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Judge Voids Un-Auditable California Election
For only the second time in California history, a judge in Alameda County voided an election result and called for the election to be re-run, because the e-voting tallies from Diebold machines couldn't be audited. The vote was on a controversial ballot measure addressing the operation of medical marijuana dispensaries, and the result was a close margin. Activists went to court to demand a recount, but after the lawsuit was filed, elections officials sent voting machines back to Diebold. The court found that 96% of the necessary audit information had been erased. The judge ordered the ballot measure to be re-run in the next election.
Unfortunately, the corporations seem to win no matter what you do. Running a ballot measure is incredibly expensive. It costs a lot of money to raise public awareness of an issue and run things like get out the vote measures.
Dragging out a measure with a revote tilts things well in favor of corporations, who have the cash to sustain such an operation. Now the reformers are going to have to fundraise all over again so they can try to put forth an effort in the next election.
I'd be nice to eliminate the source of the problem, rather than have to litigate over the after-effects.
Here's some info on what was actually being voted on, because both the SLashdot and EFF summary treat it as a virtual irrelevance:
The plaintiffs were backers of Measure R, which would have allowed medical marijuana clubs to move into retail areas in Berkeley without public hearings and would have erased limits on the amount of cannabis that patients could have.
According to the county's certified results, the measure lost, 25,167 to 24,976. The initiative lost again in a recount.
== Jez ==
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Yes, you would.
If you had read the article, you would know that the problem was not the machines.
The city did perform a dump of the data before they returned the machines to Diebold; that was the responsibility of the people in california. Diebold was clearing the machines and when told to stop they did, however only 20 of the 400+ machines had not been cleared.
From the article it was the responsibility of the place holding the vote to do the dump of the data.
Diebold was responible for clearing the machine once it was returned, which they did.
Why bother with all that when you can just look at the paper ballots that where printed when...oh wait...there AREN'T ANY!
This is a prime example of why a purely electronic record of the vote is a Bad Idea. If paper ballots had been printed, reviewed by the voter before being deposited in a secure ballot box, and retained for a recount, there would be no issue.
Against the cost of re-running a vote, those printers are starting to look pretty chap, I'd wager.
Government's idea of a balanced budget: take money from the right pocket to balance...oh who am I kidding?
What's the old adage? Never attribute to malice that which can be adequately explained by stupidity. I'm betting there was a lot more than just the results of this ballot measure stored on the machines. They get 'em back, because the clerk sends it back, they start erasing the machines because...well...it's what they do. Then they get flagged that there's this lawsuit going on, and they shouldn't start erasing them yet. Next thing you know, you go another election.
I have a much easier time believing there was a lot of stupidity on the part of a lot of people than I do believing they were able to successfully orchestrate something that would only end up forcing a re-vote anyway.
"It is a miracle that curiosity survives formal education." -Albert Einstein
But the problem really was the machines. Diebold's machines don't create paper trails. If there'd been a paper trail, that paper wouldn't have gone back to Diebold HQ and would not have been erased.
- First they ignore you, then they laugh at you, then ???, then profit.
We need to get rid of these electronic polling machines.
They should raise a proposition on this so that we can vote on the issue.
----------------------------------- My Other Sig Is Hilarious -----------------------------------
Most industries (finance, law, medicine, accounting...etc) would laugh at the idea of IT systems that have no audit trail. In the worst case scenario, the business could be held liable for damages (sometimes criminally) if certain controls and audit functions are not in place.
The fact that these machines were ordered, designed, and implemented without these controls shows incompetence (or corruption) at every level of the process - from voting administration, to the manufacture, sale, and installation of the equipment.
Those who allowed this to happen, should be the subject of investigation by the Department of Justice. Unfortunately, we may have to wait for another administration to do the right thing.
-ted
They do compete in the private sector.. Diebold is a major producer of ATM machines.
Why is this put to a public vote?
If the medical establishment say that something has a clinical benefit, what business is it of the public?
Should we have a referendum for every new drug?
simon
Why did they ALLOW them to send back the machine before things were taken care of
Because once the machines were back they could be sent somewhere else and make more money
Why did they ERASE the machines before things were taken care of?
Because the last thing they want is definitive proof that their equipment is in error, that would cut their profits. Better an election be voided then that.
Has the nation not bitched enough about paper trails and how precarious votes are already?
No
Do they have any clue whatsoever about what they are doing?
Making craploads of money? Yup, they know that well enough.
It doesn't take much sense to see that you can't take chances like this on a product that isn't proven and is under -heavy- scrutiny.
There you go with that sense thing. Let me explain, if they can make money selling badly made unproven kit they will, and this will continue so long as there are people willing to rent it.
It won't do jack shit for their reputation, and that of their machines. All anyone will know is that this election had to be redone, Diebold could have prevented that, and if they'd used paper ballots, it wouldn't have had to be redone.
So, you're in favor of the equipment vendor actually having a hand in the policies and practices of running the elections themselves? This is exactly the sort of thing that people have been screaming about - too MUCH influence by the hardware vendor.
Again, shame on Diebold for not having a fscking clue how to make and sell their product.
Except, they made it just fine (it did just what it was asked to do), and they sold it just fine, too. You seem to be suggesting that they should have their own people sitting in election board offices, monitoring the ups and downs of a political process at the local level, and consulting on how the local election board should carry on with the daily activities that they are paid to conduct. Is it your perception that part of Diebold's sales cycle and contract with the entities that use their gear is that they should be on call to direct those districts/states/municipalities/counties in making election process decisions - relative to local statutes and election rules and particular events - about when and how in-machine data should be handled after the election is over? Was that part of the sale - such relatively open-ended consulting services? How many election board meetings should thousands of Diebold employees attend in order to save people from themselves? How many tinfoil-hat conspiracy nuts would then see their involvment in such proceedings to be just another case of elections being 'stolen' by whoever it is they hate that week? Can't have it both ways.
Don't disappoint your bird dog. Go to the range.
The ATMs I use print receipts. I wonder why Diebold doesn't do the same with voting machines. I mean, stick with what works.
Always someone has power over you. The thing to consider is this: Is the power good, or bad?
'd be nice to eliminate the source of the problem, rather than have to litigate over the after-effects.
Agreed but it's highly illegal to take all politicians and corperate executives and kill them on pikes in public.
Do not look at laser with remaining good eye.
The focus of discussions on e-voting machines always seems to come down to the reliability and accuracy of the audits. What this ignores is the potential for the actual voting records to be altered prior to inclusion in the overall voting record.
The problem with e-voting (in my opinion) is not so much the audit trail, but the fact that e-voting adds unnecessary levels of complexity (and obfuscation and unaccountability) to the voting process. This is the result of government leaders attempting to perform vital civic services on the cheap: why pay poll workers and vote counters, when we can just use machines that do this fast and automagically?
What the use of e-voting machines invites is the ability/potential not only to count votes FASTER, but to do so behind a hardware/software interface, where much malfeasance can be conjured in code and executed on-the-fly, beyond the observational capacity of effectively the entire voting population.
Some things are better dealt with in the analog world. A true and accurate accounting of the will of the people is too important to a democracy for us to cut corners. I think it is worth the cost of paper ballots and carbon-based vote counters to effect the will of the people (however much one may or may not agree with the peoples' will).
That's my two cents on a Thursday before 11am (the time of the morning at which my brain always chugs to life).
Mmmmmm... Bold, yet refreshing!
No.
Data from the NORC recount shows that under the legal standard in force at the time, the "intent of the voter", more ballots were cast for Gore than for Bush.
As the Washington Post admitted (though only deep into an article whose headline and lead tells how recounts would have favored Bush):
That's not even taking into account the inclusion of illegitimate absentee ballots that favored Bush, or the illegal disenfranchisement of likely Gore voters, or the poorly-designed and illegal "butterfly ballots" in Palm Beach.
It also appears that, emboldened by their success in Florida in 2000, the Bush camp went on to conduct massive vote fraud in Ohio in 2004, quite possibly enough to steal the election there.
Not meant as a flame. The corporate mainstream media did in fact report as if the recount favored Bush, by focusing on what recounts were demanded under Gore's strategy rather than the question of what ballots were actually cast.
But it is clear that in Florida in 2000, more voters went to the polls intending to vote for Gore; despite intimidation and illegal purges of the voter rolls, more voters got to the voting booth intending to vote for Gore; and despite bad balloting technology and practices (which disproportionately affected poor neighborhoods, making a mockery of "equal protection"), more voters voted for Gore than voted for Bush.
But the GOP played better politics than the spineless, gonad-less, soulless thing that is all that remains of the Democratic Party. And so came the point the historians will mark as the end of the
Tom Swiss | the infamous tms | my blog
You cannot wash away blood with blood
Obviously someone who has never watched or read about the Diebold systems. They already have printers attached! Which proves it's not a technical issue at all, since part of the process is to print out a "zero tape" to prove that the totals inside the machine are zero. (Whether or not such thing is useful is debatable, since a zero tape proves nothing. It's trivial to change the software from printing the actual total to actually print a literal zero... more complex if you want to pass by an audit, but not terribly difficult to make a simple slip-up and actually print zeros when the internal totals aren't zero).
I think the printers even have a little window to which you can peek at them, and they don't necessarily output a slip, but remain in a locked box, too... (well, as secure as the memory card lock, anyhow...)
I have a much easier time believing there was a lot of stupidity on the part of a lot of people than I do believing they were able to successfully orchestrate something that would only end up forcing a re-vote anyway.
Do you really think it was just stupidity that caused them to design voting machines without a paper trail? You think the people who make our ATMs and slot machines are too incompetent to design an auditable system?
Give me Classic Slashdot or give me death!
It really makes one think, doesn't it? I'll quote a slashdot entry from an earlier related discussion:
- First they ignore you, then they laugh at you, then ???, then profit.
Reasonable intelligent supporters of marijuana legalization don't think it's harmless, they just think it's less harmful than alcohol, which is legal. I don't know enough say for sure that marijuana is less harmful, but I've never seen any good studies suggesting that it's more harmful. (Certainly the study you link to could have been about alcohol instead, and no one would bat an eye).
You are reading a copy of my copyrighted post.
a Schedule I drug according to the Controlled Substances Act of 1970, which classified marijuana as having high potential for abuse, no medical use, and not safe to use under medical supervision. Which any scientific study will tell is a load of steaming bullshit
True. Regardless of any feelings on the morality of marijuana use or whether it should be legalized, its Schedule I status, putting it on the same level as crack and amphetamines, is simple stupidity. It has well documented uses, is quite safe, and is no where near as addictive as any number of illegal drugs, and may be less so than alcohol. It does have potential for abuse and that is a different question.
The concern is, presumably, that admitting it has uses, given that it is relatively safe (particularly as compared to commonly prescribed opiates), it will become widely used medically. This is a political issue though and a stupid one. It has nothing to do with medical facts and a lot to do with fiber production.
The debate over whether marijuana should be recreationally legal, whether its use commonly endangers others (say, driving under the influence), and what any penalties should be is heavily clouded by this problem. It also makes the whole drug problem harder because it makes the entire drug classification system look partisan and useless, which, to some extent, it is exactly that. It results in a loss of respect for the system.
"What's the old adage? Never attribute to malice that which can be adequately explained by stupidity." FWIW, that's known as Hanlon's Razor.
What is really interresting about this is that not only do they totally ignore the fact that pot can be eaten (not exclusively smoked), and that it too can be filtered (water pipes, etc), but that there are no studies that show an increase in cacer from smoking Cannabis, in fact, some of the studies done show a decrease in cancer incidence from people smoking pot, because while nicotine is a cancer-causing violent poison, THC is a cancer-reducing psychotrope with no know toxicity level (it is impossible to have a lethal overdose of THC). But they talk about the other substances, besides from nicotine, that are also present and nasty... and assume that no one ever filters them out, or simply bypass their creation by cooking it instead of burning it.
It is illegal in spite of all available science, it was made illegal temporarily in waiting for this evidence, but once the evidence came, it was ignored. The law is a clear fraud, and a deadly one at that: Peter Alexander McWilliams (August 5, 1949 - June 14, 2000) was a writer and cannabis activist. A vocal supporter of medical cannabis due to being terminally ill with AIDS and cancer, McWilliams was investigated by the Federal Drug Enforcement Administration and convicted for violating federal marijuana laws, even though medical marijuana was legal under California state law. He later choked to death on his own vomit when he was forced to switch from cannabis to Marinol in order to remain free on bond pending sentencing .
No honest man should stand for this travesty.
You can't take the sky from me...