the functional features with a much higher level of security and accessibility and for a price that is very easy on the taxpayers. For a very interesting comparison look at http://techaos.blogspot.com/2004/05/indian-evm-com pared-with-diebold.html
Can I borrow your sig?
When was the last time your bank "forgot" that you took money from an ATM? Do you ever hear of problems like that? No? Why does it happen with a vote?
I've become far more cynical about the process as every recount that's happened has had discrepancies. New, uncertified code is loaded on the machines the day before the election. The code is not available for examination by third parties (yet, a slot machine is.)
Why were exit polls so much more accurate in the days of paper ballots? I find it unlikely that the methodology has gotten that much worse, especially considering that similar districts in the same election have varying margins of error that correlate to the voting system in use at the polling location.
-30-
Besides, there should some verification test that can be run independently on the machine to verify it is working as intended, which would not require $40k and a plane trip to use. Clearly, as stated in the article, Diebold is wanting to make this person an example so no other election official will let anyone else take a look at the machine.
In answer to the poster's question Diebold is behaving this way because the machines are not secure nor can they be. Anyone who gets a close look at them can see that. Diebold, like ES&S, and Sequoia is opting to muscle in and abuse people rather than admit that no machine is perfect and try to make them as good as possible.
The companies have done similar things in other states. In Florida All 3 have refused to sell any systems to Volusia County. The county's Election Director Ion Sancho was the one who allowed his systems to be tested for security and discovered the "Hrusti Hack" namely whereby the machines will load arbitrary code stored on their memory cards and execute them. Such a hack makes it trivial to change ballots, erase totals, etc. It has since been shown that systems by Sequoia Inc. are vulnerable to the same hack.
Volusia county is also the county that caused Al Gore to initially declare defeat in 2000. During election night Al Gore was leading Bush with a comfortable margin. At 10om someone uploaded a card that reported -16,022 votes for Al Gore and 10,000 for some socialist canidate all from a precinct with 600 voters.
This card passed all of Diebold's stringent "safety checks" (whatever the hell they were) and changed the statewide totals putting Gore well behind Bush. Gore declared defeat. After that the county discovered the errors and reset the system claiming that the new totals were correct. Nevertheles the fact remains that the card got in, was loaded, and threw off a U.S. Presidential election.
Now the companys won't sell to Volusia and are telling the state and the feds that it's Sancho's fault because he wants to test the systems for security. Florida's Governor Jeb Bush (brother of shrub) has also personally blamed Sancho for putting the state behind.
Meanwhile the Department of Justice is threatening to sue the state or withold funds because the county has not bought new systems even though noone will sell said systems to them. The idea being, apparently, that he should just sell out the elections.
At the end of the day the collusion and bullying going o by the companies, by the U.S. Government over HAVA (written by Bob Ney former congressmen for Diebold and now a leading figure in the Abramoff corruption investigation) and by frightened state governments is insane. At the end of the day the only losers will be the American People, of all stripes.
You're promoting what I would call a "Wizard of Oz" mentality. Never, ever, ever look behind the curtain because the truth may be more suprising than the threat.
WTF? Do you really live in a world with such a sucker mentality? Perhaps your ivory tower is so high that you don't need to worry about it? "Don't worry, this works exactly the way I say it does, don't ask questions, just trust me..." is the most alarming thing you'll ever hear. If that statement doesn't fire up your suspicion circuits then, I have to say, you are ripe for the picking by every con-man in the world.
The government itself is not stealing your liberties. Their new programs are enabling criminals who will.
Other than the slight bias in the posting.....at least one of the tagging keywords is biased ;)
:) Nothing better change between ANY of those ;)
How many machines is this? They mention $40k, is that to check 4 machines or 40,000 machines. Makes a slight difference in whether the charge is reasonable. Can certainly see diebold point here, i wouldn't certify the machines when you let someone tinker with em.
It said he was suspicious of the memory, so he can see if anything changes between the original, after blackbox, and after double checking by diebold i hope
Our $900 point of sale terminal prints a receipt, don't get why this is sooo hard to get voting terminals to do it when they cost $27,000,000 / x. Then a test run would be simple and not require any tinkering it seems.
What do you do when you don't trust either side?
If it can't be independently verified then it is uncertifable.
The claim in previous elections is that it CAN be verified by running a trial ballot on the machines before the election. This is clearly false, since Diebold now asserts that this test will not detect this 'tinkering' you speak of.
Which means that any Diebold 'tinkering' cannot be detected either. Which means the machines can't be certified as accurate.
You know, everyday about 100,000 people place their lives in the trust of software 'black boxes' on planes and not a peep from the newly political geeks.
You gonna have to trust somebody, sometime.
The bigger issue is how the votes are going to be tallyed? Hook them all up to the 'net so we get faster returns. Oh goodie...
-ps
http://www.openvotingconsortium.org/
Government has to be transparent. If it isn't? Draw your own conclusions.
It's a little embarrasing that the "Bringer of Democracy" can't even be trusted to roll out a fair voting system.
Just a short civics refresher: A voting clerk is usually a retired little old lady volunteering to watch a polling station. A county clerk is a prominent elected official. Depending on the laws of the state, the county clerk likely has more than sufficient legal powers to call the election procedures into question. The summary makes the person sound like a poor downtrodden powerless gnome being bullied by an evil corporation. Maybe the story should tilt just a little bit in the other direction. But, still, more power to anyone who fights this questionable product.
I am not american, but don't you think that this kind of things are stupid? I mean when there is an election I'm supposed to think about my choices extensively, to be as sure as possible, and to be able to vote reliably. How can I efficiently error check 15 choices, let alone think every one of them thoroughly?
"The way we can tell it's C# instead of Haskell is because it's nine lines instead of two." -- wadler
how can he possibly win?
That just depends on how good of a coder he is and how well he hid his backdoors now doesn't it?
Unless he spent all his time just rigging it once, not to be able to do it when he wanted. Maybe he put some cool eastereggs in and in 2008 Fidel Castro will win in Florida!
I only look human.
My mother is a halfling and my dad is an ogre, so that makes me an Ogreling
The $40k is for the booze and the hookers. The techs will have to gamble with their own money, though.
The latest Slashdot meme.
Here is the link to the article mentioned in parent.
h .cgi?file=/1954/19743.html
http://www.bbvforums.org/cgi-bin/forums/board-aut
Also, Blackbox did NOT conduct the audit. They recommended two security companies to the COUNTY clerk who hired them in line with his purview to conduct an independent audit. BTW, this is not some random clerk as one poster suggested. County Clerk is an elected office in my county.
Also, there were apparently 3 versions of the voting machine delivered (So which one is the validated one?)
Also, the delivered machines had been marked as having failed acceptance testing BY DIEBOLD.
Also, the memory discrepancy cannot be accounted for by Diebold's font explanation.
Also, apparently Diebold is running around replacing motherboards on other delivered systems.
Question: Why aren't we throwing bricks yet? This is way worse then bad French labor laws.
Note to the literal minded: I am not actually advocating that anyone engage in violent rioting, however a good loud peaceful protest is definitely in order. And I am not one to protest frivolously (see sig)
Stop Continental Drift! Reunite Gondwanaland!
No sane designer would allow anything to be loaded onto such a machine after construction time. If you need to replace the code, you should replace the motherboard entirely. That is the only guaranteed way of ensuring that the software and hardware fully match up.
Ideally, such machines should have either no Operating System at all, or have a very minimal hardware abstraction layer. OSKit would almost be overkill. The reason being that you don't want to multitask, memory management can all be static (as all structures are of fixed size and number), drivers will be minimal and linear, the system will be fixed in design, and you don't need any kind of system library.
None of this is rocket science. No, correction - a lot of rocket computers are built along similar sorts of ideas, as they need to be robust, fast, efficient and secure.
It's a small world and it smells funny; I'd buy another if it wasn't for the money; Take back what I paid (SoM)
Black Box Voting demonstrated in Florida that whoever has access to the flash memory card, used to keep track of the votes can determine the results of the voting on that machine: http://www.bbvforums.org/forums/messages/1954/1559 5.html?1141791589. No tinkering with the machine is necessary.
I would say even the submitter's point of view is not biased enough - Diebold should get a corporation death penalty for even agreeing to provide voting machines without paper trail. This is such no-brainer, that no amount of outrage is sufficient.
I doubt you've seen this with the internal printer. Remember the parent said: "When you use a Diebold ATM, it prints a paper trail inside the box, and gives you a printed receipt with a transaction number that can be matched to both the internal database and to the paper trail inside. If the printer inside jams, it stops accepting transactions."
ATMs will continue running if the external receipt printer jams/runs out of paper/etc. But they stop accepting transactions if the internal printer (that prints the internal paper audit trail) jams.
rage, rage against the dying of the light
Actually, the answer to your question is, "yes."
Of course, you have to know about it a couple of months in advance, so an "absentee" ballot can be sent to you, but there is no requirement that you actually go anywhere to get one. They are offered to shut-ins for instance.
Can you be Even More Awesome?!
I suspect this is part of the problem.
I've long held the view that the most effective way to get a reasonably democratic political system is to have the electorate vote on exactly two things: deciding the Big Issues (constitutional changes and the like) directly; and electing the representatives who will decide on the Little Issues for them.
My own experience, from running a medium-sized, not-for-profit organisation, is that few people have the time to fully research every choice that the management must make, even if they have the inclination. If you rely too much on mass voting, you get well-intentioned people actually voting against their best interests through lack of understanding, failure to see the big picture and appreciate the wider or longer-term implications of their vote, etc. Thus you can't make all the detailed little decisions by consultation with the entire electorate, or even in a big committee; it ceases to represent the best interests of the electorate beyond a certain point.
What does work, IME, is:
- creating a basic framework (in national politics, that's your constitution, basic legal processes, etc.) within which a given administration will work
- electing representatives who you think will act most in alignment with your personal preferences on lesser issues
- letting them get on with representing you.
Naturally, such representatives may still consult their electorate on any given issue, and any given voter may contact their representative to express a view on any given subject. A representative who fails to consult adequately when it is appropriate risks not being re-elected, so as long as your terms of office are of reasonable duration, there is relatively low risk of abuse. You can also have a safeguard where if a sufficiently large number of voters want to vote on a particular subject, they can force a vote with or without the consent of their representatives.This removes entirely the need for routine voting on minor issues like how to use a building or what to put in water. I suspect that almost all such issues are best left to be decided by representatives with the time to investigate the implications properly anyway. Joe Public just won't know in a lot of cases, and the voting will essentially be a random number generator with a small bias due to people who actually do understand any given decision.
The only remaining question then becomes how big is big enough to vote on separately, and what structure of representatives will you use: do you elect just the national legislature, or local officials too; do you elect major public offices like the heads of public services or just the political guys?
Once you've sorted that out, hopefully you never have more than a handful of people to elect at once. Have your voting machine tally up the voter's choice for each decision/election electronically, but have it also print separate, human-readable slips, on different paper colours for different decisions, and have the voter put these slips in matching colour-coded boxes. Bingo, you get instant results from the machines when voting closes, but you have an easy manual verification of the count if it's close and/or challenged.
If you disagree, post your argument. (-1, Overrated) isn't your personal censorship tool for views you don't like.
No, we're not missing that at all. It seems evident that the Chain of Command was either dazzled, baffled, or bribed into accepting these faulty machines from an ethically deficient corporation, and the only way the integrity of the voting process could be preserved was to solicit an independent examination into the machines' trustworthiness.
That the Chain of Command is now throwing a hissy fit about "warranty violations" serves only to illustrate that they are paying attention to the wrong things. Of course you independently test the machines. When you're dealing with something this important, you never believe the four-color glossies; you acquire your own facts and test stuff.
Schwab
Editor, A1-AAA AmeriCaptions
I went to a demo-day for voting machines. When I got to the voting booth no one could see what I was doing. So I flipped over the machine, and removed the back panel. I yanked out the voting flash cards. put them in my pocket. Then I took them back out of my pocket and put them back into the machine. This was all done while two vendors stood 3 feet away watching just me. their was no curtain either, just the carol enclosure was sufficient to obsure their view.
Not making this up.
I noticed that the next time they cam to town thie newer model which has a paper logger attached no longer fit in the voting carol, So it was mounted on a stand and this would have been slightly harder to flip upside down. On the otherhand if I were a poll worker this would not have been a problem. The places where the tags and seals attach is easily defeated since you can snap out the plastic hinges.
The point here is not that you fould not make one with a better design but that they chose not to. Just as diebold chose to use interpreted code on the ballot configuration cards that has the authority to re-write the vote files.
SO it's not that you cannot make a secure system--eventually--but that there isn't even the slightest effort to attend to some mac-truck size holes. they know they are their and they prefer to hide them in propriatary obfuscation not secure them. These are not people we can just trust because they seem nice. You have every right to be 100% skeptical because every time someone looks hard we find they are not fixed right.
Some drink at the fountain of knowledge. Others just gargle.
Computers are over-used. Why the hell do we need computer-operated toasters (yes, the good ol' simple toaster is often microprocessor-assisted)? Computers are overkill for deciding how light or dark your toast should be.
/, if I didn't think so) but I think we over-use them. Modern society treats the computer as the one-size-fits-all BFH. Computers are possibly the worst solution for elections because:
Likewise, computers are probably the wrong tool for voting. Accountability is removed, we've now put elections at risk of hardware crashes, software hacks, network mishaps, and so forth. Not only that, if the system IS hacked, how does one find that vote I cast against Hillary in the 2008 election? Are votes in hacked disgregarded in districts where the system has been tampered with (bad), or is the final result delayed until another election can be scheduled on a brand-new system (not quite as bad, but still bad?), or on paper (which takes us back to where we were in 2004)?
Computers are great tools (I wouldn't be on
- If networked, can be tampered with remotely, so no amount of police officers guarding over the machines can prevent against crackers
- If wireless, can be interfered with very easily
- Unless hardened, a highly-directional antenna with a moderate-power transmitter can interfere with the box's operation
- Where is the paper trail in the event of the above?
- Paper ballots can be counted under the supervision of both major parties and independents. Not possible with electronically-cast votes.
- If an exploit at the voting console is discovered, what can prevent ballot stuffing? With paper ballots, it's easy; if you drop more than one ballot in, at minimum you will be disallowed from dropping it in the box. Best scanario, you get arrested and charged with a federal crime for being such a dumbass.
In a republic where the representatives are elected democratically, abandoning the paper ballot is folly. Even with the pain of Florida elections arising because a handful of idiots cannot follow very clear arrows and directions, the paper ballot is the very best tool for electing officials. The election is documented with physical evidence, very easily supervised, and tampering is very easily discovered immediately and the idiots responsible being held responsible with very little investigation required.
Leave electronic voting technology up to surveys, unofficial NON-BINDING referenda (e.g., a referendum put forth for representatives to gather official majority public opinion), and the private sector.
Heck, even in IT, computers are not always the best solution for tracking all data or accomplishing all tasks.
The Christian Right is Neither (Christian nor right). See: Matthew 23, Matthew 25, Ezekiel 16:48-50
Who posts this drivel? I read it twice... and the only conclusion I see is "anonymous reader" who posted it will eventually end up going "postal" on the steps of Diebold's corporate headquarters. And CMDR Taco, for letting that stuff go through? Ridiculous. No wonder /. is dying.
Their internal e-mails (now leaked) confirm what I said:
http://www.scoop.co.nz/stories/HL0310/S00211.htm
A broad outline of what happened to our state (and my county, Scioto County) because of Diebold machines is here. http://www.freepress.org/departments/display/19/20 05/1593
The article talks about memory cards and their problems, but there were about a dozen or more other problems with the setup, even disregarding the possibility of hacking.
Diebold has sold voting machines to Utah. Diebold is evil. They want to bully a poor innocent election clerk.
Funny as it sounds, that's exactly how it went here in my local county, and I was involved in the contracting process (A losing battle...word from "on high" was that you either choose Diebold or get no money from the state.) I pushed for another company because the Diebold submission was a load of technical crap.
And, best of all, nothing I've seen or read about since then (North Carolina, anyone?) has done anything to change my mind.
Never confuse movement with action. --Hemingway
They even tried to move the 'voting' to a back room. You can't believe that was a good system?
Yes, I do believe that is a good system.
The difference between the situation you describe and a purely electronic solution is that in the latter you'd have no idea there were any manipulations going on.
The manual system is creaky and requires lots of oversight, lots of debate, lots of ongoing scrutiny, but at least it's *visible* (note that they tried to move to the back room, but failed).
Untill we get ID requirements to vote the machine and count error will remain much smaller then the registration error (or as they said in Chicago, 'Vote early and often').
Agreed that registration is a bigger issue. I don't think ID requirements are the problem -- at least in my state (Utah) you already have to present valid, current, government-issued ID in order to vote. The regisration issue (here, at least) isn't so much a problem of excessive voting, but of excluding people, preventing them from registering and therefore voting.
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