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Another Election, Another Slew of Voting Machine Glitches
An anonymous reader writes: As Election Day in the U.S. starts to wind down, reports from around the country highlight another round of technological failures at the polls. In Virginia, the machines are casting votes for the wrong candidates. In North Carolina, polling sites received the wrong set of thumb drives, delaying voters for hours. In Michigan, software glitches turned voters away in the early morning, including a city mayor. A county in Indiana saw five of its polling sites spend hours trying to get the machines to boot correctly. And in Connecticut, an as-yet-unspecified computer glitch caused a judge to keep the polls open for extra time. When are we going to get this right?
We'll "get it right" when we knock off the electronic BS and use what has been tested to work, marked paper ballots. It.Just.Works.
Left MS Windows for Linux Mint and never looked back!
Vote for Bernie in 2016!
...not a bug.
They've proven elections can be hopelessly unreliable and the electorate still won't care.
Meh. I voted by mail a week ago. Got a paper ballot. Had lots of time to look up details on all the issues, including the judges, some obscure issues, and the people I'd never heard of.
Much better solution. No lines. No scheduling around work. Several weeks to study out everything.
I highly recommend it for everybody.
//TODO: Think of witty sig statement
As soon as you stop using easily exploited, "it's not hacking because it's just some spreadsheets on the desktop", vote-changing machines and switch back to paper, probably.
ALSO, in Texas, the Leading republican candidate for Gov, was replaced with the Leading Repulican who was running for A.G and his name was spelled wrong...
a system like Oregon's mail ballot.
Until we do an open federally sponsored voting system, no one is going to engineer a solution properly.
The Kruger Dunning explains most post on
Electronic voting machines are a solution looking for a problem. Good old paper ballots work just fine for elections and are easily recounted if necessary.
Every ballot creates a new Bitcoin address (polling locations keep track of the generated ballot addresses) with a negligible fraction of bitcoins.. Every vote sends a tiny fraction of bitcoin to whatever addresses are represented by candidates. Only transactions from ballot-list addresses are counted. Candidates with the highest amount of bitcoins in their voting addresses from verified ballots win. Any screwups or attempts at fucking with the votes could be seen on the blockchain.
There's probably 1000 different ways voting can be done anonymously while still being verifiable using the blockchain. Don't ask me to solve all the problems - but they are solvable.
I believe the whole point of the 'closed source' ballot bullshit we have now is the same reason we have a ridiculously bloated war on terror. The real purpose is to concentrate power in the hands of the few. They make us believe our votes are counted.. but they haven't been counted right in years.
--- We need more Ron Paul!
when we stop using computers to count votes.
vi ~/.emacs # I'm probably going to Hell for this.
Marked paper ballots. Done. Braille versions can be made for the blind, different language versions (what, voting based on a person's preferred language, that's just crazy) and so on. Optical scanning is old, tried and very well tested technology, and you can always fall back to hand counts.
Most likely when the electronic machines are sent to a recycling company -- Ireland recently dumped all theirs -- and paper ballots are used. The electronic machines have proven to be way too unreliable and easy to manipulate.
CUR ALLOC 20195.....5804M
we'll get it right when there are IT experts in every polling place, not just computer illiterates who regards the computer as some wondrous box that is powered by faerie dust and unicorn horns.
The ballots are counted when cast, and results reported in the hour after polls close. If there is anything suspicious, the paper is there for a judicial recount. And it's way cheaper than touchscreen PCs.
davecb@spamcop.net
How hard is it to make a voting program?
How easy would it be to "skew" results of said voting program one way, or the other? I'm not a conspiracy nutter, but it does make me wonder from time to time...
So rise up, all ye lost ones, as one, we'll claw the clouds.
I voted today using a real paper ballot which I placed into a real ballot box in the state of TN. Very satisfying. Not easy to do however, the state wants to force voters to use electronic black box voting machines. The precinct worker and the local supervisor tried to tell me that I could not vote using a paper ballot. I told them I had checked with the state election division (which I had done) and an election attorney confirmed that my right to vote using a paper ballot would not be denied. They actually called the secretary of state office on election day to confirm.
It is not possible to verify a vote using an electronic black box voting machine. As Ronald Reagan said "Trust but verify".
Meanwhile:
http://abc7chicago.com/politic...
Quite ironic given the republicans argument for voter ID is democratic fraud. I wonder if anyone will go to prison?
btw, before anyone calls me a democrat, I hate both parties intensely.
What operating system do these Voting Machine run on?
If you don't have proof of that, even saying makes you slap yourself with your own pecker.. how does that feel? why are you hitting yourself?
Always, when a party does something stupid like all of the obstructionist GOP nonsense, some moron like you pops up and accuses the other party of voter cheating, either outright or like a pussy, with a backhanded comment like yours..
Wow, racist *and* aggressively ignorant! You *must* be an American. :sigh:
We still use lever machines for school budget voting. They just work, they provide actual privacy, and they are simple to operate.
The brains of a chicken, coupled with the claws of two eagles, may well hatch the eggs of our destruction.
There are two writers who do the best reporting regarding the vast, and provable election fraud going on in the US regarding electronic voting and voter rights: They are Brad Friedman and Greg Palast.
Here are their sites:
http://www.bradblog.com/
http://www.gregpalast.com/
But don't blame me if what you read there makes you put your head through your computer monitor.
You are welcome on my lawn.
So many people think it actually matters!
voting is completely rigged by your rothschilds/rockerfeller masters
please understand this, then realize the only way out of the current system is a new revolution
Are you proposing a solution without thinking that there could be deliberate corruption?
When are we going to get this right?
The question mistakenly assumes that this is not exactly the intended effect.
I'm an American. I love this country and the freedoms that we used to have.
Electronics have no place in something as crucial as a voting machine.
Come on Down Under, where we use the high tech method of paper and pencil. We did have an issue recently where a few votes were lost somewhere in outback Western Australia. The solution? The High Court decided to run that component of the election again. Easy, effective, safe and occasionally expensive.
That would be news in CT. It was a chain of human errors.
"Win treats sysadmins better than users. Mac treats users better than sysadmins. Linux treats everyone like sysadmins."
For a few million that glitch can be your name.
Computer, phones, digital watches, what not, we can build everything and make it work, all over the world. But funnily enough, when it comes to voting machines in the U.S, the Americans just haven't figured out how to actually make them work. They never work like they're supposed to. How strange. You'd have to be stupid to not be able to conclude the machines are always being tampered with.
Paper. Pencil.
Well, definitely not before we stop voting electronically. It is simply impossible for an electronic voting system to fulfil all criteria of a democratic votoing process.
I once was tasked with designing a good, democratic voting system. I've analysed the problem in depth and my conclusion was that an electronic election that is up to democratic standards is not possible at all. I managed to convince our CEO and the project was scrapped.
In no way an average person can verify the integrity of an electronic voting process. Maybe a few handful of people could, if they would get access to the source code and complete build environment, but it is a tedious process, and errors will be missed. Complete mathematical verification of a system is hard even without having a graphical user interface. And even if the code is correct, errors, user failures of election officials as well as voters, and fraud will happen. And between the werification of a sample machine in a lab and being able to verify that any machine in the field has not been tampered with is an unsurmountable gap. Keep in mind - this is just the implementation site of things. The logical part is a REAL mess. Anonymity, accountability, verifyability kick each others in the you-know-what regardless from where you start - a lot of requirements are simply mutually exclusive when implemented electronically that, on the other hand, are easy and inherent in a paper ballot.
America spends billions on political advertising, but they want to save a few man-hours per polling station every other year while endangering the democratic principles of the election process while opening the door wider than ever before for errors and fraud. And the electronic fraud is harder to spot, verify and correct than any attempt on fixing a paper ballot. Every idiot can spot an urn that is already half filled when the poll starts. Try do this reliable on an electronic vorting system.
when you seesaw between two corporate power groups with every election? The US is now governed by two pretty well interchangable, self-perpetuating oligarchies who see politics as an inexhaustable money-well for their own benefit, and fuck the plebs.
Good luck to you all.
Remember Chad? -Used to hang around the voting stations?
I think I liked him better than the PlayStation version of Democracy.
Then, there's always the Pencil. Low tech makes voting fraud more difficult. If we must have corrupt banksters running things, then at least we can ensure the spooks suffer from some carpel in their tunnels.
One suspects it will be done correctly and flawlessly when it ceases to be politically convenient for stuff to not work. Chads and the fate of the country...
While paper seems so old school, it is immediately verifiable. Quite unlike the technology that is a mystery to all but the high priests. Probably why it is so opposed.
We'll get it right when the polls are results aren't being rigged to support certain candidates... We complain about Russia and Iran and other countries doing it, but it's just as bad here in the states.
Roughly two months ago, we explored the question of whether Republicans were headed for a "wave" election victory in 2014. The results are in, and the verdict is unequivocal: Yes. As of this writing -- in the wee hours of the morning -- Republicans appear poised to win their largest House majority in well over half a century. They have won the United States Senate by a decisive margin, netting eight seats outright, with a ninth almost certainly on the way. They will actually gain a number of governorships -- building on their already-remarkable 30-20 advantage. And they've expanded their dominance of state-level legislative chambers. A comprehensive blowout. There are many things for conservatives to celebrate. An incomplete list, in no particular order:
(1) Senators-elect Cory Gardner, Joni Ernst, and Thom Tillis are all winners of formerly-blue seats in states carried by Barack Obama at least once. Gardner tossed a perfect game in his race, beating Sen. Mark "Uterus" Udall soundly (by six points, with 89 percent of the vote counted). He neutralized the "war on women" nonsense and outperformed among Latinos. The national party should turn Gardner's win into a case study. Joni Ernst dominated Bruce Braley, winning by eight points. Adding insult to injury, Democrats also lost Braley's House seat. These 'precriminations' told the story. And Thom Tillis, who trailed in the polling average for the entire race, came from behind and ousted Kay Hagan.
(2) The last time Republicans defeated more than two incumbent Democratic Senators in one election cycle was 1980. In 2014, they've gotten four (Pryor, Udall, Hagan, Begich), with a fifth -- Mary Landrieu -- looking like a sitting duck. Landrieu garnered just 42 percent of the vote in Louisiana, compared to 55 percent for her two GOP rivals. She will need a miracle to win the December 6 runoff.
(3) The polls were, in fact, skewed. Toward Democrats. Significantly. Mitch McConnell won by 15 points in Kentucky. David Perdue beat Michelle Nunn by 13 points, easily avoiding a run-off. Tom Cotton absolutely destroyed Mark Pryor. Tillis wasn't supposed to win. The polls were way off in all of these races. And, I'm happy to add, the disgusting race-baiting failed.
(4) If the GOP takes Louisiana as expected, and if Maine independent Angus King decides to caucus with Republicans -- which he's reportedly open to doing -- the party will control 55 seats in January. Republicans were at a 60-40 disadvantage in the upper chamber as recently as early 2010. That's a breathtaking turnaround, mirroring Democrats' Senate gains from 2004 to 2008. Question: Might Sen. Joe Manchin be thinking about pulling a Jim Jeffords and switching parties, given what just happened in his state? That would be 56.
(5) Democrats insisted that Obamacare was not a big issue in this campaign. Republicans' campaigns blew that theory out of the waterand then there's this (a tally that doesn't include Begich or Landrieu):
almost half! MT @mkhammer: Damn. RT @philipaklein: w/ Hagan’s loss: 27 senators who voted for Obamacare won't be part of new Senate — Guy Benson (@guypbenson) November 5, 2014
(6) Wisconsin Gov. Scott Walker has now beaten the Left three times in four years. And each win has built on the last. He beat Mary Burke by nearly seven points in a race that was supposedly "tied" two weeks ago. The Marquette poll nailed it again. Walker has been rewarded by voters for his courageous and successful governance in a state that hasn't been carried by a Republican presidential ticket in decades. And this perspective is just delicious:
So Charlie Crist lost as many races as Scott Walker won in the last four years. — Daniel Ehlers (@DanielEhlers) November 5, 2014
Three Crist losses, with three different parties. Good riddance.
(7
The continual farce of American balloting show America for what it truly is. A total banana republic.
America "features" one of the most broken, unjust, political systems on the planet.
The vote rigging, locked down two party system (where both parties are the same except for their colours), the total suppression of dissenting voices etc. etc. etc. makes it every bit as bad as Zimbabwe.
Just with a lot more PR effort in convincing the sheeple that they are actually participating in a democracy as opposed to the locked in, closed shop oligarchic control system that they actually are.
"Land of the free" ?
What a sad joke.
MSNBC will of course cry that their loss was because of voting machine racism.
I've been voting in every election in Virginia since 2002 and we have had the same (brand) software every time. I've never bothered to check version numbers or whatever.
I myself have never (knowingly) had a problem with voting in VA (but of course who knows what happens after you walk out), and I haven't heard of any major problems in the past.
I think a lot of places having problems are likely using new, unproven software made by perhaps less experienced companies. It's just really not that hard to put a GUI wrapper around ++votes[candidateIndex] and then crypto-sign the batch before uploading to a central tabulating process.
Perhaps scale is the issue? Or maybe the software isn't easy to start up for mere mortals (there sure aren't any neckbeards around my voting precinct to help out in case of difficulties...). I wish this could be done properly because paper voting has lots of it's own problems (stuffing, physical loss, etc.).
http://whatreallyhappened.com/WRHARTICLES/2004votefraud_ohio.html
After seeing Ohio in 2004, I do not trust these are all or if any are glitches. This is serious and people need to start being investigated and prosecuted.
It was a Registrar of Voters problem. Hartford has, unbelievably, 3 PAID Registrars and somehow voting lists weren't delivered to the polls by the time they opened yesterday morning. There was about a 30 minute delay while the lists were rushed over there. Normally, they have to be ready by the night before. Of course, a 30 minute delay is peanuts compared to the millions of colored people who have to wait twice that long or more when things are working 100% correctly. Or, perhaps I should say, "100% by design."
It would be interesting to see if all these "errors" and "glitches" are truly random, or appear more often in any particular party's favor... ;)
There are more laws in this country that govern and standardize the well regulated use of slot-machines, than there are for voting machines.
Are they read only, are they checksummed, are they in locked cabinets ?
The mistakes are just waiting to happen.
When are we going to get this right?
Never, because you insist on solving a problem that's not technical with technology.
Counting paper ballot votes manually is not difficult, and almost all of the civilized world does it, because they understand that adding complexity to the process does little in solving the challenges involved, but it does add a lot of potential failures.
Assorted stuff I do sometimes: Lemuria.org
We have been doing this right for over 15 years without any issues with our machines. From what we have found, it is rare that the machines are the problem. It is normally a failure in process and or human failures that led to the machines not working as expected.
In Kansas, we use the Dibold machines and have a number of second and third line checks that goes into every single vote starting with a two part voter receipt that goes to the encoder machines. The setup is an encoder machine, and voting machines. These are stand alone machines, no wifi, no networking. The encoder machine and the voter machines have pcmcia cards with their instructions sets on them. These come in sealed bags that the supervisor judge brings with him. Once the seal is broken, the seal number is recorded and the broken seal is stored in a broken seals bag for later questioning if needed. Cards are installed in the proper machines and they are powered on. For voter machines, we print an opening report tape for each machine to verify that there are no existing votes on the machines, that the serial numbers match the machines and that the firmware and everything else matches. These tapes are signed by every staff member in the polling location to verify. Once the election is going The Encoder machine puts the ballot on the card. One part of the receipt stays with the encoder, the other part goes with the ballot to the voting machine. Once the ballot is installed on the machine, the poll worker confirms that the ballot number matches the number on the two part receipt, and then that receipt is placed in a large manilla envelope attached to the voting machine. Throughout the day, the supervisor judge does a tally of the voter machines and compares those totals displayed on the machines with the number of receipts at the encoder. Never are the receipts at the voting machines touched again until they are counted at the election office to verify that they match the totals on the machines, and the totals at the encoder. Upon close of the polls, we print out a closing report on tape. each election worker signs the tapes, and the election judge stores and seals those tapes along with the morning tapes to return to the election office. Once that is done, the machines are powered off after a final vote tally is taken from each machine and documented. The pcimca cards are then removed, placed in a clear plastic bag and a new seal is affixed. That seal is documented and the cards are sent to their drop off location by a designated driver. The election supervisor judge then powers off the encoder, and leaves its memory card in the machine. The supervisor judge then puts all the broken seals, voter cards, morning/evening tapes and keys to the election machines in another bag and and a new seal is applied to that bag and documented. That bag, along with the documentation is placed into a suitcase that the supervisor judge then delivers to a different location from the voting machine pcmcia cards.
The only issues we ever see with these machines is that Diebold in their infinite wisdom put the scroll bar on the left instead of on the right, and some times the touch screens need to be pressed for longer then normal to register a vote. If for some reason it registered a vote for the wrong person, you simply press the selection again to clear it, and try again. There is a final summary at the end that allows you to change your votes if you wish before you cast your ballot. Even if all of this has happened and the voter still thinks something wasn't right, we give them the option of doing a paper provisional ballot, and we document the problem the user had with the machine and why we are issuing a provisional ballot.
I forgot to add. once the pc cards are returned to the election office, they are inserted into a stand alone computer with no networking. Those results are than burned onto a cdrom and taken to another computer to be tabulated. Those tabulated results are again burned to cdrom and then taken to a pc with networking to be uploaded to the server and displayed on the web.
Not quite.
We'll get it right when we stop using shit voting machine companies that happen to do a shit job. It's not like diebold was ever known for quality at any time in their existence, for example.
the fact that 400,000 ballots were found next to the boiler in the courthouse has absolutely nothing to do with my finding $1 million on the seat of my official government car.
if this is supposed to be a new economy, how come they still want my old fashioned money?
Why not, it's as meaningful either way.
"When are we going to get this right?".
When we stop allowing poorly tested/buggy software out and think its ok to fix it later. We should be demanding excellence in our software company's and everything in between. Not its ok enough well fix it later.
Jack of all trades,master of none
Gerrymandering is the much bigger problem
New things are always on the horizon
Interesting that the "Glitches" happened in Virginia and North Carolina where there were very close Senate races...
How does this idea sound? When you arrive at the voting place, a person checks your identification and makes sure you are at the correct voting place and you haven't already voted. For each contest on the ballot, there is a line of turnstiles you can pass through, one for each contestant (or yes/no/abstain for ballot measures). Once you make your first vote, there is another line of turnstiles for the next contest/ballot measure. This could be behind curtains to keep it almost 100% anonymous other than the person or people watching you to make sure you don't turn any turnstiles more than once. At the end of the day, the MECHANICAL turnstiles' counters are read.
Amazing. One explanation of a picture and you come to the amazing insight that I don't like it when 'brown people' vote. I recommend you start working on solving mysterious murders. They might get pissed about the 0% clear rate though.
I encountered the video online somewhere where they were 'OMFG BALLOT BOX STUFFING!!!'. I reasoned that the only ballot box that would be that unsecured would be an absentee one, and finding the comments about unsealed envelopes pretty much confirms it.
I DO have some concern that he, or associates of his, might of collected up a number of unfilled absentee ballots and voted multiple times that way(serious felony), especially considering the reported unsealed envelopes(violating privacy of voting), and that he refused to give his name or explain what he was doing ('Turning in the ballots I collected from the residents of an apartment/hospital/rest home/etc....'). But I believe the latter is more likely than the felony. Besides,
I don't read AC A human right
We'll get this right when we abandon computerized voting and return to using the essential, voter verifiable, transparent, physical evidence of paper ballots, the proven method of conducting elections that is demanded by any system where the required expectation of voter anonymity is honored.
Here in my home state of Gerogia, every election is 100% vote fraud. With the exception of a tiny percentage of absentee and provisional paper ballots (like mine), not a single vote in Georgia can be verified and none of the computer vote totals can be validly audited. The voting systems provide no reliable means by which we can detect computer failures or malicious tampering at any scale. These facts of unverifiable election results have been authenticated and testified to before the Georgia Supreme Court by the same technical authorities we insanely pay to "certify" our computerized voting systems that, by their own sworn admission, are impossible to certify.
Georgia's record of 100% vote fraud elections has been the case since we allowed the State wide installation of privatized and proprietary zero evidence electronic voting systems in 2002. Since then, 100% vote fraud has also become the status quo in many other state using identical or similar zero evidence electronic voting machines and computerized tabulation systems where voter verified paper trails are not produced and actively employed to audit the electronic tallies.
Until we restore legitimate election systems based on the voter verifiable physical evidence of paper ballots in every state, any claims of democracy existing in the U.S. will continue to be a complete and total fraud, and voting will continue to be an empty act of self gratifying political masturbation that can never affect any change in the fascist state of our governments.
Throw all these machines into the recycling bucket and go back to what works: pen and paper! Yes, counting might take a bit longer, but I rather wait an hour or more on results than have these effen machines eff things up. C'mon, the US boasts itself as the largest democracy and we can't even get the most fundamental thing right? Then again, the de facto two party system is only marginally better than the one party systems in China or North Korea.