tagged w/ Voting Machines
-
I hope more attention is brought up concerning the vulberability of voting machines before this upcoming election.I hope more attention is brought up concerning the vulberability of voting machines... more
-
-
This year, as a result of a lot of changes in voting machines around the country, numerous voting districts across many states will be using new voting equipment that has either never been used in an election or has never been used in a national election involving millions of voters.
When new systems are used, problems often arise either with the equipment itself or with election officials and voters who are unfamiliar with it.
To see what equipment you and your state will be using in November and to familiarize yourself with it before the election, VerifiedVoting.org, an election integrity group that led the movement to get voter-verified paper audit trails added to touch-screen voting machines, has produced a comprehensive interactive map identifying the voting systems being used in election districts across the country. As far as I know, this is the most up-to-date list of voting equipment that exists.
The map offers several options for viewing. You can look at systems at a statewide macro level or click on a state to get a micro view of the various systems being used in each county or voting district, including the accessible equipment being offered for disabled voters. At the district level, you'll also find information about the maker of the voting machines and contact information for the election office.
The voting machine landscape has changed a lot since the 2000 presidential election when punch-card voting systems and dangling chads spawned a heated national debate and Supreme Court battle.
As a result of the 2000 debacle, the Help America Vote Act was passed in 2002 allocating federal funds to replace antiquated punch-card and lever machines with newer election technologies. Election officials quickly spent millions of dollars to buy paperless touch-screen voting machines -- also known as Direct Recording Electronic (DRE) machines -- that were touted by their makers as faster, more accurate and easier to use than punch-card machines.
But in 2003, technical reports began surfacing about serious security issues with the machines as well as reports about breakdowns and other problems. Public opinion has forced some voting districts to back away from the equipment since then. In some cases entire states -- such as California and Florida -- have outlawed DRE machines for use by anyone other than disabled voters and have recently replaced their touch-screen systems with new optical-scan machines.
In the last two years, 131 counties across 9 states -- California, Colorado, Florida, Iowa, Kentucky, North Carolina, Ohio, Pennsylvania and Virginia -- have abandoned their DRE machines in favor of paper ballot voting systems, according to statistics collected by VerifiedVoting.
While some states like Nevada and Utah have added paper trails to their DRE machines, the District of Columbia and six states -- Delaware, Georgia, Louisiana, Maryland, New Jersey and South Carolina -- still use DRE's without paper trails statewide. A handful of other states use mixed systems -- paperless DREs in some districts and paper-based voting systems in other districts.This year, as a result of a lot of changes in voting machines around the country,... more
-
-
Diebold (the company's now called "Premier Election Solutions") voting machines in actual use in Ohio, Maryland, and other states for the last ten years may have been dropping votes that would only be noticed if jurisdictions crosschecked results after uploading vote tallies from memory cards to a central tallying point.
Chris Riggall, a spokesman for Premier Election Solutions, is "confident" that elections officials through the years would have realized votes had been dropped when they crosschecked their tallies to certify final elections results and would have reloaded cards so as not to lose votes.
"We are indeed distressed that our previous analysis of this issue was in error," Premier President Dave Byrd wrote Tuesday.
As recently as May, Premier said the problem was not of its making but stemmed from anti-virus software that Ohio had installed on its machines.
Fixing the problem?
Well, "..changes to systems must go through the Election Assistance Commission, Rigall said, and take two years on average for certification and approval -- and that is apart from whatever approvals and reviews would be needed by each elections board throughout the country.."
Diebold (the company's now called "Premier Election Solutions") voting... more
-
-
Thursday 21 August 2008
by: Mary Pat Flaherty, The Washington Post
"A voting system used in 34 states contains a critical programming error that can cause votes to be dropped while being electronically transferred from memory cards to a central tallying point, the manufacturer acknowledges.
The problem was identified after complaints from Ohio elections officials following the March primary there, but the logic error that is the root of the problem has been part of the software for 10 years, said Chris Riggall, a spokesman for Premier Election Solutions, formerly known as Diebold."
And the winner is? I guess whoever owns the machines.....
Thursday 21 August 2008
by: Mary Pat Flaherty, The Washington Post
"A... more
-
-
The demise of touch-screen voting has produced a graveyard of expensive corpses: Warehouses stacked with thousands of carefully wrapped voting machines that have been shelved because of doubts about vanishing votes and vulnerability to hackers.
What to do with this high-tech junkyard is a multimillion-dollar question. One manufacturer offered $1 a piece to take back its ATM-like machines. Some states are offering the devices for sale on eBay and craigslist. Others hope to sell their inventories to Third-World countries or salvage them for scrap.
A few more are holding out hope that the machines, some of which were purchased for as much as $5,000, could one day be resurrected.
"We store them very, very carefully in the hopes that someone, someday may decide that we can use them again," said San Diego County Registrar Deborah Seiler, whose jurisdiction spent $25 million on the devices.
It wasn't supposed to be this way. After the disputed 2000 presidential recount, Congress provided more than $3 billion to replace punch card and lever-operated machines. State officials across the country said the new systems would eliminate human error and political tampering.
But problems with the machines soon followed: vanishing votes, breakdowns, malfunctions and increasing evidence that the devices were vulnerable to hackers.
Story continued at link...The demise of touch-screen voting has produced a graveyard of expensive corpses:... more
-
-
ivxx
-
added this
-
3 years ago
- |
-
"Ohio is an election battleground state with perennial problems at the polls. So what have election officials in some precincts of the state been doing to keep their voting machines safe from tampering?
Taking the machines home with them and stashing them in their garages in the days before a big election.
If it sounds like something pulled straight out of an episode of Saturday Night Live, or Borat for that matter, it’s not. The practice has become so widespread that it even has a nickname, “sleepovers.”"
As an Ohio resident, it's insane how badly the state has handled this transition from paper ballots. A lot of the fault lies with Ken Blackwell, an arrogant and corrupt man who did just about anything he could to mess things up."Ohio is an election battleground state with perennial problems at the polls. So... more
-
-
With less than a month before Super Tuesday, every vote counts. But will every vote actually be counted? One-by-one, states across the country are finding critical flaws in the accuracy and security of electronic voting machines. We speak with Clive Thompson, the author of a New York Times Magazine cover story titled ?Can You Count on Voting Machines??With less than a month before Super Tuesday, every vote counts. But will every vote... more
-
-
Paper ballots are the only answer to the questions. Our votes have been outsourced! We need to take back our elections and demand paper ballots. No Company should have propriety rights to keep our votes secret. Open government demands open unquestionable vote counts. Questions should not go unanswered! It?s only a conspiracy theory if questions go unanswered! Paper ballots are the only answer to the questions. Our votes have been outsourced!... more
-
-
Cynthia McKinney, a former six-term Congresswoman and an outspoken opponent of the war in Iraq, launched her campaign as a Green Party candidate for President.
In a video news release, McKinney says "the Republicans have deceived us; the Democrats have failed us. It is time for a new beginning: A time for hope to rise from the ashes of despair."Cynthia McKinney, a former six-term Congresswoman and an outspoken opponent of the war... more
-
-
leahl
-
added this
-
4 years ago
- |
-
A news article published online today in Canadian ITBusiness.ca
reports on the ongoing work of the U.S. National Science Foundation's
U.S. Voting System Project ACCURATE:
1) "One programmer could make a change that would affect 100,000
votes." – Page 1
2) "If these machines were rigged, we'd never know it." – Page 2
3) "Viruses could be put in the Diebold Accuvote to change votes." – Page 3
Notice that the Diebold/Premier voting system is specifically
mentioned in the article.
Are we going to have our election stolen AGAIN?!A news article published online today in Canadian ITBusiness.ca
reports on the... more
-
-
Jacob Soboroff went to The Grove in Los Angeles where HBO set up the actual Votomatic Florida voting machines used in the controversial 2000 Presidential Election, complete with butterfly ballots and hanging chads, so that people can judge for themselves whether they could have effectively cast their ballot. RECOUNT premieres May 25 on HBO.
For more:
http://whytuesday.org
HBO Films' RECOUNT:
http://www.hbo.com/films/recount/Jacob Soboroff went to The Grove in Los Angeles where HBO set up the actual Votomatic... more
-
-
Oregon is the only state in the Union that votes entirely by mail, and as NPR’s Ina Jaffe reported last week, that’s not only changing the way campaigns conduct their get-out-the-vote efforts, it also removes the tradition of the secret ballot entirely from Oregon’s voting system. Yesterday I met with United States Postal Service Communications Program Specialist Larry H. Dozier to learn more about voting-by-mail.Oregon is the only state in the Union that votes entirely by mail, and as NPR’s... more
-
-
Princeton Professor, Ed Felton, has posted a series of blog entries in which he shows the printed tapes he obtained from the NJ voting machines don't report the ballots correctly. In response to the first one, Sequoia admitted that the machines had a known software design error that did not correctly record which kind of ballots were cast (republican or democratic primary ballots) but insisted the vote totals were correct. Then, further tapes showed this explanation to be insufficient. In response, State officials insisted that the (poorly printed) tapes were misread by Felton. Again further tapes showed this not to be a sufficient explanation. However all those did not foreclose the optimistic assessment that the errors were benign — that is, the possibility that vote totals might really be correct even though the ballot totals were wrong and the origin of the errors had not been explained. Now he has found (well-printed) tapes that show what appears to be hard proof that it's the vote totals that are wrong, since two different readout methods don't agree. Sequoia has made trade-secret legal threats against those wishing to mount an independent examination of the equipment. One small hat-tip to Sequoia: at least they are reporting enough raw data in different formats that these kinds of errors can come to light — that lesson should be kept in mind when writing future requirements for voting machines.
Princeton Professor, Ed Felton, has posted a series of blog entries in which he shows... more
-
-
Rostam
-
added this
-
4 years ago
- |
-
-
Earlier this month Jacob Soboroff video-chatted with Princeton computer scientist Edward Felten about Super Tuesday malfunctions of Sequoia AVC Advantage touchscreen voting machines in New Jersey.
Despite the New Jersey problems, Pennsylvania pols see no trouble with the same touchscreen machines in their state.
For more:
http://whytuesday.orgEarlier this month Jacob Soboroff video-chatted with Princeton computer scientist... more
-
-
I video chatted yesterday with Princeton professor Edward Felten. After he was alerted to strange vote tallies by Sequoia voting machines on Super Tuesday, Sequoia wrote to tell Felton that if he investigated the malfunction, even at the request of county clerks, it may be grounds for a lawsuit against him.I video chatted yesterday with Princeton professor Edward Felten. After he was alerted... more
-
-
The New York Times announced Monday that defense contractor United Technologies had made an unsolicited bid to take control of Diebold, the voting machine manufacturer. UTC first approached Diebold two years ago, but thankfully Diebold has and continues to reject its offers.
But the most interesting and frightening part of this story is in the connection between the attempted takeover of a voting machine manufacturer and the Republican candidate John McCain.
Uber-lobbyist Charlie Black is the chairman of BKSH a "bipartisan" Washington based firm that provides government relations services to a number of Domestic and International clients. While he is on the BKSH payroll, Black lobbies in his spare time as well; His clients include General Motors, JPMorgan, AT&T and none other than United Technologies! But what Charlie Black is most well-known for is that he is chief political adviser to John McCain.
I personally believe that there is something very wrong with the the country when the man who advises the Republican candidate for president also advises the company trying a to take control of voting machines manufacturer. (unsuccessfully it must be said. I am not in the position to speculate about Diebold's involvement in the affair and am merely making a comment on the rather frightening connection between UTC and McCain.)
What do you think??
http://www.nytimes.com/2008/03/04/business/04diebold.html?scp=2&sq=diebold&st=nyt
http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/content/article/2008/02/21/AR2008022101131_pf.html
http://forums.therandirhodesshow.com/lofiversion/index.php/t127546.html The New York Times announced Monday that defense contractor United Technologies... more
-
-
Did your voting station have enough ballots? Follow the link to read this Super Tuesday story, and don't forget to share your stories!Did your voting station have enough ballots? Follow the link to read this Super... more
-
-
Finally a Secretary of State willing to stand for integrity in voting. Mike Coffman has set the state of Colorado on its head, along with some electronic voting systems manufacturers.
Don't you think the solution to this whole debacle is to require all electronic voting systems print out a paper receipt with indelible ink. The receipt should be able to be machine fed into a recount machine, should the need arise to have a paper count.
Or
Everyone should vote by mail, or by internet - Heck most of us do our banking, and credit card transactions via Internet, why not our vote?
What are your thoughts about this?Finally a Secretary of State willing to stand for integrity in voting. Mike Coffman... more
-
-
jubal
-
added this
-
4 years ago
- |
