Maryland Votes To Ban Diebold Voting Machines 240
vandon writes "Computerworld.com reports: 'The state Maryland House of Delegates this week voted 137-0 to approve a bill prohibiting election officials from using AccuVote-TSx touch-screen systems in 2006 primary and general elections. The legislation calls for the state to lease paper-based optical-scan systems for this year's votes. State Delegate Anne Healey estimated the leasing cost at $12.5 million to $16 million for the two elections.'"
Hope it doesn't rain.... (Score:3, Interesting)
What about the SAT being all screwed up?
http://www.cnn.com/2006/EDUCATION/03/10/sat.scori
Rain blamed for SAT scoring error
(AP) -- Blame it on the rain. The company that scans the answer sheets for the SAT college entrance exam said Thursday that wet weather may have damaged 4,000 tests that were given the wrong scores.
Maybe it is because I live in Ohio, and am tired of Diebold being a whipping boy- but seriously- Is there a bigger potential for fraud with an electronic machine? There has always been bvote fraud, since long before the advent of electronic voting.... With a punch card I get no reciept, I just hope that after I put it in the box, it ends up being counted....
Re:Oops... (Score:2, Interesting)
I toured the House of Representatives, about 10 years ago, and noticed they had buttons to press for voting. I wonder who audits where the wires really go.
Re:Hope it doesn't rain.... (Score:1, Interesting)
I feel bad for whomever modded that post down- Groupthink is a terrible thing...
password in source code (Score:5, Interesting)
He gave a talk about it last year and advocated a paper ballets and optical scanners as others have.
Re:Hope it doesn't rain.... (Score:5, Interesting)
Interesting Note on Main Diebold Lobbyist ... (Score:5, Interesting)
Yes, it's the same guy that crushed Cesar Chavez's union movement in California and lobbied successfully for multiple increases in the guest worker H-1B program as chief lobbyist for the Microsoft sponsored ITAA (itaa.org).
What cracks me up is
from cio.com
The vendor community doesn't like it. "We oppose the idea of a voter-verified paper trail," says Harris Miller, president of the trade group Information Technology Association of America. Introducing paper into the mix, he says, defeats the improved efficiency and reliability e-voting promises.
from zazona.com
Harris Miller, the president of ITAA, worked as a lobbyist/consultant for California agribusiness in the late 1980s. Miller's first big client was the National Council of Agricultural Employers, a group of large growers who use migrant and illegal alien workers. [20]
His firm helped farmers to bring in "temporary" agricultural workers from Mexico. These farmers wanted to undercut gains that Cesar Chavez and UFW had made. This boosted the profits of Miller's agribusiness clients. Harris painted such pictures as "fields full of crops, just lying there, rotting in the sun because of the 'crisis' of a 'shortage' of farm workers." This was a prelude to using the same strategies for an organization that Harris founded in the late 1980s, the ITAA, which is a lobbying organization that represents "high tech" firms. He merely substituted the category of scientist and engineer that was in highest demand for the agricultural worker. He has become very wealthy from the new "high-tech bracero" program.
A spokesman for the Farmworker Justice Fund, Inc. said "he [Harris Miller] was a lobbyist/consultant to the growers and was very active for years on the agricultural guest worker legislation. "
Miller said that critics who deny there's a high tech labor shortage probably also think that the world is flat.[26] We can be thankful that this scofflaw didn't accuse us of believing in the Tooth Fairy.
Re:Hope it doesn't rain.... (Score:2, Interesting)
Tragically even this isn't enough. Diebold runs on Windows, a closed source operating system. Diebold could well release its part of the vote counting source code, but code auditors still cannot be sure that the OS itself isn't mucking around underneath.
Re:Why voting *machines*? (Score:5, Interesting)
Agreed, although I'd point out that it's usually done before the civil servants get into work the next day!
For the foreign-types here, the UK system goes something like this (for a General Election, which decides the Prime Minister, all the MPs, etc.):
(more details) [wikipedia.org]
Fast enough? It's a slick, quick, accurate, well-practised procedure compared to the total chaos, corruption and confusion that is Election Day in the US.
Okay, there are far fewer boxes on the UK form, as the posts of assistant dog catcher, etc. aren't directly elected. Even so, there's nothing fundamentally wrong with a paper system. Oh, and no incomplete arrows, butterfly ballots, instructions, etc. A bunch of names with boxes. Put an "X" in the box next to the guy you want.
I personally wouldn't have a problem with an optical scanner being used with hand recounts done only if the result is within the margin of error. Follow up with a leisurely hand count for statistical purposes at a later date. A hand count isn't going to take *that* long if it's resourced correctly, and accuracy is worth the wait. In the case of the UK it would just mean we'd have to wait until after the weekend to find out who's taking us to war.
I also voted in Riverside County, CA last time around, and the ballot I was posted was pretty straightforward: well laid out, well described, simple to follow. Fill the little box next to the one you want. Saying that, I've got no proof it was ever counted, not that my vote would have made any difference in Riverside.
Re:Interesting Note on Main Diebold Lobbyist ... (Score:2, Interesting)
Oh, if he's a Democrat, then I'm the tooth fairy. The K-Street Project purged Democrat lobbiests out of DC. And this is the guy hired to promote the company who's (now former) CEO promised to deliver the votes of Ohio to George W. Bush. The chances of him being a Democrat supporter, much less activist enough to run for office, and still being employed in such a position are extremely low. Both senators for Virginia are Republican. Who is he running against, Allen or Warner? I know one of them stepped on the administration's toes, but I forgot which one. There have been rumors of Republican groups sponcering "Democrats" being run against Republicans that piss off the leadership. I wonder if this is a case of that?
Well, if he's on the ballot in November, I already know who I'm not voting for.
vote fraud programmer whistleblower (Score:1, Interesting)
http://www.clintcurtis.com/issues.html#votefraud [clintcurtis.com]
Re:FYI (Score:2, Interesting)
Exactly. As I said, a lot of Republicans WOULD commit outright voter fraud if they could, but they a) can't get away with it nearly as easily as Democrats can and b) Democrats dominate in running most of the voting operations, especially in the target rich urban areas. But they do try to throw up legal obstacles to stop likely Democratic voters from voting, because they can get away with that. Most of what they do is technically legal, but only a moron would believe it is done from a high minded goal of stopping voting irregularities; it is being done for crass political gains which makes it morally suspect.
Which brings me back to the point I was making in the original post (currently modded into oblivion) that technical fixes can't fix the real problems with our elections. The most secure voting machines possible won't produce a fair election if people can't get at em or the accurate counts they render are replaced with fake ones by the election officials. Or when votor rolls are full of dead or otherwise invalid names who nevertheless 'vote'. Because in the end it is the officials and the system they put in place we are trusting, as they operate the machines, certify the results and decide WHO gets to vote and how many times they can vote.
Yes, a properly designed system could make both sorts of abuse much harder and a lot easier to detect. Then what. The reports of documented widespread fraud (and unlike the moonbats howls about Ohio where the disputed votes were still within the margin, the documented cases were more than sufficient to actually swing the election) were all over both the national press and the statewide papers here in Louisiana back in '96. Mary Landrieu was still seated and serves today. The half-dozen Republican crypto weenies adding "but the signatures were tampered with" to the chorus would have made zero difference because everyone knew the election had been stolen, the question was what to do about it. In the end the Democrats hung tough and made a press release threatening to 'shut down the Senate' if there was any sort of investigation and that was the end of it.
Re:Hope it doesn't rain.... (Score:4, Interesting)
This is a good countermeasure against massive fraud - as long as there is a paper trail to recount. Hopefully other states have a similar provision in the election laws - be wary if your state is trying to get rid of this provision.
Re:Why voting *machines*? (Score:2, Interesting)
Actually that's one of my problems with the voting system right now: it's too fast. Hawaii and Alaska already know who won the presidential election by the time they vote. They shouldn't release any of the information until it's tablulated by EVERYONE. Did people in the 1800s run around in panic because they didn't know for _weeks_ who won? No. A pencil and paper is just fine and doesn't require any special setup... aside from a booth I guess. Maybe everyone is trying to save the enviornment from paper trash, but it seems like everyone wants a paper trail anyway so I doubt anyone is gaining anything.
Still need paper (Score:3, Interesting)
There are two reasons to use mechanical/electronic/automatic voting machines:
1. Accessibility. Voting machines allow people with poor eyesight, who can't read, or speak a different language to vote properly. The machine will check for over- or under-votes before the vote is submitted, it can increase text size, and it could even read the directions out loud into a pair of headphones, in a variety of languages.
2. Counting speed. The vote counts can be completed the moment the polls close, keeping the media happy.
Neither of these two reasons necessitate eliminating paper entirely.
Here's how I envision an electronic voting system:
The voter walks up to a touch screen which takes them through the voting process. They get assistance if they need it (see point #1 above).
When the voter is finished, the machine prints out a page from an attached printer, perhaps onto specially watermarked paper. The printout includes a brief listing of who was voted for in each election in plain text so the voter can verify, and there is a bar code on the back of the page which encodes all that information. The voter signs by the plain text vote, folds the paper to hide the plain text votes and signature, and seals the vote with an official sticker. Then a polling place volunteer scans the bar code into the computer and drops the sealed ballot into the locked ballot box.
In the event of a recount, the pages are all bar code scanned again in an official process. If further recounts are needed after that, the seals can be broken and the votes tabulated using the plain text. Obviously, calling for the breaking of vote seals ends the anonymity of the vote, and as such should be treated with great care by the election officials and only used in the most extraordinary circumstances. If the race is so close that votes need to be verified by hand, the need to break the seals should outweigh voter anonymity.
All the code should be open source, of course, to be sure that the barcodes are actually encoding the proper information, and to maintain transparency in the entire process. Any company that refuses to submit to code review or open the code to the public should not be trusted with such an important task. Would you trust a contractor who builds your house but refuses to show you the blueprints or have a structural engineer review them?
But my point is that paper is crucial to the process. It is currently the only way to ensure recountability and anonymity at the same time. Sure, there's opportunity for fraud, as there is in any process, but this limits the opportunity for *automated* fraud.
That's why EXIT POLLS are so accurate except when. (Score:2, Interesting)
I'm not saying there is a conspiracy here, but in a situation like that where the exit polls were very different from the outcome, you could order a recount of the paper ballots. It's VERY hard to tamper with millions of paper ballots.
bad company, but the idea has potential... (Score:2, Interesting)
As anyone who reads the news knows, this company is a total fraud.
However, I still think the idea of an electronic voting machine has potential. Why not simply design some sort of open-source based system (easy to audit) that was made to work accross a plethora of manufacturer equipment (thy name is Linux). This would open the market to more competition, more scrutiny.
Furthermore, I think generating a paper copy or "receipt" for both VOTER and ELECTORATE just makes sense. With all the money spent redesigning currenly in the past few years, I have to think that this technology exists. No, not perfect. But what is?
Call me crazy, but I think a properly implemented electronic voting machine could serve to *decrease* voter fraud.
c'mon, people! (Score:2, Interesting)
Paper receipts printed by the voting machine can be falsified as easily as the votes themselves. I press the button for candidate JK, the machine prints out a receipt indicating that I voted for candidate JK, but in fact it records that I voted for candidate GWB. So what the hell good is a paper trail or a receipt?
That's bad.
Recounts are done only in the case of very close elections, perhaps with a vote difference of one percent or less. With an all-electronic system, of course you'll get the same number every time a "recount" is performed. Maybe with scanned ballots you'll get some slight differences (dirty machine? smudged ink?).
But consider a fraudulent voting system that allocates one vote cast for candidate JK out of every five instead to candidate GWB. This happens silently, in the machine. If the number of these fraudulent votes pushes candidate GWB's total over the recount threshold, then there's no recount and also there's no way of ever knowing that this took place.
That's Real Bad.
While it can be argued that the potential for fraud exists with hand counts, it's possible to minimize it by allowing representatives from all parties participate in and oversee the process of counting hand ballots. Ballots and counts can be challenged and verified or disqualified at the precinct level. Yes, it will take time to count the votes by hand. But the Consitution does not say that we must have the vote tallied before we go to bed on Election Night! So it takes a couple of weeks. That's fine. Democracy won't die from waiting. But it WILL die from fraudulent voting.
Paper is also easy to rig. (Score:3, Interesting)
My preferred system would be to have:
That would give you a very high level of assurance, because you're not relying on one single path being free of corruption. It's not "perfect" in that if there is an error, you cannot know which path was the path that created that error. In order to have a failsafe system, you need 2/3rds + 1 of the paths to be trustable. (It's just a variation of the Byzantine General's Problem.) You need three wholly independent paths, then, as an absolute minimum just to have a chance of having a reliable system.
But all the reliability in the world for the voting system is useless if insufficient people vote. I would argue that 75% of the registered voters (or 50% of the population, whichever was greater) would probably be a reasonable minimum. If the minimum isn't reached, the polling stations should be kept open until the end of the day in which the minimum IS satisfied.
(In neither case is a person obligated to vote - democracy implies the choice to not vote. However, as non-voting is a choice made as part of the election, it should be recognized, not ignored as a passive "whatever".)
Oh, and all ballots should have the option "Re-Open For Nominations" as a choice. If this choice wins, the election should be abandoned and re-held, with the last round of candidates barred from standing in the re-run.
Such an overhaul of the system would unquestionably be detested and despised by most of the politicians, you'd be really hard-pressed to get the volunteers necessary, and it's unclear how voters would take to being held utterly responsible for their conduct.
(At present, many voters regard US elections as a senseless game with no meaning and no real consequence. They also regard politicians as corrupt, but have no interest in that corruption being eliminated. As all politicians are deemed corrupt, nobody really cares who wins. Politicians can rig ballots with impunity because it's expected of them. Only the corrupt become politicians because that's how the game is defined. They don't care, because they know apathy will guarantee them job security. The cure, then, would be to ensure that apathy guarantees nothing.)
Re:As a MD voter... (Score:1, Interesting)
Re:Hope it doesn't rain.... (Score:4, Interesting)
There's plenty of statistical data about failure rates of paper voting systems. In Australia, errors in manual vote counting ran at about 100 errors per 80,000 votes counted.
An open source electronic voting system was developed and tested at state elections, and independant audits showed it was accurate. http://www.wired.com/news/ebiz/0,1272,61045,00.htm l [wired.com] Being open source, it is available to the US, if you could get around the NIH syndrome.
Re:The old fashioned ways are still the best (Score:3, Interesting)
Sucks to be you, now, don't it?
Personally, I think all the zealots on both sides of the aisle just need to fucking shut up about the 2000 and 2004 election RESULTS and try to fix the problems that exist.
You're not going to get Al Gore in office, nor Kerry. Shut the fuck up about it and support whoever the Dems put up. If the GoP is stupid enough to run Cheney, they deserve the ass kicking that they will get.