GOP Urges Investigation of Voting Machine Performance

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.

"follow on discussion with the sidebar moderator"
Since I don't visit here, I have no idea what this refers to. Translation please?

"You can't re-count the votes, verify them at a later date, or anything."
And that is the root of the problem, and the basis of our campaign. It is a fundamentally flawed solution, absolutely unacceptable in any other application. Can you imagine going to the ATM and not having a receipt? This is insane!

VerifiedVoting.org needs your help rallying support and communicating to the rest of the country. Please let us know how we can work with you.

VerifiedVoting.org needs your help rallying support and communicating to the rest of the country. Please let us know how we can work with you.

I would suggest concentrating on Los Angeles County which is looking to go to electronic voting in the future. The comment that so goes California, so goes the nation is not entirely without truth. And by picking a single target, all the resources that you, and FreeRepublic, can muster can be aimed at a single target. Once you have one of the largest voting populations using a system with back up verification, then you can use that as leverage to convert others to the same system.

Beyond, Los Angeles makes a good target because the Registrar of Voters here has been holding off going to an electronic system to see how the machines develop over time, and to take into account what fraud is uncovered.

It also doesn't hurt that you could line up an interview on KFI, because John and Ken are rather interested in the topic, and how to prevent fraud, and the Los Angeles Times has multiple articles in their archives on the issue.

I'd like to respectfully request that we stay on topic, as others in this thread have endorsed.

We all have our opinions of those who choose public service, and as I mentioned earlier, I have little use for most of them. We can get into a debate as to the characteristics of these folks, or we can try to focus on the issue at hand: how does America retain confidence that these voting systems won't vote for us.

This used to be looked at as a "theoretical problem". Today there are real examples, proven cases, where the systems messed up. Was there fraud? Probably not. Did the systems simply fail? That's what it appears to be. What is there to be done about it? Require a voter-verified solution.

I'm not here to debate your politics or mine. I'm here to seek support to pass legislation that is important to all of us. If we can get that one done together, maybe we will find something else we can agree on. www.verifiedvoting.org

"In my opinion, the internet and these anonymous message boards (Yahoo for example) has allowed for a fundamental breakdown in social conduct to become the norm. That has been further decayed by the bitter partisan politics that exist in the US today.... If we were sitting in a restaurant, a theater, or a camp site - how would we conduct ourselves? Would be explode into bitter accusations? I know I do not!

We have too much at stake to permit impolite behaviour to impact this issue. We are talking about the core of our democracy..."

Please save us the sanctimony and whining, please??

I indicated I was joking -- even welcomed you to FR, but you ignored my obvious cues and overreacted in Democrat fashion -- you became a victim.

And suddenly personal capitalism supercedes politics? On the heels of your typically Democratic-styled condescension and kumbayism of in the name of melodramatically saving the "core of democracy," I quite frankly find your need to come to Free Republic ONLY for support of your enterprising project suspect to say the least.

At least you know enough to realize where the REAL brains are -- at a conservative website.

I agree that Los Angeles (but really, California as a whole) needs to be turned. We are making progress, I think. We'll know more Thursday.

In the Diebold audit, they found 3 counties (including LA - the largest county) were using software (I'm pretty certain it was actually firmware) that was never submitted to the ITA (Federal Independent Testing Authority) for certification. As far as I can determine, firmware could ONLY be installed by burning ROMS and installing them. That is NOT something that county staff (unless they have serious techs onboard) would have done. More likely this was Diebold staff that did that. So ya have Diebold purposely and knowingly installing uncertified software that was used on at least 2 elections. That broke the law, and there should be a strong penalty.

Now go here and look at this: http://tinyurl.com/3g4wh

In that thread we have this: Strictly adhering to our release policies, the California change should also require a major version number bump to GEMS (because of the protocol change). We can't reasonably expect all of California to upgrade to 1.18 this late in the game though, so we'll slip the change into GEMS 1.17.21 and declare this a bug rather than a new feature. What good are rules unless you can bend them now and again.

That was the March 2002 election, so now we have illegal software running back for 3 elections.

Want to make a difference? Californians need to be in Sacramento Thursday morning and demand the decertification of Diebold.

http://www.verifiedvoting.org/article_text.asp?articleid=978

"Well if you are really honest about fighting voting fraud, you'll fight to clean up your own party. You say both parties engage in vote fraud....

AT LEAST 80% of vote fraud cases that I've run across have been Democrat schemes. Systematic corruption, most prevelant in big cities or single-party dominated areas, which are almost always dominated by the Dems."

Greg (the Democrat with a financial stake who cares about America) is here at Free Republic ON BUSINESS.

Don't try to inject reality or politics into the equation -- especially when the issue at hand is peddling a voting system at a conservative political forum.

As to the "political" part of this post, we know that the efficiency of voting system will NOT matter -- regardless of method, the Democrats will moan and groan that it was patently "UNFAIR" due to a "GOP conspiracy."

Want to make a difference? Californians need to be in Sacramento Thursday morning and demand the decertification of Diebold.

How in the world does the decertification of Diebold get a verified audit trail? That is what you're seeking, right? I'm by nature a suspicious person, and such a goal really makes me wonder. I also take exception at your assumption that the county registrars in California don't know how to hire technically competent people. We pride ourselves in this state in making sure our voting equipment works on election day, unlike some other locations in the country.

I understand you're tired, but perhaps your goal and my goal are completely different. I want a print out of the vote, and that print out to be put into the ballot box by the voter so that there is an audit trail. De certifying a voting machine maker doesn't move toward that goal, in fact, it might even be contrary to it.

I want a print out of the vote, and that print out to be put into the ballot box by the voter so that there is an audit trail.
And I have made that my mission for the past 6 months. We are in complete agreement on that point.

I also take exception at your assumption that the county registrars in California don't know how to hire technically competent people.
I said nothing about our state's ability to hire competent people. It is my impression (which may or may not be correct) that hardware upgrades (firmware) is installed by Diebold techs. I could be wrong, perhaps State/County techs do that. Regardless:

My point is that it appears that one (or perhaps all) of the following events took place, based on the results of the California audit, and based on their internal e-mails which have been widely distributed on the web:

Diebold provided uncertified software and firmware to CA state or county employees for installation, and those employees proceeded to install that uncertified code, failing to observe state/county procedures and laws
Diebold employees installed uncertified software and firmware on California's election systems
Diebold lied to and/or misled the Federal ITA as to the nature of software/firmware security, and in doing so, managed to skate through an ineffective certification process. I would leave it up to legal authorities as to whether that consisted of a crime, and hope that very question is raised at some point in a court of law.
Refer to: http://www.equalccw.com/sscomment.html
Diebold lied to and/or misled the State of California (and various counties) as to the database modification which was falsely represented as a bug fix (see previous post for link)

This brief list only begins to scratch the surface of the wide range of questionable actions that have been recognized over the past several months. Needless to say, there has been no trial, nor a conviction. But in the face of grievous abuse of this nature, what part of this does not appear to warrant severe repurcussions? Good grief, the Asst. Secretary of State has already started talking about referring this to the Attorney General or District Attorney. Where do we draw the line any longer, and instead of "slapping their hands" we say "that was illegal, you broke the law, and their are penalties!".

Serious man, where do we draw the line any longer? Are we a country that rules by "expediency"? Or do we draw the line, and anyone that crosses it has to suffer the consequences?

My bet is that the next kid that gets rolled into court for a pocket full of pot will do more time than anyone that defrauded the State over election law.

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.

I question this. I do not know how it is possible to know that 134 votes were not counted, when the only verification of the vote is the machine's tally of the vote. Could it be that 134 people showed up to vote, but just did not enter a vote on that particular race? Not everyone votes on every question...

I don't mean to give the wrong impression. The only way I can accept machine voting is if I vote by touch-screen, the machine shows me a picture of a voted ballot at the end and gives me the option of revising or accepting it, then prints out the ballot, which goes into the locked box for counting. In my scenario, the only use for the machine is to verify the number of ballots voted, and maybe record a vote tally for verification purposes.

*scratches head* I'm afraid I'm not seeing your point here. Does decertifying Diebold put printers on these electronic voting devices or not?

If I haven't made it clear, let me restate it: I don't care what Diebold may or may not have done. What I do care about is that these voting machines are, in my opinion, useless if they do not have an independent audit trail.

I want a printer that spits out a copy of the ballot, clearly marking my choices so I can make sure that they match with my intentions, and I want a box where that print out goes into that will count as my vote. Does this match the goals of your organization?

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