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Diebold Demands That HBO Cancel Documentary
Frosty Piss writes "According to the Bloomberg News, Diebold Inc. is insisting that HBO cancel a documentary that questions the integrity of its voting machines, calling the program inaccurate and unfair. The program, 'Hacking Democracy,' is scheduled to debut Thursday, five days before the 2006 U.S. midterm elections. The film claims that Diebold voting machines aren't tamper-proof and can be manipulated to change voting results. 'Hacking Democracy' is 'replete with material examples of inaccurate reporting,' says Diebold. 'We stand by the film," said a spokesman for HBO. 'We have no intention of withdrawing it from our schedule. It appears that the film Diebold is responding to is not the film HBO is airing.'"
I don't understand why an open voting system wouldn't work. (And yes I know the major hurdle would be beating the peoples in power to transition to one)
Source code is 100% open to find exploits and bugs, when you vote you're given a ticket with a number, anyone can go online and see how everyone voted but only you are able to tell which vote was yours by the corresponding ticket number. That'd allow for everyone to do their own count if they wanted.
I've just don't like technology getting a bad name because people abuse it. An electronic voting system would be more secure then a paper trail with PEOPLE manually counting each vote.
No?
*DrugCheese rants*
In other words, in the light of allegations of insecurity and the ease of which a Diebold DRE or tabulator (GEMS) can be modified, they nitpick the date in which they got into the voting machine industry.
Bravo, Diebold.
Also, the article's implication if I'm not mistaken is incorrect:
If I'm not mis-reading this passage, the article is implying that Florida ballots in 2000 raised questions about the reliability of electronic voting machines. The only problem is that the problems in Florida were due to "hanging chads" and the poor design of "butterfly ballots" in Palm Beach County, two problems which are entirely specific to paper voting methods. Maybe they meant to say "and raised questions about upgrading their voting technology" but who knows.
Lou Dobbs on CNN was talking about the Sequoia voting machines operated by the Venezuelan company, and I think we should bring to his attention the Diebold ones too. Please take a moment and send a polite comment at their feedback form
Try other big media outlets. We need the general public to become aware of this potential debacle before it's too late.
"The question is addressed to those enthusiasts that do care and will sort the matter out in a few hours..."
LOL. MOD PARENT UP. I love the feeling of power that technically knowledgeable people have. And it is increasing. (I'm not suggesting that anything illegal be done; I just love the feeling of knowing how things work.)
Talking about power, anyone need Diebold parts? You must have an account with them, but hey, no problem, right? Just tell the local elections boss, "Oh yes, we'll need two of those fazongas immediately." Response: "Well, if you say so, order them now." Check out the memory card at $155.00 for 128 MB. Ohhh, it's "industrial grade". Well, all right.
Off topic: Did you know that George W. Bush had a top-of-the-charts song written about him? The song, "American idiot", was number 1 on the music charts in Canada, number 3 in Britain, and in the top 10 in many other countries. No matter whether you vote Democrat or Republican, you'll have to admit that is amazing.
--
Funniest George W. Bush Comedy Videos
Let's see.
Tens of thousands of voters from poorer (usually Democratic) counties being erroneously included on a list of felons, thus not being allowed to vote. The list was compiled by a company in the employ of Republican campaigners.
Per-capita, older and fewer machines being sent to Democratic counties.
Unofficial recounts that indicate that Gore won.
State-initiated opposition to recount requests.
And the list goes on.
There's good, solid evidence the 2000 election was stolen, pure and simple. Whether it was intentional or not is another question. But there were more than enough anomalies without electronic voting to make it . . . irregular, to say the least.
Microsoft is to software what Budweiser is to beer.
For the record, Diebold has only been in the election machine business since 2001. They only make direct-recording electronic (DRE) machines, and have never produced paper ballot readers or any other equipment other than electronic machines and electronic pollbooks. Here is a good historical overview of Diebold's election activities.
There are a number of points that are completely missed or misunderstood in the discussion of election hardware, and why so many jurisdictions have moved to such questionable devices. The story of what has happened is a case study in how the federal government creates a royal mess from good intentions.
After the debacle of Florida 2000 Congress passed the Help America Vote Act (HAVA), which was designed to prevent such a thing from happening again. Of course the problems in Florida were not caused by faulty election equipment but by poorly designed ballots.
Of all the parts to the eqatuation in FL 2000 (voting machines, ballots, election process, registration, administration, etc) it was the ballots that were at fault, and the administration of the resulting dispute that created the big issue. I still believe that if Al Gore had accepted (or insisted upon) a statewide recount of Florida rather than trying to game county-level results he would have won Florida, and the presidency.
Instead the POTUS (President of the US) was effectively elected by the Supreme Court. And that led rather directly to HAVA -- a federal law wherein the federal government assumes authoritah over the states on issues concerning election procedures, quite contrary to strict readings of the Constitution.
The Constitution clearly gives the states power to handle their own electoral affairs, but at the same time gives the federal government power to distribute funds, and to set requirements on the distribution. Through HAVA, Washington pledges a ton of money to each state and local jusrisdiction to upgrade their election hardware to something that is compliant with HAVA, but the requirements only apply to election for federal office -- ie President and Congress. But since it's too much trouble to maintain separate election system for fedreal and local offices, and too much money to ignore, all states are scrambling towards HAVA compliance.
Diebold comes in because of a rather ill-thought clause in HAVA -- Section 301. This requires that HAVA-compliant hardware meet the needs of blind voters in allowing them to 1) cast a ballot without assistance, and 2) to review and change ballot selections before casting the ballot.
As of 2000, blind voters cast ballots with the assistance of two election judges (in jurisdictions that did not require Braille ballots). HAVA requires that all blind voters have audio ballots. Which means many effective and accurate voting systems and procedures are no longer valid.
Once HAVA was passed, Diebold saw a business opportunity in US election systems (they had previously sold electyion hardware to Brazil). Diebold could certainly deliver counting machines with audio capability, and naturally they theough that security requirements for ATMs were analogous to those for election systems.
The points of this whole rant are 1) Diebold gets a lot of deserved blame for producing faulty hardware, and a lot of undeserved blame for commiting mass electoral fraud (remember that they didn't have any election hardware in 2000); 2) All DRE machines (with or without paper trail) are subject to problems and errors; and 3) the voting process is sound, even if the equipment has flaws.
Make sure you vote on November 7, make sure if you're using a DRE machine that your vote is properly recorded, and make sure you have some sympathy for the sorely undertrained and underpaid election judges at your precinct.
And don't complain if you don't vote.