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.

Comments

Corporations

[ZuG]

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.

Re:Corporations

[ScentCone]

the corporations seem to win no matter what you do

You'd think that Frito-Lay would be all over this initiative. And Dominos. While it may be hard to re-muster the Stoner Caucus to do this all over again, perhaps the Munchie Cartel can pick up the slack.

California. *sigh*

There's plenty of reasons to re-invent electronically-assisted voting (I like the also-spits-out-paper variation, myself), but it really doesn't help the cause when - to a casual newsreader - an important test case seems to be about weed.

Re:Corporations

[cez]

Plus... this is for a medical marijuana vote... I'm sure it was tough enough for supporters to make it to the polls the first time! Who imagines they'd actually remember when the revote will be...

Re:Corporations

[mrogers]

This is a rare case of Diebold tallies matching the exit polls: the machines couldn't remember how the votes were cast and neither could the voters.

Re:Corporations

[Deagol]

I think he meant that the history behind the demonization of weed has been solely to the benefit of big business, the prison industrial complex, and big government, while at the expense of taxpayers and the freedom of many individuals. All with a host of evidence supporting that, in terms of substance with abuse potential, pot should be *way* down on the priority list, if on the list at all.

Yay! Now ban the machines

[Reality Master 201]

I'd be nice to eliminate the source of the problem, rather than have to litigate over the after-effects.

Re:Yay! Now ban the machines

[will_die]

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.

Re:Info on the ACTUAL measure being voted on

[Rob T Firefly]

I think so far as Slashdot and EFF are concerned, the actual issue is a virtual irrelevance. Whether you're voting on a world-changing issue in the seat of national government or a proclamation to put an extra stop sign on the corner of Turkey and Buzzard streets in Bumsville Idaho, the damn things need to work correctly.

Just look at the paper ballots!

[frdmfghtr]

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.

Re:Yay! Now ban the machines

[sacrilicious]

If you had read the article, you would know that the problem was not the machines.

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.

Look at how other industries work.

[zerofoo]

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

Why

[SimonGhent]

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?

Re:Why

[sexybomber]

You're absolutely right; OxyContin is illegal without a prescription because it's a Schedule II substance. Marijuana, on the other hand, is on Schedule I, which is where they put drugs that:

# The drug has a high potential for abuse.
# The drug has no currently accepted medical use in treatment in the United States.
# There is a lack of accepted safety for use of the drug.

(from Wikipedia)

Schedule I drugs are illegal, period, because the government feels that there's no legitimate reason you should be using them. They consider any use of a Schedule I substance a "recreational" use, because in their opinion, you couldn't possibly be using that substance to treat any illness or condition.

Of course, pure THC (aka Marinol) is Schedule II, so you could get a prescription for it if you wanted to. But Marinol is manufactured by the drug companies, whereas you could theoretically grow your own marijuana and cut out the middle-man. Hmmmmm, I'm beginning to see a pattern here...

Re:Yay! Now ban the machines

[Lumpy]

'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.

Re:It's a question of degree

[Scrameustache]

it's less harmful than alcohol, which is legal. I don't know enough say for sure that marijuana is less harmful Not a single person in the history of mankind has smoked himself to death with Cannabis, ever.

But with booze (in the United States alone): The annual average number of deaths for which alcohol poisoning was listed as an underlying cause was 317, with an age-adjusted death rate of 0.11 per 100,000 population. An average of 1,076 additional deaths included alcohol poisoning as a contributing cause, bringing the total number of deaths with any mention of alcohol poisoning to 1,393 per year (0.49 per 100,000 population).