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Diebold Flops in Alaska
lukej writes "From the Anchorage Daily News, During yesterday's preliminary and ballot measure election across Alaska, Diebold built voting machines failed to 'phone home' causing a hand recount. As a party spokesperson said:
"I can say there are many systematic problems with Diebold machines that have been identified in many contexts."
Additionally, the state itself has mandated some hand counts of all electronic results, and the Democratic Party is simply suggesting voters request paper voting."
http://alternet.org/blogs/video/40755/
Summary --
Computer programmer Clinton Eugene Curtis testifies under oath before the U.S. House Judiciary Members in Ohio. Stephen Pizzo writes:
A partial transcript:
Are there computer programs that can be used to secretly fix elections?
Yes.
How do you know that to be the case?
Because in October of 2000, I wrote a prototype for Congressman Tom Feeney [R-FL]...
It would rig an election?
It would flip the vote, 51-49. Whoever you wanted it to go to and whichever race you wanted to win.
And would that program that you designed, be something that elections officials... could detect?
They'd never see it.
This is practically the same as what I proposed on my blog a while back:
A proposal for a Trustable Electronic Voting System
Seeing how the failure of electronic voting to earn our trust is a hot topic today, heres my shot at a proposal for a secure electonic voting system.
1. The voting process starts with a voter walking into a polling station and presenting his/her ID. This is verified by the officials, and possibly representatives of the candidates, and once verified, the Voter is issued a Physical Token. This Token is NOT generated on demand, and can be something like the tokens used at game arcades. Each token needs to have a globally unique serial ID, which would need be changeable. Each polling booth is issued a fixed number of voter tokens, enough for the total number of voters expected to show up at a booth. Any unused tokens need to be returned to the Election Authority.
2. The voter takes the token (remmeber that this token is not associated with his identity in any way) and walks up to the voting machine. This machine consists of a touch screen with the poll options on it. The machine activates when the voter drops the token into its slot. The user makes his/her selection, confirms it, and is issued a printed reciept of his/her choice. The machine keeps a running tally of the votes polled, but does NOT communicate the vote to any central server. This information is kept secure inside the machine itself, and the machine needs to be made physcially temper proof and temper-evident. At the end of the polling process, all the voting mashines can be collected together and an authorized elction officer can instruct the machine to reveal the poll results. All results from all machines can be tallied to get the final election result.
4. The receipt format would be a standardized one, established by the febderal election officals, including the fonts, sizes and the information content. It will have on it, printed, the day/date and identifier of the particular election and the id of the machine which issued the reciept, and in large fonts, the selection made by the voter.
5. The voter checks on the reciept to make sure the information on the reciept matches what he had punched in. If not, the vote is invalid, and he/she gets to vote again.
6. If the reciept information is valid, the voter proceeds to another machine, where he/she inserts the reciept into a slot. This second machine reads the receipt using Optical Character Recognition, and maintains its own independent tally of votes polled. It also securely holds all the receipts in a safe vault inside it. The first machine and this second machine are not linked in any way.
7. The first machine and the second machine must not be made by the same manufacturer, or by companies with substantial holding by common entities.
8. Ideally, the token and the receipt would be federal standards, and the machines themselves can be made by any number of companies. They would need to get certified by a testing body. The certification test would focus on standards compliance (including such standards as physical size, accessibility, etc).
9. A single company may make both the machines, but in any specific poll booth, machines from two indepepdent manufacturers need to be used.
At the end of the election, the polling officials return to a central location with all the unused tokens, and the sealed machines. The total number of votes polled by both the machines, and the number of tokens issued is first matched. Then both the machines are activated and the total tallies of votes taken and matched against each other. In case of mismatch, the paper reciepts are retrieved from the second machine, and counted by hand.
The crucial points are:
1. Two independent tallies of the same votes, with a trail between corresponding votes (the receipt carries the token ID, so from the machines databases, one can matc
Sigura Non Grata
http://www.eci.gov.in/EVM/index.htm
OR
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Indian_voting_machine s
All that you have suggested is already in the machine.
Seems the country that has long been derided as Third-World, dirt Poor, unwashed masses can implement a technologically superior yet simple solution to maintaining Democracy amongst its unwashed masses with highest ethics.
Unless US loses its NIH syndrome, it is bound to be abused by companies like Deibold.
"Doing what i can, with what i have." ~ Burt Gummer