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
Pull a forced recount, without any predictable pattern where it will occur. The moment you find an issue, you look wider, and thoroughly.
As you have seen, I am really trying to avoid being drawn into any unrelated issues. I'm not going to debate questions of "who stole what" and so on.
Each of us have our own vision of "facts" and the debate over such issues will not serve this discussion.
It would be a great idea but probably overused if it had any teeth to it. Maybe as a Democrat you'd disagree, but one of the biggest gripes you'll hear around here is that Republicans are saying "yes" to too many things that most conservatives would say "hell, no" to. They go to Washington and get some sort of disease where they spend like crazy and believe they need to micromanage everyone's affairs.
Accurate and fair elections *ought* to be one of government's biggest goals and yet the only time you hear about change is when they want to make it even easier for fraud to happen (same day registration, vote by mail, etc.).
However, we spent the past 6 months to reach the level of progress we have achieved, and are not going to stop trying. If we stop, "they" win. We're not stopping...
Pushing for the deadlines, so we can protect from a meltdown, will clearly be a challenge. Recognizing that challenge motivated me to come here and reach out to you folks.
We actually are gaining some strong alliances, from both sides, and feel confident that persevering is worth the effort.
I wish you would join us, and hope others will not be discouraged. At a minimum, join the mailing list, and let us keep you informed. If you see we are making progress, perhaps that will sway your opinion.
And I feel that the Diebold announcement is just PR crap. They necessarily had to do SOMETHING after the audit in CA. I was at the hearing when they announced the results. The voting systems panel was righteously pissed off, and rightly so. I can barely wait for Thursday.
Yes, Hastert and Delay (and Ney for you Ohioans) are critical in this. Ney is the chair of the House Administration Committee, and he has HUGE influence over whether the House bill moves to the floor.
Tell ya what, beer's on me if someone moves one of those big dawgs on this issue.
The only certain way is to obtain a copy of the code itself, not voter printouts. If the code is considered proprietary (likely), sign whatever confidentiality agreements required.
I disagree flatly. For starters, our campaign to demand a voter-verifiable audit trail is not about voter fraud. It is based on the recognition that computers and their programs are subject to failure, and these systems DO NOT have the necessary safeguards established in them.
My concern is voter fraud. As we saw in 2000 (and other elections too numerous) paper systems are subject to failure (and not necessarily accidental).
However, the resolution we propose, by its very nature, helps eliminate fraud by requiring random, mandatory audits.
Here we agree, just don't be fooled into thinking paper trails will solve the problem by itself.
Dave Dill is professor ... than I care to acknowledge:
I have a M.S. in Engineering and Registered P.E. Also have three years experience as an election judge (paper and e-slate computer systems). Just so you know where my expertise is.
We have not invented the means by which an error-free program can be written. At least not one of the sophistication needed to configure and run elections.
Do you live in TX? We used e-slates in Houston during the 2002 and 2003 elections, and except in precincts run by incompetant people (more about that some other time), we had no problems. All of the judges and clerks were required to attend training regarding poll operation and safeguards, so the problem precincts had no excuses. Your error free comment is handled better in the next statement.
Current law does not REQUIRE that ...
The rest of your bullet items touch on QA, QC, ISO-9000, and related issues where in general, I am in agreement. The only certain method to verify code is to obtain a copy of said code, not check paper trails. There will be proprietary issues, but they can be handled. I touched on this in a recent previous post above.
To recap, the certification process must be looked at and refined, the ethics of the manufactures have to be scrutinized, controls on all of the above need to be strengthened, and YES - we need a paper trail.
Agreement regarding certification process (the machines, equipment, software, etc) and if you want a paper trail for it, fine. But that process must be completed BEFORE election day. Election day is too late. Paper trails are fine, but too many people think that will solve the problem alone. It will not.
The failures that have been detected in VA, MD and FL provide ample evidence that simply having properly trained election workers simply does not bring us a solution.
You forgot something. The word honest. What happened in Florida was not incompetance; it was dis-honesty. Paper can be manipulated more easily than computers. I have read post from people who want the old punch card system, and with that, you don't even need to go to the booth to stuff the totals.
My Summary: Put competant and honest people in charge of the election process, and add you "quality control" checks toward system development, and you won't need a paper trail. See, no name calling, no insults, no profanity.
I replied now. If further questions, ...
Huh? You did not reply at all to the numerous and detailed observations of D.S. about the Demodog's election fraud. Take another look at #85, and respond to it!
Let me share a couple thoughts, in sincerity, and hope you can live with this as my response:
I have limited respect for most of the legislators that purport to "represent us" in Washington. Another poster mentioned (privately) to me something to the effect of "these folks go to DC, and suddenly catch this disease where they forget who they are there for, what their job is, and generally fail us." It's all about greed and special interests. And I don't think it is hard to argue that this symptom is present on both sides of the aisle.
I am solely focused on passing legislation to protect all of us against the threats represented by these electronic voting machines. I have become passionately engaged in this effort for the past 6 months, and am committed to helping gain the passage of legislation we are discussing. Those bills, when passed into law (and strengthened subsequentely, if needed, and if possible) should (by their very nature) reduce the potential for vote fraud (on either side) through the use of electronic voting systems.
I came here to gain support for our efforts, to educate people that might not be aware of the issue, and to let folks know how passionately we work on this issue in a non-conspiritorial and non-partisan manner.
That is my priority, and I'm not going to engage in discussing side-topics which could only decline into a flame war. It serves no purpose for the betterment of all.
Now I'm going to share something, that you or others may accept as typical across the US. Prior to this issue, I have never worked on ANY political issue. And prior to the past few years, I honestly have not followed politics very closely. I spent my time commuting, working, raising a family, losing a wife, rebuilding my life, and reading fishing books/magazines. I do not have the historical knowledge of every vote steal that has happened in the past. I am not interested in taking the time to research, defend, and counter (if necessary) the assertions about the "Demodog's election fraud". If you want to pick that fight, go lurk on DU and find someone that is angry and is eager for the fight. Or start a thread here on the subject, and I'll help send some DU'ers over here to fight with you. But I am NOT going to engage that or any other subject other than the specific and narrow topic of "How do we resolve this electronic voting situation."
I hope you can live with that, because it's all I'm doing. I'm not going to fight with you, I'm not going to debate whether D's or R's have the market cornered in beltway corruption, and I'm not buying into any bait that get me zotted. Period.
I agree that a robust solution will only come from several combined ingredients. Proper development methodologies and controls, robust certification procedures, visibility at all layers, training, post-election audits, and honesty. And double-checks where needed... And whatever else is defined as issues crop up...
Agreed, no flames. If people started to flame me, frankly, I had planned to just drop it and work with folks elsewhere. I appreciate the tone that this thread has maintained.
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