Diebold Admits Flaw In Voting Software

NewYorkCountryLawyer writes "At a public hearing in California, Diebold's western region manager has admitted that the audit log system on current versions of Premier Election Solutions' (formerly Diebold's) electronic voting and tabulating systems — used in some 34 states across the nation — fails to record the wholesale deletion of ballots, even when ballots are deleted on the same day as an election. An election system's audit logs are meant to record all activity during the system's actual counting of ballots, so that later examiners may determine, with certainty, whether any fraudulent or mistaken activity had occurred during the count. Diebold's software fails to do that, as has recently been discovered by Election Integrity advocates in Humboldt County, CA, and then confirmed by the CA Secretary of State. The flaws, built into the system for more than a decade, are in serious violation of federal voting system certification standards."

Comments

Calling into question...

[gznork26]

...every election that these machines have been used for in each of those 34 states. If the machines should not have passed certification, and yet they were certified (were they?) then the agency doing the certification ought to be brought up on charges as well, and any OTHER systems that they certified ought to be open to question as well. This could get you dizzy.

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Read my political short stories at http://klurgsheld.wordpress.com/

American Idol

[Greyfox]

We can vote with high confidence for American Idol but the guys who make our freaking ATM machines can't get it right? Maybe the American Idol guys should be making our ATM machines instead.

Up until the last election it seems that most Americans thought the election for American Idol was more important. I hope that the last election marked a change in this attitude. It'd be nice if we could avoid electing another idiot to high office... Aaah who am I kidding?

Re:and who's going to CARE?

[BSAtHome]

"we want a refund"

But the problem is that they probably have a EULA which excludes any damages in whatever form whatsoever (limited warranty). This would then require the invalidation of that clause, which then could be a devastating result for the software business as a whole. No software company wants to pay for any damage ever...

Re:and who's going to CARE?

[afidel]

Well at least here in Cuyahoga County, Ohio we threw out the massively expensive and even more massively flawed Diebold systems and went with proven, reliable optical scan machines. I haven't heard anything about the board of elections trying to recoup some of the millions we spent on those things but I agree that they definitely should have sought compensation.

I've seen it

[Anonymous Coward]

I used to work as a "Computer Audit Analyst" for the Florida Division of Elections, certifying voting systems for use in the State of Florida. Certification for Premier/Diebold, ES&S, and Sequoia was pretty much a given, no matter the fact that their systems are complete shit and the certification process is a joke. Scan a few thousand ballots, have an independent testing lab review your source code, and you're good to go. Google "sequoia yellow button" to see what I mean.

Not to mention the attitudes of the folks who work there. They call people like me "activists" with a sour tone of voice, grudgingly fill public records requests, and the newly-built [2006] voting-systems lab was the size of a damn closet. Think the types of people who think F/OSS is so high-school students have something to tinker with.

Sadly, most American voters don't even think about the voting backend, and are wholly uninterested in the fact that three corporations have a legally-enforced triopoly in voting equipment, sell overpriced shit to the counties, and take legal action against anyone who finds security flaws in their systems.

They've admitted lots of flaws.

[palegray.net]

Many of them have represented material breaches of public trust, and have uncovered dishonest development and business practices throughout their organization. Yet they're still selling voting systems to several states. Unbelievable.

Re:and who's going to CARE?

[pjt33]

It's a shame your constitution defines treason so narrowly.

Re:There is a lot of talk, and little action.

[u.hertlein]

And here's your first clue. Diebold is in the business of making ATMs.

Heise security has a story that there's malware around specifically targetting Diebold ATMs running Windows...
http://www.heise.de/security/Windows-Trojaner-auf-Diebold-Bankautomat--/news/meldung/134794 (in German)
http://www.sophos.com/security/blog/2009/03/3577.html (blog entry the article refers to)