Legal Troubles Continue To Mount For Diebold

dstates writes "The State of Maryland has filed a $8.5M claim against Premier Election Systems (previously known as Diebold), joining Ohio in seeking damages from the company. The claim alleges that election officials were forced to spend millions of dollars to address multiple security flaws in the machines. Previously, Diebold paid millions to settle a California lawsuit over security issues in their machines. The dispute comes as Maryland and Virginia prepare to scrap the touch screen electronic voting systems they bought after the 2000 presidential election. California, Florida, New Mexico, and Iowa have already switched to optical scanners, and voters in Pennsylvania are suing to prevent the use of paperless electronic voting systems in their state. Meanwhile, Artifex Software is suing Diebold for violations of the GPL covering the Ghostscript software technology used in the proprietary voting machines."

Comments

whats the point anymore?

[Anonymous Coward]

elections in the USA for what, to replace one corrupt politician with another?

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=efKguI0NFek

!Paperless

[Xerolooper]

The truth is that while paperless may sound sexy it is not really practical. They are trying to apply technology to what is a social problem.

Re:!Paperless

[Frosty Piss]

The truth is that while paperless may sound sexy it is not really practical.

The truth is that Diebold's problems have nothing to do with the paper or paperless issue, and everything to do with incompetent design and execution. Which is all the more galling considering the relative straight-forwardness of the programming task. A corrupt or inaccurate paper audit trail would be just as useful as no audit trail at all, and arguably more harmful.

Re:!Paperless

[bokmann]

I'm sorry, but if you think this is a straightforward task, you are making the same mistake Diebold did. Programming is just one minor part of the whole system they need to implement.

Re:!Paperless

[ColdWetDog]

Yes, and it's this "one minor part" that Diebold fucked up. My original comment stands.

Well not exactly. Diebold managed to screw up several parts of the system.

The software
The lousy hardware locks
The poor update process

Just to name three off the top of my head before my second cup of coffee. Makes one wonder about Hanlon's razor. I guess you gotta be good at something.

Re:!Paperless

[repvik]

Won't work. Once the vote is public information, people can be bought/pressured to change their vote.

Re:!Paperless

[TapeCutter]

"So a broken system thats trusted is useful?"

Yes. You know it's broken, you know how it's broken, and you probably know who broke it. With an auditless election you cannot logically know any of these things beyond a reasonable doubt.

Do you understand the normal paper counting process and why it is logicaly possible to trust it? Do you understand why it is logicaly impossible to trust a computer that the opposition cannot audit? Paper is not perfect, neither is democracy come to think of it but both are indeed usefull.

Re:

[DinDaddy]

Grubby little paws? Corporations I know have huge powerful sucking tentacles, and they're in everything.

It's not about technology

[Joce640k]

Paperless shouldn't even be attempted.

This is the system used to elect leaders. Trillions of dollars and millions lives are affected by election results.

Whatever system you choose must have full audit capabilities ... and that means paper.

The only reason for using electronics is to get faster results to those with short attention spans.

Re:then don't rant - act

[mlwmohawk]

then don't rant - act

Think I haven't? Short of taking up arms against my country, I've done all the legal things I can. The tide is turning, I think, but it takes a long time to wake up the U.S.A.

I honestly believe that the vast majority of Americans are motivated less by money and more by "doing the right thing." The problems is that "the right thing to do" has been purposefully obfuscated by the bastards in power. By using christiantity and the talking heads of talk radio, propaganda minister of the Bush administration, Karl Rove, has successfully turned America in against itself. Dividing families and groups against each other over simplistic moral debates, while completely drowning the substantive discussions about what is truly best for the country.

All this so that they can rob the country of its wealth and make themselves rich at the same time.

I'll say here and now, Bush and Cheney and everyone in their administration have been traitors to the U.S.A.

Signed, patriotic American!!

Re:Bleed 'em dry!

[Jedi Alec]

I'm usually not someone who sides with people trying to drain a company through legal means, but in this case I'm willing to make an exception. Bleed them. Make them go bankrupt. If they go under, that's the last we'll see of EVoting, because nobody would willingly touch it again with a ten foot pole.

Bah, if there's any proof that they tampered with election results, surely that should be grounds for a criminal case, not a civil one?

Heck, as far as I'm concerned screwing with the democratic process amounts to high treason.

Re:The rich got what they want!

[mlwmohawk]

Who cares? I know that it's fun to bash Bush, but geez, let's stick to bashing diebold.

It is Diebold in Ohio that enabled the shrub to get re-elected.

For the record, I have no problem with computerized entry machines, but the final output that I turn-in needs to be easily readable paper that is counted by human eyes at some point in the process, IMO.

One of my first jobs, right out of high school, was as a bank teller. Right around the time of the introduction of the ATM in the late 70s/early 80s.

More or less 30 years have passed and a measurable percentage of the population are afraid or are incapable of using one. What makes anyone think that this is appropriate technology for voting?