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Florida Literally Scraps Touch-Screen Voting
Kaseijin writes "Florida Governor Charlie Crist is getting his wish. The New York Times reports the state will replace touch-screen voting machines with optical-scan models by July 1, 2008 — the most aggressive timetable of any jurisdiciton rethinking this approach to voting. The touch-screen machines most likely will be sold to other jurisdictions or stripped for parts."
I think we should buy one for each Slashdot 10th anniversary party and smash them.
Google's Super Secret Search Algorithm: SELECT @search_results FROM internet WHERE @search_results = 'good'
"The fight for freedom has only just begun." - Geert Wilders
Stripped for parts? Am I the only one thinking there won't be much of a demand for those? :/
At first I was equating optical to retinal scan voting -- "Sorry, the correct choice was --" "AHHH! MY EYES!" In more rational terms, this is good, there should be a paper trail which is key to our voting process. You fill the circle in with a marker, slide the ballot in the dealy, it counts, and you can do a manual recount if needed. That's what is truly required.
There are enough problems with arguments about whether a vote should be counted or not as it is, in any system. With optical scanning of a ballot paper, surely there will be arguments about whether what the scanner counts as a vote or not is actually the correct definition of what is a vote or not? The voting system is likely to be attacked by people who disagree with its definitions whatever it is.
(1)DOCOMEFROM!2~.2'~#1WHILE:1<-"'?.1$.2'~'"':1/.1$.2'~#0"$#65535'"$"'"'&.1$.2'~'#0$#65535'"$#0'~#32767$#1"
...for parts? someone should buy all chips containing the software and look for some bogus going on in there.
At Defcon15 Bruce Schneier has said that he prefers optical scan *by far*.
The losing side will contest the results anyway.
---- Booth was a patriot ----
As opposed to figuratively?
I'm stunned that in the first place a system that could not be 100% audited was allowed to be used in the first place! Seriously, even though politicians don't seem to give a damn what you think the voting process is supposed to be a key-stone of democracy. If you can't trust the ballots you can't trust the system. It's fundamental.
Shh.
Aggh,someone had to ask it.
Leave the gun, take the cannolis.
As a Canadian, I've never voted with anything other than a paper ballot, and I have never had a reason to question the voting process as a result.
Is that you can design the voting form in such a way to fix one of the fundamental problems with democracy. You can make it confusing enough that those with insufficient I.Q. are able only to spoil their ballots, thereby improving the overall level of decision making by the then elected government.
Deleted
it'ld be interesting to see if anyone buys one and is able to find some major problem with it that might cause.... oh, i don't know.... never mind.
Help Me! I'm trapped in the tubes! Oh noes! Here comes a internet!
You can throw some nasty little virus on there in the meantime :D
.. I take along my PERMENANT marker and place a HUGE BLACK [X] on the SCREEN :)
http://www.rense.com/general79/wdx1.htm
I hope the use CHARCOAL and not LEAD for health and environment reasons.
http://www.rense.com/general79/wdx1.htm
Somebody's uncle got very wealthy marketing touch screen voting machines to state and country governments. Probaby the same guy that sold Broward County their chad-laden punch cards.
Sometimes you have to take the time to figure out what the real problems are and address them properly before pissing your money away on waste and potential changes that make things worse. In the case of lever machines and pucnh cards, the replacements were a waste of money and possibly made things worse. Sadly, the real problems were "figured out" long ago, and Congress merely told jurisdictions to take action quickly.
Unfortunately, there were missteps in many jurisdictions. The reasons for the missteps are up for debate, and are very politically charged, but basically includes:
- Inept analysis and decision making
- Poor/non-existent understanding of the voting process and related technologies
- Failure to include any independent experts
In short, their inability to execute wasn't due to the timeline - it was due to the fact that many people who were supposed to be responsible and capable in the area of voting turned out to be inept political appointees who only knew how to listen to the vendors' sales pitch. Instead of involving unbiased experts, they instead portrayed themselves as "experts" and made very poor decisions.However, to be fair, many districts around the country did make great decisions in upgrading their voting process and related technologies. I think you'll find that those districts performed detailed analysis and included unbiased experts before making a decision.
Why do they always involve some type of machine to do the counting in the US? Is there a shortage of volunteers to do the counting?
I would never trust a system like that. At the very least, the machine-counted vote should be confirmed later (but before the election is officially confirmed) by a manual count, no matter if there is a dispute or not.
In Sweden, the ballots are counted by volunteers in the precincts on election night under the supervision of observers from the parties and interested citizens (anyone can observe the counting), and the vote is later confirmed when it's counted by the counties, again under the supervision of observers.
The latter process takes several days (it starts on the day after the election) but counting in the precincts is usually done by the end of the day.
So ... you're saying a rigged system is better than no system, and if you notice that something is rigged/corrupt, you shouldn't demand justice, because that might throw everything into chaos, eventually? Is that what you're saying? Is this "Roman irony"?
You are aware that it was Bush's campaign that filed the first court challenges to the Florida ballots, right?
I'm sure you'll happily apply the entire rest of your comment to Bush now that you know he's the one who caused the inevitable Caesar.
Recursive: Adj. See Recursive.
We use them here and they work great. You put an X in the circle of who you want to vote for. Very simple and they work well. No screens to navigate and completely verifiable.
---- aut viam inveniam aut faciam
crap is a term used to describe waste metal. Old, unwanted metal such as parts of vehicles, building supplies, and surplus materials, are taken to a wrecking yard (known colloquially as scrapyards), where they are processed for later melting into new products.
Even selling them for parts isn't literally scrapping them
You can't take the sky from me...
BAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHA!!!!!!!!
Oh you poor beguiled Floridians. You've just been taken for the old bait and switch. If you had paid attention to the debacle of the last presidential election you would know that it was the optical scanners that were compromised, not the touch screens! An in-depth statistical analysis was undertaken by a mathematics professor of the exit polls compared to the "counted" tally. A vast number of anomalies showed up in Ohio in districts with optical scanners. Calculating the odds of those discrepancies show that it was less likely for Bush to have won that election than for him to have been hit by lighting and win the lottery on the same day (paraphrasing of course).
:T:R:A:N:S:
The basic problem in 2000 was that Florida had stupid people running the election. They came up with the dumbest ballots possible. When they are rebuked, they buy (using federal money) the worst election machines possible. These people are still there.
Only the retired volunteer.
And yes there is a shortage.
is to turn a few of them over to so of the crackers, reverse compile them, and lets see exactly how many bugs there are? In particular, I want to know, were the elections valid. For that reason, I suspect that the courts and the pubs will fight the idea of turning ANY of those over to an academians or crackers.
I prefer the "u" in honour as it seems to be missing these days.
When I voted in 2004, I voted in a poor neighborhood in FL. I was an early voter, and I had a 2 hour wait. My mother and brother had a 4 hour wait, also early voters. My boss Paul, who lives in a rich Republican area (Snell Isle, to all y'all Tampons) left work on voting day, and was back 30 minutes later. I suspect it took him 15 minutes to vote. My then-girlfriend, who lived in a Republican rich neighborhood voted the day of, and she just walked right in.
Their was tons of voter disenfranchisement, specifically of black people, in the 2000 election. There were many leaders of the black community who came before the Senate to request audience, and anyone--Al Gore included--could have stepped forward to grant it. Noone did. Not even Al Gore. Kerry promised he would not remain quiet if there was election fraud. Look into what happened in Ohio, where voting locations in swing districts were shut down by the FBI. More people voted for George Bush than were registered voters in certain districts. Some districts registered negative votes for Kerry. Not a motherfucking peep from that ketchup loving traitor to his people.
The only thing I can conclude with the admittedly spare rationality that the good (non-Judeo Christian) lord has bestowed upon me is that we were put on as a country by the most elaborate scam artists in the world, and Al Gore and John Kerry were merely shills for the Republican party.
How can you fucking lose to a turd sandwich? Honestly. Of all the Democrats, the Democratic party refused to pick anyone with any testicles. Hillary has more testicles than those guys. Though I don't really trust that snizz, either, because she won't tell us what the fuck her plans are in regards to shooting foreigners. Way to inspire confidence.
Please stop stalking me, bro.
Why not just go back to using hammers and chisels on stone tablets? But seriously, why can't I fill out my ballot online, print it, and either mail it in or hand deliver it? I can do this with an airline boarding pass...
I live (and vote) in NH. When I voted in the 2004 election, I had to feed my ballot into a machine of some kind. I assumed it was scanning the ballot when I did so. It certainly did more than just feed it into the lock box. And it didn't sound like a shredder.
dragonhawk@iname.microsoft.com
I do not like Microsoft. Remove them from my email address.
Jeb, is that you Jeb?
Bass not biting? So, you been fish'n online, eh?
You are being MICROattacked, from various angles, in a SOFT manner.
Because Gore's lawyers were demanding a recount in only specific areas of Florida, and the local officials started doing that even though it was illegal to do so under the election law.
I voted yesterday with pencil and paper - putting numbers in boxes. The polling booths closed at 5pm. At 9:14pm the full results appeared on the net after being added up by volunteers and scrutenised by all interested parties. Forget the machines - this is a situation where volunteers do a far better job. Ironicly Slashot is showing me an ad at this point with the slogan "the power of human energy" - which is apt since the retired people that have trouble working out how to run voting machines by all accounts (and are never given training) are very good at counting up votes on ballot papers.
I would too, after reading this. (Warning, PDF content)
"Be grateful for what you have. You may never know when you may lose it."
Yeah, especially all those folks at Cape Canaveral.
Please stand clear of the doors, por favor mantenganse alejado de las puertas
Yeh right.
Under Florida law EVERYONE may request an absentie ballot, no questions asked. So instead of waiting for 45 min to an hour (in a Republican area TOO!) my wife and I are on permanent absentie ballots. No muss, no fuss, no wait.
As for your claim of voter disenfranchisement? Horse hockey. It was investigated and found to be non existent. It was all made up, and that was even that j****** Jesse Jackson agreeing with that judgement.
By "early voter," do you mean that you voted early in the day of the election? or that you voted during the one-month "early voting" program at the county level? 2004 FL was pretty screwball.
Can you be Even More Awesome?!
In top ten format: (although not the top ones)
10) Optical scanners, their communication system, and the central tabulator ALL have been hacked before. (not all models, but most are only less stupidly designed than the touch screens)
9) The scan card itself as far as I know has not been hacked yet. re-scans will not show the errors depending on attack.
8) Districts. There is no algorithm for district definition; its not fixed either. (perhaps fixed is better than adapting to population? Perhaps a proxy voting system would work better?)
7) Faulty closed equip. Our optical scan system has NO lights; it to spits the paper back out.
6) Ballots are not authenticated, nor are their numbers tracked
5) Recounts are for "sore losers" so cheat a lot and quickly get the "loser" to fold without a fight
4) Cheaters are REWARDED and protected (Jeb Bush- fought in court, lost, then violated the same law and court orders backing those laws- before 2000.)
3) Some laws do not make a hand count of paper the official count; which is should be out of common sense (screw the laws that say otherwise which BTW, are written by #7 with no fear of the 2nd amendment.)
2) Voter registration & denied rights. Registration is a nightmare. Everybody votes or many are wrongfully denied.
1) Exit polls have been banned (here anyway) no error sampling allowed. (despite all the science, I'm amazed global warming even got past the filters.)
The severe damage to the USA has already been done; is the system healthy enough to ever fully recover? (not that going back to a pre-2000 condition is all that great.)
Democracy Now! - uncensored, anti-establishment news
In this case, those states that worked together seemed to get it right. The states that did their own thing, or worse, let local jurisdictions make their own decisions were the only ones that seemed to have a fiasco.
"States rights" gives states the right to be very smart - or very stupid.
(As stated by others in this thread) There is no need for an expensive middle-man in the voting process. Having comparatively delicate machines involved adds no security to the process.
My reason for making the suggestion about transforming DREs into very expensive pencils is that local governments are notorious for their inability to face the economic "sunk cost" problem: They claim that they paid lots of very limited money for the machines and they insist on Getting Their Moneys Worth. They also say that getting ballots printed is Very Expensive.
My wife and I, along with our friends in the hand-counted-paper-ballots coummunity are having a difficult time getting past the local election officials who just love their precious machines and think of paper ballots as backward and out of date. They Want To Be Perfectly Modern Government Officials.
Nearly every computer professional or security professional that is asked about electronic voting answers that it's either insecure or too expensive. Statements to that effect accelerate as they flow between the ears of local election officials.
Here's further support for your thesis:
I've stated elsewhere in this thread and other places that electronic machines constitute a perfect way to bias voting paterns in a perfectly legal way: Favored/wealthy precincts are allocated plenty of voting machines, while unfavored/not-wealthy precincts receive inadequate allocations. The result is that some voters have a strong time-based disincentive from voting. This amounts, in my opinion, to a denial of the vote to selected groups of people.
That kind of suggestion is the real reason some politicians are so eager to delegate the rights of citizens to computers.
I agree with you in part; voting machines are a crappy idea. But I side with Bing on getting rid of them. That should be done locally, by the same jurisdictions that made the mistake of using them.
The federal government can only screw up situations like Hurricane Katrina in proportion to how heavily the citizens of the country, on average, rely on it to resolve local problems.
All 19 hijackers were known terrorists 09-10-2001. Lack of FBI intelligence does not justify warrantless wiretaps..
Much faster and easier to throw it to finding god or aliens. Finding an honest politician is a n^M hard problem.
I prefer the "u" in honour as it seems to be missing these days.
When I voted in 2004, I voted in a poor neighborhood in FL. I was an early voter, and I had a 2 hour wait.
Yeah, because you have a lot of stupid people in line that didn't know how to vote. Poor people are always slow about everything... that's why they are poor!
Their was tons of voter disenfranchisement, specifically of black people, in the 2000 election
No there wasn't. You just have to remember that you aren't allowed to vote twice!
This is my sig.
An ideal system would use paper ballots, with an "open" ballot format specification. Basically, the specification would define the paper size, and the set of locations on the paper where the little circles or ovals are to be located, and a protocol for marking details like which end of the paper is "top", and which page of a multi-page ballot is being scanned. If several different companies and/or open-source projects produce the scanners, then we could have N-version verification of elections, without the need to do tedious hand-counting.
The elections office would provide ballots in that format, and a ballot scanner that can scan that format, for each precinct. If the scanner at a precinct breaks, they could rescan those ballots using a spare scanner either at the precinct or at the central office. The ballots themselves of course must be maintained under multiple-control, but security of physical pieces of paper is well understood and easily implemented.
The interesting part of an open ballot specification happens during the auditing. Each interested party or candidate could provide their own ballot scanners, with their own hardware design and their own software. Those would have to meet a minimal specification -- such as that they must not add marks to the ballots, and they must not damage the ballots. After the election, each of the ballot scanners provided by the parties would be used to rescan the ballots. If the scanners, having different hardware designs, different software programs, and different ownership, all come up with the same results, then we can be pretty sure that those results are correct.
If the machines don't agree with each other, a public hand-count of one or two precincts can quickly establish which machines(s) is(are) wrong. There is no gain to be had by making a machine that is not accurate, because the inaccurate machine will be quickly exposed. So, there is no incentive to provide an inaccurate scanner machine.