Diebold's new proprietary bar code scanner

[eridani]

Written to WA state legislators by John Gideon of Voters Unite. Will crosspost in the state forums with contact info for WA state elections officials. Heads up for this elsewhere--this is a good way to screw up paper ballot audits as well as to sell more equipment. Not to mention co-opting the VVPB laws.

My addendum to the letter: It is a telling point that the Nevada Gaming Commission allows no proprietary hardware or software for its slot machines—every aspect of their functioning must be publicly available, and the commission performs frequent audits. Banks insist that the source code for their ATM software be available for their inspection as well. Why in heaven’s name are we tolerating any secret or proprietary hardware or software for use in counting our votes, a process which should be 100% transparent and public? Surely our votes should be at least as valuable as the quarters we feed to slot machines! Let our public officials know that this is not acceptable!

Dear Legislator,

As I am sure you are aware, the votes in King County are counted by Diebold optical scanners. Last legislative session you made it clear that the counting of votes should be a transparent process. You did this, in part, by requiring that all Direct Recording Electronic (DRE) voting machines would have a voter verified paper audit trail (VVPAT). The Office of the Secretary of State will soon be examining a Diebold DRE voting system for certification and use in King County. Last week, I attended a public hearing to discuss proposed Secretary of State agency rules for the handling of the VVPAT ballots during the legislated audits and during required hand recounts.

It is apparent, after talking to Diebold representatives last July and after reviewing and discussing the new agency rules, that Diebold will be providing a proprietary bar code reader to be used for reading the proprietary barcodes on the VVPAT during audits and recounts. The issue is not necessarily that a bar code reader will be used. The issue is that the bar code software will be proprietary and thus a trade secret of Diebold.

When I was told by the Diebold representative that their bar code software was proprietary, my first reaction was to ask, “Why?” He told me that it was for security reasons. They did not want anyone to be able to use a commercial off the shelf (COTS) bar code reader to read how other voters voted. That does not make sense since all of the ballots on the Diebold printer are hidden from view and the bar code sits beside the plain-language ballot that the voter verifies. I mentioned this to the representative and he immediately said, “You’re right; it’s not for security reasons.” He would say no more on the subject.

So why is the bar code software proprietary? There can only be two reasons. The most logical is that Diebold wants to force counties to buy more equipment, and they can charge a lot of money for a bar code reader that no one would otherwise need. The second potential reason is that Diebold does not intend to have the bar code represent the voter’s printed and verified ballot, but that it would represent what the machine records. So, if the readable printout differed from the machine record, this would help to ensure there were no differences between the machine tally and the audited tally.

The use of proprietary bar-code removes a level of transparency and confidence in election results that the voters gained when you voted to require a voter verified paper audit trail and an audit of DRE voting machines. Your help is needed to legislate against the use of any proprietary bar code on the VVPAT. This is a King County issue this year, but other voting machine companies will surely join in if they see there is another avenue to make money.

John Gideon
Information Manager, www.VotersUnite.org

[merwin]

1. You would think that people in one of the most liberal areas in the USA

would be more active in getting open and transparent elections. Odd, huh?

[Wilms]

2. Election Officials need education.

Others may be bought.

Still others are "registered" Dem, but are _______.

[eridani]

3. We have a state law just passed requiring VVPB

This is the latest Diebold sally trying an end run around it. You win one, and then you realize that Mad-Eye Moody was right. CONSTANT VIGILANCE!!