Voting Machines Routinely Failing Nationwide 237
palegray.net writes "Voting machines in several critical swing states are causing major problems for voters. A Government Accountability Office report and Common Cause election study [PDF] has concluded that major issues identified in the last presidential election have not been corrected, nor have election officials been notified of the problems. How long can we afford to trust our elections to black box voting practices? From the article: 'In Colorado, 20,000 left polling places without voting in 2006 because of crashed computer registration machines and long lines. And this election day, Colorado will have another new registration system.'"
Problems: (Score:5, Interesting)
""We're seeing a lot of problems where people are being kicked off the data base rolls if their name is on as Alex as opposed to Alexander or they've put a middle initial in there name and it's not there," said Susan"
It sounds like these problems could have been avoided if the system was designed properly in the first place. Whoever was contracted for this should be made to solve the problem for providing a product that clearly lacked testing.
Re:Voting machines (Score:2, Interesting)
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In the States no one can hear you vote.
Fine them 500,000 per 'failure' (Score:5, Interesting)
I just don't get it. (Score:5, Interesting)
How can law makers think that it is OK to buy and deploy unproven, closed-source devices to measure elections? There is no other segment of our society that would allow such a mission critical piece of technology to be deployed without independent or redundant systems. My electric tea kettle has been more rigorously tested by third parties than these voting machines.
The only reasons I can come up with are these: 1. The senators are deaf, dumb and can't hear our collective screams or 2. Appreciate the uncertainty that electronic voting machines provide. I believe both could be true varying degrees for most of our representatives. We have certainly all been screaming enough that they should have heard us by now.
What can we do? I've written to my representatives only to get a form letter back acknowledging their sincere concern for my "issue". When I lived in Colorado, I insisted on voting by mail. At least vote-by-mail provided a physically countable ballot. Unfortunately, in the 2004 election, my county clerk FORGOT to mail out a chunk of ballots and I had to vote by fax because I was out of the country. Perhaps the absolute worst way I could possibly vote other than a touch screen.
If you are afflicted by touch screen voting, I suggest registering to vote by mail. At least then there's a chance that some real person will really count your ballot and really record the proper vote. Seems like only a chance these days though.
Re:Voting machines (Score:5, Interesting)
I'm surprised that these municipalities don't hold mock elections to test the machines. It wouldn't be so much of a stretch to locally run mock elections. Maybe give everyone who participates a small tax credit. The process could be figured into the overall budget for rolling out new election equipment.
I also wonder whether organizations like Common Cause have many elections' worth of data to show that now there are significantly more problems than before...
Re:Hey (Score:5, Interesting)
As long as my guy wins, who cares right?
Only if your guy is also my guy.
Re:Voting machines (Score:5, Interesting)
I don't think the problem is the lack of caring, but rather the lack of understanding. When I talk to my mom about this problem, her eyes glaze over and I can tell that she can't quite wrap her head around this problem. She doesn't get the mechanics of the problem and gets frustrated. Once she's frustrated, she can't move on to the other points and develop an opinion.
I saw this when I sold computers and cell phones. People would come in, not knowing what they wanted, try to ask some questions and then end up frustrated when they didn't "get it". They would usually leave empty handed, or buy the one that fit their price point the best. It's not that they didn't care, but rather they couldn't hold all the variables in their head. This problem is similar, non-technical people can't quite conceive of the problem and its intricacies so they'd rather not be frustrated and just ignore it.
This means that those of us that do "get it" need to be responsible in advocating for proper solutions.
Re:Easy Solution... (Score:2, Interesting)
I'd hardly consider Brazil 3rd World & I'm surprised that you do.
Re:Freedom and Democracy EPIC FAIL (Score:3, Interesting)
Re:Easy Solution... (Score:3, Interesting)
Even pens can be erased. Felt Tip Marker!
Follow the footsteps of EFF (Score:2, Interesting)
Why has an organization not filed a lawsuit against the states that agree to use the known failed machines? The EFF just filed against G.W. Is this something that can not be addressed legally?
Re:Freedom and Democracy EPIC FAIL (Score:1, Interesting)
I wonder if possibly the problems are features rather than bugs. IIRC the Klan was originally charged with making sure that certain people didn't vote, and I see Florida (home of the hanging chad) and Georgia high on the list in TFA.
Re:Voting machines (Score:5, Interesting)
The way I explain it is to say that, contrary to all movies on the topic, computers can lie. Here is what I say:
Computer do exactly what they're supposed to do, and if they're supposed to lie about who won an election, they will. We have no idea how the manufacturer, or anyone with physical access to the machine, may have rigged the election.
Most of the people are convinced at this point. Some are more knowledgable and ask things like 'Don't they check each machine and certify the code?'
Although they check the code, 'this check' consists people carefully looking at the code the computer is supposed to be running.
Which is fine, but then they just ask the computer if that's the code they're running. Which, obviously, the computer can lie about.
There are programs called rootkits, and their entire purpose is to lie during system checks, to present one set of files to be 'checked' and another set to actually run. This is how many viruses operate, presenting one set of files, without the virus, to the virus scanner, and actually executing another set with the virus. It would be easy enough to activate such a program on voting machines, and it would be undetectable without removing the hard drive to scan it in another machine.
Furthermore, remember those cards you carry to the voting machine? Anyone, before the election, could have used them to get such a rootkit onto the machine. Behind that pretty voting application is a standard Windows machine that can run all sorts of rootkits, and the code to write your own rootkit is readily available.
And all computer scientists understand this, that it is in fact a fundamental concept of computer security that there is no way to stop a computer from lying, even to itself. Computer programmers have cracked all the security protocols set up to keep us from copying CDs and DVD and satellite signals, and voting machine security is much much crappier.
I think this gets the point across without being too technically inaccurate.
More importantly ... (Score:4, Interesting)
If voters can not have faith in the system of elections, then the voters cannot have faith in their government.
More importantly:
If the LOSERS can not have faith in the system of elections, they may convince themselves that they have enough support to reverse the result by force.
The real purpose of elections is not some kind of fairness. It is to head off civil war by convincing the losers of the election that they'd lose the war too. Thus the perception of fair elections is stabilizing and the perception of massive cheating destabilizing.
For this purpose it's OK to come out wrong if the election is very close. But if it is perceived that the election was so badly off that it reversed a landslide, it doesn't just lose its stabilizing effect: It becomes actively destabilizing, causing the losers to believe that a war to reverse it is not just possible, but justified.
Of course the easiest way to create the perception of fair elections is for the elections to actually BE fair and to be fair in a way that is VISIBLE and can be CHECKED.
Re:Voting machines (Score:2, Interesting)
I suggest opening a thread for the developtment of a open source system.
Build it and they will come. Because that is what 'they' do. Not only that, but for big business to compete they will have to match this new "open source" feature that is all the rage. Plus without all the fat, I bet you could make it cheap.
But technically you should want to leave the electrical components out completely. A analog device would be idea.
Think something physical; take for example ball bearings or perhaps balls of say, 3in or so. You walk into the booth, and insert the key the operator handed you. When you turn the key, it releases x number of balls. These are fitted into sockets next to pictures and names of candidates. The ball is still movable from place to place at this point, only after the lever is pulled are the balls dropped. The transport tunnel from this point to the point of collection is transparent.
So how is that for transparent voting technology! As the balls drop it will hit a piece of paper that was advanced once when the key was turned. The paper will have a consistance burn hole as a result. The voter can check the pattern by looking through a window. They're vote should be recorded as a burn next to they're candidate. If there is a mistake then the voter can select reset, the machine releases a full set of balls over this vote record so all candidates are marked(hence the vote is cancel by way of logic, I only gave you 8 but you voted for more than 8 therefore this vote is void).
But if there is no problem with this tally then removing the key allows the balls to fall into they're respective collection bins. When the bins are full they are weighed and the click timer each bin contains is recorded along with this weight. The volume to vote count ratio should be consistent if instead of a random open void for a container, a series of cylinders were used instead.
This would insure that the count per container ratio remains the same. Since both are recorded and we have a paper trial we should have a means to a clean election.
The balls will have to be handled with a rag if complete privacy is demanded, or just make the balls spin while falling past a cloth rag. Balls are reused, the data is what is counted.
The paper strip is the ONLY official count and only count trusted. The mass to vote count ratio is consided just a security check and is not considered legal since no physical data is collected, it is based on human recording thus deamed unfit.