Would You Believe It? Widespread Reports Of E-Voting Problems

from the as-if-you-couldn't-see-that-one-coming dept

Tue, Nov 7th 2006 6:01pm — Mike Masnick

What a surprise that after plenty of people have pointed out for years why e-voting machines are problematic that there appear to be numerous reports of problems with the machines. There's nothing too surprising: reports of machines not working right, selecting the wrong candidate or poll workers not knowing how the machines worked at all. Everywhere you look there are more and more and more reports of problems. While elections officials everywhere are trying to claim it's no big deal, it should be a huge deal. There's simply no good reason that we entrusted our democracy to a bunch of machines that clearly were not ready to handle the task. And, on top of that, there's still no way to check how things are working on the back end. For all the problems reported at the front end with problematic votes, there's still no way to make sure the counter machines are counting correctly. You can almost bet that the various e-voting machine companies will come out with claims about how successful this election was, with just a few minor glitches here and there. But, the real problem is that there's simply no way to tell whether or not the election was successful since there's no real check on these machines.

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20 Comments

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PhysicsGuy, 7 Nov 2006 @ 6:35pm

Grammar police
there's still no way to make sure there counter machines are counting correctly

their*
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- Mike (profile), 7 Nov 2006 @ 6:51pm
  
  Re: Grammar police
  Fixed. Thanks.
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XCetron, 7 Nov 2006 @ 6:51pm

Hey first poster, wth? "There's" was right.
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PhysicsGuy, 7 Nov 2006 @ 6:55pm

Re: XCetron
i seriously hope that was a joke... even if it was an extremely unfunny one... :P

anyways... remember kids, if you don't want to be a part of the freak sideshow circus that is american politics, don't vote...
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- Spectator, 7 Nov 2006 @ 7:09pm
  
  Re: XCetron
  What? "...don't vote..." and let all the loonies decide which crackpot decides your future? :S
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  - David Rios, 7 Nov 2006 @ 8:47pm
    
    Re: Re: XCetron
    What? "...don't vote..." and let all the loonies decide which crackpot decides your future? :S
    
    I agree with you, vote and change what you dont like. That seems to be the theme of the night.
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Jesse Badger, 7 Nov 2006 @ 7:21pm

Just goes to show...
It's true. We can not put our future in the hands of a computer that can't do a simple poll.
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David Rios, 7 Nov 2006 @ 8:45pm

My problems at the poll - California
Yeah, the machines worked flawlessly at my polling place. My only issue was that with all of the different ways of hacking these things people keep saying "yes, but that requires they be left unattended"... well the poll workers WALKED OUT as we were at the machines so that they could "have a meeting" outside. They were gone for between 5-10 minutes, more than enough time to mess around with the machines.

Nowhere is there any information at the polling station of where to complain about issues either.
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John Robinson, 7 Nov 2006 @ 8:46pm

ELECTRONIC GAMES @ CASINOS...
ELECTRONIC GAMES @ CASINOS... HAVE TO BE INSPECTED BY THE GAMING COMMISION TO MAKE SURE THE CASINO ISNT RAPING THE PUBLIC!! .. BUT OUR VOTING MACHINES ARE EXPECTED TO BE PERFECT?!

GG
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- RyanW821, 8 Nov 2006 @ 8:59am
  
  Re: ELECTRONIC GAMES @ CASINOS...
  I have to agree, let one of the casino game makers, build the voting machines. They would be more secure than this Diebold $hit and I bet more people would vote if they were voting on a slot machine ;-)
  Personally I am glad my precinct is still using paper ballots, because I will never trust a Diebold Machine.
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PistonHonda, 7 Nov 2006 @ 9:33pm

Seriously, how hard is it to make a very simple computer program (touch screen or not) that will allow a person with a voters card to cast ONE ballot per field. It isnt rocket science by any means.
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- Tomasz Zurek, 7 Nov 2006 @ 10:12pm
  
  Re: PistonHonda
  Exactly my thoughts. A 1st year student should be able to make such a machine. Now after considering that, if the machines can be hacked so easily, and pressing one candidates button somehow selects another, I wonder whether these problems exist and/or are not fixed on purpose.
  
  I am leaning towards a conspiracy here because I cannot believe that such a simple machine could be so flawed, even after the exact same problems were present in the last election.
  
  I am glad I don't live in the US. But unfrotunately, I live on the same planet.
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Ted Miller, 7 Nov 2006 @ 9:45pm

On the other side of that coin...
While electronic voting machines have their issues, there were a number of municipalities taken by surprise by Tuesday's heavy voter turnout and ran short or ran out of the paper ballots. While more paper ballots were being printed, people were able to continue voting on the few electronic machines available.

I don't want Diebold or its competitors to promote this as a strength of its machines but when the decision-making process failed to predict and prepare for the strong turnout, at least that process had a backup.
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SimplyGimp, 7 Nov 2006 @ 10:39pm

Funny....
It's funny really, because I've heard people bitching and moaning about different ways to allow a person to cast a vote since ~2000 election.

Actually, that's not funny. It's sad because not a single damned person has done anything about it, both of your political party's representation would rather bitch about meaninglessly topics instead, most of which they shouldn't even be concerned with in the first place. But again, I go back to the point that no one organizes massively to march on Wa. No group of 'l337' hax0rs have started protesting through hacked web pages. NOTHING IS BEING DONE BY US. And simply put people, it's our own damned laziness to blame that allows this type or crap to even remain a topic of discussion.

We've already crossed the line and given the government more control and power over us than they should have. Now is anyone going to do anything about it?

Naw, drama sells better doesn't it?
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Just Curious, 7 Nov 2006 @ 10:56pm

What I would like to know is, if Mike voted this election; did he vote with one of these machines or paper ballot or absentee ballot or did he even vote at all?

I am just curious and in no way was this question meant to harm anyone.
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- Mike (profile), 8 Nov 2006 @ 12:37am
  
  Re:
  What I would like to know is, if Mike voted this election; did he vote with one of these machines or paper ballot or absentee ballot or did he even vote at all?
  
  I voted absentee ballot.
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  - Just Curious, 8 Nov 2006 @ 7:25am
    
    Re: Re:
    thanks for the speedy reply. I've been reading this site for just over a year now and of that time, many of the articles read were regarding the election machines. This question seemed to cross my mind more often lately.
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partoftheproblem, 8 Nov 2006 @ 7:59am

Grow up, there were voting problems in the past and there will be voting problems in the future.

Really want to contribute? Really care about the issue? Then get off your ass and become a polling official and replace grandma down there.

Planning on doing that? No, I didn't think so. Be part of the solution, not just part of the problem.
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NoVoteForMe, 8 Nov 2006 @ 11:19am

Re: Re:
do you jackasses think you'll really change shit by voting? it's always down to the puppet on the left or the puppet on the right... the puppet in the middle is guaranteed not to win.. so that's a waste of a vote... both the right and the left and guaranteed to mess something up... and the one good thing that they use as a selling point they really don't have any game plan for anyways... like a wise man once said, all elections come down to either a douche or a turd. although i disagree that's the reason one should vote... frankly i have better things to do with my time than waste it voting...
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Anon, 8 Nov 2006 @ 6:40pm

The "problem" here was some ghetto whore's 3" long fingernail extensions. She was trying to push the button with her finger, but her excessively long nail hit the other candidates button. She was too stupid to realize this, and therefore in my opinion too stupid to be voting or breathing. No doubt she was trying to vote for the democrat.
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