My experience as an Election Judge in Baltimore County

Avi Rubin website ^ | 3/3/2004 | Avi Rubin

[society-by-contract]

I have written 'None of the Above' in the write-in section of my ballot since I realized, about a decade ago, that voting is both irrational and immoral (flame suit on). I am worried about not being able to write in candidates, or no candidate at all, if The Old Dominion moves toward electronic ballots.

[society-by-contract]

I have written 'None of the Above' in the write-in section of my ballot since I realized, about a decade ago, that voting is both irrational and immoral (flame suit on). I am worried about not being able to write in candidates, or no candidate at all, if The Old Dominion moves toward electronic ballots.

[Dead Dog]

"It's not who votes, but who counts the votes" Lenin (and Daley)

[Doctor Stochastic]

There are lots of problems with the new machines. California did badly. One problem has been that simple things like paper records (even paper tape) would be helpful. Problems with backup and not having the source code available for analysis is troublesome.

Just for fun. You might check with some Texas oldtimers about the "voting string" method of cheating.

[Dr. Frank fan]

still, I think a basic point in security should be made systematic: Cross-checking and backup. This is more fundamental than any technology, it's about making a verifiable record of what happened.

Exactly. All present when paper ballots are used.

In the end, I too think we need paper ballots - but paper ballots that are generated by these electronic voting machines

But here's the thing. Now that we both agree that we need paper ballots, why the additional complication of the machines? What's the point? Most people assume that the reason for using machines is time savings, cost reduction, efficiency, or some combination of the above. But here you are agreeing that some paper ballots (and checking of them, etc) are necessary anyway. So what is being saved? I don't get it.

This all became painfully clear to me in 2000. Here we had a system that (I thought) we had all tacitly agreed upon: punch-cards. The implicit social contract we made with each other (I thought) was this:

-we would use punch cards to save time in counting

-we would accept the intrinsic error associated with punch cards (including: hanging chads, etc) as part of the cost we pay for the speedup in counting

And yet, when push came to shove, and a state election was close, what happened? People started crying and screaming that we needed to HAND-COUNT all the punch cards!! Talk about ridiculous. In essence, when it counted, suddenly everyone decided that punch-cards had to be treated as if they were paper ballots, and counted by people, using their eyes, to determine "voter intent", anyway.

And I thought to myself "well hell, if we were gonna do that, why didn't we just use paper ballots in the first place??"

I have yet to hear a good reason.

[Dr. Frank fan]

Now these new machines that the Democrats demanded are a Republican conspiracy? Feh!

Yeah. It's an idiotic charge, but it's based on the usual genius left-wing analysis: the head or CEO or whatever of Diebold is a (R) (or so I hear? i really have no idea..), and so, therefore, Diebold is going to cheat in favor of the (R)s.

It's the same argument, essentially, that they use to "prove" that there's no left-wing bias in the media ("Peter Jennings works for a corporation, and corporations are inherently conservative, thus there can't be left-wing bias..."). Pure genius.

[MrConfettiMan]

I continue to believe that the Diebold voting machines represent a huge threat to our democracy. I fundamentally believe that we have thrown our trust in the outcome of our elections in the hands of a handful of companies (Diebold, Sequoia, ES&S) who are in a position to control the final outcomes of our elections. I also believe that the outcomes can be changed without any knowledge by election judges or anyone else. Furthermore, meaningful recounts are impossible with these machines.

Bump.

[steve-b]

The bottom line: In a paper system, adding a thousand bogus ballots is ten times as much work, with ten times as much risk of being caught, as adding a hundred phony ballots. In an electronic system with no paper backup, adding a million bogus ballots is no more work or risk than adding one.

[gitmo]

CRC = Cyclic Redundancy Check
TOD = Time Of Day

sorry.

[Andy_Stephenson]

"In the code we examined, that phone call is not protected correctly with cryptography. Perhaps that has been fixed."

It hasn't been fixed. I have seen the code and the release notes.

[Andy_Stephenson]

"In the code we examined, that phone call is not protected correctly with cryptography. Perhaps that has been fixed."

It hasn't been fixed. I have seen the code and the release notes.

[Andy_Stephenson]

your missing the point. The point is...it only takes one rogue programmer. I have seen Diebold and Sequoia's systems hacked. All it takes is one person to change a million votes, and you would never know.

[Andy_Stephenson]

http://www.wishtv.com/Global/story.asp?S=1689859&nav=0Ra6LJ1G

March 4, 2004
Johnson County: Election Worker Fired


Doug Orange


By Rick Dawson
I-Team 8

Election officials in Johnson County are now demanding answers from a voting machine company at the heart of a recent I-Team investigation.

I-Team 8 has been asking "Will Your Vote Count?" Now with the primary just two months away, we’ve uncovered a new wrinkle as a respected election worker is abruptly dismissed.Doug Orange had his contract with Election Systems and Software terminated last week. As the ES&S Project manager, Orange helped the county set up new touch-screen voting systems. County clerk Jill Jackson was very happy with his work.

So why was Orange fired? He says the company claimed insubordination, but he says he was just doing the right thing. “I was asked by Wil Wesley, as my immediate supervisor, to implement a procedure in Johnson County that I personally felt was attacking the integrity of the future election and the security of the future elections in Johnson County. Not to mention that I felt those procedures were illegal,” said Orange.Bound by a non-disclosure statement, Orange won't elaborate further. But county election officials already had concerns about unapproved and illegal ES&S software inadvertently used in the last election.

“We are concerned that we have the election conducted in a first class way. And we've had some changes with ES&S that have brought some concern for the board,” said J. Bryan Nichol, Johnson County Election Board.

...snip....

“I was replaced as project manager eight weeks before a primary election, with a new clerk who's just been elected to office, with a new voting system that is under fire,” said Orange, who calls the task impossible. He added, "The unfortunate result of this is that I feel as though Johnson County and Johnson County's future elections are at risk."

...snip...

Will Your Vote Count? Read I-Team 8's investigation into problems with electronic voting machines.

[Rummyfan]

Cylic Redundancy Check ..... Time-of-Day.......

[RedWing9]

It hasn't been fixed. I have seen the code and the release notes

Would you mind telling me the company you work for and the reason you have access to the latest version of the code and release notes?

Afterall, there are many imposters on the internet..

[Andy_Stephenson]

The code was left on the internet for anyone to download.

[Dr. Frank fan]

your missing the point. The point is...it only takes one rogue programmer. I have seen Diebold and Sequoia's systems hacked. All it takes is one person to change a million votes, and you would never know.

I don't (necessarily) disagree with that.

That rogue programmer could just as easily change things in favor of the (D)s as the (R)s. What I was reacting to were the lefty complaints that because the CEO (or whatever) of Diebold is an (R), that makes fraud in favor of (R)s more likely. ok?

[Andy_Stephenson]

I am not saying the fraud will be in favor of the D's or the R's...I am saying it can affect both parties and should be stopped now.