This item is for news and discussion relating to electronic voting systems.54 responses total.
More stuff from the memos obtained from Diebold is coming out...firstly, an email suggesting they should gouge Maryland if the state asks to have printers added to their voting machines: "There is an important point that seems to be missed by all these articles: they already bought the system. At this point they are just closing the barn door. Let's just hope that as a company we are smart enough to charge out the yin if they try to change the rules now and legislate voter receipts." (http://www.gazette.net/200350/montgomerycty/state/191617-1.html) Another email, this one from Sue Page, one of Maryland's project managers, criticizes State Board of Elections Administrator Linda H. Lamone, and suggests, "There's not much that we can do, other than hope that a new Republican Governor will effect change." This hints more subtly at the same kind of partisan bias that Diebold CEO Wally O'Dell exhibited when he said he was "committed to helping Ohio deliver its electoral votes to the President next year." (http://www.portclintonnewsherald.com/news/stories/20030827/localnews/14087 1.htm l) In my more pessimistic moments, I wonder if we'll ever have a fair election in this country again. Maybe "the fix is in" already for 2004.
Here's an unwrapped version of the Port Clinton News-Herald URL: http://tinyurl.com/ldtj
"Voter receipts" are a very bad idea, if that means a piece of paper the voter takes home, listing everybody they voted for. It would make vote selling possible again. Rather, the count should be based on voter-verified tangible ballots, as is done with optical scan devices. I don't like the touch-screen interface, at all, but touch screen machines could output a scannable ballot that the voter could look at to verify, and then drop in the ballot box. That might seem like an elaborate way to mark ballots, but on the other hand, at least in theory, there would be zero ambiguous ballots.
The proposed Maryland rule is that the receipt, after being examined by the voter, would be placed in a locked ballot box. A randomly selected 2% of the precincts would then have their results verified by counting the paper ballots. A major reason touchscreen-type systems are being pushed over other systems is a computerized system is the only reasonable way to meet some upcoming requirements for disabled people to be able to vote unassisted. Currently the secret ballot really doesn't exist for people who are blind, for example.
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http://yro.slashdot.org/article.pl?sid=03/12/11/1620228&mode=thread&tid=103 &tid= 126&tid=99 If there's a single government agency that I think might have a clue about electronic voting, it's the Nevada State Gaming Control Board.
Re #5: you are incorrect. The secret ballot in elections is established in the laws of the states.
re resp:1: I think what I'm seeing is a guaranteed complaint about any election in the future: "We should have won. The vote was fixed by computer!" This type of complaint is going to be used by both sides. On Grex, I've seen the pre-complaint 3 or 4 times, always stating the Republican side will abuse the system and unfairly take elections. It seems obvious to me that there will be complaints along these lines if Republicans win *any* elections. I don't imagine, giving that tone already, that there will be much real discussion about 2004 election results or methods on Grex.
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It certainly does! And the "secret ballot" is not "poor policy", in my opinion. Laws give us (and take away) "rights". How else can rights be established?
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Somebody made it up. They were people that wanted certain rights, and they said so in word and deed. That's how they got the rights they wanted.
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Of course not. Who said anything about "mistakes"? The Supreme Court established a right that was previously unsettled. How about not putting words in other people's mouths?
How about not putting babies in garbage cans?
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Why not? The Constitution gives the Court that power. You apparently do not know that everything that is and will be possible is not mentioned in the Constitution. Hence only the guidelines and principles of the Constitution are there to guide the Court in resolving new questions. That is what they did. You sure make yourself sound stupid with insisting that you "win" in every response.
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(trolls)
Re resp:8: Well, when the major electronic voting machine companies are controlled by Republican partisans, and people in high positions in those companies talk about hoping to deliver a victory to the Republican candidate, don't people have a right to be suspicious? Espcially considering those companies have repeatedly refused to let anyone examine their source code or test their machines? How would you feel if the situation were reversed, and Democrats were controlling the voting systems and refusing to let anyone else see how they were run?
re resp:21: David, believe it or not, I am no more in favor of Republicans taking elections through voting machine fraud than you. I would not gain from such a scenario, and don't believe the country would gain. I am inclined toward the right, and to vote for Republicans, but yet I believe there are principles more important than victory for conservatives and the Republican Party. If the situation were reversed for you, do you think you'd be in favor of the Democratic Party stealing elections? I would hope and expect not.
The fear held by rational people concerned about this issue, generally speaking, is not that the Republicans will rig elections, but that there will be no way to determine with certainty that they didn't. Until and unless this concern is addressed properly and ubiquitously, electronic voting should not be adopted.
In the interests of fairness, perhaps one should say "...certainty that they or the Democrats didn't.".
You could just as well say that, but it is adequately implied.
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At this point, the companies have been so sloppy with the machines that even if they do work with the Republicans to rig an election, there will be reasonable doubt because anyone with access to the machines could have done it. If the outcome is challenged, we'll probably wind up with another "it's best to leave well enough alone" ruling like the one for the presidential election in 2000.
Re resp:23: Yes, exactly. Re resp:27: Quite possibly. I think if there are any irregularities in this election, and Bush is the winner, there will be a lot of pressure from the executive branch to gloss over any problems "for the good of the country." (If a Democrat is elected and there are irregularities, we can expect a long, drawn-out investigation, I'm sure.) Some points to consider: 1. Vote fraud (by either side) is not exactly unheard of. We're not talking about something new in concept here, just on a larger scale. 2. Diebold and other electronic voting companies have refused to let anyone outside the company review their source code. Why? What are they hiding? 3. There is no auditing capability on most electronic voting machines. There have already been cases of machine malfunctions that were only caught because they produced obviously incorrect numbers -- for example, more people voting than are registered in a precinct, or a negative number of votes. If the errors had been more subtle, they would NEVER have been caught. 4. Diebold his vigorously resisted requests to add auditing capability. The more they resist, the more it looks like a deliberate decision instead of a design oversight. Odds are there's no conspiracy afoot, but if you add up all the above factors it does smell a little funny. What troubles me, though, is that there is currently NO way we can ever know if tampering or malfunctions have occurred. And very few people seem to particularly care.
I think Diebold, like all software makers, wants to protect it's source code for business reasons. My company wouldn't allow it's source code to be reviewed externally, any more than Microsoft would or Oracle would. It's pretty radical to insist that Diebold must be trying to fix elections because they follow a standard business practice of their industry. I agree there has to be auditing for electronic voting. That omission would be a severe oversight that has to be corrected before I'd be comfortable with electronic voting. It seems likely to me that Diebold doesn't want to add it *for free*. If it wasn't part of what they were contracted to provide, then that would be understandable. If they fulfilled specs, and then auditing was brought up later, it's unfair to accuse them of not providing what they were supposed to. Are they refusing to discuss additional contracts to provide for auditing to be added? If they're turning down business, then I could see a reason to be suspicious and think "conspiracy". I haven't seen any statements from you or anyone else stating that to be the case and so I assume it's not.
I'm not sure if they've outright refused, but they've made vigorous attempts to downplay the importance of auditing. And see their statement above that they hoped a Republican governor would get elected and stop Maryland from insisting on paper audit trains.
The precedent does exist in computerized slot machines, though. That's why I'm not surprised that Nevada is the first state which seems like it understands the issues completely.
I would feel pretty confident about the security and accuracy of any voting system that the Nevada Gaming Board had approved. They've been dealing with similar issues for years.
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Re: #29: If I could think of any way to have a clear public audit of their code other than making it opensource, I'd be more inclined not to demand they cease and desist their evil, bloodthirsty, proprietary, corrupt, ultra-capitalist monopolistic ways.
Oops.
re #29: I'm pretty sure that Microsoft *does* allow review of some of its code, though it requires non-disclosure agreements and places other restrictions on the process as well.
Re 33: Removable memory devices, WiFi interfaces, and "updated" software which is not the same as the officially approved software. Those are all things I've seen mentioned in various stories about voting computers.
Re resp:36: Yes. In fact, I'm told there are plenty of outside companies with access to Microsoft source code under various agreements. (This is probably why you occasionally see Windows source code leaked.)
I think we need to say "tough shit" on the trade secret issue, and make it a requirement that you have to open your code if you're going to sell electronic voting machines. Either that, or add a paper audit trail. Your choice.
electronic voting? here in new york city, we don't even have voting booths that use electricity! We still use these old clunkers, that weigh about a thousand pounds each, where the ballot is spread out over an entire wall and you have to flip switches and pull the lever. See, it takes manpower to set up those old voting booths, and the unions control that manpower. And the unions run new york city. So we won't get to electronic voting here until/if we get to the point where we phase out the out manual voting booths, which doesn't seem like it will ever happen
Re #21: We'd call it Chicago. ;-)
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Diebold may get their knuckles rapped: http://www.bayarea.com/mld/mercurynews/business/7511145.htm "SACRAMENTO - Secretary of State Kevin Shelley said Tuesday that Diebold Elections Systems could lose the right to sell electronic voting machines in California after state auditors found the company distributed software that had not been approved by election officials. "The auditors reported that voters in 17 California counties cast ballots in recent elections using software that had not been certified by the state. And voters in Los Angeles County and two smaller counties voted on machines installed with software that was not approved by the Federal Election Commission." Diebold's president, Bob Urosevich, said the changes were "cosmetic" and blamed the counties for not tracking the software more closely.
Of COURSE he did.
(And that alone should result in the ban being put into place.)
Herr richard: Careful, buddy. Going around badmouthing unions like that will get you drummed out of the Democratic Party. klg
re #42: > The BIN will be such that only the voter can identify his ballot later. Any security scheme which relies on the voter to "identify his ballot later" sounds to me to be both (a) unworkably cumbersome, and (b) too susceptible to post-election voter manipulation. Imagine this kind of validation were used in the 2000 presidential election. How much do you think it would have been worth to either party to change or invalidate a few hundred votes in Florida? re #43: > Diebold's president, Bob Urosevich, said the changes were "cosmetic" > and blamed the counties for not tracking the software more closely. So Bob Urosevich is blaming California for not repeating what one would hope is a lengthy and thorough certification process for the sake of "cosmetic" changes to the software. (Note: one *hopes* that it's a lengthy and thorough certification process, but one fears that it is not..)
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I understand that you could do that but if the whole vote relies on voter-held information for verification purposes, then a suborned voter could essentially withdraw their ballot by claiming it invalid. In a close election, that could be enough to throw the race to the other side. And if the information supplied to the voter isn't necessary to validate her ballot, then what's it for?
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If the presumption is that the counted ballot is valid unless the voter can prove otherwise, how does that differ from the current system?
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Are these paper ballots or just electronic ballots? If the latter, how is a voter to know that the counting of her ballot _should_ be challenged?
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You have several choices: