Maryland Fights to Keep E-voting

crystalattice writes "Apparently Maryland election officials never have computer problems. That's why they're fighting so hard to keep their Diebold e-voting machines. Washington Post reporter Marc Fisher received nothing but bad attitudes, dodges, and excuses when he attempted to discuss the issue with the state elections administration and Diebold." From the article: "I asked the state's elections administrator, Linda Lamone, whether Maryland wasn't just a bit too quick to adopt electronic voting. Doesn't the computer at your desk ever freeze up on you? 'No,' she replied. Never? 'No.' But surely people in your office have had that experience? 'No.' (Maybe we've found the solution to Maryland's voting problem: Everybody head on down to Linda Lamone's office, where the machines work 100 percent of the time.)"

could be...

[jdcope]

Maybe they dont use Windows software on their computers??

so....

[cayenne8]

...everyone in Linda's office uses either Linux, OSX, or BSD?

Bets?

[CaymanIslandCarpedie]

Any bets on how long till the underpaid helpdesk personal that are always having to run around and fix all their computers "which never fail" posts the helpdesk logs on the internet?

Re:could be...

[Anonymous Coward]

Thanks for sharing your insight, Mr. Gates...

Ad Campaign

[nickmalthus]

I believe it was the rousing Ad campaign [mac.com] that has them sold them on Diebold voting machines

Maryland's Governor doesn't want Diebold

[Malakusen]

http://arstechnica.com/news.ars/post/20060922-7803 .html [arstechnica.com]

In the aftermath of a problem-filled primary election caused by defective Diebold voting machines in Maryland, Governor Robert L. Ehrlich Jr. insists that the state should return to paper ballots in order to ensure that the upcoming November election is valid and unhindered by technological failures. ... Maryland's Board of Elections administrator Linda H. Lamone characterized the Governor's suggestion as "crazy." Lamone telling the Washington Post she will "work around the clock" to resolve deficiencies and put pressure on Diebold in an effort to make the machines usable.

If you have to work around the clock to make the voting machines usable, then there was a SEVERE problem with them when they came from the manufacturer. Rushing to get them operable before election, instead of scrapping them entirely, is pretty crazy. There's more.

Diebold's voting technology has received a steady litany of bad press for the past two years. The state of California banned Diebold's products, and then sued the company for machine-related fraud in 2004. Security researchers have illuminated severe flaws in both the hardware and software, recently revealing that Diebold machines are vulnerable to self-propagating viruses capable of altering the outcome of a vote. Diebold voting technology drew sharp criticism in Alaska last month, where elections were also disrupted by the machines. ... Condemning Lamone and the General Assembly for "[setting] dangerous precedents that .. threaten the integrity of November's elections," Baltimore election director Gene Raynor chose to resign earlier this week rather than condone the use the faulty machines. Given the numerous election difficulties attributed to Diebold's products by members of both major political parties in several states, it is clear that these problems represent a pattern rather than a series of isolated incidents. The company continues to claim that its products function adequately when properly configured. In light of the significant risks associated with using Diebold products, Governor Ehrlich's concerns seem more than valid. With critical elections on the horizon, other states should reevaluate their electronic voting plans and consider using paper until they can acquire machines from a reliable vendor.

Missing statement..

[BackOrder]

Linda Lamone later stated that the buildings are kept to the proper temperature in order to prevent computers to freeze.

Re:Geez that's disturbing...

[Malakusen]

You were doing very well up to that point. If you think that the way to stop corruption in government is to slander one party you disagree with, you are wasting your time.

If the Democrats are hijacking the electoral process, stealing votes, perpetrating widespread electoral fraud, participating in voter intimdation, and just generally doing their best to corrupt free and open elections... they certainly haven't been doing a very good job of it.

Beware of conclusions

[Skevin]

Just because she says she never saw a computer crash doesn't mean she's lying. A more apprpriate question is "Have you ever seen a computer, then?" Why, just this coming Monday, John Titor [wikipedia.org] and I went back to Victorian England for some ancient sight-seeing. I asked this pretty young lady exactly the same question...

Me: Have you ever seen a computer crash?
Her: [pause] No.
Me: Have you heard of any derailed mag-lev trains in your life?
Her: Never.
Me: Is my friend's TMS-600 hot plasma cannon capabable of penetrating your fuzzy-logic-selective personal EM force-shield?
Her: Sir! I am insulted! Absolutely not! *slap*

With that, I have concluded that old Victorian England had amazingly reliable computers that never crashed, mag-lev trains that haven't seen a single fatality for at least twenty years, and personal defense technology is so advanced that it can defeat even anti-armor weaponry. I don't know how the human race has fallen so far in the last hundred years or so, but John has assured me that we won't have to worry about that in 34 years.

So yes, I can see how the office mentioned in the article has never had a computer crash.

Solomon

Re:could be...

[kimvette]

Dude! If your Linux box is freezing, I think you overdid it with your CPU cooler. Sheesh! ;)

I've seen Linux lock up as well, but it's generally been to PCI issues (such as the SB Live & SMP fiasco a few years ago), ATI's proprietary drivers, or attempting to run certain OpenGL apps with ATI cards.

Re:could be...

[BroncoInCalifornia]

I've never seen even Windows Me crash daily.

With all due respect -- You are full of shit!!

I could not get Windows Me to run more than 3 hours without crashing. I finally put Windows 2000 on that box. Then it could run for weeks without crashing.