Maryland Fights to Keep E-voting

crystalattice writes "Apparently Maryland election officials never have computer problems. That's why they're fighting so hard to keep their Diebold e-voting machines. Washington Post reporter Marc Fisher received nothing but bad attitudes, dodges, and excuses when he attempted to discuss the issue with the state elections administration and Diebold." From the article: "I asked the state's elections administrator, Linda Lamone, whether Maryland wasn't just a bit too quick to adopt electronic voting. Doesn't the computer at your desk ever freeze up on you? 'No,' she replied. Never? 'No.' But surely people in your office have had that experience? 'No.' (Maybe we've found the solution to Maryland's voting problem: Everybody head on down to Linda Lamone's office, where the machines work 100 percent of the time.)"

Comments

Re:could be...

[ElleyKitten]

I've seen Linux and Mac computers freeze. Not often, but enough to not say completely dismiss the notion of them freezing as crazy.

They may have good reasons

[Anonymous Codger]

I live in Merlin. As I understand it, the following issues are affecting this decision:

1. The election officials don't believe that they can re-gear the process in time for the general election, which is only 6 weeks away. I certainly don't think they can pull it off, given their record so far.

2. The Democratic leadership is convinced that Republican Gov. Erlich is trying to suppress the vote in this majority Democratic state by raising fears about the process. They have good reason to believe this, as he has consistently fought efforts to make it easier for people to vote. Yesterday he urged everyone to use absentee ballots, yet last year he fought efforts to make it easier for people to use those ballots. He also vetoed a bill to allow early voting, which is popular in working districts (mostly Democratic) because some people have trouble getting to the polls on Election Day. When the legislature overrode his veto, he fought the law in court and won.

So as much as I hate and distrust the machines (I'm applying for an absentee ballot myself), I'm on the side of the Dem leadership and the election people (a bipartisan group).

Re:They may have good reasons

[payndz]

1. The election officials don't believe that they can re-gear the process in time for the general election, which is only 6 weeks away. I certainly don't think they can pull it off, given their record so far.

To re-gear the process for a paper ballot, they'd require:
A: A bunch of metal boxes with a slot in the top, and a padlock.
B: A slip of paper for every voter with the names and parties of the candidates printed on it.
C: Pencils. Lots of pencils.
D: A bunch of volunteers willing to count those slips of paper into piles.

Six weeks to get that sorted out? Hell, for a mere 1% of the $106m they spent on the Diebold machines I'd personally drive to every voting station in the State and hand them their boxes, papers and pencils. And I live in England. Another 1%, and I'd count the ballots myself. It might take a few weeks, or even months, to get the result, but...

corruption is hardly a GOP-only problem

[alizard]

even if Republicans like Alaska's "Corrupt Bastards Club" and Bush's contract awards to Halliburton and other crony capitalists have escalated this to a new artform.

Look up your favorite Democrats at OpenSecrets and find out about how much of their campaign money comes from the Hollywood content cartel. . . and you won't need to wonder just where bullshit like the DMCA comes from. Hint: In Hillary Clinton's career campaign contribution profile of individual donors, Disney (as in The Path to 9/11) is #15.

Re:It's not so simple.

[jfengel]

Maryland having a Republican governor is actually something of an anomaly. The last Republican governor of Maryland was Spiro Agnew back in the 60s. Ehrlich won a race over a Democrat who was said to have run a singularly terrible campaign, and even at that he won only 51-48.

Which means Ehrlich is in trouble now, and the polls reflect that: he's losing 51-44 and 49-42 in the most recent polls.

He's going to need every advantage if he's going to win. In fact, he's almost certain to lose, but his lieutenant governor has a fighting chance to take the Senate seat currently occupied by the retiring Democrat Paul Sarbanes. The last poll was 48-47 in favor of the Republican. The Democrat is still the favorite, but it's a very good reason for Governor Ehrlich to try very hard to take any advantage.

Re:There is...

[Jackmon]

The OVC is all about leaving a paper trail...

http://www.openvotingconsortium.org/our_solution

You do get both. But I agree that 2) is the most important part. It would be fine if everyone just put a big X on a box next to their chosen candidate or issue. Really not that hard.

Re:Geez that's disturbing...

[syrinx]

Also, we aren't talking about corruption in any other party because the Republican party is the one in power here

Maybe you didn't read the article (I must be new here), but we're talking about Maryland here. In fact, Democrats are in power, and in fact the Republicans have been the ones challenging the electronic voting.

Don't let facts get in the way though! No blood for oil! Chimpy McBushitler is the devil!

Linda Lamone

[Irvu]

What is happening here is part of a long-running fight in the state of Maryland. The State elections director Linda Lamone. Linda Lamone has been nicknamed Ms. Diebold in some circles because of her tireless efforts on behalf of the company. Two years ago there was a massive push in the state house and senate for voter-verified paper records which Linda killed. Under Maryland's laws she has a great deal of power and independence.

Lamone was appointed by Democrats in the State House and has been backed by them even as she keeps giving them Hideous advice. Maryland's governor is a Republican and a great deal of this shoving back and forth over the machines has devolved to party wrangling. This is the interesting part about the whole e-voting situation. In some states poor systems are being instated and backed by Republicans (Ohio, California, etc.) In other states the very same systems are being doggedly defended by Democrats (Maryland, Pennsylvania, etc.). In some states such as Maryland it is Republican governors who are taking the lead in cleaning things up and in others it is Democratic governors like Bill Richardson of New Mexico who are taking charge. Ultimately its not about party nationally but local party power. Who ever was in power was sweet talked by the manufacturers who, at the end of the day, just want the billions of tax dollars that Bob Ney made us spend on this.

There are some great videos of Linda Lamone on Youtube:

1. Over My Dead Body This is my personal favorite. In it she says that the state will have paper records over her dead body.
2. I'M The boss" In this video Linda Lamone says "Im the boss and the buck stops here" essentially claiming credit (then) for all elections in the state. She has now reversed and said that the state is "decentralized"
3. Shocked Linda lamone is shocked shocked that Diebold would use the same master password for all machines in the U.S.
4. A search list is here.
   

Re:Linda Lamone

[Anonymous Coward]

More on her from HCIL at UMD
http://www.cs.umd.edu/hcil/soh/bios/lamone.shtml

Linda H. Lamone was named State Administrator of Elections on July 1, 1997. Ms. Lamone serves as the Chief Election Officer for Maryland and by statute is charged with maximizing the use of technology in election administration. Since her appointment, Ms. Lamone is overseeing the second development and implementation of a statewide voter registration system and a mandate for a uniform statewide voting system. Other technology projects under Ms. Lamone's direction include advanced statewide candidate, campaign finance and election management programs. Ms. Lamone is the immediate Past President of the National Association of State Election Directors and serves on the Advisory Committee of the federal Election Assistance Commission. She is also Vice Chair of the Attorney Grievance Commission of Maryland and Chair of the Character Committee for the Fifth Appellate Circuit and the Select Committee on Gender Equality.

Bad device drivers cause crashes

[spun]

If an OS crashes, most of the time it's buggy device drivers. At least from what I've seen. I've seen every version of windows act weird, and I've seen every version act rock solid, the onyl major difference was the hardware. Linux is more stable more often, but even in Linux a bad device driver can take down your system. Macs tend to be the most stable because Apple makes (made? I've been out of the Mac game for a while) most of the hardware themselves.

Kickbacks

[Beryllium Sphere(tm)]

Election officials get jobs at voting machine vendors, and my summary for your friends and relatives.