Posted on 01/12/2004 4:54:35 PM PST by GregD
Hello. I’m the webmaster of www.verifiedvoting.org.
I’m a Democrat, and you folks presumably will want to flame me on that point alone. But if you would bear with me, perhaps we could avoid that. I need to talk about an issue that affects all of us, and I am not here to pick a fight. I need your help.
VerifiedVoting.org is NOT about conspiracy theory. We are NOT about screaming about “Wally O’Dell delivering the votes to GWB”, but I do have to admit that his remarks were about as ill-conceived as they might have possibly been, and have made it a lot easier to recruit activists to this issue from certain segments of our population. And we certainly are NOT about “one party or the other is trying to rig the machines or steal an election.”
What we ARE about is looking at this situation from a non-partisan, academic, computer-science perspective. Our goal is to see that legislation and procedures are established and enforced to make sure that elections are counted properly; them may the “real” winner prevail, and we can all rest assured that the win was indeed valid and fair.
OK, so let’s frame the situation: we have systems which run proprietary code that nobody gets to look at. At the certification stage there is no organized code review, at the development level there are no standards that have to be met. As such, the certification process appears to be completely lame. When I developed mission-critical applications for a major international retailer, we had team walkthroughs that senior members of the tech staff participated in. Each line of code was inspected, each module carefully discussed. So when you look at the observations of the Johns Hopkins study http://avirubin.com/vote/, along with other studies, it is clear that the Diebold code completely sucked but that it was not rejected by the ITA. (Sure, the code that was reviewed by Rubin was not current at the time of the review, but it was likely “current code” at an earlier point, and the certification process has NOT substantially improved since then.) Why did this get past the ITA? Because they (the ITA) don’t get to see the code – all they do is run some (undisclosed to the public) tests, give it a kiss and tell it “ya look pretty, have a nice day… See ya…” If I presented that crap to a senior manager in my former shop, I’d get canned – plain and simple. Boom, outta there, have a nice life…
So, we have these systems running secret application code that stores our votes, our precious and irreplaceable votes, without so much as an audit trail. Buy gas? Get a receipt. Buy food? Get a receipt. Get cash or make an ATM deposit? Damn right we get a receipt! Our vote is more valuable than any of those things, and do the machines print anything that allows verification of our votes? Nope, sorry – don’t think so… What? And with no audit trail, be that paper or whatever other technology might be is verifiable in the future, there is no means of verifying the results of an election. If the computer malfunctions, we can’t prove it. If a bug creeps in, we won’t know. Can we do a recount? Absolutely not – all we can do is re-print the same totals that were questioned in the first place.
A common arguement that frequently comes up is related to cost. My response is "what is the price of democracy". Also, if the vendors want the business, make them find a way to build that into the product at a reasonable price. They stand to sell tens (hundreds?) of thousands of these at around $5k-6k a pop. And in San Diego, CA one vendor already committed to throw them in for free. So as far as I'm concerned, forget the cost question - it just does not seem to apply.
Is this a partisan issue, from one side or the other? Not the last time I checked, although some would like to frame it that way… VerifiedVoting.org refuses to – it simply is NOT a partisan issue…
Has this caused problems in elections? Yes, for both parties, in recent state elections we have problems in (at least) Maryland, Virginia and (of all places) Broward County Florida...
Broward (just in the past week or so) is a total meltdown. They had a single race in which 7 Republicans were seeking a state legislative seat. 134 votes were not counted by the touchscreen machines. The race was won by 12 votes, well under the .25 percent level for a mandatory recount (state law). But you cannot recount the vote with paperless touchscreen systems. They are not designed for that.
A number of these instances are listed here: http://www.verifiedvoting.org/article_text.asp?articleid=997
So that’s the issue – we have these machines running programs that are NOT REQUIRED to achieve the sort of levels of quality control expectations or scrutiny that any corporate mission-critical software application currently demands, the security on the systems appears to be TOTALLY out of control, yet this is how we are supposed to run our democracy. This just is not right!
It gets worse... We have procedures that are not being followed. How do we know? Because people made a big enough stink that California decided to audit Diebold in 17 counties. (In case you don’t know, all hardware / firmware / software needs to be certified at the Federal level, assigned a NASED number, then approved by the State.) So they run an audit and what percentage of the randomly selected systems are in compliance? NONE! ZIP! NADA! Whose fault? Not sure yet, we will start to determine this on January 15 when the VSP meets again – but it looks like Diebold breached the public trust by supplying (or installing) software that was not certified, and the counties allowed the installation of non-compliant code (or installed it and didn’t check to make sure it was good to go.) http://www.verifiedvoting.org/article_text.asp?articleid=978
So what do we do about it? Well, thousands of our fellow Americans have spent the past 6 months (or more) calling Congressmen and asking them to support HR2239. That bill is ok, could be stronger, but it will have to do for now – time is running out. Frankly it would be nice if there was a stronger automatic recount (right now it calls for .5 percent, and that really needs to go up, just to make sure these beasts aren’t hosed.) It would be nice to boost this in conference committee, assuming we get that far, and before the bills become law.
Currently, we’re looking at just under 100 Democrat cosponsors and 3 or 4 Republicans. I’m sorry, but I really don’t understand those numbers. I’m glad we have a few Republicans that have joined in agreeing that a fairly counted election really still is the core of America’s democracy. But we need more, and that’s why I am here. I need your help, and I need it pronto please…
How can you help? Call your Congressmen (ask for their support of HR2239) and Senators (ask for support of S1980 which is a duplicate of HR2239). Help us get organizations to endorse this important legislation. Here are organizations that already stand behind these important bills: http://www.verifiedvoting.org/endorsers_s1980.asp
There are other action items on our site. I beg you – in respect for what our forefathers left for us – please help us get this done and protect the core of our democracy.
Here is what your own people are saying:
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Back in August, lelio said
“I'm more scared as Diebold's engineering staff sounds like a bunch of clowns. An MS Access database on Windows 98? Are they asking to be hacked into?” He referred to this story. I completely agree with him.
http://www.scoop.co.nz/mason/stories/HL0307/S00065.htm
And in http://www.freerepublic.com/focus/f-news/973667/posts, Timesink said:
There is little question, though, that we can never totally trust the results of any election conducted via computerized voting, and such machines should not be allowed to be used (and indeed, I give it less than ten years until they start being outlawed state by state as various scandals pop up, real or imagined). For all the mess that Florida 2000 turned out to be, at least we had actual physical ballots to deal with. The optimal solution, of course, would be going back to something along the lines of the old standards: Paper ballots in sealed boxes; monitors from both parties (and anyone else that wants to watch) at every precinct; multiple police officers riding along as ballot boxes are delivered to the county courthouse; all boxes opened and all votes counted in front of cameras from the news media, local government and any public citizens that wished to make their own records ... along with laws requiring proof of identity in order to vote
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Whoever lelio and Timesink are, I’m with you 100 percent. How can we TOTALLY trust these systems, simply looking at it from the programming perspective? Programmers make mistakes, and with the current certification procedures, those mistakes will NOT all get caught. You would be amazed if you looked at the modification logs and bug lists for the Diebold stuff. These are NOT simple programs, and complicated programs are prone to error.
The only practical solution is to demand visibility into the programs, a verification procedure that allows each citizen to check their vote, and a robust automatic (random) recount to make certain that there is no program errors, and no fraud (on EITHER side).
Help us get this done – Please! Come to our site, have a look, and write to us if you have comments or questions.
www.verifiedvoting.org
I suspect this is more about the partisan division that exists in DC, and out here on the ground. I need the help of those here, who truly understand this issue and share the concerns of others, to help reverse that... We just gained another Republican (or 2) during the Holiday Recess.
This issue was not widely understood previously. There is also a need to educate state-level, and county-level elections folks. Much mis-information is out there, and people who are making critical decisions are basing those on what they get from the vendors. Not a good idea...
No, we do not. Our focus is very narrow - we are presently working exclusively on this voter-verifiable issue. Which does not say that a proposal for a photo ID is not a bad idea, it is just not within the scope of our efforts.
(My former housemate moved away from this area, and is still registered here in my precinct. Anyone could walk in and vote in his name, without any challenge. That seems wrong to me, and I am unaware of the arguments that oppose a change that would correct this. If you will PM me with links, etc., I will read and reply, but need to not divert this thread please.)
Frankly, before all this, all I did was study the election guide in the weeks preceding an election, consider the issues/candidates, and vote. I had no recognition that so many issues surrounded the need to reform election procedures. It is really a mess, and most people don't know. It is also amazingly complicated - you should see some of the material people send us, describing the procedures that lead up to an election.
A bunch of us found out about this issue, are trying to help, and have literally become swept up in it. Two of us volunteers operate our own businesses, which are now dormant, as we suddenly realized that only a full-time effort would be required. I can't even imagine if we were to become a full-blown election reform lobbying organization. That would take serious funding, and frankly some people who were far more experienced with DC than any of us do.
To each of you who are posting to this thread, and those who are lurking and reading only: I hope I have inspired you to come join us. This is a huge effort and it will take thousands of us to make a difference.
www.verifiedvoting.org
When I talk about our having dumped our professions to pursue this effort, it sounds like I am either whining or bragging. That is not the point.
The point is that 6 months ago when I joined this effort, with no experience in operating a campaign such as this, I had NO IDEA of what we would face. We are facing opposition from corners we would totally expect to be on our side. An example is the League of Women Voters whose national board have taken an astonishingly ill-conceived position on this, and has resulted in a nationwide rebellion by their membership (www.leagueissues.org).
We are frustrated (to say the least) at the effort required to overcome the great number of obstacles we have faced in trying to get these bills considered in Congress. So to add ANYTHING beyond simply resolving this single topic would be far beyond our charter, or immediate abilities.
Hope that makes sense.
FYI, in the case of Diebold, the flawed GEMS program which is vulnerable to so many security threats is used to count both touchscreen and scanned-ballot votes.
But despite that, we encourage all persons working on this who communicate with legislators and elections officials to express a preference for an optical scan solution as the primary voting method.
HAVA requires accessible devices, which includes (but is not limited to) touchscreen system to be present in every precint to accomodate disabled persons. But if they have one of those, and a bunch of ballot-marking stations and a scanner - we would be very happy with that combination. (So long as any touchscreens have a paper ballot backup.)
If a group want printouts to supplement electronic voting, fine. Just realize it is only a small portion of the problem.
What is needed is a more "hands-on" approach. People at the polls on election day to volunteer as judges, clerks, poll watchers, observers, whatever. That is a more effective tool in combating vote fraud.
Frankly, this business of upgrading our elections systems may have been something that would have been best left strictly in the hands of the states. But Congress passed HAVA, and now we have to confront the results of that flawed and sweeping legislation.
Another point is that HAVA required an EAC to be formed - a commission that was charged with setting standards and helping states make wise decisions. Regretably, that commission was only formed in December, almost a year past when it was supposed to become active. Their existence, months ago, may have averted some of the challenges we face today.
Realistically speaking, we will need to have some robust bi-partisan pollwatching plans in place for 2004. Your experience could help such a plan to take form.
http://www.pollwatch.org and http://www.votewatch.us both plan to take such a role, and will need "an army of volunteers". I hope that folks interested in such work would consider contacting them to learn of their plans.
Although new, you a certifiable Master of Understatement!
BTW, care to clue us in as to what an "ITA" is?
Indiana Transit Authority? Inhuman Technology Act?
Having read that piece through several times, I'm still at a loss.
the only system that will work, IMHO, is the original precinct system where the elections are run and votes counted by neighbors who know each other and keep each other honest.
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