Unauditable Voting Machines 343
CustomDesigned writes "AP news has a
story on how the new proprietary voting machines for Palm County, FL are working (or not). It seems that voters are complaining that their votes weren't taken. The company claims that the machines are "self auditing", but won't say how they are "audited". The loser of a mayoral race is suing for a review of now the machines work. But doing so voids the warranty, so the election supervisor won't allow it. So, nobody knows how the machines work, but as long as we don't try to find out, the company "guarantees" that they do - whether they seem to or not. I don't expect are problems this fall, do you?" After the debacle, there was lot of noise about electronic voting systems, even ones which use open-source software and were thus completely auditable. Absolutely none of that talk has made it into practice.
Well (Score:5, Interesting)
How can voters be expected to trust a voting mechanism when there is no accountability? I don't give two sh*ts about the machine being proprietary. If the machine's method cannot be audited publicly it has NO business being used for any public business.
Whoever orchestrated the purchase of these machines: a) has no business in office, and b) probably got a kickback from the manufacturer.
(Yeah I'm cynical. It's a hobby.)
Sounds like a user training issue (Score:2, Interesting)
I am sure the damned machines work fine. I think the company that makes the machines is being unneccessarily cagey about how the ballot machines function - it's not like this stuff is rocket science. I can't see their intellectual property being all that valuable - but hey, it's theirs to protect.
It also seems that the people who were responsible for make the purchase decicison for the ballot machines were privy to the details of their inner workings - but were required to agree to some sort of NDA. So I really don't see a problem here. Just seems like the normal whining that always accompany major changes to the public's interface with the government.
-josh
I spent a little time working on one (Score:4, Interesting)
There was no means with which to tell the user what they just voted for, but the system to audit votes (in case of a recount or whatever) was very good. The device itself had triple-redundant everything, and gobs of anti-tamper features. Neat device.
The project was cancelled for two reasons. First, no one could sell an electronic voting machine very well around '99. Local election officials want paper ballots. Then TPTB decided "there's no future in electronic balloting". They cancelled the project.
I just laughed and laughed when I saw them on TV testifying in the Florida election debacle hearings.
Ugh Here It Comes (Score:2, Interesting)
First off, the article doesn't say how the votes on these machines are counted. I mean, it has to spit out results somehow and somewhere.
Second, these machines were developed by a corp. Now-a-days when scandels are a dime a dozen, do we really need MORE CORPERATIONS digging their hands into politcs?
Third, These are digitalized machines. They have the potential to be hacked, crash, and lose data.
And since it's digital that means all three can happen at once or in any combination. I mean yeah it does have a coolness factor, but simplicity is key. It needs to be something that just *works*
Hey, i dunno bout those guys but i can *still* vote with our local lever machine even when the power is out.
If our lever-machine breaks, you'd be the first to know when you can't pull the lever down. Plus, even if it mechanically breaks, you still will always have the votes that have been cast inside prior to the breakage. And if you ever saw one, their monsterous and built like tanks.
If your gonna go digital with voting machines, do it RIGHT. Give the elderly something tangable that assures them that their vote counted, such as a watermarked printout. I mean their gonna expect this now since alot of floridians were so unsure if their votes counted under the old system.
They can't even get an independent review of the voting system's software and security features.
I'd like to know who's bright idea it was to purchase machines with these kind of restuctions and decided to buy them anyway....Oh the the conspiracy theroies one can weave.
Now floridians are going to see every tom, dick, and hairy who loses an election, bitching because the system was flawed, broken, malfunctioned..lets have a recount...a re-re-count, what's that? a hanging system? On to the supreme court!
If I were the people who had to use this machine, i'd demand my representives to get a refund and find a system that's more open. flexable and tailored to the people's choices and expectations.
But I guess that would require their local government listening to *them* instead of *cough*COMPANIES*cough*
I hope they get on the ball with this.
I may not make much sense, but maybe I can make some change.
I don't get it (Score:5, Interesting)
And how long does it take to get the results? We can usually vote till 6PM and get the results by 11PM on the same day. There are only 70 million Germans, but I don't see why this shouldn't scale up.
All your votes are belong to us (Score:2, Interesting)
4. The voter is prevented from voting for the wrong party...
???
Re:A paper trail (Score:3, Interesting)
This trick is as old as secret ballot voting; it's called a "telegram":