Ohio Sues Diebold/Premiere Over Lost E-Voting Votes
from the instead-of-a-fine,-the-lost-votes-would-be-great dept
You may recall late last year that an investigation in Ohio turned up that all e-voting machines used in the state during the 2004 election had malfunctioning problems. Earlier this year, officials declared machines from that election a crime scene to be investigated, and now Ohio has filed a lawsuit against Premiere Election Solutions, the company better known as Diebold (it changed its name after tons of bad press).Premiere/Diebold, of course, were at the heart of early stories about e-voting machine flaws, and the company consistently fought against anyone who suggested there was anything wrong with its machines, despite overwhelming evidence. Instead, it tried to bully those who spoke out against the company, or paint them as extremist kooks. Yet, with each passing story, it appears that the concerns were very, very real. As per usual, Premiere/Diebold is doing little to actually address the issues in this particular lawsuit, claiming:
"We certainly feel strongly that we, in fact, have fulfilled the contract with the state of Ohio. It's a high-quality voting system that continues to operate in many, many Ohio counties with great success."I'm not sure if the "contract" allowed for completely dropping votes, but assuming it did, that's hardly something to brag about. Also, pointing out that other states use the same machines isn't a defense -- it should be an alarm for those other states to start investigating as well. Other than that, Premiere/Diebold has relied on its usual defense: "It wasn't our fault!" Instead, the company claims that antivirus software interfered with the voting tabulation system. That's a pretty weak excuse -- especially since (as Ohio points out) the system was certified with antivirus software installed. Besides, what kind of software is Premiere/Diebold building if antivirus software causes it to lose votes? Not the type of software I'd want running my elections.
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Filed Under: e-voting, ohio
Companies: diebold, premiere voting
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Having used Diebold software and hardware for four years in conducting elections, I would have to say that Diebold's claim of user error as a contributing factor is likely pretty accurate. The tabulation program is essentially an Access database with a slightly confusing interface. For those of you that use Access, you know that any change is automatically saved, which can lead to accidental, and even unknown entry errors. Managing the election database requires a lot of concentration and double checking. And those responsible for doing so are often appointed or elected officials, chosen for their partisan positions and not their technical skill or ability.
I'm not claiming that Diebold has made a great, or even decent, product; but identifying/labeling them as the main cause of voting problems ignores the fact that most of the problems that actually occur on election day and after are simple human mistakes. Diebold/Premiere should certainly be held accountable to make a high quality product, but we also need to hold our election officials accountable for using that product competently.
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Maybe the users did screw it up, but that is only another argument that the system isn't a valid means of tabulating votes. If I make a car that has the brake and gas pedals switched and people start dying... would you blame the [dead] users?
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On top of which it appears that not only is the administration user interface confusing, which tells me far more than I wanted to know about Diebold's talent for designing straight forward UI's.
(Right up there with SAP, I bet.)
But also one that doesn't have the old and well known safety valve of Save/Commit/Rollback?
And then they blame the user. (Do they work for the Vista apology team at Microsoft?)
Pardon me while I shake my head in disbelief.
Perhaps PES/Diebold got some free copies of XP to put on their voting machines?
I was wondering about the antivirus thing until this.
I'm also wondering who they blame if a machine BSODs on election day?
ttfn
John
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Worth a vote
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So the machines are PES dispensers?
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Re:
This company's name should really stand for
P.rimary
E.lection
S.abotage
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Dilbert Must Work for Diebold
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Not to sound paranoid...
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You clearly misunderstood...
"the company claims that antivirus software interfered with the voting tabulation system"
Clearly those votes which were dropped were actually infected with some virus and got quarantined. It's totally the fault of the voter, for not having good personal hygiene. They should really give out handwash at voting booths, like at hospitals.
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Re: You clearly misunderstood...
Isn't this the same Diebold/Premier that's the world's largest manufacturer of ATMs? Maybe the next ATM I use will give me my money, but delete the transaction. I would consider that "great success" in fulfilling their contract anyday.
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Re: Re: You clearly misunderstood...
The biggest, I'm not sure. But definitely one of them. The difference is the bank and it's army of professional accountants and bankers has a vested interest in making sure that an ATM dispenses the correct amount of money, every time. If the ATM doesn't then the bank won't buy them. When it comes to elections you have a handful of elected officials and/or volunteers who have to evaluate and use the systems. They typically don't have technical experts on hand to review and test them, and the contracts are usually worked out between Diebold/Premiere, their lobbyists, and a government official or three. Unlike an ATM there isn't a simple and obvious method of verifying that the machine is functioning correctly, and because they didn't even want paper trails on voting machines (try not getting a paper trial on your ATM!), auditing them is very complicated as well.
In summary, ATMs are strictly controlled and audited and the users have a vested interest in making sure that they work. Voting machines are the opposite.
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Re: Re: Re: You clearly misunderstood...
Companies claim that "regulation" hurts them. Yet when they are "unrestrained" they simply take advantage of the consumer. Companies that abuse the free market through inferior products don't deserve to operate.
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Re: Re: Re: Re: You clearly misunderstood...
ttfn
John
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Re: Re: Re: Re: You clearly misunderstood...
Think about it, free market zealots. Everything is fine in a pure and perfect competition. When the market is not in that state, big playes tend to abuse from their advantage to put better players out of business, which is exactly the inverse of what a really free market would do.
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Simple?
With differing rules according to locality - remember how Florida disqualifies some felons, Texas executes you if you press two boxes, whatever - I'm sure the complexity would increase.
The excuses here are very limited - I mean, it would be possible to just make different systems for each state, with a common interface to allow national tabulation.
But I've learned from my time as a software engineer that nothing involving politicians is simple.
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Re: Simple?
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Infections!
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You mean eVoting is new to you?
I started talking with friends about voting systems in ajacent counties, and everyone uses paper. This struck me as odd- my old city had electronic voting since at least 1985. The election officials only recently de-certified the machines. (Granted, not made by Diebold). But it makes you wonder about the past 23 years of votes.
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Re: Steve Jones .15
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Then fast forward to the Dem primaries this year and their internal system is even worse than their complaints about the national system. Heck, they have "Super" delegates that can vote any way they want to. Talk about disenfranchising voters. It is great to see liberals mess themselves up and have no one to blame. ;)
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Once the elections are over, politicians (of every stripe) will resume viewing citizens as whining pains-in-the-ass, who mostly just get in the way of collecting massive amounts of money from special interests, and voting favorably for the special interests, rather than representing citizens.
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Both parties have "super" delegates? The democrats have MORE of them, but both parties have them?
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Windoze
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Re: Windoze
Let this be a reminder as to why all operating system fanboys (and girls) are giant fucking idiots.
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Re: Re: Windoze
And the choice of a lightweight DBMS like Access as the back end simply compounds the problem.
(Rule #1 -- A spreadsheet isn't a database.
Rule #2 -- A database isn't a spreadsheet. )
While I'd be concerned that it runs Windows that wouldn't rule it out completely.
I admit that I'd want it running something a bit more scaled to the task, say Linux or FreeBSD, but if it performs under pressure that's fine.
The problem here is that it seems that Diebold can't hire decent coders and THAT's part of the problem.
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John
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Ohio Company
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When do I get to collect on Steve's wager? A little white republican slave boy sounds great to me! I'm going to send his ass to Iraq so at least ONE republican can get a clear sense of what is going on over there.
Diebold has already closed there plant here for a whopping loss of 100 jobs.
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Banks force Diebold?!?
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Access???
That is so 1997.
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Lost Votes
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lulz
:-)
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xkcd
http://xkcd.com/463/
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get rid of all LCD's and programming/calibration
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