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.

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

20 Comments

If you liked this post, you may also be interested in...

Reader Comments

Subscribe: RSS

View by: Time | Thread

PhysicsGuy, 7 Nov 2006 @ 6:35pm

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

their*
[ link to this | view in thread ]
XCetron, 7 Nov 2006 @ 6:51pm

Hey first poster, wth? "There's" was right.
[ link to this | view in thread ]
Mike (profile), 7 Nov 2006 @ 6:51pm

Re: Grammar police
Fixed. Thanks.
[ link to this | view in thread ]
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...
[ link to this | view in thread ]
Spectator, 7 Nov 2006 @ 7:09pm

Re: XCetron
What? "...don't vote..." and let all the loonies decide which crackpot decides your future? :S
[ link to this | view in thread ]
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.
[ link to this | view in thread ]
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.
[ link to this | view in thread ]
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
[ link to this | view in thread ]
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.
[ link to this | view in thread ]
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.
[ link to this | view in thread ]
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.
[ link to this | view in thread ]
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.
[ link to this | view in thread ]
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?
[ link to this | view in thread ]
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.
[ link to this | view in thread ]
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.
[ link to this | view in thread ]
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.
[ link to this | view in thread ]
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.
[ link to this | view in thread ]
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.
[ link to this | view in thread ]
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...
[ link to this | view in thread ]
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.
[ link to this | view in thread ]