August 24, 2004
eVoting
I’ve been following voting machines for a few years now. One thing I’m always struck by: the more someone knows about computers, and particularly computer security, the less they support electronic voting machines. Obviously these are not people afraid of change or who don’t trust computers because they don’t understand them.
In Virginia, in California, in Florida, in Georgia, and so on and so on there have been massive problems with electronic voting machines. Voters report touching the screen by one candidates name and having the other candidate's name be highlighted as their choice. Votes have been lost as hard drives crash. In multiple instances, candidates have had negative totals in the thousands. The software that runs the machines has been found to be wildly inadequate by security experts. While the potential for malicious hackers rigging an election is small, the potential for insiders to do so is extremely high as there is no way to detect that it has happened. It's much easier to prove fraud with physical ballots.
Recounts are not even an option with some of the machines, and the manufacturers have aggressively resisted any efforts to make their results verifiable in any meaningful sense. In California and Georgia, the companies illegally patched their machines after they had been certified by the state and the elections were thrown into disarray. The head of the number two voting machine company has declared it is his "duty to deliver the election to the President of the United States" in a fundraising letter to Republicans. Managers at several of the major players have been convicted of bribery in voting machine sales deals. Several State officials, particularly in Florida, have gone on to work for the companies whom they awarded contracts to mere weeks before.
This all strikes me as being wildly incompatible with the idea of democratic elections. For profit companies who are large campaign contributors hold ultimate control over who wins the election. At this point, why bother with the farce of holding elections?
Posted by rev_matt_y at August 24, 2004 04:02 PM“One thing I’m always struck by: the more someone knows about computers, and particularly computer security, the less they support electronic voting machines.”
Wow - I myself have used this *exact* phrase. I run an information security company, and I know the average quality of the code running around the world. From reports on e-voting software, including technical changelog documentation from the companies themselves, I am worried. The plausible democracy-doomsday scenario that machines without paper trails represent must be preempted.
Posted by: Gaelen Burns at August 24, 2004 04:10 PMI don’t disagree with most of your comments, but I am troubled by your statement: “The head of the number two voting machine company has declared it is his “duty to deliver the election to the President of the United States” in a fundraising letter to Republicans.” Please post a link to your source for that one. Thanks.
Posted by: NOTOTH at August 24, 2004 05:34 PMRev Matt:
I’ve heard that most of the electronic voting machines DO have the capability for a paper trail. Seems to me that we need to merge the information and technology highway with safeguards to minimize the possibility of fraud or error.
The old paper system was fine, in my eyes, but apparently it had difficulties for some voters.
What I find appalling is those who look at this issue in such a partisan manner, as if its a partisan issue. Its both parties’ duty to fix any problems….so lets let both parties do so.
Rather than having people point the finger of blame, how about finding a realistic and workable solution. Hmmmmmm, what a concept, eh?
Posted by: joebagodonuts at August 24, 2004 05:41 PMIn a country built on “low bid” why do we find these stats suprising?
Posted by: Rocky at August 24, 2004 09:28 PMI’ve heard that comment from the Diebold CEO, but the only place I remember hearing it was in a Mark Fiori animation. That said, when political commentators quote people, it’s usually done with accuracy.
Posted by: Daniel Waldman at August 25, 2004 12:21 AMI don’t disagree with most of your comments, but I am troubled by your statement: “The head of the number two voting machine company has declared it is his “duty to deliver the election to the President of the United States” in a fundraising letter to Republicans.” Please post a link to your source for that one. Thanks.
http://www.house.gov/kucinich/issues/voting.htm
The state of Ohio selected Diebold as one of four possible vendors for computerized voting machines. But in August 2003, the company’s partisan conflicts of interest prompted public suspicion that the voting machine manufacturer was partisan. In August 2003, after returning from President Bush’s Crawford, TX ranch, Diebold’s chief executive wrote a fundraising letter where he stated he was “committed to helping Ohio deliver its electoral votes to the president next year.”Posted by: ceejayoz at August 25, 2004 11:24 AM
Voting fraud is going to lead to a national citizen ID. It is inevitable. With identity fraud and election fraud recurring at an alarming rate, it is time the U.S. Congress and the Whitehouse, begin to think outside the box on how they can implement a national ID system with a maximum of security for citizen’s rights and liberties. Once they have the safeguards planned, they need to sell it to the American people. The American people will buy it IF the safeguards are set in law to prevent government abuse and the benefits of greatly reducing both identity and election fraud are demonstrated.
Posted by: David R. Remer at August 25, 2004 11:49 AMThanks for the link to Kucinich’s website. I tried to find the actual Cleveland Plain Dealer article but they apparently keep them on-line for just a couple of weeks, and there were no follow-up articles that I could find.
I did find numerous blogs discussing this issue. One of them, On Lisa Rein’s Radar, quotes the article. I think it’s safe to say that, at best, this was a stupid move on the part of the Diebold CEO. Even though he has been involved in a number of other fund raising activities, including the Columbus Zoo, Opera Columbus, Catholic Social Services and Ohio State University, he should have had better sense than to put himself and his company in this position.
His comment about “delivering Ohio” apparently had to do with the political fundraising, but that’s no excuse.
In any case, I still can’t disagree with your concerns about e-voting. Unfortunately, paper ballots and punch cards are subject to their own vulnerabilities.
Posted by: NOTOTH at August 25, 2004 12:06 PMMy opinion? Leave a paper trail.
Posted by: Stephen Daugherty at August 25, 2004 04:06 PMMy opinion? Leave a paper trail. Posted by Stephen Daugherty at August 25, 2004 04:06 PM
Agreed. Of course then there’s the whole rain forest thing to deal with.
Posted by: NOTOTH at August 25, 2004 04:52 PMNOTOTH, no. Rain forest issues are no longer linked to paper production, as we have replaced enough natural forest in our own boundaries with monoculture specifically designed for pulp production. All we have to do is insure that foreign lumber imports do not undercut the cost of harvesting our pulp crops. But, then we need to worry about having to export our pulp logs to Mexico where the cost of paper production is cheaper even with reimport costs.
Regardless of the cost, transparent accountability for voting is essential to faith in our system, and the paper trail is a small cost for such a hugely important cornerstone of our society.
Posted by: David R. Remer at August 25, 2004 08:09 PMEVEN IF you ignored the well-documented fact that the Dieblod-counted vote totals can be tampered with and leave no trace…
EVEN IF you ignored the publicly-stated commitment of the company head…
At This Point - to deliberately not implement a simple “PRINT BALLOT” function to their touch screen equipment has no reasonable excuse. Occam’s Razor - Other than introducing the opportunity for either vote-counting mischeif, or to cast doubt upon the winner, there is none.
What honest citizen would want another cloud of illegitimacy cast upon their winner?
Anti-American, Un-Patriotic, Unethical.
RIGHT OR LEFT - If you live in a state that uses this technology and AREN’T actively protesting it, you’d be either complicit, or negligent should any mischeif occur. Etiher is cause for shame.
MN uses an excellent compromise. Paper (recount-able) ballots for the voters which are then scanned and counted electronically.
To follow up on some comments on partisanship, it baffles me why complaints about e-voting have come almost entirely from the Democrats and the Left. (Correct me if I am wrong.) On its face, that fact doesn’t seem to make any sense; hackers and mischief makers could try to help either side. In fact, with so many in the GOP apparently convinced that Bush is set to win in a landslide, they would seem to have the most to lose (in their mind)if the election goes awry.
The only rational explanation I can think of for this partisan split is that Republicans control the Supreme Court and the House of Representatives. They figure that if there is a questionable result then one of these two bodies will install Bush “for the good of the country”. If anyone has a better theory I would like to hear it.
Posted by: Woody Mena at August 26, 2004 08:04 PMThis whole thing is a false dilemma fallacy. Just because you introduce computers doesn’t mean you have to give up the paper. Just print out the votes for recount purposes and quit yer snivelling whining already.
Just print out the votes for recount purposes and quit yer snivelling whining already.
It would be nice if that’s how the machines worked, but most of them don’t keep a printed record. The question now is, with two months before the election, how do we make sure there is a legitimate result? And believe me, if one side gets screwed by voting machine breakdowns there will be a lot of “whining” no matter which party it is.
Posted by: Woody Mena at August 28, 2004 05:40 PM
