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Voting machines become a US election issue
Financial Times FT.com ^ | Mar 2, 2004 | Henry Hamman

Posted on 03/04/2004 1:50:33 PM PST by KriegerGeist

Voting machines become a US election issue

Financial Times [FT.com]
By Henry Hamman in Miami, Florida
Published: March 2 2004 21:12 | Last Updated: March 2 2004 21:12

When voters in the 10 Super Tuesday states went to the polls on Tuesday, they were not only picking who they wanted to take on President George W. Bush in November. They were also engaging in the first important test of the US's retooling of its voting system since the debacle of the 2000 presidential election.

The new system was highly contentious long before this year's primary season began. At the core of the controversy is an increasingly rancorous argument about the introduction of new voting technology - particularly touch-screen voting - and other reforms mandated by the Help America Vote Act (Hava), the federal government's effort to overhaul an antiquated and cash-starved election system.

Any technological glitches in on Tuesday 's vote will add to the chorus of criticism of Hava as a quick fix for a raft of ills regarding how America votes. The arguments concern everything from how to ensure disabled access to voter registration to the way that voters are registered. But the biggest concern is whether the new machines accurately record and report votes.

Hava was supposed to usher in a new era of technologically-sophisticated computerised voting and update an election system that became a global laughing stock after the 2000 electoral meltdown in Florida, but the modernisation effort has fallen victim to attacks by an unlikely coalition of computer security experts, liberal Democrats and conspiracy theorists.

Two issues dominate: how to verify the vote counts reported by touch screen voting machines and how much trust to place in the software code controlling the recording and counting of the votes. As the new technology has been rolled out, incidents of vote miscounts, mechanical breakdowns and unauthorised adjustments in the software have popped up from New Mexico to Indiana. And as problems have emerged, critics such as VerifiedVoting.org, founded by David Dill, a Stanford University computing professor, have become more strident in their criticisms.

When a version of the proprietary source code for machines made by Diebold Election Systems, one of the big manufacturers of touch-screen machines, fell into the hands of Avi Rubin, a Johns Hopkins University computer scientist, the controversy became practical rather than theoretical. Prof Rubin and a team of graduate assistants analysed the code and issued a report citing what he said were numerous security holes.

The concerns gained an endorsement when the IEEE Computer Society, a leading organisation of computer professionals, devoted the January issue of its journal Security Privacy to Prof Rubin and Prof Dill.

The two academics argue electronic voting machines are developed and deployed with far less rigour and care for security than electronic slot machines.

Diebold responds that the code Prof Rubin analysed was stolen, and that in any case the security problems he identified have been fixed and the software is secure.

Many election experts say the concern about security is misplaced because of all the checks in place to protect the ballot. But Kevin Shelley, California's Democrat secretary of state, has issued an order that all California touch screens print out a paper ballot by 2006.

Republicans are twitchy about the issue, perhaps because it might remind voters of President George W. Bush's controversial victory in Florida in 2000.

Legislation requiring a paper record of votes cast on touch screen machines and publication of the code that runs them is before Congress.

In the House of Representatives, the bill was introduced by Rush Holt, a New Jersey Democrat, and has 118 co-sponsors - all but seven of them Democrats. In the Senate, Bob Graham, the retiring Florida Democrat, has introduced a bill with identical language and two co-sponsors, both Democrats.

Mr Holt says when he introduced the bill, "Republicans thought it must be some sort of payback for Florida 2000," but that after a November 2003 election in Virginia, which produced "inexplicable or troubling results in a race the Republican lost", some Republicans in the House have also become worried about the touch screens.

Thus far, neither the House or Senate bill has received a hearing, but Mr Holt says Bob Ney, the Republican chairman of the committee on house administration, promised him that he would soon hold hearings "on the subject" if not on the bill itself.


TOPICS: Government; Miscellaneous; News/Current Events; Politics/Elections
KEYWORDS: electronicballots; electronicvoting; touchscreen; voting
I think this could be a huge issue in the upcoming election. No paper ballot, no possibility of a re-count. How do you verify a eether-vote? How do you know how a computer server tabulated the votes? Is the computer geek in charge of the code liberal or conservative? Is the computer geek in charge of the computer server a liberal or conservative?
1 posted on 03/04/2004 1:50:34 PM PST by KriegerGeist
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To: Geist Krieger
how to verify the vote counts reported by touch screen voting machines and how much trust to place in the software code controlling the recording and counting of the votes

1) You can't. 2) None.

There is a way to make electronic voting safe and verifiable, but the systems they have out there don't come close.

2 posted on 03/04/2004 1:52:02 PM PST by kevkrom (Ask your Congresscritter about his or her stance on HR 25 -- the NRST)
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To: Geist Krieger
What on earth is wrong with the old two bar ballot. Two black bars that you connect with a felt tip. No Chads, No confusing ballots. Simply checking box. This electronic crap is spooky. Especially if the "eether bunny" likes Kerry.
3 posted on 03/04/2004 1:52:56 PM PST by Dead Dog
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To: Happy2BMe; Barnacle
ping.
4 posted on 03/04/2004 1:53:12 PM PST by KriegerGeist ("For the weapons of our warfare are not fleshly, but mighty in God for pulling down strongholds")
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To: Geist Krieger; All
-The Vote Fraud Archives--
5 posted on 03/04/2004 1:53:18 PM PST by backhoe (--30--)
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To: Dead Dog
"What on earth is wrong with the old two bar ballot. Two black bars that you connect with a felt tip. No Chads, No confusing ballots. Simply checking box."

Exactly! I agree! Everyone, I believe even "seasoned citizens" would be satisfied with a card-ballot that can be marked with an indelible marker...like dotting a bingo card. The name of the candidate (even his/her picture perhaps) and their party (R) or (D) or (I) with a circle next to the name to mark your dot. Then, that card-ballot can be run through the optical reader to be tabulated. I even think that the card-ballots could have a stub with corresponding numbers that could be torn off to give to the voter (like at the dry cleaners) that the voter then could later look at in a computer printout to verify that their vote was counted. Note: that number being only known to the voter and not to any polling place worker.

6 posted on 03/04/2004 2:07:23 PM PST by KriegerGeist ("For the weapons of our warfare are not fleshly, but mighty in God for pulling down strongholds")
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To: Geist Krieger
The media is focused on the hacker aspect. I don't think they have to worry about that in West Palm Beach. Many of those voters couldn't follow a freakin' arrow.
7 posted on 03/04/2004 2:09:20 PM PST by BigSkyFreeper (Liberalism is Communism one drink at a time. - P.J. O'Rourke)
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To: Geist Krieger
Mastercard & VISA don't seem to have too much trouble. Maybe they should handle it.
8 posted on 03/04/2004 2:36:15 PM PST by CMailBag
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To: Geist Krieger
There was nothing wrong with the punch card ballots until Gore's goons stormed in and tried to steal the election. I've used those machines for nearly 30 years and no one ever questioned them until November 2000.
9 posted on 03/04/2004 2:43:24 PM PST by Steve_Seattle ("Above all, shake your bum at Burton.")
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To: Geist Krieger
Whats on the printout and what actual data that goes to get counted can be two different things. A paper printout from an electronic voting machine is only worth the paper its printed on, literally.

With punch cards or ultraviolet pens, you get tags you rip off your ballot and keep. You can take those back to the registrar later, and make sure your ballots are in his posession and were counted.

There is no connection that isn't tamperable between the receipt and the electronic ballot.
10 posted on 03/04/2004 2:47:59 PM PST by hedgetrimmer
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To: Steve_Seattle
Why not have the computer touch screen machines print an actual ballot that is then scanned by another machine? Each one should have a unique id number so that no copies could be made or an individual ballot counted more than once.

For a good article on Prof. Rubin's experience being an election monitor with computer voting see:
http://www.avirubin.com/judge.html
11 posted on 03/04/2004 2:52:03 PM PST by pearlz
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To: Geist Krieger
Here in England we still get a piece of paper on which we mark an 'X' by our candidate. What's so bad with that?
12 posted on 03/04/2004 2:55:16 PM PST by tjwmason (A voice from Merry England.)
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To: Geist Krieger
I do understand that there are risks of fraud with these voting machines, but there were risks of fraud with the old system as well. Until this election, my county always used the old punchcard system that became so controversial in Florida. I know that, once I finished punching my card and handing it in, it would be more or less impossible to distinguish my card from anyone else's and I know that, if the system was infected by people willing to commit election fraud, my punchcard could have been easily replaced or supplemented by a punchcard fraudulently created. Any system is vulnerable to fraud if it's being operated by crooks.

I used the new machine yesterday and thought it was pretty neat. I understand that there is a lot of criticism of these new machines, but I wonder how much of the criticism is motivated by the concern that the suggestion that the new system is an improvement carries with it the implicit assumption there was something inherently wrong with the old system - that there may have been something wrong with the system in Florida 2000. LOL. ;-)

13 posted on 03/04/2004 3:02:57 PM PST by Scenic Sounds (Sí, estamos libres sonreír otra vez - ahora y siempre.)
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