Slashdot Mirror
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.
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.
OSGGFG - Open Source Gamers Guide to Free Games
They had a contract. The supplier failed to follow it. Breach of contract is handled like this, I doubt the contract had anything about "just return it and go elsewhere" in it (also I'm not sure govt spending can be redirected as easily as that, remember that there's the whole lowest bidder thing to go through). Even if, that would cause additional costs for the govt because of the additional work to get another machine made. If a store sells you a product that's not what you told them you want that's fraud, if a supplier sells you something that's not what the contract specified that's breach of contract.
Justice is the sheep getting arrested while an impartial judge declares the vote void.
http://www.news4jax.com/politics/3890292/detail.html "The software is not geared to count more than 32,000 votes in a precinct. So what happens when it gets to 32,000 is the software starts counting backward," said Broward County Mayor Ilene Lieberman. The article says that they'd known about the problem for two years and failed to fix it. http://abcnews.go.com/US/comments?type=story&id=2646802 Randy Wooten figured he'd get at least one vote in his bid for mayor of this town of 80 people even if it was just his own. He didn't. Now he has to decide whether to file a formal protest. http://backslash.slashdot.org/article.pl?sid=06/08/01/191235 The Open Voting Foundation's disclosure that only one switch need be flipped to allow the machine to boot from an unverified external flash drive instead of the built-in, verified EEPROM There has been tons of mishaps with those machines reported on slashdot alone... I certainly don't blame them for throwing the book at them and fining them for all their worth. It certainly sends across the message that the voting system is not to be fucked with and hopefully it can help prevent situations like the above.
bah.
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.