Voting Machine Glitches Already Being Reported

Neovanglist writes "CNN, FOX, and MSNBC are reporting that voting machines in three states (Ohio, Indiana, and Florida) have already been showing issues, both in the machines themselves and in the training of poll attendants, causing many districts to switch to paper ballots." From the article: "Voters put the Republican congressional majority and a multitude of new voting equipment to the test Tuesday in an election that defined the balance of power for the rest of George W. Bush's presidency. Both parties hustled to get their supporters out in high-stakes contests across the country, Democrats appealing one more time for change, and appearing confident the mood was on their side. Republicans conceded nothing as their vaunted get-out-the-vote machine swung into motion." If you're in the U.S., and you haven't voted already, go do it!

Rolling coverage of voting precinct issues

[smooth wombat]

CNN has what they call 'The Ticker [cnn.com]' in which they are listing incidents at polling places and general election-related events. The stories are short and to the point and a great way to see what is happening across the country at polling places including an assault by a poll worker on a voter.

Each story is timed-stamped so you know how fresh/stale the story is.

Re:Paper ballots

[EmperorKagato]

Illinois voting ballots utilize a BLACK MARKER ARROW system instead of Hole Punching.

The Black arrow is much easier to work with than hole punching.

Re:Paper ballots

[avronius]

They give us pencils up here in Canada. We don't punch holes, we place an "X" in the box for the candidate that we choose.

If you "X" covers more than one box, your vote is considered spoiled, and therefor not counted. The boxes are large enough (about 1/2" square) that an X will fit comfortably inside.

And it works for us.

Add Pennsylvania to the list

[WidescreenFreak]

While listening to the radio this morning on the way to work, a number of people called in with problems all over south-central PA. Some voters had to be turned away because the machines wouldn't work at all. The majority of them reported pressing to vote for their party, but all of the selections for the other party became highlighted. (For those who are ready to decry evil republicans for rigging the devices, the people who called in wanted to vote party-line republican but all of the democrat candidates highlighted instead - even after multiple attempts.) Some called in to say that they had no problems, but they were few and far between.

This whole notion of going electronic for the sake of going electronic, which is what it feels like, is bullshit. For almost two decades I've been using the "fill in the oval" voting method and it's worked fine. Sometimes change for the sake of change is not necessarily a good idea.

I witnessed the Problem TODAY and here is the Fix

[JoshDM]

Today at the polls I tapped the square for "Jim Davis" and the square for "Charlie Crist" was checked off.

I re-tapped the square for "Jim Davis", this time using my nail instead of the tip of my finger, and the check mark moved from "Charlie Crist" to "Jim Davis".

Want to know how to fix this? Don't put the most important square as the FIRST box that someone has to click. Make it something UNIMPORTANT or better yet, give us a TEST / CALIBRATION SEQUENCE for each user before any voting can begin.

Never assume your average user knows how to use your newfangled touch-screen machines.

Stay informed on voting irregularities

[ben there...]

Some links to stay informed and also to report voting irregularities:

ProtectOurVotes.org [protectourvotes.org]
Election Protection 365 [ep365.org]
Video The Vote [videothevote.org]
VeektheVote (cellphone video reports) [veekthevote.com]

National hotlines:
1-866-OUR VOTE (1-866-687-8683) (website here)
1-888-SAV-VOTE (1-888-728-8683)(voting machine problems)

Also dailykos.com (liberal) has some good coverage, and I know I'll be watching Jon Stewart tonight for his comedic (and often insightful) coverage.

Vote by mail

[onemorechip]

It's the best solution. Oregon has had this for a while. It's an option in California (you can get permanent absentee voter status and have a ballot mailed to you automatically for every election).

My understanding is that Oregon has seen an increase in voter participation since adopting the vote-by-mail system.

Re:Paper ballots

[Anonymous Coward]

It's the same in Mexico. And with about 4 times the population of Canada the ballot collection and counting seems to scale up ok.

Re:Paper ballots

[iocat]

The black arrow rules. No room for debate about "voter intent" and you can read the ballots electronically for quick tabulation, while still having an easy to interpret yet difficult to alter paper record. Alameda County in CA has ditched (at least for now) its Diebold machines in favor of the black arrow ballots and it made me feel much more comfortable that my ballot would be counted. Also, the machine into which you insert your ballot will reject it if you do something stupid like try to vote "yes" and "no" on the same ballot issue.

Re:Paper ballots

[Control Group]

No, then you know that the machine printed out votes for all the people you voted for.

The only way for you to know that the votes going to the counting device are the ones you selected is for you to get a human-readable copy which you then insert into the counting device. Then, of course, you still don't know that the counting machine is on the up-and-up...

Basically, the vote of record needs to be something human readable and unambiguous, thereby opening the door for verifiable, auditable recounts.

What I'd like to see is an electronic voting machine that prints out two copies of my completed ballot, one for the counting device and one for me. These should each be marked with a hash comprising the timestamp of the vote, the contents of the vote, and the specific machine on which I voted. This hash should be recorded by the counting device and associated with the votes cast, such that I have the option to verify my vote against the vote tallied (which would compromise my voter anonymity, of course, but only at my discretion).

A system like that would be an advantage to electronic voting, since it would be essentially impossible to implement in a pure-paper scheme, and it would provide a level of verifiability that doesn't currently exist.

Re:Paper ballots

[kryptkpr]

Having worked as a Poll Clerk in several Canadian elections, I can confirm that this works very well and the results are delivered very quickly.

There are two people per polling station (a Poll Clerk and a Depute Returning Officer), and each polling station has 200-400 people alloted to it.

Then when the election is over, each team of two begins to count their 200-400 ballots. The Depute Returning Officer takes the votes out of the sealed box they were put in, and reads off the votes out loud to the Poll Clerk who fills in what is basically a giant spreadsheet.

There can be representatives at each station of each of the candidates, and they are allowed to place a vote into dispute if for some reason they don't like it. It then isn't counted immediately but gets placed into a different pile (to be counted later by Elections Canada).

It takes only about 3-5 seconds to take the ballot out of the box, read it, and record it. No team needs to count over 400 ballots or so.. and this happens simultaneously across the entire country, so we get our results very quickly!

Oh, and as a bonus the position is nicely paid (DRO gets a little more then Poll Clerk because it's his responsibility to return the ballots to Elections Canada after the count). It's a great way for students to earn some extra money as well as learn about how democracy works.

Re:From TFA...

[Procyon101]

If you don't like your parties, VOTE THIRD PARTY.

It's not a wasted vote, as people would have you believe. Sure... they might not get into office, but the percentage they pull down this election is the basis for how seriously they are taken in the next election. It only takes getting around 5% of the votes for the media to start picking them up with "wow! an underdog!" stories and for them to start getting federal campaign money. And once they get those, they get invited to debates and such which instantly boosts them to double digit percentages and has them winning many local elections.

Famous last words

[frdmfghtr]

From the CNN story...http://www.cnn.com/2006/POLITICS/11/07/vot ing.problems.ap/index.html?eref=rss_topstories

"History has shown that the machines are far more accurate than paper so we're quite confident in it," Cobb said. "There is absolutely no reason to believe that there will be any security issues, any hacking going on."

Apparently somebody doesn't pay attention to history. I recall more than a handful of reports where machines were recording negative votes, more votes than registered voters, and even in this very same story, machines not working and poll workers not knowing how to use them. Somebody also apparently didn't watch the "Hacking Democracy" documentary or those reports on hacking the Diebold machines.

Paper ballots don't crash, pens don't need instructions, and any damned fool can put the pen and ballot together, and the same damned fool can read and count them.

For those who say that there's no point in being a luddite and refusing to accept electronic voting, I say this: in this matter, I'll be a luddite, thankyouverymuch.

Remember, "To err is human; to really fuck it up takes a computer."

Re:Paper ballots

[WebCrapper]

Unfortunately, this is the exact setup in the HBO Special where they proved Diebold machines can be hacked...

Re:Paper ballots

[Danse]

WTF? Why does it need all this crap? The only thing I know is that the machine sucked my ballot in, and then a few seconds later, the ballot count on the LCD display increased by one.

Usually to allow diagnostic equipment to be attached, but there are other uses for comm ports. I would simply hope that they are not normally accessible during voting periods.

Why does it have separate boxes? Also, what happens when 6 hours are up? I don't remember if my polling place had it plugged into the wall, but I do know the polls are open for 13 hours, which is well past the 6 hour estimate.

One box for regular ballots, and another for ballots with write-ins, which must always be tallied by hand. After 6 hours, I would assume that the machine shuts down as it has no more power. The 6 hours is for battery supply only though, which should only come into play if the power goes out at the voting location (which happened in several cases from what I heard on the news, more dirty pool I suspect).

Re:Paper ballots

[Anonymous Coward]

It takes only about 3-5 seconds to take the ballot out of the box, read it, and record it. No team needs to count over 400 ballots or so.. and this happens simultaneously across the entire country, so we get our results very quickly!

Oh, Really.

I'm voting on sixteen items today. It would take some fast and accurate reading to get through that ballot in three seconds.

If you're wondering, this is not unusual in the US, I'm in Massachusetts, and the state- and federal-level ballot items are:

US Senator, US Representative, MA Senator, MA Representative, Governor and Lieutenant Governor, Attorney General, Secretary of State, Treasurer, Auditor, Councillor to the Governor, District Attorney, County Clerk, County Registrar, Question #1, Question #2, Question #3.

Question #1 is about liquor licenses for grocery stores,
Question #2 is about fusion party endorsements in elections, and
Question #3 is about child care provider unionization.

But that's nothing. When I lived in California, a general election would have a couple dozen items on the ballot, and there would be one or two special elections per year, with three to six items on the ballot each time. Once there was a recall of the governor, and there were over a hundred candidates on the ballot! But I think most people would agree that California is pretty special in that way.