Of course slashdot is only looking at the public system.
We do take our responsibilities seriously, and the systems serving the 1-866-OUR-VOTE hotline are still operating perfectly fine.
Actually, http://voteprotect.org seemed quite fine last I checked, too. It was only the verifiedvoting.org web site which was done.
I've looked at PostgreSQL and read Stonebraker's papers -- it does look like a nice system. Unfortunately, time constraints meant that I had to implement EIRS on top of existing systems, which had chosen to use MySQL. (Similarly for the use of PHP; I'm more of a bondage-and-discipline languages fan myself.)
That said, MySQL seems to be quite robust & reliable if you treat it right.
Re:This does what?
on
Verified Voting
·
· Score: 4, Informative
The Election Incident Reporting System (EIRS) is an integrated set of tools to assist Election Protection Organizations and their members in carrying out a number of activities, including:
Collect background and testing information from state & local election officials
Compile and track election irregularity data before, during, and after election day
Organize and manage teams of people and tasks
Dispatch attorneys and technologists rapidly to resolve election day incidents at voting places
Provide an on-line collaborative environment for rapid communication among advocates, attorneys, technologists, election officials, media professionals, and others
Support subsequent research for election policy-making
Most of the features are for internal use. But the most visible public feature is the Real-time map of election incidents which is updated within seconds as incidents come into the 1-866-OUR-VOTE hotline. Reported incidents are acted on by our lawyer and techie volunteers, to correct those issues which can be corrected and prevent voters from being disenfranchised.
The EIRS site seems to be holding up fine for me, with a surprisingly modest hardware investment.
Yes, there are a lot of things I would structure differently if I were coding this from scratch -- but that's not how the Real World operates. This site was developed primarily by a single developer (me) over a period of a few months. I didn't have the luxury of starting with a clean slate; I had to build on existing tools.
Furthermore, with no budget (because this is a non-profit) hardware is *always* difficult to come by. I would have liked to roll out a lot more machines, but it was not to be.
The current EIRS site is two web front ends talking to a single database machine. And it's currently quite usable for me, at least.
[Although I'm noticing that DNS seems to be very slow -- unfortunately that's out of my control.]
Feel free to disabuse me of my naivete. And check out https://voteprotect.org/?display=EIRMapNation while you're at it -- this is a real-time map being filled with incidents being reported at the 1-866-OUR-VOTE hotline (remember that number, if you need it on election day!). The core of EIRS is the ability to respond in real time to reported incidents and dispatch lawyers and technologists.
And, yes, the machines serving the hotlines are entirely distinct from the ones which slashdot is digilently trying to take down.
Real time EIRS incident maps.
on
Verified Voting
·
· Score: 2, Informative
A real-time incident report map is part of EIRS; follow the 'Research' link from the home page.
The 1-866-OUR-VOTE election hotline is open today, so you can watch incidents come into the system in real time. This system will be used on election day to dispatch lawyers and techies to trouble spots in real time. Go to http://electionprotection2004.org or send mail to volunteer@verifiedvoting.org to volunteer.
[I'm the lead programmer for EIRS.]
Where did you find the link you followed?
Volunteer sign-up has been turned off on the read-only site which slashdot is currently pointed at... please go to http://electionprotection2004.org to volunteer.
SSL does not appear to be the performance-limiting factor. And until IPSec is available, it seems like a prudent precaution.
Re:"engineered" by amateur boneheads
on
Verified Voting
·
· Score: 1
We'd love your help, if you're volunteering.
For what it's worth, the EIRS site is run on separate web and database servers, does not give users the ability to run SQL statements, and the error reporting is a conscious choice on my part because I'd like to find errors sooner rather than later.
I can't speak for anything except voteprotect.org, which does seem to be still up.
Re:hold on a second.
on
Verified Voting
·
· Score: 2, Informative
I should probably clarify that I coded EIRS. Database errors on other domains Aren't My Fault. =)
Interestingly enough, the "Diebold" voting machines were actually designed, coded, and built by Global Election Systems, not Diebold. Diebold acquired the company.
But you'd think that the ATM company, who has a paper receipt printer (or two!) in every ATM, could add in a voter-verifiable paper trail to those systems it acquired with no troubles at all! Wouldn't you?
Of course they insist it can't be done. [While admiting in private email that they'll charge out the yin if required to do it.]
I agree with you completely --- as long as neither the hardware or software changes at all once your "ten year" clock starts ticking. This includes repairs, remanufacture of "compatible parts", etc --- there should be *no* changes to the system, period, and the existing machines must be kept locked up in the most extreme manner possible between uses. Oh, and there should be *not a single case* of questionable results *ever* during the ten year period. Only then will I eventually trust that the auditing is no longer needed.
(And even then, the smart money's on the guy who planned ahead and put an "after ten years" timelock backdoor in the software. Let's just hope his political allegiances stay constant for those ten years.)
Time seems to have scrubbed this article from their
on-line archives. Lexis-Nexis also doesn't list it, although they list the Newsweek version of the article, which wasn't co-authored with Bush Sr. This may have to do with the fact that the Time article is a straight excerpt from Bush and Scowcroft's book A World Transformed (1998) and Time didn't secure electronic rights to the excerpt --- or it could be more sinister. You decide.
I think the "electronic rights" explanation is more likely, and should certainly be fully exhausted before we start hatching conspiracy theories.
The Fairfax county machines were "WINvote" machines by "Advanced Voting Solutions" (more info). The management team of Advanced Voting Solutions may seem familiar:
Howard T. Van Pelt, who was invloved in the management of two of the most successful election equipment companies in the industry's history (Computer Elections Systems [CES] and Global Elections Systems [Global], a company he co-founded) became president and chief executive officer in June 2001. [...] Most in the organization, particularly the senior management team, have had a multiplicity of experiences in delivering and implementing voting systems to most of the largest election juristictions in the Unitied States over the years. Their systems experienced includes punch cards (CES Votomatic), optical scan (Global Election Systems' [now Deibold Election Systems] AccuVote) and DRE (Global Election Systems' [now Deibold Election Systems] AccuVaote-TS).
The quote is from http://clients.enfocom.com/avs/company.html; all typos in the quote are in the original source.
So "Advanced Voting Solutions" is just a much of old Global, now Diebold, guys.
This is an excellent idea, and I plan to use it to answer my C&D. Thanks!
Re:C# generics on built-in types do not use boxing
on
C# 2.0 Spec Released
·
· Score: 1
For collections of primitives *only*. And the cost is run-time bloat (in C#). Pretty much a wash, I'd say.
"That story you read somewhere"
on
Coursey on Palladium
·
· Score: 5, Interesting
I believe that "that story [the poster] read somewhere" was Richard Stallman's "dystopian short story" The Right To Read. I'd recommend giving it a gander, as it appears RMS was remarkable prescient: his story was published five years ago in the Communications of the ACM.
MIT has started using RedHat-based Intel boxes for the public-access terminals (i.e. where people go to check mail and such). They still have a lot of old Suns and SGI boxes lying around, and such, but there are now quite a few Linux terminals, too. The user interface is consistent across architectures, and is nowadays built on GNOME.
The tanglewood "phone line" is most likely a "dry copper pair" (see Cringely's pulpit) with no phone-company filtering done. This is just 100 miles of copper wire connecting the Berkshires to Boston. With enough amplification, etc, I'm sure radio-quality analog audio transmission is perfectly possible.
That's very different from transmitting the signal over a "POTS line" or a phone call, though.
If you're Canadian, you should *certainly* read the pdf linked to in the article. The first *five* (of nine) pages are all about how this is a *proposed* tariff and what you should do if you object. (Short summary: "You can file written comments at any time between now and the date the Board will set for hearing final arguments. This is the most convenient way to proceed if all you wish to do is to state your point of view... You can also file a formal objection. This form of participation requires that you abide by certain rules...." Formal objections must be filed by May 8, 2002; written comments can be submitted until at least May 23, 2002. Addresses and whatnot are in the.pdf.)
So this is *not final*! You *can* do something about it. All you independent musicians and CD-R-backup-ing computer scientists: file written comments objecting!
Um, Hello? AOL is *funding* mozilla. Or haven't you noticed? I don't think that's exactly 'giving nothing back'. Mozilla *rocks* -- and the source is free! What more could you ask for?
Slashdot Mirror
As the developer of the EIRS system, this makes me very happy.
Colored ballots compromise its secrecy.
Ah, thanks; I did miss that one.
Feel free to email me tomorrow if you don't get prompt responses from the other methods. We can definitely still use techie volunteers!
[email available from my home page.]
Of course slashdot is only looking at the public system.
We do take our responsibilities seriously, and the systems serving the 1-866-OUR-VOTE hotline are still operating perfectly fine.
Actually, http://voteprotect.org seemed quite fine last I checked, too. It was only the verifiedvoting.org web site which was done.
I've looked at PostgreSQL and read Stonebraker's papers -- it does look like a nice system. Unfortunately, time constraints meant that I had to implement EIRS on top of existing systems, which had chosen to use MySQL. (Similarly for the use of PHP; I'm more of a bondage-and-discipline languages fan myself.)
That said, MySQL seems to be quite robust & reliable if you treat it right.
- Collect background and testing information from state & local election officials
- Compile and track election irregularity data before, during, and after election day
- Organize and manage teams of people and tasks
- Dispatch attorneys and technologists rapidly to resolve election day incidents at voting places
- Provide an on-line collaborative environment for rapid communication among advocates, attorneys, technologists, election officials, media professionals, and others
- Support subsequent research for election policy-making
Most of the features are for internal use. But the most visible public feature is the Real-time map of election incidents which is updated within seconds as incidents come into the 1-866-OUR-VOTE hotline. Reported incidents are acted on by our lawyer and techie volunteers, to correct those issues which can be corrected and prevent voters from being disenfranchised.[I'm the lead coder for EIRS, fwiw.]
I'm pretty sure EIRS doesn't use any meta tag redirects except on login (legacy artifact).
If you could figure out exactly what lynx doesn't like about it, I'd be love to fix it.
[I'm the lead programmer for EIRS. And I explicitly asked that the last sentence be taken out of the article.]
[I'm the lead programmer for EIRS.]
The EIRS site seems to be holding up fine for me, with a surprisingly modest hardware investment.
Yes, there are a lot of things I would structure differently if I were coding this from scratch -- but that's not how the Real World operates. This site was developed primarily by a single developer (me) over a period of a few months. I didn't have the luxury of starting with a clean slate; I had to build on existing tools.
Furthermore, with no budget (because this is a non-profit) hardware is *always* difficult to come by. I would have liked to roll out a lot more machines, but it was not to be.
The current EIRS site is two web front ends talking to a single database machine. And it's currently quite usable for me, at least.
[Although I'm noticing that DNS seems to be very slow -- unfortunately that's out of my control.]
Feel free to disabuse me of my naivete. And check out https://voteprotect.org/?display=EIRMapNation while you're at it -- this is a real-time map being filled with incidents being reported at the 1-866-OUR-VOTE hotline (remember that number, if you need it on election day!). The core of EIRS is the ability to respond in real time to reported incidents and dispatch lawyers and technologists.
And, yes, the machines serving the hotlines are entirely distinct from the ones which slashdot is digilently trying to take down.
https://voteprotect.org/?display=EIRMapNation
The 1-866-OUR-VOTE election hotline is open today, so you can watch incidents come into the system in real time. This system will be used on election day to dispatch lawyers and techies to trouble spots in real time. Go to http://electionprotection2004.org or send mail to volunteer@verifiedvoting.org to volunteer.
[I am the lead programmer for EIRS.]
[I'm the lead programmer for EIRS.] Where did you find the link you followed? Volunteer sign-up has been turned off on the read-only site which slashdot is currently pointed at... please go to http://electionprotection2004.org to volunteer.
SSL does not appear to be the performance-limiting factor. And until IPSec is available, it seems like a prudent precaution.
We'd love your help, if you're volunteering.
For what it's worth, the EIRS site is run on separate web and database servers, does not give users the ability to run SQL statements, and the error reporting is a conscious choice on my part because I'd like to find errors sooner rather than later.
I can't speak for anything except voteprotect.org, which does seem to be still up.
I should probably clarify that I coded EIRS. Database errors on other domains Aren't My Fault. =)
(I'm the lead programmer on the system.)
I actually explicitly asked that that last sentence be taken out. =(
Oh, well.
But you'd think that the ATM company, who has a paper receipt printer (or two!) in every ATM, could add in a voter-verifiable paper trail to those systems it acquired with no troubles at all! Wouldn't you?
Of course they insist it can't be done. [While admiting in private email that they'll charge out the yin if required to do it.]
More fun Diebold quotes
I beg to differ. There are some known Patriot Act abuses. An earlier slashdot article pointed to some, in fact. I've blogged about PATRIOT's effects on on-line education, libraries, Boston legislators, and Oregon police officers. Finally, PATRIOT has turned pipe bombs into weapons of mass destruction and speed into a chemical weapon.
(And even then, the smart money's on the guy who planned ahead and put an "after ten years" timelock backdoor in the software. Let's just hope his political allegiances stay constant for those ten years.)
This is an excellent idea, and I plan to use it to answer my C&D. Thanks!
For collections of primitives *only*. And the cost is run-time bloat (in C#). Pretty much a wash, I'd say.
I believe that "that story [the poster] read somewhere" was Richard Stallman's "dystopian short story" The Right To Read. I'd recommend giving it a gander, as it appears RMS was remarkable prescient: his story was published five years ago in the Communications of the ACM.
MIT has started using RedHat-based Intel boxes for the public-access terminals (i.e. where people go to check mail and such). They still have a lot of old Suns and SGI boxes lying around, and such, but there are now quite a few Linux terminals, too. The user interface is consistent across architectures, and is nowadays built on GNOME.
That's very different from transmitting the signal over a "POTS line" or a phone call, though.
So this is *not final*! You *can* do something about it. All you independent musicians and CD-R-backup-ing computer scientists: file written comments objecting!
(If only I were Canadian.)
Um, Hello? AOL is *funding* mozilla. Or haven't you noticed? I don't think that's exactly 'giving nothing back'. Mozilla *rocks* -- and the source is free! What more could you ask for?