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."

Comments

'Drift' sounds like a rubbish excuse

[Anonymous Coward]

Right. I've been using touchscreen gear for more than 11 years now. Monitors with touchscreens built in, tablet PCs, iMacs with touch-enabling overlays, two cintiqs of my own and many dozens I've sold and supported to graphic artists.

They NEVER 'drift'. I've not seen even the cheapest touchscreen gear 'drift'. What's with this drift excuse? That smells too much like an excuse for throwing elections. Color me for stating the obvious, but sorry that sounds too suspicious.

Re:hard, or what?

[Wonko the Sane]

Two possibilities:

1. The machines are programmed by the lowest bidder (several dozen monkeys flinging shit at a keyboard)
2. The machines are intentionally designed to provide inaccurate results

Take your pick

Treason

[Lehk228]

if this were the 70's and touch screen was brand new tech I would believe this.

however it's not the 70's and every touch screen device i have ever seen holds it's calibration or doesn't need to be calibrated. From ATM's that are exposed directly to outdoor weather to late 90's production eBook readers to the Nintendo DS I have never once seen one lose calibration in any reasonable time and it's rare to need to calibrate at all except when combining a touch sensor to a system not built for touch sensor use.

this is outright election fraud and IMO it is treason and should be dealt with accordingly.

Re:Call themselves engineers....

[maxume]

I would bet $0.15 that the machines are being incorrectly calibrated.

Touchscreens drifting in hours? bullshit.

[h4x354x0r]

A touchscreen - especially one on a voting machine - that supposedly needs re-calibrated every few users is pure bullshit. PURE bullshit.

I work in A/V control systems and deal with touchscreens every day. Some are used very heavily - not quite as much as a voting machine on voting day, but probably gets as many touches within a few days time. The need for re-calibration is rare; I'm talking once a year maybe? The worst touchscreen I've ever seen is a the wacom overlay on a Modbook (Macbook repackaged as a touchscreen tablet PC). That POS needs re-calibrated about... once a month. Add other's comments about all the touchscreen kiosks in airports, etc.; same f*ing technology, but they don't need recalibrated every 10 minutes.

There's just no way this isn't a case of either gross negligence / incompetence, or criminal vote rigging.

Re:Call themselves engineers....

[VShael]

ALMOST believe the conspiracy?

Geez, what the hell more do you need? A video tape of Diebold executives laughing evilly while cashing cheques?

Re:Calibrate Per Use?

[TheRaven64]

I don't know how it works where you are, but in the UK anyone can watch the vote counters. If you don't trust them, then you can watch the box your vote goes in, you can watch it being opened, and you can watch every vote in that box being counted. Most people don't, but they know that the people who do don't need any special knowledge that they don't have, so they can trust these people to do their job correctly.