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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.
Do you want your vote counted by people who can't read a contract? We used to have client documentation requirements of two ring binders for some and three ring binders for others. If we did it wrong, we would have lost 10% of the payment for a 20 million dollar machine. You bet the requirements were checked and double checked.
This case also serves as a warning that California will not take any crap from the vendors. It may prevent any further 'mistakes.'
This is EXACTLY what happened with all those chinese product safety scandals. A safe 'certified' product gets produced in China, someone there decides to change something, and BAM the product turns out to be unsafe.
Certification is meant to be "I seen this product, I tested it, it is safe". If you then CHANGE that product, that means the test is no longer valid.
And yes, that is down to the size of the screws. In this case that would matter a great deal, voting machines are supposed to be tamper proof. Change the screws and it might be a lot easier to open all of a sudden.
If you work with products that are certified, then you must keep the product the same. Those are the rules, it is in the contract.
Really, with the recent stories from China I would think nobody would be stupid enough to think it a good idea when products are changed on the production line.
It don't matter that the changes may not have an impact, HOW ARE WE SUPPOSED TO KNOW.
The deal with this kind of situations is, you produce a product in X form. That is form is tested and gets certified. If you then change it, it has to be retested and recertified because without it that product has suddenly become untested and your word isn't good enough or we would have gone through the first testing and certfication in the first place.
Do you trust voting machine companies? You must be a diebold stockholder.
MMO Quests are like orgasms:
You may solo them, I prefer them in a group.
If they did not change the version number nobody might have noticed. Even not it it was sold with a buildin trojan. What does that say about voting with computers?