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Judge Suppresses Report On Voting Systems
Irvu writes "A New Jersey Superior Court Judge has prohibited the release of an analysis conducted on the Sequoia AVC Advantage voting system. This report arose out of a lawsuit challenging on constitutional grounds the use of these systems. The study was conducted by Andrew Appel on behalf of the plaintiffs, after the judge in the case ordered the company to permit it. That same judge has now withheld it indefinitely from the public record on a verbal order."
With things the way they are right now, this judge should think again.
We already know that e-voting systems suffer from ridiculous flaws that were in-built.
This report might show that. The judge is seriously playing for the wrong team here.
They're using their grammar skills there.
Come on, we all know why this hasn't been released. Its because Sequoia will be claiming trade secrets based on their proprietary code. Now in a normal case this would make sense. If you made an aircraft engine control system that was 20% more efficient that the market average and someone in a court case claimed you used some of their code then you'd be pretty annoyed if your internal secrets were then published.
The issue here however is that this is about democracy and the counting of votes. There are no trade secrets in the counting of votes, it is a public process and it should be, indeed is required to be, publicly auditable. The problem here is that the Judge has applied commercial thinking to a public interest case, understandable but wrong.
There is a fundamental problem in the US right now around the audit and accountability of the democratic process. To borrow a phrase from the justice arena, Democracy mustn't just be done, it must seen to be done. A closed and proprietary voting system with no external verification does not enable this to happen. No-one in the US system (with its 98% re-elect rates) appears to care about this.
Now personally though the guy referenced here has done a good job in the write up I was personally more impressed that Brian Kernighan was part of the review team.
An Eye for an Eye will make the whole world blind - Gandhi
actually what the judge did was completely right even though we dont like it publicly. She is temporarily withholding the findings until they meet in court to prevent a slew of issues that could crop up where it to be released prematurely. This happens all the time in the legal world but people often dont know it unless they are directly involved in the trial.
The findings WILL be made public, but only when the trial actually starts.
But then that isnt as sensational is it?
"Slashdot, where telling the truth is overrated but lying is insightful."
Companies that deserve to tank deserve to be tank. There's no special god-given "right" to profitability. Oh it's a shame when people lose their jobs, and god knows I've lost enough money these past months on certain banks that have tanked, but this protectionism only encourages a sloppy attitude in a company insomuch as they feel they don't have to work anymore, they've "arrived", and now the "system" will protect them from anything.
Oh government, please bail us out because we've scammed our shareholders with creative accounting and billions of dollars worth of assets we've had on the books and borrowed money against aren't actually worth anything. Oh government, please hush up our "trade secrets" because our code is so simple even a 4 year old could reproduce it/any grandmother could debug it and point out how bad it is.
Businesses existed and were successful before the lawyers started bouncing around the concept of "intellectual property". It was about being first, being fastest, producing more product or higher quality, and actually competing. Coke has their "secret formula" - but that never stopped Pepsi or any other "cola" variety from existing. But people buy more Coke because of the marketing, not the "secret" formula. All intellectual property does is make money for lawyers. I suppose I should be thankful that every IP lawyer is one less ambulance chaser...
Seven puppies were harmed during the making of this post.
She is temporarily withholding the findings until they meet in court to prevent a slew of issues that could crop up where it to be released prematurely.
If the report is factual, we ought to hear it, and deal with those issues. Hiding the truth doesn't make it go away.
Give me Classic Slashdot or give me death!
Trade secrets in a voting machine? I know you aren't speaking from particular knowledge, but the very idea just reinforces my decision not to vote.
If the report is factual, we ought to hear it, and deal with those issues. Hiding the truth doesn't make it go away.
Do you have standing in this lawsuit or are you in any way directly involved or cited in the lawsuit? If not, YOU aren't owed anything until the judge decides it should be made public. The judge isn't "hiding" anything, she is proceeding with the lawsuit in an appropriate manner...
You're right, it goes go back 30 years easily, which also includes Carter (D) and Senator Proxmire (D) - you've read up on DIDMCA, right?
And it goes back further than that too... Nixon (R) ended the fixed price for gold...
And further back... Roosevelt (D) in 1933 set up Nixon to end gold standards by outlawing private gold ownership...
Even further - Salmon P. Chance (R), Secretary to Treasury under Lincoln (R), started nationalized currency, putting the new, post-civil war, centralized, federal government in position to control the economy and effectively ending federalism in the United States. (...and the coup de grÃce - in 1864, Lincoln moved Chase to Chief Justice of the Supreme Court, at that point, there was little to no possibility of challenging federal control of legal tender.)
What I'm sayin' is that trying to put this on either party is just wrong. The state of the nation (war, economy, environmental impacts, degradation of liberties) belongs to both parties, and really it's on us citizens that keep electing the same idiots over and over.
And of course, the US has done many good thing too, but we're not talking about our success right now, are we?
"Karma can only be portioned out by the cosmos." -- Homer Simpson
Hmm... This looks like a job for wikileaks. Couldn't be too hard to find. Has it been posted at all? If so, could a quick google archive search prove useful? I would be very interested to see the results of this study, and would be even more interested to know this judge's reasoning behind withholding it.
Violating the court order and posting the report to Wikileaks might soun good, but would be very counterproductive in the end.
First. it is very likely that the order may be lifted after arguments are heard. Violating a direct court order is going to extremely annoy the judge; judges do not take well to people disobeying direct court orders. The correct way to deal with it is to contest the order, and argue it out.
Second, Appel has been given access to the source code. The only way he was given this access was by the court having guaranteed to the vendor that they would not release trade secrets to the public. If Appel demonstrates that he does not consider himself bound by the court orders, do you think that he will ever be given the chance to examine source code, from any vendor, ever again? Do you think that anybody will ever be given the opportunity to examine source code? Consider the following conversation sometime in the future
"Your honor, you tell me that if we give the plaintiffs access to the source code of our voting machines, it will remain sealed under court order. However, in the case 'New Jersey versus Sequoia AVC' the court gave the vendor exactly that guarantee, but the plaintiffs recklessly disobeyed the court order. Why should you believe their promises, when they have demonstrated that they do not consider bound by promises they make in a court of law?"
The correct answer is, argue it out. Don't piss the judge off. Make it clear that the good guys are the ones who obey the rule of law, and the bad guys are the ones who are contemptuous of it.
http://www.geoffreylandis.com
We all have a duty to the truth, this judge is failing hers. Just because she has this discretion doesn't mean it's always right to use it.
If there are serious flaws in these voting machines, she owes it to the entire country to publish these results before the election, when something can be done about it. As we learned in 2000, and again in 2004, the voting system of any one precinct can affect the entire country. Therefore we all have a legitimate interest in it.
Give me Classic Slashdot or give me death!
I've somewhere read a quote, "For a tyrant, any excuse is sufficient." Do we really want to give elected officials any plausible excuse for delaying elections? Delaying elections is a favorite tactic of autocrats that want to stay in power while pretending to support democracy.
what do we do with the date of the election, given these issues?
It's better to have a flawed election rather than none at all. There are mechanisms already in place where a candidate take court action to have an election voided if evidence is presented indicating that malfunctioning equipment and/or fraud significantly altered the results. If a judge voids an election, he or she will order a new one and perhaps specify conditions to better assure a clean revote. Such conditions can involve exclusion of questionable equipment or mandate tried-and-true voting techniques.
Postponing an election for any reason with the possible exception of a weather emergency opens the door to new abuses. Would you want the presidential election delayed because a shipment of paper ballots some small town got lost or ruined, considering how easy it would be to intentionally cause such a situation, and that there's no way to guarantee that the election couldn't be delayed again at the new date?
>If Appel demonstrates that he does not consider himself bound by the court orders, do you think that he will ever be given the chance to examine source code, from any vendor, ever again? Do you think that anybody will ever be given the opportunity to examine source code?
The whole question should be irrelevant - you should not be able to run something as vital as election using a piece of proprietary software. If they don't want to show the code - they should have no chance at getting the contract in a first place. But thanks to narrow-minded (at best) choices made by politicians we are now in a position where we have to choose between due process and fair election. Disgraceful!
If a Puppet-POTUS/POTUS can be purchased, then they are bought and sold.
If a politician can be purchased, then they are bought and sold.
If a DoJ AG can be purchased, then they are bought and sold.
If a judge can be purchased, then they are bought and sold.
It ain't democracy, but what is good for a Czar, is good for a PPOTUS....
Folks, it is just politics for US. Democracy with word-spin, says we vote for selected politicians that support trickle-up (nothing trickles2US) economics for the wealthy. It puts less folks to work and more folks into bankruptcy, but all the money-changers in Washington know how to lovingly squeeze US all to death. It ain't treason ... it is the American Banana Republic (US, Mexico, Brazil, Argentina, Venezuela...) way of life.
The $1US of ten years ago now has the international purchase value of about $0.25US. The PPOTUS's and leaders of the last 20+ years presided over the fall of US telecom, medical, auto, education, life quality.... Lets not blame the terrorist ... like me they don't even vote (they never did).
I gave up voting after Ronnie's election, and politicians are always happy to lose a voted, but never election. Our separate-but-equal medicine, education, food, shelter, safety, income... is a cast culture with the wealthy few taking more every day ... next nepotist payroll is $700B ... it won't be the last; So, don't FUS is not a possible reality for US children ... expect the same that their parents and grand-parents will get the next few+ decades.
!HAVEFUN!
Unaccountable leaders are masters, and unrepresented people are slaves. How do US and EU fare?
Oh, money is definitely a commodity. I guess this is what I don't understand though:
So individual state or bank currencies were unable to complete.
Are state currencies even constitutional? "No state shall enter into any treaty, alliance, or confederation; grant letters of marque and reprisal; coin money; emit bills of credit; make anything but gold and silver coin a tender in payment of debts" I realize it says "coin" and not "print" but I would think that the intent is still the same.
As far as the bank currencies goes.... that's an interesting point. Dunno how to respond to that.
and commodity regulation has it's downsides
All regulation has downsides and imposes an extra cost of doing business. At the end of the day one has to look at the benefits of said regulation to see if it outweighs the drawbacks. A unified currency would seem to be beneficial, though I'd be the first one to admit that I'm not a big fan of having my savings devalued by inflation.....
I want peace on earth and goodwill toward man.
We are the United States Government! We don't do that sort of thing.
The fact that it's so close to an election is due to massive incompetence by the government in not doing comprehensive studies sooner. It's not as if there hasn't been plenty of evidence that such a study needed to be done since 2000 or so. I'm frankly a bit surprised that Bush hasn't publicised this and declared a national emergency in order to address it, suspending the elections for a couple of years.
If this study provides evidence that the election could easily be a sham, what exactly is the point of having the election?
"The biggest problem with communication is the illusion that it has taken place."
"Stop throwing the Constitution in my face! It's just a goddamn piece of paper!" - George W. Bush
Similar to the upcoming US election results
The whole question should be irrelevant - you should not be able to run something as vital as election using a piece of proprietary software. If they don't want to show the code - they should have no chance at getting the contract in a first place. But thanks to narrow-minded (at best) choices made by politicians we are now in a position where we have to choose between due process and fair election. Disgraceful!
Yes, I agree with that completely. Source code for vote counting should be available for any citizen to inspect, at any time, for any reason, without a court order.
Addition is not a trade secret.
However, given that we don't live in a world where the source code can be inspected without a court order, having an expert witness violate an explicit court order would, almost certainly, result in a world where the source code wouldn't be available for inspection even with a court order.
http://www.geoffreylandis.com
Not to mention that changing the date of the (presidential) election would require a constitutional amendment.
The only benign explanation I can think of is that the study describes ways to exploit the voting machines for election fraud, and in the view of the court there is no way to remedy the vulnerabilities before the election. Frankly, I'd prefer that wikileaks leave this one alone for a few weeks. As a short-term solution, sometimes security through obscurity is your only option.
We are the 198 proof..