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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."
He later said: "Of course, they contribute heavily to my party, so its not like we're going to revoke their contract or anything."
Ted Stevens is a class 2 Senator and will not be up for re-election until 2008.
how hard can it be? I could rig up a basic voting system in an afternoon and it would work "pretty good". A large company, on a multi-million-dollar contract, with years of work should be able to produce a flawless machine for something as simple as tallying some votes.
All I can say is, those secret election-rigging backdoors must take a lot of work, because what else have their developers been working on?
"A week in the lab saves an hour in the library"
Diebold's still in business? How?
Help us build a better map!
I see the Title "Electronic Toilet" and then the words "paper voting"...
Concern over the machines led the Alaska Legislature in 2005 to pass a law requiring a mandatory hand count of ballots in one randomly selected precinct in every election district.
Be interesting to hear about how those random hand counts compare to the machine tabulations.
By the way, it'd be nice if slashdotters took notice that a number of the failures were related to phone lines (probably people plugging them into the wrong jacks, digital lines, or lines requiring special dial-out numbers, etc.)
Last but not least:
The Diebold electronic voting machines nationwide have been criticized by voter groups and computer scientists who say they are vulnerable to fraud. Diebold has defended the machines, saying they are secure when elections officials follow proper procedures.
That's the whole point, Diebold: you shouldn't have to "follow proper procedures." The machines should make it impossible to do so, just like I punch a ballot, place it in a box, which is locked and sealed, and taken by police to the counting facility, etc. The current system requires a fair amount of work to interfere with; the Diebold machines seem to require a fair amount of work to NOT interfere with!
Please help metamoderate.
I am of the opinion that hand counts of paper ballot receipts (printed by the voting machine, verified by the voter, then dropped in a box at the site of the election) should always be done, regardless of whether it was a close race. Otherwise, Diebold could avoid a recount by fabricating a landslide. From the perspective of avoiding vote fraud, I can't think of a better method of running an election than forced recounts, though for convenience sake its nice to have a quick, initial electronic tally which can be verified later.
for the morally challenged, that is. Until this bug is rectified, your technically superior solution is useless.
If you keep throwing chairs, one day you'll break windows....
How can the system still be buggy? I mean, seariously? Haven't they had several years to complete it in now? A voting system seems to be such a simple application, even if you spiff it up with loads of extras, such as automatic reporting to a central database, security features etc etc. Have they had to invent the transistor and the binary computer all over? I know I'm a brilliant programmer (and sexy as hell too), but I would have thought that even lesser mortals would have big problems stretching the coding of a voting system out over several years, let alone leaving it full of bugs.
So how come they are able to stay in business? Is it the power of the free market?
If a format for voting has been used for years, with little inaccuracy or error, such as paper ballots, then surely they could just not adopt the new method of computerised voting? A little tradition can sometimes be a good thing, especially if it works. What's next, the papal elections are done through MSN messenger, no need to go to Vatican City anymore. (I suppose that was a bad example as Chrisitian traditions are often more about being luddites than keeping with proven methods, but you get the idea.)
Must have been a clog in Ted Steven's series of tubes causing all the problems.
The only thing that will effect Teddy Bear's chances of re-election will be death. The Democrats here in Alaska sometimes don't even bother running an opponent because there is literally no way Ted will be ousted -- he's done too much for the economy here, what with having been the (now former) head of the Senate Approprations Committee for 6 years. Sure, he's in bed with the oil industry, but if it wasn't for the oil industry, Alaska wouldn't be where it is today.
Interesting factoid: Uncle Ted is now the longest serving senator, making him president pro tempore. In other words, he is only two heartbeats away from being our president (of tubes)!
I'm part of the Open Voting Consortium and we've been proposing a system in which the voter uses a machine to produce a paper ballot. That ballot *is* the ballot, not some copy, not some receipt, but the actual ballot. And it isn't good until stuffed into a ballot box.
The paper ballot is the core - it's in a form and font easy for machine readers to read, but it can also be read by people.
Now, that vote-printer machine can be any machine that has an interface appropriate to the needs of the voter - such as audio driven for sight impaired voters. (A ballot reader would be available to do an audio readback.)
Our proposal is to do this, plus a canvassing system (that's the part that aggregates the precinct counts into the grand totals.)
And we feel that *all* code, and all machinery, should be inspectable and testable by anybody who wants to run a test (and they should be able to publish their test results.) That's one step short of full open source - which doesn't mean that the code couldn't also be open source under one of the licenses.
It is a mistake to think of these things as a software issue - it involves machines (even if they look and smell like PC's, although I personally tend to prefer smaller/lower power engines like the WRAP or Soekris machines) and procedures, lots and lots of procedures (like what to do if a voter walks out in the middle of casting his/her vote - there are laws that say what to do, and they, of course, vary from state to state and even county to county.)
But it is harder to do than one thinks - the machines themselves can't just be any old junk PC. They need to be robust in the face of voter use and tampering behind the scenes. And they need to have lots and lots of places where they can be locked-down (often using things as simple as lead-and-wire tamper seals) to prevent hanky-panky by warehouse or precinct people.
They need to be power-conserving (imagine a precinct with a single circuit breaker/fuse and a flakey or non-existant ground, and that the voting is occuring during a thunderstorm.) UPS's are a pain - they have a high failure rate and given that they often contain a lead-acid battery, are neither lightweight nor quite innocent should they leak. And it's important to keep the fire marshall happy.
And printers are a pure pain in the rear - they can draw a lot of power and are generally the most failure prone part of the system.
And there are lots of legal requirements - like protecting the privacy of the vote. You can, for example, potentially reconstruct which voter voted which way by looking at things like sequencial files used for audit/error-detection or for ballot tallies.
And the stuff has to be easily configurable en masse - counties tend to need hundreds, thousands of these things, and they better all be the same. And they need to be able to be transported by folks who aren't necessarily gentle and set up by people who make your grandmother look like a tech support wizard.
We were planning on doing a project to produce a reference model for such a system via the University of California (multi-campus project with UC Santa Cruz in the project lead position) but we got cut out of California's HAVA (Federal voting act) funding when the previous California Sect'y of State got caught up in a brouhaha on other matters. It's still worth doing - every state would benefit.
Speaking as a Euroweenie, I just don't understand the apparent apathy in the USA with regards to the very serious issues surrounding vote counting machines. In a democracy, could anything be more important than making sure that votes are counted correctly and fairly, with a transparent process that can be verified?
Have you seen this, for instance?
http://alternet.org/blogs/video/40755/
That was a computer programmer testifying (two years ago) that he'd been asked to write vote rigging software for the Ohio elections. What was the outcome of that? Was there a formal non-partisan enquiry into the elections in Ohio? Was there a huge public protest there? What am I missing?
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.
I am constantly in awe at the failure of implementating of IT within (the) public sector (services). Governments/states spend millions on the lowest bidder, with costs often spiralling to beyond that quoted by the highest bidder initially, and it increasingly seems as if you get what you pay for.
At least in this case lives were not at risksee here, here and here.
It could be argued that selection of companies such as Diebold comes from a lack of awareness of IT by governments, and is simply a cost/saving excercise, but even so- sensible questions should be raised about all contractors- have they got a track record, how are they trialling the product, are their guarantees more than verbal...do we have a backup?
Sure DIebold cannot make excuses...but can the government either?
How else could I justify to other people that we elected Dubya TWICE? :)
How is it that the largest democracy in the world manages to get it right while these guys foul up. I imagine they didnt test this properly at all. Classic case of 'someone effed up' and didnt test the most basic function of this machine properly.
As as Canadian I am mystified by what seems to be a complete lack of outrage regarding the accuracy and transparency of electronic voting systems. You'd think with all the controversy of the last two presidential elections that Americans would sit up and take notice, but it doesn't appear to be.
We have an almost quaint system of voting here that requires only a few paid volunteers, some paper ballots and a pencil. It's quaintness is offset by its efficiency; I have never waited more than a minute or two to vote and the results are known within a few hours after the election. I believe the UK and many other European nations follow a similar system. There is no reason why a process like this would not work in the United States, save for the almost religious reverence for technology, as all the votes are counted within minutes of the polls closing, whether it be in a city as large as Toronto or as small as Dumbfuck, Saskatchewan. I know it's not as sexy as a flashing machine, but it's transparent, verifiable, and relatively fool proof.
Actually, he's the longest serving senator in the majority party. Robert Byrd is the longest serving senator. Sen. Byrd will become president pro tempore (assuming he is re-elected this fall) if the Democrats ever control the Senate.
Furthermore, for Ted Stevens to become president, Bush, Cheney, and Denny Hastert would all have to die or otherwise be unable to assume the presidency. Come to think of it, he is only two heartbeats away as Cheney doesn't really have a heart, but a sort of robotic device that keeps his oil^H^H^H blood flowing.
A few hours after we proudly have a story on the electronic toilet, we have a story about the failures of electronic equipment that should be more accurate and reliable than anything else...
Ever think we spend our time perfecting the wrong equipment?
Funnypics
Darn, I just read the headline and thought this story was about the 2004 presidential election..
Diebold and the State of Alaska still hasn't released the data files that could show wtf really happened there.
http://www.bradblog.com/?cat=101
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What brought down WTC-7?
The sum of this problem is taking a number, and incrementing it. You must add a pretty, easy to understand interface, and then add a paper trail system.
Here's what I want:
- I walk into a voting center.
- I am asked for ID.
- I present my state Drivers License or Federal Passport for visual inspection.
- In return I'm provided with a re-usable line-tracker token (deli waiting line slip).
- I wait in line to vote.
- I enter the voting booth, surrendering my deli slip to a large box.
- I vote.
- The machine produces three bits of paper; my reciept, my official ballot, and my exit poll token.
- I retain the reciept for my own personal records. It contains no bare words, simply a tracking number, date and time, and location.
- My Official Ballot is dropped into a lockbox of a million similar others, to be stored for eventual hand-recount. It never enters my or anyone elses hands.
- My exit poll token may be presented to exit pollsters, or I may destroy it.
- I enjoy some milk and cookies, and leave.
- Much later, at home, I am able to look up my ballot based on the ID number on my reciept. From this, I can tell where my ballot is, in what box, in what warehouse, what machine I used, what voting center, and the date and time. It may also show what machine was used to process my vote in a recount, or if a hand recount had been done.
- I am able to sleep at night, knowing that democracy will take effect.
This is really not that difficult. Not as difficult as Diebold has made it, and surely not as cloak-and-dagger.Informatus Technologicus
Ok that's a weird statement but here is the basic assertion. I have a Pure Digital single use camera so I did a little googling to see if there was a way to hack it. Turns out these cameras are actually quite complex and secure. They are engineered 8 ways to Sunday to ensure that you can't really do this. Of course there is a way, more or less but it involves building your own electrical interface, reverse engineering some digital processing technology, writing some unassembler code and picking through the bytes by hand. A $20 camera. It seems to me that if someone can build this much protection into a $20 camera then it should be possible given the massive awards, time and effort of Diebold to do this for a voting machine. Let's say for the sake of argument and normal government waste that a voting machine costs a 100x what a camera costs; $2000. I don't know but let's say. So are we concluding that for $2000 we can't find anyone to build in the protection and reliability of a plastic camera that costs 1% of a voting machine?
We've got it working here in brazil for ten years now. We were the first country in the world to have fully eletronic elections (since the year 2000). We also lend the machines to Paraguay and Ecuador, and currently have plans to start exporting the technology. On presidential election we can have the results within 12 hours, and in small towns, within a few minutes. BTW, it runs on Linux. Just my 2 cents :)
Yes, I realize I'll be modded down offtopic but I thought this type of thinking was worth responding to. Manufacturing jobs will come back to the states as soon as americans are willing to pay for them. You can't cry and make noise about no manufacturing jobs, yet demand the "low low prices" at Walmart caused primarily by asian workers making pennies an hour.
You want American manufacturing jobs back? Be prepared to foot the bill American workers demand.
Well, that is pretty good rhetoric but I would like to point out a couple of things.
You probably got your information from some place like http://www.taxfoundation.org/research/topic/11.htm l .
Even though their spreadsheet lists Alabama, not Alaska, I will assume that is a typo. Their calculations include federal income taxes and federal expenditures. They do not include Federal taxes on natural resources, such as oil, nor do they account for the fact that well over half the people here are employed by the Federal Government, mostly DOD. Once you start including taxes on resources, the numbers begin changing rapidly.
So, the Federal dollars spent have become a rather big issue nationally. Oddly enough, it becomes most shrill when awareness of other pork barrel projects arise, such as the Big Dig for example in Boston. So be it. It would seem that Congress critters like to point to others when their hands are caught in the cookie jar - or freezer as the case may be.
Another consideration is that many Alaskans (Natives in particular) live in absolute poverty with no or little infrastructure (no running water, etc). So, quite a bit of Federal money is required to be spent to upgrade that infrastructure. Now, if you are libertarian or otherwise small government, your response may be "tough shit" they should move to a more populous area for more efficient utilization of infrastructure dollars. Many people here would agree. If you are leftist, and believe in the forced redistribution of wealth, then you can be happy that your tax dollars are at work to fulfill your dream.
At any rate, my post isn't to change anybody's mind but merely to point out that there are more factors than those usually considered. But then, that is usually the case with everything.
By the way, just so you know how Congress works, after the big stink about the money earmarked for the "bridge to nowhere", which isn't true but that is a discussion for another time, Congress removed the earmark. Alaska STILL GOT THE MONEY but WITHOUT the strings attached. And BOTH sides considered it a victory.
Blink blink... blink blink... Yeah, that's what I though too.
>how can ANYBODY say "well, the number isn't enough to change the outcome." How do you know this?
You make an extremely good point.
Wish I could remember their names, but one university team crunched the numbers and found that if you were to change just one vote in every precinct of the country you could reverse the outcome of a recent presidential election. That sounds strange until you stop and think how many precincts there must be in Florida and that the arguments were over dozens or hundreds of votes.