E-Voting Problems Are Mostly User Error, Says ITAA 533
grcumb writes "InfoWorld is carrying a story today which mentions a press kit being distributed by the Information Technology Association of America. Its purpose? To 'help journalists put election equipment-related snafus in context.' Most e-voting problems, they insist, are [l]user issues, where people who don't know how to deal with the new technology cause delays as they seek assistance. They don't seem to feel the need for journalists to understand basic system design issues (like making sure your computer and human processes work), why testing didn't identify these problems, nor why this is better than paper ballots."
Not very subtle, these folks (Score:5, Insightful)
Re:Not very subtle, these folks (Score:5, Funny)
the way they went about it was condescending and insulting to the journalists
Of course this can only add to the image that most people already have of geeks being condescending towards anybody that doesn't understand what they are doing. The actual article linked from Infoworld only adds to this image.
For starters the damn article is titled "Problems with e-voting? Blame the humans". Let's take some other choice quotes: "Poll workers may not have plugged in the machines", "would be better off pointing the finger of blame at clueless poll workers".
Clueless poll workers? Maybe the writers of the "press-kit" should take some time off their overpaid jobs and go work as a poll-worker for $6 an hour (shift starts at 5:30am and runs until 10pm or later). Because if you aren't part of the solution....
if you aren't part of the solution.... (Score:3, Funny)
Re:Not very subtle, these folks (Score:5, Interesting)
Of course this can only add to the image that most people already have of geeks being condescending towards anybody that doesn't understand what they are doing. The actual article linked from Infoworld only adds to this image.
Bullshit. This is somebody trying to shift blame away from themselves. The fact is, these poll machines are woefully inadequate and crap is flying. This e-voting crap just isn't going to work.
Re:Not very subtle, these folks (Score:5, Insightful)
Re:Not very subtle, these folks (Score:3, Insightful)
Re:Not very subtle, these folks (Score:3, Insightful)
There are more than enough ways to bury features in the code so that it would be very difficult to discover evidence that the election was stolen. if (today != ElectionDay(thisYear)) {
addVoteToCorrectColumn()
} else {
addVoteToColumnButNotIfMyCandidateIsBehind()
}
i s very hard to disclose through a black-box test. A little more doctoring with the checkSum command, and you won't know
They are kinda justified (Score:5, Interesting)
My mother worked in the last Canadian election as Returning officer. She basically ran a district in an election. She was in charge of making sure everyone was trained, renting the offices, highering the accountant, getting signs printed, etc etc etc.
I was in her office a couple of times and you would be suprised on the signs they have posted everywhere. It's like "Elections for dummies" in there. Everywhere you see a sign that tells you how to do your job. "If this happens, do a b and c. If this happens do x y and z".
I will not be suprised if these electronic voting systems come with big ass signs that say. "If machine is not on, make sure it is plugged in the wall. If machine is not on, and it's plugged in the wall. Please check that the socket has power."
The main thing that I noticed is that most people's job at an election office has been so simplified and so documented as to what to do that almost any person can do that job, regardless of personal intellect. If you can read and write, then you're qualified.
While I do admit that this doesn't help the geeks reputation of trying to be all high and mighty. They won't be the first people to assume that the people running an election are morons.
-Derek
Re:They are kinda justified (Score:5, Insightful)
Have you ever worked with poll workers?
I have worked with poll workers. I am a poll worker. I'm probably the youngest one in the state of New York (in my 20s). Well maybe not -- but I am the youngest one in my county by far (I guessimated the next youngest in her 50s at the class we had to take).
My point was that a statement like "clueless poll workers" is not helpful. Undertrained and overworked yes... but clueless? That's insulting and demeaning towards people that selflessly devote their time for the betterment of our country.
I would like to see the authors of that report try to be a poll worker. Deal with the people that don't understand what a Primary Election is (why can't I vote for the Democrat?). Deal with people that insist that they have the right to vote at your place even though the street finder (using the address they provided) shows them at another station. Deal with the rush of dozens of people that come in when the polls first open or right before they close. Deal with the guy with enough booze on his breath to ignite that calls you a "fucking dimwitted asshole" because you can't find his name right away because he slurred his speech and has no idea what his own last name is. Stay at the polls for an hour past closing trying to get through to phone in your results (beep... beep... beep...). Then talk to me about "clueless poll workers".
It's ashame that more people don't volunteer. What are you doing on November 2nd?
Re:They are kinda justified (Score:5, Funny)
Working, so that I can pay taxes to the government that is supposed to provide a working voting system.
Re:Not very subtle, these folks (Score:3, Insightful)
You're building devices that have to be at least as good as the freakin punch cards they're replacing. Very few people have problems figuring out how to get people's votes collected using punch cards.
If you've built a system such that the average Jane has a small chance of screwing it up, you've failed. The average poll worker needs to be able to understand it effortlessly and use it with near per
Re:Not very subtle, these folks (Score:2)
Re:Not very subtle, these folks (Score:5, Insightful)
What the media forgot to mention was that 96% of the people who used the butterfly ballot were able to figure it out just fine.
The reason the other 4% couldn't figure out the ballot was because they were stupid. Yet the media make it sound like the populace at large was dumbfounded by these "freakish" ballots.
They also forgot to mention that these ballots had been in use for years.
The bigger issue is that in presidential elections in the past, it's generally a landslide, so having ~5% of the votes going uncounted for technical reasons (i.e. voter stupidity) really didn't impact the election.
I suspect, as with 2000, this election will be so close that 5% margin really will matter. Especially in a winner takes all type of electoral college system. Which further underscores why I think we should dump the electoral college system and go with straight representative elections.
Re:Not very subtle, these folks (Score:5, Interesting)
Socialism != stupidity (Score:3, Insightful)
Re:Not very subtle, these folks (Score:5, Insightful)
Why on earth do you think that smart people wouldn't want their leaders to take their neighbours money and give it to them ? Or do you think yourself as one of those smart, and want in on the action ?
Besides, as long as Bush and Kerry keep on being successfull, how can you call them losers ?
Taxation without representation is tyranny.
The purpose of voting for representatives is not to give people power over issues - it goes out of it's way to avoid that, with the electorial committees and whatever - it's purpose is to give people a way to peacefully replace bad leaders, as opposed to having to resort to an armed rebellion.
The only way for the democracy to be viable is that everyone, including EVERY LAST DUMBASS, not to forget EVERY F***ING DIMWIT, can give a vote of non-confidence to the current leaders. The second that someone is not given this ability, their choices are quiet submittal or armed rebellion (which would most likely manifest as terror strikes).
Re:Not very subtle, these folks (Score:3, Insightful)
I guess you think that nobody at Halliburton is very smart, because they're behind Bush all the way. Everyone who can read the ballot is smart enough to understand why having too much debt is bad, but no amount of intelligence will give the wisdom to look at the long-term instead of the short-term.
Re:Not very subtle, these folks (Score:3, Insightful)
I really wish it was. Unfortunately it's too well documented. Katharine Harris has admitted to the fraud (she was even successfully sued by the NAACP) and I cannot find one single rebuff of Greg Palast or BBC Newsnight's reporting of the subject that holds water for five minutes.
For starters, ballots don't show what color you are.
Of course not but you'll notice I didn't say that - I said voters rolls. The list of "felons" to scrub
Re:Not very subtle, these folks (Score:5, Insightful)
Journalists? I'm sure this stuff will be parroted day in and out by our news "personalities" that can tell you all about the voting crashes with a twinkle in their eye. The news sources these days are packed with more people busy looking out for their parent/grandparent company than corroborating stories, checking facts, or even researching a news item themselves as opposed to just running whatever press release is handed to them.
Re:Not very subtle, these folks (Score:3, Insightful)
since when... (Score:5, Insightful)
"Journalism" these days (and perhaps always?) is a whole lot of sensationalism. Most news comes from a limited group of sources anyway, so its not like Journalists are doing all that much collecting of information. It's a phenomenon that's hard to see when you pick up your local paper (unless you pick up 10 papers a day, you don't realize that every paper has the same news articles from the AP or Knight Ridder), but the same principle is painfully obvious in the "blogosphere". Someone has a story, then the next day, everyone has the story (copied form the first blog).
Re:since when... (Score:5, Insightful)
Journalism" these days (and perhaps always?) is a whole lot of sensationalism.
Nah, journalism deserves respect. The problem is that it's very rare these days.
Re:since when... (Score:3, Interesting)
Re:since when... (Score:3, Interesting)
RTFM (Score:5, Insightful)
Sounds like your run-of-the-mill OSS tech support, if you ask me. Why is it OK to blame "idiot users" when they have problems with complicated OSS, but unacceptable to blame them for not knowing how to use a TOUCH SCREEN?
Re:RTFM (Score:3, Insightful)
It is _not_ okay to blame users who, as taxpayers, have paid ridiculous amounts of money for a system which is _supposed_ to be fool-proof and simple to use when they find that it is too complicated for them to use and too easy to fool.
By default the responsibility lies with the user to figure out what he or she is doing. Whe
The Solution is Obvious (Score:5, Funny)
The problems with e-voting are user error? That's funny I thought it had something to do with miscounted votes, buggy or crashed systems and clearly biased [diebold.com] voting machine companies.
Hell! If it was user error this whole time then the solution is obvious -- we need a phone in every voting booth with a direct line to some Level 1 tech support guy! Can you picture this?:
Support Guy: "Thank you for calling Voting Machines, Inc. my name is Tony, how may I assist you today?"Voter: "I'm having a problem voting -- smoke seems to be coming out of the back of the machine and there is a bad grinding noise."
Support Guy: "Yes sir. Before I can help you I need your express service code."
Voter: "I don't know where that is! This machine is not letting me vote."
Support Guy: "Sir, I can't help you without your express service code."
Voter: "Grrr. It's XXX-XXXX-XXXX-XXXX-X"
Support Guy: "Thank you sir. Now is your voting machine plugged in and turned on?"
Voter: "Yes! Why is smoke coming out? It won't let me vote."
Support Guy: "Is your ballot on the screen or do you see the desktop?"
Voter: "I don't know! Grrr... what about the smoke??"
Support Guy: "Sir, I have a procedure that I need to follow and that procedure requires me to know if your ballot is on the screen or not."
Poll Worker: "Sir, state law only allows you three minutes to vote. You need to hurry up and finish."
Voter: "Damnit! I am almost out of time. How can I vote?"
Support Guy: "Sir, your voting machine is clearly infected with spyware and we don't support that. I highly recommend that you call Microsoft for further assistance. Thank you for calling Voting Machines, Inc. and have a nice day."
Voter: "How do you know it's spyware? We haven't even gotten anywhere yet!"
[Click. Dialtone. Sounds of fire sirens in the distance]
Voter: "Hello? Hello?"
Poll Worker: "Sir, your time is up."
And just think of the fun if they outsourced the support center overseas....
Re:The Solution is Obvious (Score:3, Informative)
Are you serious?
Guess we do things differently up here. I've worked at the polls in Canadian elections, and we have to take a class beforehand - the only thing we were told, IIRC, was that the voter can take all the time they require. No interference.
And we STILL get to count all the votes and declare a winner the same evening. (Yes, we still use paper ballots, so we can do a recount if one is requested).
Hey, maybe we should export our "use a paper ballot t
Ignorance is no excuse (Score:3, Insightful)
The infamous "butterfly ballot" was designed by a Democrat. All the counties that Gore requested recounts in were run by Democrats.
The "felon roll" was a list created by the state but it was up to the individual counties to decide what to do with the list. Many counties (including Broward and Dade IIRC) simply ignored the list. Other
Re:Ignorance is no excuse (Score:5, Insightful)
The infamous "butterfly ballot" was designed by a Democrat.
You mean Theresa LaPore, the former Republican [gregpalast.com] who was a Democrat for all of six years (1996 - 2002), before she switched back to an "Independent", and is now working with the Republicans again? That Democrat?
All the counties that Gore requested recounts in were run by Democrats.
And thanks to the tireless efforts of those crooked Democrats, President Gore has done a fine job.
It is estimated that there were still many thousands of illegal votes placed by felons in the 2000 election in Florida.
Ah, yes, those spooooky felons trying to cast votes. The reason for the big crackdown? It turns out that felons cast about 100 votes [sptimes.com] in the 1997 Miami Mayoral election, out of a few hundred thousand cast.
The "felon roll" was a list created by the state but it was up to the individual counties to decide what to do with the list.
Ah, the "pass the buck" game. "We're going to make this list of tens of thousands of felons, and you have to guess which ones are actually felons!" Bullshit. If the state is going to spend 2.3 million dollars for a list that's 95% wrong [bbc.co.uk], it is squarely the fault of the people who paid for that list. And if she tries to make a list for 2002, even when the FL legislature passed a law saying she couldn't [gregpalast.com], I imagine that's the fault of the Democrats, too?
The facts are far too challenging.
The facts are far too challenging for you? I've noticed. That's probably why you didn't have any references, just assertions.
-jdm
Re:Whee, Palast and the Beeb? (Score:3, Insightful)
I note that despite your spin LePore was in fact a Dem during the years in question.
I note that despite your spin, you don't have to take a lie-detector test when you register to be a member of a certain party. In areas that lean heavily towards one side or the other, that party's primary essentially decides who will win the race, so a lot of people who are from the other party register as members of the dominant party so they have a say in who gets elected.
Translation: registered party affiliation p
Your ignorance is not excused (Score:3, Insightful)
Most importantly, your claim that the felon list was in any way just a suggestion is flat out 100% untrue. You can see the law for yourself at http://www.flsenate.gov/statutes/index.cfm?App_mo d e=Display_Statute&URL=Ch0097/ch0097.htm which clearly states that the chief election officer is ordered to (11) Create and maintain a statewide voter registration database.
Even if your claim wasn't completely false, the number 1 responsibility for the DoE is right there at the top: Obtain
Re:Your ignorance is not excused (Score:3, Informative)
You are reading the wrong law. The administration of the statewide voter database is detailed in Chapter 98 [flsenate.gov] of Florida Election laws, spe
Re:Ignorance is no excuse (Score:3, Insightful)
OWJones does a great job of refuting your silly claims [slashdot.org], so I'll just address two points that OWJones didn't:
Off topic and irrelevant. Did the poster suggest that the butterfly ballot was a conspiracy? Did he even mention it? No. The butterfly ballot was just bad user interface design, it doesn't take a conspiracy theory to say that it was a bad thing.
Re:Ignorance is no excuse (Score:3)
The problem is that the US Commission on Civil Rights failed to find a single person who would testify that they were incorrectly denied the right to vote. They received testimony from several people who
Re:The Solution is Obvious (Score:2)
I do know that it seems to be a prerequisite for Windows operation, though
Ummm.... (Score:5, Insightful)
Come on, this "blame the user" bs is getting really old. Appearently corporations are allowed to be totally incompetent with their own products, but it's always the users fault if they don't know how to use them......
Re:Ummm.... (Score:5, Informative)
It was easy, cheap and low tech. I really think much of this e-voting a solution looking for a problem.
Same here in Texas (Score:5, Funny)
Oh my god, did I just figure out the next big problem, drooling idiots shorting out the touch screens.
Re:Same here in Texas (Score:3, Funny)
They use pretty much the same system where I'm at. (OK, I think it's a double-sided 8.5x14, unfolded card.) It is possible to screw it up though. Say, for instance, someone wasn't paying attention and accidentally marked two candidates for the same position. Then the machine catches the error and they se
Re:Ummm.... (Score:2)
Also, with these touch screen things, wouldn't the person before you leave their fingerprints on the screen? If so, doesn't this ruin the privacy of voting?
Re:Ummm.... (Score:5, Insightful)
1)
2) They know that, despite assurances, there's always another bug, and that none of them trust their vote to a damn computer (despite the fact that their livelyhood depends upon it).
Re:Ummm.... (Score:3, Insightful)
Also remember that election systems like this are used by a huge number of people once ever few years. So you want the system to be quick to use, cheap and simple as peopl
Don't forget 3)... (Score:3, Insightful)
Ouch! That tinfoil hat is suddenly getting very hot!
Re:Ummm.... (Score:5, Insightful)
Early indications are the tech savvy of the poll workers setting up systems with a lot of interconnects and make everything work under pressure is certainly a concern. I'm not sure but you get the impression Florida in particular is relying on a working internet connection to the home office which seems insane, problem plagued and wildly insecure, at least the guy they showed on the news was rambling about not being able the machines not being able to connect to the "mainframe".
But system design would certainly fix that if you insist on using them. First off these machines should need nothing more than a power plug. They should be setup in a central location under nonpartisan supervision, locked and sealed, taken to the poll and then when done transported back to a central, secure, location to unload the results.
But the damning thing about evoting is there HAS TO BE A PAPER TRAIL. There is an interesting case study in Venezuela which recently had an election involving Hugo Chavez, who is reviled by the Bush administration, and was under constant accusation of trying to rig elections. They used all or mostly evoting machines, BUT they all had printers and a paper trail. The opposition tried to levy charges of election rigging but they simply didn't stick.
Now turn to the U.S., bastion of democracy, who spends tons of time and money telling the rest of the world how to vote. It appears all or most of the evoting machines have NO PAPER TRAIL. A glitch happens and people's votes disappear. Worse its ridiculously easy to rig the election. The U.S. really is turning in to a laughing stock for the rest of the world, and a shining example of a democracy gone bad.
Another serious flaw was pointed out by Jimmy Carter on Larry King last night (you can revile him all you want but he does know good and bad electoral process). The U.S. and assorted other international election monitors push hard for elections to be run by impartial, nonpartisan officials. In the U.S. the are almost universally turned over to very partisan hacks who have huge biases, think Katherine Harris in Florida or any election official appointed by biased governors(for example the brother of one of the candidates). You give these people complete control of the election machinery, and you give them electronic voting machines with no paper trail, and no chance of a recount or audit. It will be a miracle if they can resist the temptation to steal the election because it is SO EASY.
Re:Ummm.... (Score:4, Insightful)
It should be really simple.
on Screen Pick a person to vote for President.
Under that Pictures of each canidate, and the parties that support them.
You select one and press the vote button at the bottom, It then verifies you want that canidate, yes / no with no going back.
repeat for each election.
If it is any more complicated than that the system is wrong. The computers themselves shouldn't crash. Crashes are signs of bad programing.
I know people who can use Palms and Graffitti, but don't know how to use a computer. Why Because the interfaces are to much.
Why's it matter? Interfaces aren't the problem (Score:2)
The odd interface-related snafu here and there gets media attention, surely, but the serious issue is the potential for election rigging with no ability to detect or correct for it after-the-fact. Claiming that the only issues these machines have are interface-related is a slick slight-of-hand, taking attention from where the serious problems lie.
(After all -- interface-related mistakes, like hanging chads, are made by everyone, and on average shouldn't swing the
Re:Ummm.... (Score:5, Insightful)
Pictures are an invitation to disaster--remember the debacle when Time altered OJ Simpson's mugshot photo for their cover, probably to make him look more threatening. (Links: Time mugshot image [mugshots.com]; comparison [umn.edu] with Newsweek print of same image.)
What if you discover partway through election day that your candidate's image is being garbled? What if the tint or contrast settings on some of the screens are off, so your candidate looks purple? No pictures, thank you.
You select one and press the vote button at the bottom, It then verifies you want that canidate, yes / no with no going back.
You forgot the last steps: the machine then prints a human-readable (optionally also machine-readable) ballot with all your votes, which you verify and drop in the ballot box before you leave. A touchscreen system with no paper trail is unacceptable.
Re:Ummm.... (Score:3, Insightful)
And this is the exact reason that this method is unnecessary. Voting is already a pain in the ass for people apparently as so little people do it. So let's make everyone's lives more difficult by adding MORE steps, more pieces of paper to think about, and mo
Re:Ummm.... (Score:3, Insightful)
I'd argue that the actual process that goes on at the polling place has little or nothing to do with turnout. The hassle of getting to the voting place -- sure, I'll accept that that impacts turnout, especially for people without
Re:Ummm.... (Score:4, Insightful)
No, this is America; the former is optional.
ITAA == Professional Liars Association.. (Score:4, Informative)
"this is the ITAA?"
For the most part the ITAA == Professional Liars Association.Remember them making all those tech worker shortage projections right in the middle of the dot com collapse? 1.6 Million, 900K [com.com], then 600K. [com.com]
At the same time the tech industry was laying off workers faster than you can imagine. They did it to promote their H-1B agenda.. Note: They're still at it.
Debunking the Myth of a Desperate Software Labor Shortage [ucdavis.edu]...."The congressional General Accounting Office found ``serious analytical and methodological weaknesses'' in the [ITAA/Dept. of Commerce] reports.";
The ITAA was counting all the positions held by Computer consultants and contractors as UNFILLED [ucdavis.edu]!!
Yikes !!!
---
Now for a little bit about the ITAA with electronic voting and Mr. Miller's pitch to the electronic machine manufacturers. August 22, 2003, Democracy for Sale, CHEAP! [thoughtcrimes.org]
"Harris Miller (ITAA) Gives the intro spiel about the company and how it can help the industry stave off short-term attacks" from academics and "activists".
"Harris: .. And there can be two scenarios there: The companies may
want to hide behind me, they dont want to say anything... frequently
that happens in a trade association, you dont want to talk about the
issues as individual companies. We have that issue right now with the
Buy America Act, for example in congress. No company wants to act like
its against Buy America -- even though theyre all against it so I
take all the heat for them."
Well it's true (Score:3, Funny)
Re:Well it's true (Score:5, Insightful)
I think with any new technology there is a certain level of justifiable distrust, but sooner or later we all need to move on.
We all need to move on to a system where no paper trail is kept? Oh for Christ's sake you're a fool and a root cause for your nation's democratic demise! What is so hard with putting a mark in a circle on a piece of paper and have it either counted by hand or fed into a scanner?
I have yet to see any benefit from the electronic voting process besides profit for the people who sell them and a chance for the news to wrap up it's election coverage by 11pm (and look what ended up last time they tried that).
People like you need some real perspective. The voting period in India was a month long. In Afghanistan they didn't even start counting the ballots until days after it was over, and in Canada people still vote with a paper and pencil, and it is no more complicated than putting an X in the correct circle. Whether it is hand counted or run through a machine at least there's something available to audit if a recount is necessary, and rarely do pencils or paper break down and when they do it takes a hell of a lot less time and money to get them working again.
Re:Well it's true (Score:5, Informative)
As somebody who ran a polling station once, hand-counting is pretty damned easy. A couple thousand voters go to each polling centre, There's a half-dozen or so polling booths, that's only a few hundred votes to count.
You count them in front of a peer and volunteer party representatives. Then to be pedantic, your peer counts them again.
The count starts, of course, once the polls close.
If you think of the level of real patriotism left in the U.S., is it really that hard to find a school or public facility to vote in? Is it really that hard to find people to sit at the polls? Is it really that hard to find people to watch over and audit this process?
These electronic voting companies make it sound like voting is drudgery which nobody will volunteer to help with... there is no end of volunteers!
BTW, I've been told that there's at least one state, I don't recall which one, (Winconsin? Wyoming?, some "W" state I've never been to) which uses a similar system to that of Canada.
Re:Well it's true (Score:2, Interesting)
FWIW, I never said anything about not having a paper trail. I understand [some] voting machines have the ability for a receipt.
Re:Well it's true (Score:3, Insightful)
Generally Not Done, and here's why:
Bullshit (Score:5, Informative)
Re:Bullshit (Score:2, Insightful)
Re:Bullshit (Score:5, Funny)
New warning sticker on E-Voting machines (Score:5, Funny)
Reminds me of those old joke programs... (Score:2, Interesting)
In seriousness, why don't they just put the canidates faces on the ballot? Or graphic representations of thereof?
Of course previous voters might take liberties with a sharpee pen on the voting screen.
Just what we need (Score:3, Funny)
RIAA
MPAA
ITAA (It's new!!! : ^D)
I suggest we all comence drinking heavily and then meet up at AA.
There is no such thing as "User Error" (Score:5, Insightful)
A fundamental design feature of any voting system must be that the expected "user error" rate must be well, well below the expected vote differential otherwise the system fails in its primary task of capturing the wishes of the voters.
User error can be engineered away. Not by "genius" engineers sitting in some back room coming up with better UIs, but "average" engineers with clipboards field testing the system, watching where users make mistakes, and adjusting the system to compensate.
Re:There is no such thing as "User Error" (Score:2, Funny)
Well, it serves the pilots right. They should have been concentrating on flying the darned planes, not listening to music!
user error (Score:5, Insightful)
Re:user error (Score:5, Insightful)
The buttons are in different locations, and the procedures are different for different machines.
ATMs are more consistent than those things.
And they're stupid to begin with. WTF? It says to hand my card to the cashier to verify signature? Why didn't the cashier just swipe it him/herself in the first place?!?!
Re:user error (Score:3)
From watching my parents try to use these things, there should be a minimum of two steps: 1) verify the price on the LCD. (at this point, adventurous types can add cashback) 2) swipe card if the price is right. The card type should be identifiable from the card's number. If its a debit card, beep to indicate the user should enter their pin now. If its not a debit card an
NOT "user error". (Score:5, Interesting)
That's because most debit card machines at grocery stores are deliberately designed to confuse the user into using their card in a way that costs the grocery store less. I started noticing this recently... in the past couple of years... and it started happening first in new machines but gradually older systems have been reprogrammed with the same scheme.
The motivation is obvious: If you use your "credit/debit" card as a credit card, the grocery store pays a credit card fee, you pay the amount on the ticket. If you use your "credit/debit" card as a debit card, the grocery store pays less (if anything), but you pay a transaction fee that can be over $3.00 in some cases.
So, to use it as a credit card: about half have a "credit" or "debit" button you can hit before swiping, so you select "credit" if it's there. Either way, you swipe, then it asks you for a PIN. If you enter the PIN it switches to debit mode, so you have to hit "cancel" at this point. Then it asks you to select "credit" or "debit". Sometimes it asks you to hit "credit/debit" then "credit", if there are other choices (like check-cashing cards). Then, it asks you if the amount is OK. This time you hit "OK" and it goes on to complete the transaction.
I'm not exaggerating, here. Almost every machine does this, and at least half make you go through all these steps.
So, I would NOT classify the problems you're seeing as user error. They're the result of customers being systematically trained to hit "CANCEL" as a necessary part of the transaction. This is a user interface design problem.
And that's just the deliberate design problem... sometimes there are actual bugs in the user interface as well.
For example, the machines at Home Depot in Houston are not all that agressive about the credit/debit card thing, but they will sometimes briefly switch to a screen asking you to swipe your card or hit cancel before bringing up the signature box: this appears to be a programming error, but it looks like there's a problem with the transaction and the first time it happened I hit "CANCEL" at that point, just in case... because I'd gotten charged twice at a pharmacy when it did something similar.
I'm a computer professional: I've been programming computers regularly for over 30 years, using everything from paper tape and punch cards to experimental OpenGL-based 3d user interfaces. I'm not a naive user who isn't used to a variety of user interfaces. Yet I have occasionally hit "CANCEL" at the wrong time. I'm not at all surprised that some people are regularly baffled by grocery store card readers. And these are MUCH simpler than voting machines.
I don't know who this ITAA is, but if they're telling people that voting machine problems are "user error" I wouldn't trust their judgement further than I could spit a Diebold executive.
The only user error Diebold is concerned about (Score:2, Insightful)
The reason why the Florida machines are crashing.. (Score:2, Funny)
At the same time banks received a larger than usual number of complaints about faulty ATMs.
Makes great basis for humour! (Score:2)
But voters are users! (Score:5, Interesting)
If the users - the voters - will not be able to use the system, then ditch the system for something they can use. Surely that was the whole point behind ditching the punch card system? What's the point in ditching one system for another that the voters still can't use?!
Outsource it! (Score:3, Funny)
Load of bullsh*t! (Score:3, Insightful)
What kind of distortion of reality is that??? If there are problems that exist solely because of the fact that electronic systems are introduced into the voting process then those systems are at fault for all delays, failures and problems that occur simply due to their being there.
If a problem would not exist if some entity was not there, then that entity can be considered a cause of that problem; this statement is true no matter what your stance on e-voting is!
User Testing (Score:5, Interesting)
Who are the ITAA? (Score:2)
Re:Who are the ITAA? (Score:5, Informative)
In Norway... (Score:4, Insightful)
...we do our voting by putting one piece of paper (a list, actually, as we do not vote for individuals) (we have a king, yes) in an envelope the people at the polling station give you. Then you put the envelope in a box. Then you leave.
By the way, the people at the polling stations are chosen from the different political parties.
Then the boxes are sealed and sent to a counting station (sometimes the same place as the polling station, sometimes somewhere else). There, the votes are put in stacks and counted.
And you know what? It seems to *gasp* work! Revolutionary system, huh?
You can't totally blame the poll workers (Score:5, Interesting)
This is a known limitation. The high-level process of recording votes is very simple: present a list of options, record the ones selected. Under the cover a lot of other things need to happen (security, communication, etc) but the part exposed to the workers should be painfully simple, and as close to idiot-proof as possible.
I'm talking about the connections all being large, brightly color-coded and distinctly shaped. Better yet, bundle all the wires required into a single cable, and have a single yellow plug which goes in the back, and securely locks in.
When designing a UI, take the dumbest user you can imagine, then imagine them drunk. If this user can't make the machine work, it's not ready for the general public.
Diebold (Score:5, Insightful)
http://www.itaa.org/about/members.cfm [itaa.org]
Diebold is one of their member companies. This group is just shilling for the e-voting machine manufacturers.
ITAA has a sorted past (Score:2)
cap limit from 100,000 to 200,000 in the year 2000 after the
DOT BOMB was recognized to have gone off
With friends like them, who needs enemies
Peace !
Ex-MislTech
Then it's a UI problem. (Score:2)
I've seen what our own districts systems look like that I talked about here [slashdot.org] and it seems to be simple enough. The big problems I saw during voting was the first year, because everyone not computer literate feared them, but once you got there the machine itself would walk you through everything and voters got more used to it over
I've heard these arguments (Score:2, Funny)
user error? (Score:3, Insightful)
I am amazed (Score:5, Insightful)
People should be marching on their state capitols demanding that the current e-voting machines be replaced with verifiable voting methods such as paper ballots until such time as everyone can be satisfied that the e-voting machines are fair and reliable. (Which probably means when they produce a clear paper trail.)
The foundation of our system of government is put at risk by sloppy or malicious coding and we all sit at home and go about our lives as if nothing is truely at risk. The degree of apathy that has been shown on this issue is astonishing.
Avi Rubin [avirubin.com], the leading authority on e-voting, gave a great interview in the recent Dr. Dobbs Journel [drdobbs.com]. I think what he says is something that every voter should hear. (His writings on e-voting are here [avirubin.com].) The problem is not whether or not a certain political party or company has rigged these machines to fix the election, it's that the very design and nature of these machines makes it possible to do so in a way that is undetectable.
Up until now, if you wanted to steal an election, you had to coordinate the work of a large number of people in across a large number of states unless you could blame it all on a bunch of people voting incorrectly in one county in Florida. Now, you could subtley alter the programming of these machines and shift a small percentage of the results produced by each one. It would be almost impossible to detect.
It's not just the presidential race that is affected, its all the races. Think of the money that is controlled by these politicians and the incentives available to people who want to make sure they get the "right" political climate in the future. If this type of cheating doesn't happen this election, it will happen in another, and soon.
The only way to make sure that these machines can be trusted is to:
They say we get the government we deserve. If we don't raise hell with out state governments and election boards over the use of these machines, you can be certain of it.
"News" (Score:3, Interesting)
The technology industry group, which is a staunch supporter of electronic voting technology, made that argument in a document that was distributed to "help journalists put election equipment-related snafus in context."
So this is standard practice in this day and age. Diffuse focus away from the real issue.
By now any advocate with money tries to cloak their position in an "infotainment" package that is ready-made, not requiring any expensive or embarrassing reporter leg-work to dig out all the details of an issue like ACM's position on e-voting [acm.org], and is sure not to upset any sponsors of the media-outlet.
The unfortunate fact is that U.S. Constitutional protections against government suppression of free speech are insufficient to prevent the development of a lapdog press that relies on money and ratings.
There is absolutely no reason why the press must be factual, truthful, unbiased, complete, or even relevent to the issues of the day.
Ok then. (Score:3, Funny)
The easiest fix would be to not use these new systems.
Glad we got that worked out.
User errors... (Score:2)
Unnecessary (Score:5, Insightful)
Each ballot slip is placed whole into the box. So it's verifiable if necessary, by re-counting. The fact of your voting is recorded, but in such a way as not to be able to link your name to a particular ballot paper. In case the ballot slips are secretly marked or anything like that, you can pick your own if you feel sufficiently paranoid {you aren't forced to accept the one the presiding officer gives you}; so it's secret.
Each polling station takes votes from an area no bigger than the volunteers working there could comfortably count by hand all the votes from. So it's scalable -- if you have more voters, you just add more polling stations. It's also quick -- in each polling station, there are only a few thousand votes to count. All this is going on in parallel, results are initially telephoned through and then the ballot papers are sealed back up in case they need to be re-counted.
The numbers involved mean that to "buy" an election, you would have to pay off a lot of people. So it's actually quite tamper-proof. And if any shenanigans are suspected, a recount can be ordered -- or, in the worst case the ballot repeated -- in just the known affected polling stations.
It is not clear to me how this system could be improved on without introducing new failure modes. Any kind of vote-counting machine is susceptible to tampering. Even if it is absolutely open to public scrutiny for the days when it is not being used for an election, there are stunts that could be pulled on the day. And even if the machine is verified by a hand-count, it will still takes the same number of people to hand-count the ballots after the machine is done, so what have you saved?
If you're going to rely on human honesty, it's best to distribute that reliance as widely as possible, i.e. to trust several thousand people to be just a little bit honest rather than trust a few people or just one person to be very honest indeed. After all, the majority of human beings are generally honest, and more so when the stakes are low. What benefit is there to dishonesty in counting a few thousand votes among tens of millions? On the other hand, if you are the managing director of the company that makes the only officially-approved voting machines, you effectively have every election in your hands -- and that is where the benefits of being dishonest do start to show.
Re:Unnecessary (Score:3, Informative)
That's simply not true. In the UK your ballot papers have serial numbers on them (not secret marks, but obvious serial numbers on the back) which connect each ballot to the counte
Re:Unnecessary (Score:3, Informative)
Re:Unnecessary (Score:3, Interesting)
In a paper ballot, you give every voter an identical ballot paper, and they give it back to you with their vote on it. To emulate this electronically, you would need to issue a token to each voter which is revoked as the vote is cast. But that isn't quite perfect. Paper ballots can't be copied {well, they can; but you aren't allowed to take the ballot paper out of the polling st
ITAA Members (Score:5, Interesting)
----->>>>
Election Technology Council - ETC
The ETC is a coalition of companies dedicated to the development, delivery and support of electronic voting solutions to the American electorate.
Visit http://www.electiontech.org [electiontech.org] for more information.
----->>>>
On the about ETC page:
Council Members
Advanced Voting Solutions (AVS)
Diebold Election Systems
Election Systems & Software (ES&S)
Hart InterCivic
Perfect Voting System
Sequioa Voting Systems
Unilect
VoteHere, Inc
----->>>>
'nuff said
Maybe you should learn from brasil (Score:5, Interesting)
Brasil have eletronic voting in a national scale for some years now. Here we have mandatory voting, this means that every Brasilian must vote or at least justify (if you're away for instance). This includes a large portion of the population that is iliterate.
This means that in a federal election, like the last one that elected Lula in 2002, we have eletronic voting machines installed in places in the middle of the amazon jungle, that can only be reached by "donkeys", and those machines are sometimes installed and operated by people who are not intimate with any tecnology at all, and the voters sometimes can't even read.
No, it's the manufacturer (Score:3, Interesting)
The last two days, I've spent about five-plus hours as a poll watcher. In this office, they use the same ballots for the early voting as they do for the absentee ballots. All of them are pre-folded - three or four folds.
About every 10 minutes or so, one of the folks in the office has to clear a paper jam. The ballot is counted...but then hangs up trying to go into the receiving box (the whole unit's the size of a 55 gal. drum, except plastic and with a square cross-section).
Unfolded ballots drop...but the manufacturer obviously DID NOT CONSIDER folded ballots at all. A cheap scanner or print that I bought that jammed that often would be returned for another brand within days.
Oh, and just to make me even more confident, I called the Supervisor of Elections a few weeks ago, and found out that the software that tabulates the votes is from everyone's favorite, non-buggy, no-back-doors maker, Diebold.
Wannaful, wannaful.
mark
My letter to the ITAA (Score:5, Interesting)
I sent this to Bartlett Cleland, the VP of Public Policy at ITAA. I suggest others do the same. His e-mail address is bcleland@itaa.org.
- - - - -
Mr. Cleland,
Please excuse me if you are not the ITAA staffer responsible for the e-Voting segment, and please forward this to the appropriate person.
Also, let me state at the outset that I am an IBM employee, not an IBM spokesman. My opinions are my own, though my position at IBM assures that they are informed.
I read an InfoWorld article this morning that discusses the press kit you're distributing and I'm writing to tell you that I, and virtually everyone else in the industry you purport to represent, is appalled by the stance you're taking. You are doing a disservice both to the industry and to the country as a whole.
Your press kit tells the world, first, that the IT industry is incompetent. You're saying that we are incapable of making electronic voting equipment that is properly designed for the task, and that we have to resort to blaming the users for not knowing how to use the systems, rather than performing proper requirements analyses and user testing to assure that such a crucial system -- a system designed to be used by volunteers without formal computer education -- will in fact function as designed.
I understand that the makers of the current crop of voting machines have botched the job in virtually every way imaginable, but if you want to support the IT industry you should properly be calling for them to use the appropriate tools to fix the problem, and to get assistance from others where needed, not working to convince the world that all of the IT industry is as incompetent as these few companies.
Even more seriously, though, your press kit will lead journalists to believe and report that the IT industry in general is in favor of e-voting when nothing could be further from the truth. Outside of the small handful of companies currently in the business of making voting machines, IT engineers are nigh-universally opposed to purely electronic voting. Moreover, if there is anyone at all in the IT security industry who thinks it's a good idea, they haven't spoken out. The senior IT professionals who have the deepest understanding of how one would go about creating a secure, trustworthy electronic voting system say, unanimously, that it cannot be done.
Papering over the failures of the current crop of voting machines paints the IT industry as incompetent, and supporting purely electronic voting, in the face of expert opinion that it cannot be done securely, damages both the industry and the nation. Please stop. Instead, you should be pointing out that more responsible portions of the industry are pushing for the creation of voting machines that produce paper ballots, are designed to be foolproof and are adequately tested both for security and usability prior to deployment.
Thank you,
Shawn
--
Shawn E. Willden
Senior I/T Security Architect
IBM Global Services, Global Smart Card Solutions
[ e-mail and phone elided to avoid massive spam ]
Man, have we become a wouse society. (Score:3, Insightful)
Infoworld screwed the pooch (Score:3, Interesting)
"There are two sides of this issue: Elections officials say that (DRE machines) are one hundred percent safe and accurate, and on the other side, computer scientists say they're fraught with problems. The truth is in the middle. No system is 100 percent secure, nor are they rife with security breaches."
And what are Dan Seligson's qualifications in the area of computer technology?
The mistake InfoWorld made was to review this as a public policy issue having to do with technology as an issue on which reasonable people can disagree.
The DRE issue is one where the only people who have a right to have their opinions treated with respect are persons with expertise in computer security. If a person doesn't have this expertise, the best he or she can do is provide pointers to people who do have it.
I am not aware of any report by technically qualified people not on the Diebold/ES&S payroll that says that the technology packaged by this company (they are effectively one) is remotely close to adequate.
An IT publication is supposed to write about issues from an IT viewpoint according to the facts and informed opinions available.
On no-paper trail touchscreen voting machines, there is no support an IT publication should take seriously for the viewpoint that Diebold/ESS has provided its customers with anything but a total FUBAR.
NSFW!!! Re:User Errors Illustrated... (Score:2)