California to Start Review of Voting Machines

An anonymous reader writes "California Secretary of State Debra Bowen just announced details about the previously discussed 'top-to-bottom review' of almost all voting and counting systems used in the state. The team features big names in e-voting security: David Wagner, Matt Bishop, Ed Felten, Matt Blaze, and Harri Hursti, among others. Vendors have time to submit their machines including documentation and source code until July 1st or face severe restrictions, including decertification, for the 2008 elections. Scheduled to start next week, the review will include a red-team attack and going through the source code."

Comments

Voting is fun again

[Original Replica]

Now if we have secure, trustworthy voting (electronic or not) and Maryland's governor gets his way, people might actually feel like their vote means something again.

Maryland Governor Martin O'Malley signed off on legislation [SB 634 materials] Tuesday that will award Maryland's ten votes in the US Electoral College [NARA materials] to the national popular vote winner in presidential elections, instead of the recipient of the most votes in Maryland. The legislation will only take effect, however, if a majority of the states representing the total 538 electoral votes adopt similar laws. The bill's sponsor, state Senator Jamie Raskin, told AP that the move to a popular vote system "will reawaken politics in every part of the country," even Maryland, a state presidential candidates usually sidestep because of the belief that it will always vote for the Democratic candidate.http://jurist.law.pitt.edu/paperchase/20 07/04/maryland-governor-signs-law-changing.php

Re:Diebold won't comply

[OWJones]

As one of the people involved in the crafting of the North Carolina law and supporting Joyce's lawsuit, I can clarify a bit. We suspect Diebold pulled out of North Carolina not because of the source code escrow issues (which they claim to have complied with in Georgia) but because the CEO of each voting company had to sign a legally binding document saying that the source code his company installed on our machines was the same code that would be placed in escrow and provided to the examiners. On the day this document was due Diebold pulled out of the state, sending a "helpful" letter to the State Board of Elections offering to help "reform" our newly-passed law.

-jdm

Re:Uh, no.

[jonnybcivics]

As someone who's done some academic research on voting technology, I'd like to respond.

Electronic voting machines are in virtually every way superior to paper voting machines. Um...

They prevent you from accidentally submitting an invalid ballot. So do precinct count optical scan ballots (i.e. scantron). The way it goes is that you fill out your ballot and then a poll worker scans it through the machine to make sure you have no overvotes or doodles outside of the designated boxes. If you screwed up, your ballot is destroyed and you get a new one and re-vote. This doesn't happen for central count optical scan ballots (where they box them all up and take them to a central location to be scanned) but central count optical scan set-ups are being phased out.

They can be updated with a correct ballot much easier than actually printing ballots. Actually, precincts are required to print out backup ballots to use should touchscreen machines go down. So really each precinct is running (and paying for) a backup election with paper ballots even when they use touchscreen electronic voting machines. Even if they spit out a paper trail, a precinct is going to need backup paper ballots in the event of a printer malfunction. This kind of negates the whole argument of being able to change-up a ballot on the fly, because once those back-up paper ballots are printed, the precincts are committed to a set ballot.

They can more easily accommodate voting by the disabled. This is a legitimate argument, but one electronic voting machine per precinct specifically for disabled people makes more sense than buying several to serve all voters. And anyway, optical scan paper ballots can be easily adapted for disabled voters http://www.wired.com/science/discoveries/news/2006 /01/70036

They can randomly display the list of candidates, eliminating the 'first ballot position' advantage. You can also argue that a random listing of names would make candidates harder to find than an alphabetical listing. I don't think this is such a big gain when you consider the cost, security issues, and possible malfunctions that can occur with electronic voting systems. With optical scan, the worst case scenario is that the scanner goes down and ballots have to be saved and scanned once the scanner is fixed. With electronic voting machines, regardless of paper trail, if there is a malfunction, the machine is down and you've just lost a huge part of your ability to serve potential voters. Then you have long lines, people pissed off, people deciding they aren't willing to wait and not voting, etc.

I have yet to hear a reasonable argument for electronic voting machines over tried and true optical scan ballots for any criteria - security, cost, usability, convenience, etc. On election day, you only get one shot to serve all the voters. Best to have a reliable and secure voting system than a bunch of fancy machines that have the real potential to crash. Not to mention, based on some research done by a colleague, electronic voting machines cost over twice as much as an optical scan system per ballot cast. And the serving capacity for an optical scan set-up can be expanded by buying cheap plastic privacy booths rather than another expensive machine. I know slashdotters usually have a boner for technology, but learn a little about running elections before you bring that bullshit to the polling place.

Re:Debra Browen

[billstewart]

wikipedia ref on Debra Bowen.

Secretary of State is an elected position in California, and Debra Bowen got elected last November, so she hasn't been in place long. Previously she was in the state assembly and then state senate, where she was one of the influential people on open government, open records, and privacy issues, and made a big issue of doing something about the voting machine problems. I gather there are other issues where some people passionately hate her, but for the most part she's been viewed as an honest politician rather than one of the machine players. She's also an advocate of voting alternatives such as Instant Runoff and proportional representation in general.

Re:Dems vs GOP

[Anonymous Coward]

I once heard from a former election official (county level) that, generally:

1. Republicans favor anything that makes voting harder since their constituency is more likely to show up and vote (e.g. Arizona requiring IDs and "proof of citizenship" such as a driver's license (haha) at the polls)
2. Democrats favor anything that increases turnout

Maybe this somehow figures in here? For instance, if people get disenfranchised through long lines at the polls, turnout is reduced. Poor people are also more likely to have trouble using a computer, which also disfavors Democrats. (I don't know how the non-English ballots factor in here, though.) Another hypothetical explanation would be a vast number of disabled Republican voters, but I doubt that's the case...