It's faith-based fraud prevention.

Open source voting machines, paper receipts, money out of elections.

Then maybe we'll have a democracy worthy of the title.

Diebold makes ATMs too.

You think they'd say this if it was a flaw with their ATM that a bank employee could exploit?

Then why is it okay to say this about voting machines?

-kat

"I don't believe these evil elections people exist."

I knew it! Rove is just a nightmare I've been having!

Thank dog for that.

Head in the sand nothing! It sounds more like their head is up a certain body cavity to me.

One important function of open election processes (and that includes verifiable technology, where it is used) is not merely to guarantee the security of the election in the most likely circumstances, but to provide confidence in the results that rests as little as possible on assumption that there is no ill-will anywhere in the process.

If the system is not verifiably secure -- if it could have been tampered with without evidence -- then this will encourage people to distrust the results whether or not it in fact was tampered with, since that is undeterminable.

A system that is open and verifiable will promote trust in the results, which provides legitimacy to the government elected with it; one without it denies the government "elected" legitimacy it would otherwise have, and promotes the dissolution of orderly society.

Even if we take fraud and abuse out of the picture, we are left with this: The software in the machines is proprietary. That means even if they perform flawlessly, even if they are truly tamper-proof, your vote once cast becomes the property of Diebold.

This is not acceptable in a democracy.

Why does Diebold hate America?

your vote once cast becomes the property of Diebold.

Great! Everyone knows that the private sector is perfect, while government never does anything right. Well, this government anyway.

This is one reason why, despite what the polls say, and despite what the exit polls will say, the Republicans will maintain their majorities in both houses of Congress this fall, and the Republican candidate in 2008 will become president.

I checked at Sourceforge and GNU for open source voting machine software. At a glance, the Open Voting Consortium seems to have the most commitment to getting this done. I am tempted to say contribute here, but I have not done enough research to know whether that would be good advice. Does anyone know about these people, or some other worthwhile project for which it is safe to contribute? This needs to get done.

Election tampering should merit life in prison.

Here is a site that can help inform those for whom this is a first look at the issue:

http://www.blackboxvoting.org/

To quickly get to the site click
here

The site is laid out in date order (most recent findings first). An interested person can research specfic elections, and contact those in the technical know. Do they have their own political opinions? Yeah. But the integrity of the information presented is solid. Go ahead. Take a look.

Their ATM machines are pretty damn near airtight.

Incompetence isn't even an excuse for them on the voting machine front.

This is malicious, willful negligence.

With it being electronic and all... the government should be able to keep track of who voted for whom.

That will help when it comes to giving out bid contracts and the like.

Also... they can figure out who is most likely a terrorist, and who is a loyal citizen.

In addition, the "laziest bureaucrat alive" award goes to Deborah Hench, San Joaquin County, California's registrar of voters.

In the NYT article she says, "We're prepared for those types of problems...There are always activists that are anti-electronic voting, and they're constantly trying to put pressure on us to change our system."

Yes, Ms. Hench, the problem is the activists, who make your job hard. It's not the corrupt voting machine companies, who produce laughably insecure machines. It's not the partisans who want to steal elections.

What exactly is she being paid to do? (Certainly not oversee fair elections.)

Trust in government officials, especially the election officials, is a precondition for the existence of a functining democracy. It would be advisable that the liberals' anger over their losses in 2000 and 2004 primary because of the inherent weakness of their nominees not blind them to their basic duties as responsible citizens of this country.

Trust in government officials, especially the election officials, is a precondition for the existence of a functining democracy. It would be advisable that the liberals' anger over their losses in 2000 and 2004 primary because of the inherent weakness of their nominees not blind them to their basic duties as responsible citizens of this country.

Those who do not learn from history repeat GOP talking points...

I steal elections simply to troll for babes.

Trust in government officials, especially the election officials, is a precondition for the existence of a functining democracy...

Which is why you always trust the government to spend your tax dollars wisely, and never bitch about the IRS, right?

Color me...skeptical.

It's worse than that. For the past 6 years, I've been watching this trend--first they ignore the "conspiracy theories", then they sneer at the tinfoil hats we supposedly wear, then the leaks begin, and eventually the "moonbats" are vindicated.

If they're saying "there's nothing to see here", then I'm really getting worried!!

I'd like to recommend the website of TrueVoteMD, a very good grassroots group working on this issue in Maryland, where I live.

The Diebold machines have been used statewide in Maryland for the last several years, and the State Board of Elections has been in bed with Diebold and not only unresponsive, but openly hostile to voters concerned about the numerous, serious and well-documented problems with the Diebold machines.

The website has a lot of good info and I think that TrueVoteMD is a good example of the type of effort that can and should be undertaken by citizens on a state-by-state basis.

From TrueVoteMD's "About" page:

TrueVoteMD.org is a volunteer, grass-roots organization of citizens across the State of Maryland who are deeply concerned about the integrity of the election process, in the state and nationally, due to the introduction of electronic voting equipment which fails to provide voters with a printed paper record of their votes.

Without this voter-verified printed ballot, there is no way to audit elections to ensure that votes are correctly recorded and counted, or to conduct a meaningful, independent recount. Through non-partisan public education, grassroots organizing, litigation, research and legislation, we are working to make Maryland's voting system accurate, verifiable, and fully transparent.

That was one of the fake tbroszs at 6:35pm. I know it's hard to distinguish them based on the content but check the email address; the fake one uses "helicalrocket.com" instead of "rotaryrocket.com".

I checked at Sourceforge and GNU for open source voting machine software. At a glance, the Open Voting Consortium seems to have the most commitment to getting this done. I am tempted to say contribute here, but I have not done enough research to know whether that would be good advice. Does anyone know about these people, or some other worthwhile project for which it is safe to contribute? This needs to get done.

Its interesting. Some bits of their design seem ill-conceived -- particularly the preference for on-site CD-ROM booting, which seems less secure than having the systems be booted from hard drives, and not be configured to be bootable from removable media.

And, of course, any open source project that confuses "open source" and "public domain" in their FAQ loses points.

But, still, an interesting effort.

"For there to be a problem here, you're basically assuming a premise where you have some evil and nefarious election officials who would sneak in and introduce a piece of software," he said. "I don't believe these evil elections people exist."

Then why do we need your effing machines? We can get 200 million slips of paper for peanuts and just hand them to people who say they are registered voters (and, for that matter, why register them?).

The problem with Open Source development of a voting machine, is that we're not talking about simply a new OS and software here.

We're talking about an entire system, hardware, network spec for transferring votes for central tabulation, procedures, etc. I don't think that a sourceforge-based project has the "big-picture vision" to accomplish everything that will need to be done. They can certainly contribute some important components, but especially the hardware, is going to be difficult to put together in a standardized, mass-produced way.

This is what I just emailed to a friend of mine about this:
"I don't believe these evil elections people exist."
Bwahahhahhahahahhaa!!! If human beings can do it, someone will do it. It's like believing that voluntary compliance with regulations works. If it CAN be done, it WILL be done. And, yes, tbrosz,
"Trust in government officials, especially the election officials, is a precondition for the existence of a functining democracy."
I don't trust some elections officials. And it doesn't take that many to throw an election.

Election tampering should merit life in prison.

I'd file it under treason and make it
eligible for the death penalty.

The problem with Open Source development of a voting machine, is that we're not talking about simply a new OS and software here.

Correct. For one thing, we aren't talking about a new OS at all; there are plenty of existing FOSS OS's that work off-the-shelf for the purpose, particularly the open-source Unix-like OS's (Linux, FreeBSD).

We're talking about an entire system, hardware, network spec for transferring votes for central tabulation, procedures, etc.

Much of that is already addressed on the openvotingconsortium.org web site posted earlier, but its not really as big a deal as you make it sound. The hardware and network end mostly (on the hardware end entirely) involves selection of off-the-shelf technologies, not any particular development.

The procedure development is a bigger deal, but hardly an intractable problem.

I don't think that a sourceforge-based project has the "big-picture vision" to accomplish everything that will need to be done.

Well, no. You'd probably use sourceforge primarily for the software end, which is what its made for.

They can certainly contribute some important components, but especially the hardware, is going to be difficult to put together in a standardized, mass-produced way.

The hardware doesn't have to be put together by the project at all; its simply a matter of selecting appropriate commodity hardware.

particularly the preference for on-site CD-ROM booting, which seems less secure than having the systems be booted from hard drives,

Actually, vital system files on a hard drive can be overwritten or replaced by bogus copies (sometimes referred to as a "rootkit" - in modern hacking, this is one of the first things an intruder does, to ensure future access, and to cover his or her tracks). This is an especially big problem for the Windows OS.

Booting from read-only media is a good way to protect from rootkits. As long as the read-only media is secured physically inside a locked container. (and the OS is configured to send all it's temporary application files to directories other than the defaults on the system drive). There's also the small matter of installing os and software maintenance updates - and in the case of Windows configured for Domain security, the System Identifier (SID) - but these issues are not insurmountable with the proper expertise.

I agree election tampering is treason in that it sells out the nation for a personal, trivial, interest, just not to another country, but I'm against the death penalty even here, because it sets a bad example.

Which is why I think election tampering deserves the stiffest sentence we can reasonably administer, life in prison.

I agree with fake tbrosz when he says "Trust in government officials, especially the election officials, is a precondition for the existence of a functining democracy."

What I disagree with is the implication that this trust should be blind trust. Open voting systems enable and reinforce earned trust by validating it on an ongoing basis. Opaque systems erode trust, and promote the failure of "functioning democracy", whether or not there is actual manipulation.

They also, not coincidentally, make actual manipulation more possible.

Digby posted about this Diebold thing too. The final sentence was the quote: "I don't believe these evil elections people exist."

And then there was a picture of Katherine Harris below that line of text.

Ugh: Then why do we need your effing machines? We can get 200 million slips of paper for peanuts ...

Where are our Canuck posters? It works for them (and a lot of other countries).

Plain old paper has a lot going for it. It's cheap, simple, and makes it hard to cheat on a grand scale. After the polls close they just open the ballot box, with representatives from the major parties and any other interested observers present, and count them up. By the next morning you have your results.

Take it from someone who is assuredly not a technophobe, sometimes low-tech is the way to go.

btw, bootable from cd-rom is not a problem IF the access to the drive is guarded in a tamper proof and/or evident way. cd-rom has the benefit that (theoretically) a malicious piece of software can't just be downloaded to the machine and replace the "verified" code. but like someone else mentioned, it's a system, not just a some code or hardware.

All electronic voting is not bad just because a republican corporation happens to make most of the machines, it is bad because it is simply inferior to fill in the bubble paper ballots with electronic tabulation machines.

Fill in the bubble is:
Cheaper (each simultaneous voter needs about 1/20th of a tabulation machine which has a very long lifespan + just over 1 ballot in case of mistakes + 1 pen + 1 flat hard surface).
Works without power.
Creates a permanant human verifiable physical record of exactly what the voter did that has to be physically messed with by moving fairly large objects around (ie boxes of votes).
Has a better user interface (no worries about backing up, going back to fill in questions you skipped at first, etc).
Requires one fake physical ballot to be produced for each fake vote, or one sheet of paper to be secretly destroyed for each disappeared vote once scrutiny is applied.
Can work by mail or in person (though mail in voting is very insecure itself).

If we had some futuristic society where hard crypto was running like water and everyone could vote from home electronic voting might win out, but we don't so it doesn't. Electronic voting simply sucks.

Actually, vital system files on a hard drive can be overwritten or replaced by bogus copies (sometimes referred to as a "rootkit" - in modern hacking, this is one of the first things an intruder does, to ensure future access, and to cover his or her tracks).

OTOH, removable, non-writable media can simply be replaced with bogus copies; ideally, you'd want to vote from certified, soldered in ROMs or something. (Though non-removable CD-ROMs -- which might be challenging with commodity hardware but is at least abstractly feasible -- would be equivalent.)

It seems to me that if you have control over access to the machines, and you aren't connecting them to a network and exposing them thereby to remote hacking, that a conventional (removable) boot CD-ROM would be fairly easy to swap when booting, OTOH, it may be easier to establish the physical security procedures to avoid that than to secure a hard disk system (intuitively, it doesn't seem that way to me initially, but I'll admit its not a problem I've considered much.)

I don't mind if government officials tamper with my vote as long as it helps them fight terrorists.

Another way of telling the fake tbrosz is that his attempts to use large words and complex sentence structures are awkward, at best.

The June primary here will be using electronic voting with the new Sequoia "VeriVote" system, which prints out a confirmation printout for the voter to examine before finalizing the vote. The printouts are apparently stored on a roll like cash register receipt printouts, and can be stored and checked later if necessary. I don't think this would be as efficient in recounts as a printed ballot card would be, but it's a definite step forward.

A lot of other counties around here will be using paper mark-up ballots.

"I don't believe these evil elections people exist."

What about the New Hampshire phone jamming scandal of 2002? A telemarketing firm hired by Republicans swamped the NH Democratic office with bogus calls to stop them from being able to arrange rides for voters and perform other get-out-the-vote activities. Does Diebold think the people who were behind that were just mischeivious pranksters? No, they were criminal, evil, anti-democratic, fascist @**holes! And there are plenty more where they came from. Think Enron, Tom Delay, Rove, Cheney... there is no lack of unscrupulous power hungry cretins who would do anything to get ahead if they thought they would get away with it.

"Trust in government officials, especially the election officials, is a precondition for the existence of a functining democracy."
-The Fake tbrosz

"Trust, but verify."
-Ronald Reagan

cmdicely: The procedure development is a bigger deal, but hardly an intractable problem.

Life-critical, safety-critical, security-critical, and even "gambling-critical" development requirements are all mature, well-defined and understood. This is not a problem that would require a massive, or likely even significant, money or effort to solve; there is plenty of existing capabiility, experience and knowledge. More rigor and oversight goes into the development of a Vegas electronic slot machine than a Diebold voting machine.

Trust in government officials, especially the election officials, is a precondition for the existence of a functining democracy.

Actually, I think it's the other way around. Our founders set up a system of checks and balances that pretty much assumed the existence of rotten politicians.

The other part of the Constitutional equation was severe limits on the power of the central government. That one fell by the wayside a long time ago.

"I don't believe these evil elections people exist."

Oh, and that phone jamming scandal didn't happen, right? Nobody is interested in manipulating an election, so why care about security at all???

Hilarious!

"For there to be a problem here, you're basically assuming a premise where you have some evil and nefarious blog posters who would sneak in and introduce a comment under someone else's name," he said. "I don't believe these evil troll people exist."

tbrosz arguing with his fake copy.

scary, but funny.

Come on folks. No matter how asininine my statements are, you guys respond to them as if they were words of wisdom of a reasonable, sane man.

What do I have to do to convince you that my head is lodged in my ass?

scary? I'm not the one with more than one personality.

"I don't believe these evil elections people exist."

People are capable of anything.

Russell Tice, the NSA guy who leaked the warrantless wiretaps story is allegedly going to testify to congress next week that the program was even bigger. It involved satellite surveillance on Americans.

Ugh: Then why do we need your effing machines? We can get 200 million slips of paper for peanuts ...

Where are our Canuck posters? It works for them (and a lot of other countries).

Posted by: alex neanderthal on May 12, 2006 at 7:25 PM

One thing about Canadian elections is that usually we are voting for one office only. Federal, provincial and municipal elections are held separately. Federally, we vote for our Member of Parliament only, not for the Prime Minister. Same thing provincially. Municipally there are usually only two offices to vote for - councilor and mayor. So a paper system is much more feasible. It would be more difficult to use paper ballots if, like you, we were voting for a dozen or more offices each time we stepped into a booth.

But I do believe that if we did need machines, we'd make it work. How can a democracy tolerate a situation where people mistrust the integrity of the voting system?

Regarding "trust."

I just did a search for the word in the Constitution.

It appears four times.

In each case its effect extends from the officeholder to the public.

In no case does it extend from the public to an officeholder.

Do you suppose it is written that way because we are NOT supposed to trust our goverenment?

I think that is the case.

A healthy distrust of government is the only way to ensure our liberty.

Never trust your government.
Not even in times of war.

craigie (and the rest of us, not counting Al, tbrosz, et al):

Your nightmare may be soon over! The latest buzz, from Truthout: Rove will be indicted and will resign! http://www.truthout.org/docs_2006/051206Y.shtml I'll have to tell my girlfriend to stay home; I don't want to die from too many orgasms.

scary? I'm not the one with more than one personality.

You are not if not you who are who are not, who?

I don't believe that Diebold guy exists.

Well, no, I just wish he didn't exist.

Anyway, I guess he never heard the one about the guy who wanted to move to Chicago so that he could remain politically active after he died.

Is it me, or does it seem like the lies and deceptions are getting progressively sillier and sillier? It's not they aren't even trying to be plausible anymore. This week, there are no officials who want to steal elections, next week it'll be that the machines are protected by pixie dust.

How many people have created malicious software in the form of trojans? ALOT.

About 65,000 virii/trojan out there.

Secondly the Dibold machines had IR ports on them leaving then open to nafarity.

Third, The Diebold machines are based on Windows CE, and of course WINDOWS has a terrible security record.

The Shouls go with a Linux, Unix, Free Bsd, Derivative instead of such a crummy Windows OS.

THE BRAD BLOG: "Why do Diebold's Touch-Screen Voting Machines Have ...
If your county uses Diebold touch screens, let your county officials and election judges know that it is crucial to cover the IR port with opaque tape.

www.bradblog.com/archives/00002458.htm

There are no serious technical problems here. The same types of problems have been solved, and solved cost-effectively, for years. If we spent a tiny fraction of 2004 campaign expenditures to solve the problem, it could be solved, and it could be solved in a matter of months.

There numerous ways using off-the-shelf solutions to ensure that what gets run on a voting machine is from a trusted source, and that it has not been illicitly modified, whether CD-ROM, hard drive, punched card or plug-board. There are numerous mature approaches that can be used to validate--to a reasonable level of assurance--that what you're running in the voting machine performs as intended.

The problem, as previous posts have pointed out, is that we put less value in the integrity of the electoral system than we do in ATM transactions.

The National Institute for Standards and Technology (NIST) -- who works with the federal Election Assistance Commission (EAC) to develop and recommend guidelines for electronic voting machines -- issued a similar warning [PDF] about the Infrared ports on voting machines in a report which warned "The use of short range optical wireless," like infrared, "particularly on Election Day should not be allowed."

As mentioned, since touch-screen machines have been stored at poll workers' houses and other unsecured locations prior to Election Day, and since data can be transferred to the machines and their memory cards via Infrared -- even without removing the cards or breaking their protective seals -- the IrDA ports would seem to be a tremendous concern.

But Hey Im just a STOOPID Mechanic, Dont pay us POOR people no never mind..

Twenty-some years ago I helped develop an electronic voting system. The machines communicated via encrypted and signed EPROMs, as nothing was to be networked. The controlling computer was programmed with cross-checks every which way to detect tampering, and was to be sealed with lead into a tamper-proof box -- the Mac-in-a-Box we called it.

Cool stuff, much better than what Diebold pushes. But it never sold, I suspect because nobody actually wanted to buy a tamper-proof voting system. Go figure.

vote-stealing is among the most bi-partisan of our traditions. As you say, somebody needs to really have an impact on Diebold's attitude towards this.

The real problem is that you libs will not trust any count that has you losing the election. AND, the comments on this thread couldn't be more carefully calculated to make people think the Dems are not ready for prime time. This conspiracy theory BS will come back to bite you.

Ben: This conspiracy theory BS will come back to bite you.

Isn't that what they said about Iran-Contra, Watergate and Teapot Dome?

ben: Not only are there people who WANT to steal elections, they DO steal them. Florida, New Hampshire, in all likelihood Ohio in 2004 and, just for the hell of it to be fair, quite possibly Illinois in 1960.
If you're building an electronic voting system, you're SUPPOSED TO ASSUME THE WORST and make sure it CAN'T HAPPEN.
Idiot.

has407
Life-critical, safety-critical, security-critical, and even "gambling-critical" development requirements are all mature, well-defined and understood. This is not a problem that would require a massive, or likely even significant, money or effort to solve; there is plenty of existing capabiility, experience and knowledge. More rigor and oversight goes into the development of a Vegas electronic slot machine than a Diebold voting machine.

For slot machines, you are rewarded for your stupidity in operating them by losing money. Similar for ATMs and safety-critical stuff. Training and knowledge is a part of the system.

In voting, we meet nature's dictum that no matter how idiot-proof we make it, nature will continue to build a better idiot. And idiot's votes count too. Near as I can tell, the whole idea in computerized voting is to make voting easier for the people that are too stupid to overcome butterfly ballots and such. But I've worked in and around computer security long enough to know that computers are too complex for one person to truly understand its innards, and that means there are opportunities to subvert them.

I had the idea that when you cast your vote, there would be a big screen showing the votes per candidate, and the moment you hit "(Jeb)Bush" or "(Hillary) Clinton" their number would increment by one. Maybe at just your local site, so the vote rate would be slow enough so you knew it was your vote. And this would be broadcast over the internet too so many eyes would watch. When it was time to tally, the states would go around to each site and upload their vote tallies to the total in a process observable over the internet. And so one could trace their individual vote eventually up to the state level, and to the electoral college.

secularhuman
ben: Not only are there people who WANT to steal elections, they DO steal them. Florida, New Hampshire, in all likelihood Ohio in 2004 and, just for the hell of it to be fair, quite possibly Illinois in 1960.

Dems have been notorious for stealing elections forever. I'm more worried about them stealing elections than republicans.

The technical posts above were interesting and informative. thank you.

As for the comment that the Florida election was stolen in 2000, that election was LOST by the 4,000 or so Democrats who fouled their ballots one way or another. Had it been STOLEN, nothing so transparently stupid would have been attempted.

As to Illinois in 1960, let me quote Senator Irvin from the Watergate Hearings: no such allegation has ever been made under oath by anyone. It's all like "I know somebody who said that somebody told him that ... ." What happened was exactly what any perfectly legitimate election would have looked like given that the most densely populated area was predominantly Democratic.

Yeah, but you're still gonna use their machines, right?

As to Illinois in 1960. two things:

1) Reversing the result there would not have given Nixon the election
2) A major reason Nixon did not pursue a review is that in downstate Illinois there were as many shenanigans by GOP machines in smaller cities and rural areas as done by Dems in Chicago.

This is not a sign of stupidity, but of something more basic: "It is difficult to get a man to understand something when his salary depends upon his not understanding it."

Hello!!!

ATMs have paper records for the customer and for the bank. Slot machines have paper records. the absence of hard copy backups is evidence that fraud is intended. Why else? It's a no brainer to have an audit trail.

You cannot really compare a voting machine to an atm. The ATM stays in one place; the voting machine gets moved. If the ATM is broken you either use one in a different place or come back the next day. It they upgrade your software, they can decide what day to implement the change and can roll out the change gradually. You get TWO paper trails from that ATM, the immediate record and your monthly statement. The voting record is a secret ballot.

Processes that are done so infrequently, with so much variability should not be computerized. Use paper, pencils, and lots of nice retired folks.

Red State Mike: For slot machines, you are rewarded for your stupidity in operating them by losing money. Similar for ATMs and safety-critical stuff. Training and knowledge is a part of the system.

No shit. "Training and knowedge" is a part of the tradeoff in any system, but for the issue at hand, it's noise. Did you have a relevant point to make or are you being an insufferable twit for the fun of it?

Do we have a working political system? I'd say no. We have a President drunk with power, an executive branch filled with incompetent political cronies and a Congress that averts its eyes every time (760+) the Prez issues a new signing statement and nullifies part of a law. Congress enjoys autoeroticism, counting its frequent flyer miles and earmarking like crazy. They couldn't oversee a dogcatcher. It may take time, but there's only one way that this ends, only one solution to this system of equations.

"I don't believe these evil elections people exist."

In Texas, the dead have voted in elections. A friend from Louisana told me someone had been voting in Louisana elections under her name even though she had been living in Texas for years. She only found out about these illegal votes by accident.

Faulty voter machines will only give these power hungry people an easier way to cheat.

alex neanderthal: "Plain old paper has a lot going for it. It's cheap, simple, and makes it hard to cheat on a grand scale. After the polls close they just open the ballot box, with representatives from the major parties and any other interested observers present, and count them up. By the next morning you have your results.

I basically agree with you, but the problem with paper ballots is exemplified in Butterfly ballots.

We need a simple user-interface in paper or electronic systems.

republicrat: As for the comment that the Florida election was stolen in 2000, that election was LOST by the 4,000 or so Democrats who fouled their ballots one way or another. Had it been STOLEN, nothing so transparently stupid would have been attempted.

You don't count purging 57,000 non-felons from the voter rolls as transparently stupid?

People who were mostly African American? People who would have voted for Gore?

As an amateur programmer, even I know that recording and tabulation of votes is such a simple deal it could almost be programmed in BASIC. Complications arise almost entirely from the difficulties involved maintaining the security of the process and the integrity of the count. Which makes this statement preternaturally stupid. What business does Diebold think it's in, and why are they getting out tax dollars?

has407
No shit. "Training and knowedge" is a part of the tradeoff in any system, but for the issue at hand, it's noise. Did you have a relevant point to make or are you being an insufferable twit for the fun of it?

My point, moron, is that the robustness of the systems you mentioned are as much due to training of end users as it is software runnning inside. And because so many voters are so mind-bogglingly stupid, as demonstrated by the butterfly ballot exercise, it is not "in the noise". It is THE problem which has driven us to electronic voting in the first place.

It seems to me the key tension is between transparency of the process and anonymity of your own vote. If anonymity were not an issue, you could just log on, cast your vote while watching the tally update as you did so, and be comfortable that the process was fair.

But as soon as you cast it anonymously, there is a period where you have to trust a process. It would seem to me that the key then is to minimize that short period.

I think the main reason we are going to voting machines is to help stupid voters vote. So what we could do is keep the paper punch ballots, but offer voting machines to assist in their punching. The luddites could take their ballot and punch it themselves old school. The rest could slide it into a machine that would guide them through the process. The end result either way would be a paper ballot.

Sounds like as close to a confession of guilt as Diebold will ever seriously offer. I mean, who would really benefit from rigging elections. It would be so obvious--one party would naturally control everything and still win elections in spite of exit polls, scandals, and general disatisfaction within the electorate. And it would take a complicit media! People would be on to them in a heart-beat.
I am beginning to think the only weapon that would work against these historic crimes is a time machine. But the real story is that our electoral process is broken and that the vote tabulators are partisan owned and mostly unauditable.

Red State Mike -- There are very robust critical systems that you and virtually every other person use, interact with, or benefit from every day--with no special training, knowledge or even awareness of their existence. "Stupid users" is the excuse of incompetent designers.

has407
Red State Mike -- There are very robust critical systems that you and virtually every other person use, interact with, or benefit from every day--with no special training, knowledge or even awareness of their existence. "Stupid users" is the excuse of incompetent designers.

One thought on that is that the robust systems have been "written in blood" so to speak, in that there have been many, many painful failures that have been learned from to make them robust. I teach control systems design, and I use a number of examples to show students how software can bite you. My favorite is the first launch of the Arian V, which blew up just off the pad, at a cost of $1B+ to the Europeans. Cause? They compiled their code using single precision integers instead of double. Buffer overflow.

Frankly, there isn't that much money in voting machines, I would think. Mistakes will be made. Hell, Microsoft still can't get it right. I have far more faith in an open source solution than I ever will in a Diebold solution. Everything needs to be transparent and subject to the peer review of thousands, not proprietary and "trust me".

Who could imagine someone flying a plane into the World Trade Center? Condiitis has apparently infected Diebold. Here's to self-rejuvenating virginity!

Is anyone surprised that these people also believe in deregulated elections?

Red State Mike -- I agree that there probably isn't a lot of money in voting machines, but there's a lot of money in elections. Which simply indicates that this is the type of problem the invisible hand will likely provide much help solving.

However, a little push could go a long way. Maybe something simple and obvious like requiring all voting systems to achieve the equivalent of EAL-4 certification, and ratchet that up to EAL-5 or EAL-6 in future years, and standard and published measurements and metrics for voting process error rates.

That doesn't mean systems will be fool-proof, but it would start to put rigor into the development and analysis of solutions--rigor that is sorely lacking today.

Everyone is making Diebold out to be that bad guy here. They are just giving the customer what the customer wants. It's just the customer here happens to be a corrupt voting official. Frankly, who else would WANT to become a voting official other than someone trying to influence the elections?

All you votes are belong to us.