Slashdot Mirror
Voting Machines and 'Calibration Drift'
An anonymous reader writes "Tuesday saw elections for school boards and city officials throughout Kansas. In Saline, ES&S voting machines in several locations were 'mis-calibrated,' and when the voter touched next to one candidate's name, the 'x' appeared next to another one. One person I talked to said he tried to vote three times before going to the 80-something-year-old election worker, who told him 'It was doing that earlier, but I thought I fixed it.' From the story in today's Salina Journal: 'The iVotronic machines used in Saline County are sold by Elections Systems and Software. In October, the Brennan Center for Justice at New York University School of Law notified 16 secretaries of state, including Kansas Secretary of State Ron Thornburgh, that the machines are known to record votes to the wrong candidate.' The county does calibrate the machines the day before each election, but, '... in conversations with ES&S on Thursday, [the county clerk] was told that the calibration might change during the day. "What they've seen is calibration drift on a unit," Merriman said. "They're fine in the morning, but by afternoon they're starting to lose their calibration."' There was also coverage of the problems when they occurred two days ago."
...happened in Finland last week. A few municipalities tested electronic voting in the last (municipal) elections and when (unsurprisingly) irregularities occurred (232 votes were not counted properly), the results were challenged all the way to the supreme court, which now decided that the elections must be held again. The lawyer representing the appealing parties has said that he doubts that any politician will ever propose electronic voting in this country again.
That outcome is thus quite positive but it would've been even better if the minister responsible for it had accepted her responsibility and resigned like many people demanded her to.
Touchscreen calibration? I used to work for a company that built quiz machines and the like for the UK pub industry (circa 2000). Essentially they were simple PC's with a touchscreen (the monitor had a PS2 output).
We used to leave those machines running at various sites for YEARS, and I can't ever remember a calibration problem. And trust me, we'd know because when a customer starts to lose money they let the pub know about it all right. The biggest problem we had was the coin slot mechanism screwing up.
So now you're telling me that almost 10 years later and the calibration in a voting machine can't last A WHOLE GODDAMN DAY? That's service so bad it almost makes me believe in the conspiracy angle!
At the polling places I've worked, the (touchscreen) AutoMark machine (for voters with disabilities, &c.) marks a paper ballot, which is counted by the M100 scanner. After the polls close, we seal the marked ballots up in boxes which never get opened up unless there is a problem with the computer's count. The protocols (except for the software) seem fairly robust and transparent, and skeptics are welcome to watch. That's Contra Costa County, YMMV.
The cost of that cleanup, of course, will be borne by taxpayers, not industry.
The calibration was so far off when I voted this week (on an ES&S automark), that I talked the election official about the calibration. More or less it is done the same way you used to with the palm pilot (touch 4 corners). The problem is that there is also some parallax issues as the screen is about 45 degrees off vertical. The result is the calibration can be a little off. A little off is fine and normal if the interface is good, but on the automark machines, they put the candidates names right next to each other so even a small error in calibration will result in the wrong candidate being selected. I took a video of my self voting, (it's here: http://shultzonline.com/vote/ ). in the video is is clear that not the person I am pressing is selected, and that a candidate only 5mm away is selected.