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California Sues E-Voting Vendor ES&S
Gustoman writes with news that the California Secretary of State has sued ES&S, a vendor of e-voting machines, for selling machines that were modifications of the model that has been certified. Apparently ES&S relocated two circuit boards, rerouted several internal cables, and changed some mounting bracket supports in their AutoMark A100 devices, named the modified version AutoMark A200, and sold 972 of them to five California counties. The changes sound somewhat trivial, but the certification contract specified that no "substitution or modification of the voting systems shall be made with respect to any component of the voting systems... until the secretary of state has been notified in writing and has determined that the proposed change or modification does not impair the accuracy and efficiency of the voting systems sufficient to require a reexamination and approval." The state is seeking a penalty of $10,000 per machine sold, plus the cost of the machines to the counties — almost $15 million in all.
If they are different enough for the company to give them a new model number, they are different enough to need recertification.
I was thinking the same thing. The problem is you can raise the bar high enough that corruption becomes viable for both sides. This case will hopefully make the chuckle-heads behind the voting machines realize that they need to be building bulletproof systems and not barely good-enough consumer goods. Think embedded system rather than an MS Access 'solution.'
a) They didn't think it was that big of a deal.
b) They forgot.
The actual error isn't terribly worrying, but the process failure that led to the breach of their contract, especially for something that could have been complied with quite easily, is not the sort of thing you want to see going on at a company that makes closed source voting machines.
There's no failure quite as dissatisfying as a complete and total solution to the wrong problem.
SOME LINES FROM THE ARTICLE...
Does relocating two circuit boards, rerouting several internal cables and changing some mounting bracket supports mean an e-voting device must be recertified to meet state e-voting requirements?
The company also contended that the changes to the AutoMark A100 were so minor that ES&S was not required to submit them for review.
The only changes made to the devices were minor engineering modifications, according to ES&S.
Let me answer the question at the beginning of the article with a resounding YES!!!!!!!!!! YES YES YES! What if the software was written to act differently (cheat) if a bolt was in a certain place, if the color of some paint was different, or if something else was a cetain height? A company can just say "these are just minor changes that has nothing to do with the operation". You see, the contract was written to cover things like this. I am not saying the company had ill-intentions, but if they did violate the contract it's just stupid and - i guess if I can stretch it - a bit suspicious.
I could understand Cal's concern if different IC's were used, or if code was re-flashed. But if the two machines had the same circuit diagram, same components, and code, this penalty seems zealous. I live in California, and it's painful to see bureaucratic zealots nominally on my side, but being far from reasonable. This particular error on the part of the voting machine company appears to be on the level of a failure to file necessary paperwork.
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The contract didn't say "penalties only if re-flashed", instead it mentions any modifications needs to eb examined and approved. If you signed that contract you must be an idiot to do this substitution. You have to be strict or else you have more "diebolds". Any and all changes must be examined. All penalties assessed would be based on contract law. Paperwork is how a legalist society is run. It's not like jumping through hoops is new to government contractors.
You play the 'D' card. And having an e-voting executive promise to deliver an election to a particular candidate offends me to no end. However the machines in question, machines for the deaf that print out a ballot to be scanned, do not offend me. Diebold's machines, as do most other e-voting systems do. Still, the DA seems overzealous.
A relevant quote from the article:
One condition of that certification, according to her office, was that no "substitution or modification of the voting systems shall be made with respect to any component of the voting systems
So it appears that what it might come down to is the definition of 'component'. Taken too loosely, a change in the Pantone color of the plastic of a button would clear the hurdle. Taken appropriately, well, 'appropriately' will be something for the courts to decide. It might all come down to something like a quote from a hero of mine: "It depends on what the definition of 'is' is."
__ Someday, but not this morning, I'll finally learn to use the preview button.
Really? Where shall we draw the line then?
There is surely enough electronics in these machines that it would be trivial to conceal a circuit that changes its behavior depending on how various circuit boards are physically mounted in a chassis, even when all the connections appear visually equivalent.
Without visibility of the source code, we have no idea what it's doing under normal circumstances, much less when bits inside of it as physically rearranged. Hell, even with full schematics and source code, things could be easily hidden in production units. No matter what we do, we're taking their word for it.
Get rid of the machines.
It is this simple.
The law REQUIRES Cerification of the Voting Machine to be used/sold. ESS had the A100 certified. They are allowed to sell the A100 in CA
ESS made a newer model the A200 and sold them uncertified to districts.
I don't care what the changes were, You put a sticker on it that wasn't there during certification its uncertified. PERIOD. Finish engineering the damn thing before submitting it for certification.
Let this be a lesson to the makers of these types of machines. ONLY CERTIFIED VOTING MACHINES are legal.
Frankly, I'm disappointed with you guys for your wishy washy interpretation just because we are a bunch of engineers doesn't mean we don't have to take their side when they violate the law. Especially wjen it comes to something so vitally important to our democracy.
I couldn't agree more with this comment from the Sec of State.
"ES&S ignored the law over and over and over again, and it got caught," Bowen said in a statement. "California law is very clear on this issue. I am not going to stand on the sidelines and watch a voting system vendor come into this state, ignore the laws and make millions of dollars from California's taxpayers in the process."
Thank You, that is all.
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I see your point, but this is one of the reasons "mil-spec" parts cost so much. You get what you ordered, not what some vendor decided you might like instead. And those small differences add up. Cable locatons affect air flow and thus cooling. A very minor component change, such as a minor network chipset change, can swap network ports. And failing to notify the customer of the change is a very, very bad practice, especially in a sensitive system, because when a technician opens it up and two otherwise identical systems with the same model number don't match, foul play is going to be suspected.
I hate to tell you, but a change in the color of a key could be important. What if that change made the key unreadable to color-blind people? Or reduced the contrast so it was harder for a partially-blind person to read? These details can be important when you're dealing with something like a voting machine. Sure, maybe my scenarios don't seem likely, but they are possible, and thats why the government wants the chance to make the call, not the voting machine company. Notice that (at least the way I read this) the government of California isn't asking to re-certify trivial changes, they're merely asking to be notified of any change (no matter how minor) so that the government of California decides what is trivial, not the vendor.
What if they have some solid state gyros, that act differently based on said boards' positions. Or if that is so complex to accomplish for some idiots, who cannot fill in some papers; What if the PCB is designed in such a way that, when you use a one size bigger than standard nut, it acts as a jumper and changes results...
The company obviously doesn't treat elections very seriously and should be smacked down.
An election doesn't just have to work right, it has to be SEEN to be working right - that is PART of the "deliverables". Otherwise people may rightfully get pissed off.
Say in an "old school voting system" you had a company in charge of transporting ballot boxes from the booths to the counting stations, and one of the trucks took a "minor detour" on the way, maybe for the convenience of the company or the employees (take a leak or buy a drink etc).
Sure, nobody might have tampered with the stuff, but the elections get "damaged".
How damaged who knows. The eventual losers could kick up a big fuss. You might piss off millions of voters.
The company obviously doesn't deserve to be in the election system business.
The USA spends so much money in Iraq on "regime change" AKA picking the leaders there, but when it comes to picking the leaders back home - "it's only a minor modification" or we'll let Diebold's rejects who wouldn't be able to make ATM machines build voting machines for us.
For me, it has always been surprising that you americans have all these problems with voting machines. Voting is a simple enough proccess, why would anybody need a machine to do it?
I think it's always better to do it the traditional way, you go there with your ballot and put it on a clear box, after somebody has checked that you are who you say you are, and that you are supposed to vote. Painfully simple, completely fool-proof. It takes a bit more people to do it, but it's just as being in a jury.
I see absolutely no downside about doing it the traditional way. Is there any reason to do it with machines in america, or you do it that way just because it's cooler?
Tis women makes us love, Tis Love that makes us sad, Tis sadness makes us drink, And drinking makes us mad.
The answer to your question is in your post.
It's true that voting is simple process. Rigging a vote, however, is not as simple; and printing ballots does not have as high a profit margin as selling a voting machine.
The reasons for the machines and the reasons for the non-traditional way are: to make more money for friends (and campaign contributors) of politicians and to facilitate getting the desired (and paid for) result from an election.
It has nothing to do with the intelligence or lack thereof in the American voting populace.
It sounds a good thing to sell your vote, but you might soon notice that the price of your vote might simply be not losing your job at the first election, not being jailed at the second, and not being killed at the third (and you would have personnaly voted for each of these steps, so it will be perfectly legal).
Why do you need instant reporting though?
The posts being voted on don't change for a few weeks after the elections, so its not as if you need an instant tally.
Votes should NOT be counted until the final polling stations have closed, otherwise the results from one station could affect the results in another. This could be a problem with the USA as it has multiple timezones, but they could just do their exit polls and then count the votes the following day and get the results in a reasonable civilised manner.
Think about it.
We also have people who live in rural areas, far away from polling places. The more dates you have for elections (and we are coming up on our THIRD this year -- we do local stuff too and then the caucus is Jan 3) the less people you have showing up.
It takes me about 40 minutes to get to my polling place, I don't drive. I don't have child care. Weather is already crappy by election day. I go but why discourage people from going? Once a year is fine.
Votes should NOT be counted until the final polling stations have closed, otherwise the results from one station could affect the results in another. This could be a problem with the USA as it has multiple timezones
No, this is a problem because some people on the west coast are stupid. I don't see why we should restrict the first amendment rights of the media just because some people are too stupid to know they should still vote after hearing east coast results.
If CA had allowed them to do this, without bringing suit, then the CA gov would be liable if there were ANY problems - real or imaginary, which could somehow, anyhow be traced back to this discrepancy. The State Sec or State is doing the right thing both for the people and for his job security.
A court may find that the damages are too great, who cares... he brought the suit and is now off the hook for anything that may or may not have happened come election time.
A fool throws a stone into a well and a thousand sages can not remove it.
Voting machines such as those ESS and Diebold sell are useless for anything but cheating... as this illustrates, you can validate code and approve the circuitry design all you like, BUT YOU DON'T KNOW WHAT IS ACTUALLY IN THE MACHINES AT GO-TIME. They can place cheat chips or upload cheat code, and by the time anyone even has an inkling beyond simple statistical obviousness -- which American media apparently can't understand -- the election is years over and we are told no one cares. Unless of course a Democrat wins; imagine the hell unleashed by FoxNews! if a single voting system may have scooted a Demo into office with some question of the system's honesty. But I digress.
Paper trails are useless in the usual conception as well. A voter votes, and a little piece of paper comes out telling him that he voted thusly. Oh, PLEASE. Unless the paper is a card and can be manually recounted and the totals compared to the computer tally, the paper trail is worthless. Anything can be recorded, and anything can be printed. Now, if instead for security purposes the paper card receipt is kept archivally, then why the HELL have a PC acting as an agent in the first place, and simply count the paper cards? Canada uses a number 2 pencil and paper ballet, and they count the votes manually, with a rep from both or more parties observing the count-- you know, the thing that the Supreme Court here said didn't work. And they finish national elections in hours after the polls close. Faster than we do. Their method scales, you see.
There is no reason to computerize the voting process other than cheating. None. All else is sophistry. We had working systems; they were abused by injecting doubt in Florida in 2000. The recounts work fine if the lawyers and the Supremes stay the hell out of things. None of you may recall, but in 2000, at the same time Florida was being sued and stayed to death and back, two more recounts were happening out in the western states -- manually -- and no one said a thing. Florida was made a carnival by Republicans because they wanted to instill the idea in a fantastically compliant media that recounts didn't work, that chads made things uncountable somehow, that NO RECOUNT WAS NECESSARY by any means possible. It took faked up riots in Dade by republican staffers pretending to be random thugs demanding a shutdown and a crooked Supreme Court majority -- all rightist Republicans, and I include Kennedy as he has shown his new colors since then -- to order the shutdown of the democracy hours before the recount was supposed to end. Never has the US seen a group of election officials and volunteers work so hard and so quickly to beat a crooked shutdown and what was frankly a putsch by the Republican party.
How different the world would be now if Gore had been allowed to win. The worst. Day. Ever. In American history.
Listen: have you looked into this at all? Why is it the problem of some-guy-on-slashdot to bring you up to speed on what ought to be common knowledge at this point? In summary, there have been three different styles of attack in play in US elections (1) denial of the right to vote for people likely to vote against you; (2) shorting key districts of voting machines; (3) falsify the vote itself, via electronic voting machines. Oh, and you might throw in a number (4) manipulation of the government legal system to smear the opposition.
If you're in the mood to look up supporting data on each of those three points, for (1) I might suggest reading Greg Palast on the subject, (2) try reading some Ohio Free Press articles (they're online), also that HBO documentary had some striking footage of the problem (3) I suggest reading Freeman and Bliefuss on the subject (4) Is how Alberto Gonzales got chased out of the Attorney Generals office, it's not exactly obscure.
My apologies for not doing the link farming for you, but I'm getting tired of playing co-dependant with the willfully ignorant.
If you ask me, there's certainly been enough proof of chicanery to justify an investigation into the problem, but that hasn't happened. And there's definitely, shall we say, "cause for concern" about the integrity of American elections. Debra Bowen's election to Secretary of State of California has been one of the few bright spots in recent years.