Botched Election Result Highlights Importance Of Paper Trail
from the democracy-is-a-big-one dept
The results of a recent school district election were overturned in Keene, N.H., when it was discovered that misprogrammed ballot-counting machines improperly threw out several votes. The problem stemmed from the fact that voters could vote for more than one candidate, but the machine was programmed to throw out any multiple votes. This highlights the importance of having a paper trail, either ballots or a printed out vote record, which e-Voting machines, like those from Diebold, don't have. Computers are generally great for producing quick and accurate results, but in the event of a glitch, humans should be able to do a recount. Unfortunately, the e-voting machine makers seems more interested in battling the states and ignoring criticism, than in learning from instances like these, and making their products better.
Thank you for reading this Techdirt post. With so many things competing for everyone’s attention these days, we really appreciate you giving us your time. We work hard every day to put quality content out there for our community.
Techdirt is one of the few remaining truly independent media outlets. We do not have a giant corporation behind us, and we rely heavily on our community to support us, in an age when advertisers are increasingly uninterested in sponsoring small, independent sites — especially a site like ours that is unwilling to pull punches in its reporting and analysis.
While other websites have resorted to paywalls, registration requirements, and increasingly annoying/intrusive advertising, we have always kept Techdirt open and available to anyone. But in order to continue doing so, we need your support. We offer a variety of ways for our readers to support us, from direct donations to special subscriptions and cool merchandise — and every little bit helps. Thank you.
–The Techdirt Team
Reader Comments
Subscribe: RSS
View by: Time | Thread
Diebold machines
[ link to this | view in chronology ]
Re: Diebold machines
lowball (below cost) bids can be tossed out by the governing agency.
This thwarts bidders who try to 'buy' their way in, figuring to make a big profit later in the project with 'change orders' and 'cost plus' items.
Our city government has rejected bids that came in unrealistically below costs estimated by our in-house engineers, or below current competetive market rates.
If the bidder is willing to supply goods or services at a loss, something stinks or he/she is estimating costs erroneously.
The trick is to write specifications that prevent buying a pig in a poke.
There may be jurisdictions that are locked into blindly accepting the 'lowest bidder', but here in northern Idaho the catchphrase is 'lowest and best'.
[ link to this | view in chronology ]
if it is Diabold machines here because I didn't bother voting for
either one of the two corrupt jerks running, but it felt like bush
vs gore all over again -except with an electronic mess.
There is a good open source voting system out there. I don't see
why they don't just use that, afterall it is free... ahh, one must
love politics. Diabold has some very good friends =x
[ link to this | view in chronology ]
Re:
Anyway, back OT, the Cook / Chicago voting issues were partially resolved because we have a paper trail. It took longer, but votes could be manually recounted from the touch screens (which they were). It was their primary counts that had issues though, delaying everything.
The really corrupt part w/ this one wasn’t these machines so much as the questionability of the voters themselves. There were abnormally high voter turn-out (80%+) in areas considered the stronghold for one candidate. When I voted, they never even asked for ID. As much as I dislike Diebold, this election was screwed by classic Chicago-voting (Vote early, Vote often).
[ link to this | view in chronology ]
Re: Re:
What I disagree with is that an id is required. Your signature is your id if you are registered. You have to sign the voters application. You signature is then compared to one on file. The election judge at any time can ask for ID to double check who you are. In fact if you are not an active voter the application will tell the judge that 2 ID's are required.
Also I can remember most of the 100 or so people who voted. While it is sad that in an area with 500 voters only 100 voted. If someone came back with a different name they would be arrested.
[ link to this | view in chronology ]
they wanna CHEAT
[ link to this | view in chronology ]
Re: they wanna CHEAT
This thread should be dropped because it is a bit off topic.
[ link to this | view in chronology ]
Re: Re: they wanna CHEAT
[ link to this | view in chronology ]
specifications
Therein lies a bit of the problem IMHO . . .
The ability of a 'ruling party' (all parties are corrupt at times) to write specs often allow them to circumvent specific requirements like a paper trail, then exploit the situation.
An example is a local govt employee heading a team of workers was asked to submit specs for their replacement utility trucks. He wanted a particular brand because of their trim level, seating, cab ergonomics etc. He was told he couldn't specify a brand. So he dug into the info of the brand he wanted, and wrote the specifications based on criteria only that model could satisfy like front axle carrying capacity, rotor dimensions, HP and torque thresholds, etc. He got the exact trucks he wanted . . .
The same actions can be used to exploit any advantage.
[ link to this | view in chronology ]
RE: they wanna CHEAT
As to the person who mentioned the Diebold machine which prints your ballot for a paper trail, you are quite right. At that, every Diebold machine has the ability to print ballots, but (according to my brother-in-law who happens to be in charge of the voting division of a large and important city’s government) the districts will often disable this feature so they can save on space used for archiving and so they can save on volunteer labor.
Additional information which might be helpful for you all to know, is that Diebold did not create, nor do they maintain the back-end communications protocols that the voting system uses. That was actually handled by the city of San Franicsco so that there would be direct governmental control over the security of the system. However, having been involved with the QC on that code, I can tell you that not only is that more likely to be skewed (one of the comment lines read “’Hope this helps ditch the ignorant republitools, LOL” followed by another line reading “’too bad we can’t make this system cast the right votes”) than the Diebold code. I can tell you that what I monitored didn’t affect the votes, but I only got to see the packeting module.
The bottom line is that no matter how you prefer the election to turn out, there will always be too many variables involved with the process to make any form of vote have the amount of credibility we expect. It is not humanly possible, because there are extremists on all sides – Republican, Democrat, Conservative and even Libertarian. As a side note, for those of you who will read this and think that the last four divisions are only two, you are dead wrong. I know Libertarians who are far different from Demo’s and as a hard Conservative, I can assure you that party loving Republicans irk me almost as much as we right-side thinkers irritate the lefties of this country.
[ link to this | view in chronology ]
Re: RE: they wanna CHEAT
[ link to this | view in chronology ]
[ link to this | view in chronology ]
Electronic Voting and paper backups
There are crooks in both parties, and as citizens, we need to protect ourselves from vote fraud from all quarters.
Elections are so important to democracy that all measures to assure honesty and security need to be implemented.
That means a paper backup which can prove whether or not an election has been compromised.
[ link to this | view in chronology ]
amateur programming
[ link to this | view in chronology ]
Mike should be in marketing
The numerous of Diabold posts that Mike has made regarding Diabolds "evil ways" (most of which he wrote himself with nary a link to a real outside reputable source) just goes to show how the Internet can be used as a marketing campaign to fuel your own personal vendettas, views or political asperations.
Mike, it's not necessary to create your own reality and try to hide the fact in linked posts. As an example, you say (and link "Threatening extoritionate prices" in the Diabold accused of skirting election law again" (nice title there) to another post that explains (yours as well, no external links?) that some unnamed employee suggesting (omg a suggestion, does that = threatening?) that they charge ridiculously high fees to do so"... which is linked to another blog (woa external) that is linked to these supposed internal emails... that frankly don't show jack shit about anyone trying to do anything extortionate. If I was Diabold I'd do the same thing if someone ordered voting machines with x set of capabilities and then after delivery tried to demand a set of changes that would require extensive software redesign, hardware modification and aquisition and purchasing of a "commercial grade, tamper resistant" external printer...which would have to be Diabold branded and pass through testing before delivery.
Long and short of it is no one is perfect and Diabold might have been a bit vehement in protecting their interests, and they might even have executives who have certain political bents, I'd be shocked if they didn't. But that hardly makes them into the satan you try to paint with your web of mostly Mike posts.
[ link to this | view in chronology ]
Re: Mike should be in marketing
[ link to this | view in chronology ]
RE: ID Requirements
I believe that it should be a law to provide two or so forms of ID to help prevent fraud.
[ link to this | view in chronology ]
Punch Cards
[ link to this | view in chronology ]
Diebold
How is a computer based voting machine the equivalent to a pad lock?
TVNETDUDE
[ link to this | view in chronology ]