Maryland Scraps Diebold Voting System

beadfulthings writes "After eight years and some $65 million, the state of Maryland is taking its first steps to return to an accountable, paper-ballot based voting system. Governor Martin O'Malley has announced an initial outlay of $6.5 million towards the $20 million cost of an optical system which will scan and tally the votes while the paper ballots are retained as a backup. The new (or old) system is expected to be in place by 2010 — or four years before the state finishes paying off the bill for the touch-screen system."

Comments

But what I want to know -

[Recovering Hater]

-is where the "Suddenoutbreakofcommonsense" tag is?

Re:But what I want to know -

[jrothwell97]

Just 'cause I'm feeling nice, I have tagged it as 'suddenoutbreakofcommonsensejustforyourecoveringhater'. Happy now...?

Diebold = Premier Election Solutions.

[Jackie_Chan_Fan]

I'm sure many of us are aware... but let us not forget who Premier Election Solutions, really are. They are Diebold.

Changing the name was a sneaky move.

Re:Diebold = Premier Election Solutions.

[sconeu]

The difference is that both Diebold and their clients (the banks) have a vested interest in making sure ATMs *DO* record every transaction accurately.

Re:Diebold = Premier Election Solutions.

[PopeRatzo]

I bet there will be some nasty digital skeletons in the closet.

Absolutely.

The more I learn about this Diebold outfit, the more I think they should be kept far away from any part of our electoral system. Just yesterday, I read an interesting story about a county clerk in some rural Nevada county who looked the machines over carefully and, not being a techie, called in a few trusted computer people to check out one of the systems. Naturally, Diebold's machines are closed source, so they say this County Clerk violated their EULA. The worst part of this is that Diebold put pressure on the County Board until this clerk was forced to resign. They've got that much power.

Just the idea that our elections would run on a closed-source, impossible-to-audit system is unbelievable to me. Especially after the rate of undervoting (ballots that were completely filled out, except the Diebold machines say there was no vote cast for President that only seemed to occur in heavily Democratic precincts in Pennsylvania, New Mexico and Ohio. In some minority districts, the rate of undervoting was EIGHTY PERCENT in 2004. That means, in a heavily contest year, in an area that has a high turnout rate, voters went in and filled out their computer ballot for all the local races, all the judgeships, county board, etc., but for some reason did not cast a vote for President. It's absolutely ridiculous. Problem is, since there are no paper ballots, it's impossible to audit. Diebold sends in the count and that's it, jack. Four more years of a jug-eared dry drunk in the White House.

It's going to take a while, and maybe a few election cycles, but if we can't get honest paper ballots in every single precinct in the USA, there needs to be some serious shit a-flyin'.

Stuck with the bill.

[Ethanol-fueled]

Perhaps the state could sell some of the Diebold devices to help pay the bill that they're stuck with. They may garner a cult following(like the iPhone) of hackers and tinkerers. The devices are worthless as voting machines but they may be coaxed into second lives as kiosk-style internet machines, etc.

Re:Stuck with the bill.

[KiloByte]

Or, you see, return them as faulty and demand the (taxpayers') money back?

Re:Stuck with the bill.

[Amorymeltzer]

This is just stupid. Wasting $65M to $90M is pointless, but they deserve it. Moving backwards isn't the answer, and neither is moving only slightly backwards. There's no way that for that kind of money, they couldn't have gotten a series of machines that actually works. I don't want to spit the same old Diebold sucks, yay linux/open source/etc. vitriol but there are a lot of options available to a small business, not to mention a bloody STATE. The instant these things weren't working properly eight years ago, they should've given Diebold an ultimatum and then gone elsewhere.

Maryland expects to be back on the paper trail, following states such as Florida and California, which have also decided that all-electronic systems make it too easy to compromise elections. Hmm... an all-electronic system doesn't work, and neither does all-paper. Gee, I wonder if there's someway to combine the two and maybe get some sort of hybrid, combining the best of both worlds...

Election fraud

[Capt'n Hector]

I don't know if this is common knowledge to informed Americans (I only know of it because it is part of my family lore), but in the 1970s there was another voting machine company, named after its founder, Shoup. They made the voting booths with the pulldown lever, and though I doubt they're still around today, some of you older /.ers may remember them. Anyhow, this company was plagued by scandal. One of the Shoup family, Ransom Shoup was actually convicted of conspiracy to throw an election. The company was also involved in bribing florida politicians. And this was in the era of paper ballots, too. Fast-forward to today: nobody knows if Diebold is up to no good, but that's kind of the point. Without a paper trail, it will be hard to convict anyone of anything, and I think Diebold knows this.

Optical scan ballots

[rtechie]

Optical scan ballots really aren't a dramatic improvement in reliability. In fact, the touchscreen systems replaced optical scan ballots in many locations.

Designing a reliable balloting system is really quite easy. The UN nailed it down decades ago:

1. Printed paper ballots wherein each ballot is marked by grease pencil or felt marker.

2. Ballots are folded and placed into a slot on top of a locked clear plastic box.

3. The boxes are guarded, transported to a central location, and then opened and the ballots are all hand-counted by volunteers in front of observers from all parties.

Re:Optical scan ballots

[karmatic]

Optical scan ballots really aren't a dramatic improvement in reliability.

They can be. Have the touchscreen device print the vote onto the paper ballot, and a barcode with a checksum. Scan it optically and verify it against the checksum.

Anyone can verify their ballot - they simply look at what is marked. Misreads simply don't happen - if the two don't match, there is a problem. Give they guy a new ballot (replacing the old one), and have him do it again.

If the hand recount doesn't _exactly_ match the automated totals, it can be scanned in batches (any size). Count X ballots, scan X ballots. If they don't match, there is a problem.

As a nice side effect, machines don't have to be trusted, and don't have to have a network connection either. The machine can't screw up your vote without marking the wrong thing (or the CRC would be wrong), and you can check that yourself before it's counted. Recounts can be done by hand, and in the event of total system failure, you can still mark the silly thing by hand.

As a nice bonus to this, you get the benefits of touchscreen voting - secret ballots for the blind (audio), multiple language support, pictures, the ability to offer more in-depth descriptions of line items, etc.

It's not exactly rocket science.

Re:Optical scan ballots

[rhizome]

Hand counting is not quick, and human error can enter into that. Hand counting with lots of observers can be pretty time consuming in terms of man-hours.

This brings up one of the consistently-unasked questions in debates over electronic balloting: what's the hurry? I don't mean "It would be nice if we knew sooner," but what is it about an election requires that this stuff be done quickly?

A second unasked-question would be, "what makes hand-counting errors less desirable than electronic-counting errors?"

Re:Optical scan ballots

[Kingrames]

"It's not exactly rocket science."

No, but if you could do it with rockets, that would be awesome.

Who wrote these contracts?

[devjj]

If the state buys a touch-screen voting system that is later proven (without a doubt) to be flawed in any of a number of ways, all of which contribute directly to an incorrect tally of the vote (the very reason the machines were procured), why does said state still have to pay for that contract? Are states not naturally covered by the same laws we are? Did they not get a warranty? Did no one even stop to fucking ask?

Re:Especially in Chicago, NYC and the East Coast.

[Trogre]

And why oh why is your country not populated by people who might be inclined to provide a set of concrete sneakers to anyone who sells them untrustworthy elections?

Heck, Shoup is still in the game today!

[Fantastic Lad]

Except Shoup is now calling itself, "Advanced Voting Solutions" (AVS). You've probably heard of them. --The most astonishing part is that Diebold's, Howard Van Pelt and Larry Ensminger left Diebold and were hired by AVS in late 2004. --And not just a small hire either. Van Pelt and Ensminger are now AVS's President and Vice President!

Here's a little of Shoup's history.

It's a big, hairball of a mess and none of the right people are in jail.

-FL

My previous county's voting system

[oahazmatt]

I always enjoyed my previous county's voting system.

Here's your paper, here's your marker. Fill in the dot next to who you're voting for. If you make a mistake, please see one of the attendants for a new ballot and we will destroy the old one, and record the action and confirm it with your signature. If you would like to vote and are unable to properly use the marker, please see one of our attendants for assistance. Once you are done, please slip your ballot into the secured box at either end of the room. The "I voted" sticker is optional and will not be forced on you.

I voted in that county for 7 years, and not once did anyone ever question the authenticity of the outcomes, even when outcomes were close.