From the "we're so screwed" dept.: Voter Fraud

[anotheranon]

Unbelievable!

Not only is the country's leading touch-screen voting system so badly designed that votes can be easily changed, but its manufacturer is run by a die-hard GOP donor who vowed to deliver his state for Bush next year.

Worth going through the free day pass rigamarole, or read choice quotes at DailyKos. Diebold, the voter machine company in question, has confirmed that the memos about the flaw are theirs, so I don't think this is from Conspiracy TheoryLand.

I'm not sure which amazes me more - that Diebold knows there's a massive security flaw and have chosen to ignore it (!!!), or that it stores votes in a Microsoft Access database - even I know that Access has crappy security and shouldn't be used for anything even remotely "mission critical"!

Maybe I'm just naive or overly idealistic, but I always thought the motive behind computerized voting was to make the count faster and more accurate, and this system does not appear to be capable of doing EITHER! And why would it be so tragic to create a paper trail? I'd hope that there would be greater focus on security and accuracy than on the bottom line, but maybe my head IS in the clouds - if you read to the end of the Salon article it discusses the expensive publicity campaign that Diebold is starting to counter the negative publicity, and it does not appear that the company has any intention of fixing the errors in their software.

Comments

[jlsjlsjls.livejournal.com]

Up here one still gets handed a piece of paper with names on it and a pencil to mark one's "x" in the appropriate place(s). The system hasn't crashed yet ;-)

[anotheranon.livejournal.com]

Just so. I remember the first time I voted, I think we used some sort of pencil to color in the relevant dot - kind of like the SAT test. The computer can read it, but there's still a paper trail if the computer reader doesn't understand something.

Until these computer systems are fixed and tested until they are bulletproof, I think low-tech is the way to go for voting!

[timcharmorbien.livejournal.com]

Which is why our judiciary and elected officials should not be the ones who arbitrarily decide what technology we should be using. Remember Congress and the V chip? Passing legislation to require the installation of a chip that at the time had did not even EXIST. How good was the product testing on that first prototype?

Though I think Diebold's reluctance stems less from their pro-GOP agenda than the fact that big businesses almost never do the right thing unless someone MAKES them - - particulary when doing the right thing in this case means admitting their product doesn't work and spending money to fix it. Especially if there's a nice, porky government contrast at stake! :)

[anotheranon.livejournal.com]

I think you may be right re: the way big businesses think. It's also not helpful that the people making the laws don't seem to be very technologically savvy, nor do they consult advisors who are. The V chip, the fuss over internet porn, the downloaders vs. the RIAA - this in addition to the voting issue are just symptoms of this lack of familiarity with new technology.

[psquelly.livejournal.com]

I heard that they tested it (on what I don't know) and it counted the votes before most polling places had closed. Cute eh?

[anotheranon.livejournal.com]

! If true, then this is yet another problem. Can you get me a source on this? I'd be curious as to how they are testing these systems. Right now it seems that the only testing going on is in the context of real elections :(

[psquelly.livejournal.com]

I think it was on "Democracy Now." I'll see if I can find it.

[psquelly.livejournal.com]

Oh hell,

The Websense category "Internet Radio and TV" is filtered.

Good god. What do they think I'm going to read on www.democracynow.org? Jeez.

I'll either have to wait for tonight and my own computer or you can hunt it down yourself.

try this one

[psquelly.livejournal.com]

http://www.scoop.co.nz/mason/stories/HL0309/S00042.htm

I don't know who she is, but it hits all the right memory buttons in my brain for consistency.

Re: try this one

[anotheranon.livejournal.com]

The journalist in this article, Bev Harris, is the same as the one interviewed in my link above. I think this is an excerpt of her book.

Yet another huge error from Diebold :(

[tommdroid.livejournal.com]

this was on the headline news the other day here in Sweden. and I be damned if the not the lady reading the news *smirked*. high-tech, yeah baby! teh US, oh boy!

[anotheranon.livejournal.com]

I'm glad it's getting in the news somewhere - the American political "blogs" are all over it, but if Google News (http://news.google.com) was any indication yesterday, the larger media companies hadn't jumped on it.