E-voting developers on the defensive

[True_Blue]

SAN JOSE, California (AP) -- A growing number of federal and state legislators are expressing doubts about the integrity of the ATM-like electronic voting machines that at least 50 million Americans will use to cast their ballots in November.

Computer scientists have long criticized the so-called touchscreen machines as not being much more reliable than home computers, which can crash, malfunction and fall prey to hackers and viruses.

Now, a series of failures in primaries across the nation has shaken confidence in the technology installed at thousands of precincts. Despite reassurances from the machines' makers, at least 20 states have introduced legislation requiring a paper record of every vote cast.

On Thursday, a key California panel unanimously recommended banning a popular Diebold Inc. paperless touchscreen model -- a move that could force North Canton, Ohio-based Diebold and other manufacturers to overhaul their business practices nationwide. Secretary of State Kevin Shelley, who said Diebold glitches "jeopardized the outcome" of the March 2 primary, has until April 30 to decide whether to decertify Diebold and possibly other touchscreen terminals in California.
http://www.cnn.com/2004/TECH/04/26/electronic.voting.ap/index.html

[dusty64]

1. Glad to hear this!

:kick:

[ZR2]

2. time to bring back

the punch card ballot.

[yellowcanine]

8. Paper ballots for 2004 and scanners is the answer.

It is proven technology and almost idiot - proof if the ballots are properly designed. Cheap as well. Small precincts don't even need the scanners. The ballots can be transported to a central location.

[Judi Lynn]

3. Keeping those fingers crossed. Hope this will catch on everywhere.n/t

[DubyaSux]

4. Of course!

Yeah, we need to bring back the method that makes voting harder on visually impaired people and people who shake so much, they can't use a push pin on something so small. We need to keep the system which has clearly caused confusion among voters by allowing them to vote for the wrong person because of alignment issues. We need to keep a system which allows under and over voting. We need to keep a system where poll workers can keep bags of ballots locked in their trunks until the election is over. We need to keep a system where the ballot box can be stuffed. We need a system which relies completely on manual intervention and proper training of poll workers to cast a vote.

And most of all, we need more pregnant hanging chads.

Yeah, this is a GREAT system!

[mac56]

5. If your point is that the traditional systems also have flaws -

No one is disagreeing with that. Each of the things you listed, however, can be detected and corrected with minimal difficulty compared to the "trail-less" deception possible through BBV.

You seem to be new here. Welcome. Read a few more of the discussions about BBV to understand the scope of the discussion.

[DubyaSux]

10. I don't get it.

People trust poll workers to not stuff ballot boxes, hide ballots in their trunks, accurately guide the blind (i.e "Yes ma'am, you're voting for Kerry" snicker snicker) but put faith in a grand conspiracy to alter voting results.

Let's see. The evil software guy writes code that changes the complete results of an election to his favor (even though he doesn't know who will be in the election it tallies), makes it past fellow developers who are either in on the conspiracy or too incompetent to notice. Then, it makes it past in-house testers that are either in on this conspiracy or can't figure out some magic Trojan trigger (as if Diebold would have never thought about that). Then, it makes it past election official software developers who are either in on it, or too incompetent to see the code that can change results. The software serves no other purpose. That code will be under close scrutiny. Then, it makes it past election official testers who randomly pull machines out, set them to "election mode" (and yes, they do this regardless of what Ari Rubin says), perform a test vote and validate the results. This "magic code" makes it through all this.

Of course, we need someone on site to activate the Trojan horse. Wait. Not just on site, but EVERY SITE.

Now, after all of this, we want to believe that the owners of Diebold and the like are willing to invest millions and million of dollars into a system so they can seat who they want for president and ignoring the fact that if caught, they go to jail, get sued, and evoting technology becomes the biggest boat anchor loss they ever imagined while they go bankrupt.

Does anybody but me see how preposterous that sounds? It would take extremely risky criminal behavior supported by the biggest conspiracy ever. But we can stuff ballot boxes all day and nobody gets concerned.

It would be easier to try to defeat an ATM machine if you're thinking the system can be "hacked". Of course it can be hacked - if all management controls are removed. But I could vote for a candidate 100,000 times with punch card ballots if nobody is minding the store. I could throw out every ballot in a district if nobody was managing the system. We rely on people with punch card ballots, but leave those people out when "experts" hack the e-voting system.

And now people want me to have a receipt of my vote. Well guess what? I don't want one! I don't get one now and I don't want one later. My boss might want to see my receipt of vote to make sure I vote republican. If I refuse to show him or vote republican, he can fire me. Legally, he can't. But since most states are "hire-at-will", he doesn't need a reason. He can fire me for sport if he wants.

Then again, I changed my mind. Maybe I do want a receipt. I want to sell it to the highest bidder. If someone wants me to vote for Nader and gives me enough cash, I can show the receipt as proof of my vote.

I'm a programmer that develops smartcard technology for a security business. This is paranoia in the extreme. Ari Rubin sits on the advisory panel of another company (VoteHere) - one that doesn't make electronic voting machines. If a republican operative did this, they'd be dismissed because of no credibility. When Ari Ruben (the chief critic) was approached about this conflict of interest, he said "I forgot").

If you wanted every vote to count, you would be in favor of evoting. If you want to blame someone for results you don't like, stick with punch ballots.

I could give two craps about Diebold or whoever is making these things. But I'm tired of lost ballots, stuffed ballot boxes, and pregnant hanging chads.

[bobbieinok]

12. PAPER TRAIL so there can be a real recount

have you not been following the BBV discussion for the past year plus or do you just like to argue?????????????

[nodictators]

6. Optical-scan systems are the best and cheapest

With precinct scanning, op-scan machines oftem come in with less than 0.5% uncounted ballots. That's better than the computerized ballot machines (a. k. a., DREs), which includes touchscreens.
With op-scan voting provisions are made for people with disabilities.

In Miami-Dade County, Florida, they could have bought an op-scan system for $5 million in 2002. Instead, they chose ES&S touchscreens for $25 million. The ensuing fiasco in the Florida 2002 Primary election cost the county election supervisor his $150,000/year job.

He'd still have that job if they had bought op-scans.

[PATRICK]

7. The old "technology is always opposed at first"

chestnut does not apply to voting machines. People cheat. the process can be cumbersome and varies from place to place. the old black box scams and were more a problem than a few inconveniences for ballot challenged voters. In fact those confusing ballots, even pencils, could be arranged to make voting hell.

Along comes a new machine which sparkles and pleases and does little to enhance security. New ways are found to cheat, still local small scale stuff easily caught if anyone bothers. But the great "technology" seems curiously tailor made to damage and obscure votes.

The answer: trust technology, it's like the telephone and the light bulb. And here comes the new improved machine.

Curiously, unlike the light bulb and phone it does not take care of the fraud angle. It sparkles and shines and new ways are left to cheat. oddly, it's chief characteristic is remarkable unreliability. But we want better technology.

So we have touchscreen voting- which is like calling an automobile a chrome machine. It sparkles and shines but now God knows(and the companies and favored insiders)how to catch the infinite possibilities of internal, virtual fraud on an unimaginably and unprovable massive scale. Now the owner of the source code, selling its usage to a bunch of rubes and wolves, adjudicates the ballot.

Curiously, the machines, overloaded with unreliable, odd code, do not work as you would expect a XXI st Century marvel to work.

But trust the technology! Pay no attention to the man behind the console(or in a remote wireless connected location). They said the same thing about Alexander Graham Bell. Though Bell was no vote fixer, curiously enough attempts to have votes by phone fell through for simple standards we are not allowed to hold the computer whizzards to. Because computers are so mysterious and advanced compared to the old telephone.

And the solution will later be... ta-da... Internet voting! Now your problems and your votes are so invisible no one can say what can possibly be going on except perhaps for those currently controlling the Pentagon and their crossover business alliances in the private sector.

It's all about TRUST. About FAITH in technology, but more importantly in GOP owned companies(or other partisans of power)who would never lie to sell you a chugging machine that plain doesn't work, much less steal votes! Who would ever dream of tweaking code to win elections with trillions of dollars in goodies and absolute power at stake? Can't happen unless some "outside hacker", the lone assassin theory of computer security, does a kamikaze against external, frivolously surface security. Respectable people like huge corporations and big government and incumbent pols are surely(it must be so!)exempt from sin and human fraility. Of course! The whole issue with new machines is that it is supposedly the VOTER that can't be trusted in one sense or the other. How true. Why you couldn't depend on them voting directly for their own subjugation to slavery! They need help from good old progressive American technology at it's sparkling finest. Those dumb democratic hicks.

And what kind of person keeps asking for your trust and your dough as you are led from level of misdirection to the next to the end game?

The con. And the product or the lure or the dogmas of "progressive technology" do not matter in the slightest. Otherwise why the stubborn misdirection and resistance to any real accountability and record of their performance? Any normal company would not risk its sales to enforce an fatal flaw, unless that flaw is what they are actually selling. But suckers should have the shine, the sparkle and the empty pockets and the slave collar. It is what we deserve. Diebold engineers have said so behind our backs and left their own e-mail trail so much they scorned our ability to catch them.

I am aware that a low poster treads on dangerous ground in some issues whenever they take the tone and line of irrational freeperdom.
Yet it seems some of these newbies have a special mission to echo Free Republic here which is more important to them than resembling a normal person, much less a DUer.

If Bush is paying "invaders" I am glad to see he is wasting more money as much as the trolls are wasting their time. A dishonest troll will never have the brains or the heart to wear the mask of virtue.

[yellowcanine]

9. Sequentially numbered ballots would eliminate most of the fraud potential.

Every ballot used needs to be accounted for by a registered voter's signature. The total numbers have to add up. The actual paper ballots are available for an automatic recount at a central location the day after the election. Under and over votes are still a potential problem - yes. At some point you do have to trust the ballot design, voter ability and the election judges. Ballots boxes have to be stored, transported, and opened in the presence of impartial and partisan judges so everyone can confirm that the process was fair. Ballots can be printed in large type for visually impaired people and in Braille for blind people. Punch cards - no - they are not reliable. The optically scanned paper ballot is the most fool proof system we now have so that is what we should use. If we had one ballot design used nation wide (as I believe they do in Canada) then we could finally get it right. This discussion should have taken place after the 2000 election. It didn't so we are headed to another fiasco with the unreliable touch screen systems, I fear. I hope I am wrong.

[Joanne98]

11. that's a really good idea

I wonder why nobody thought of this. It's so simple.