Guest Blogged by John Gideon of VotersUnite.org
Two and a half years ago Sangamon County, Illinois (Springfield), purchased 930 new Populex voting machines for $1.7M. The state will not accept them for use to count vote-by-mail (absentee) ballots so the county has been hand-counting those ballots and using a machine to check the hand-count. Now Populex has said that they don’t plan on continuing the federal testing and certification process that they had begun over a year ago. The county will probably have to scrap these new machines and go elsewhere. An expensive mistake.
How can election officials in Pennsylvania find problems but not do all they can to ensure every vote is counted? There was more than one report of votes on machines that had problems but officials not being interested unless it is “necessary”.
Those stories, and more today, all linked below…
- NAtional: Is Talk of Election Day Disaster Nothing But Fearmongering? Hardly
http://www.aei.org/publications/filter.all,pubID.27851/pub_detail.asp - NAtional: Voter Suppression and the Major Parties
http://donklephant.com/2008/04/22/voter-suppression-and-the-major-parties/ - NAtional: Cybercrime and Politics: The Dangers of the Internet in Elections
http://www.informit.com/articles/article.aspx?p=1190114 - NAtional: Vote-count bill’s rebuff doesn’t add up
http://www.nj.com/njvoices/index.ssf/2008/04/votecount_bills_rebuff_doesnt.html - AZ: Pima County ““ Editorial – Public should be able to see election records
Our view: Technology shouldn’t negate the people’s right to check voting results
http://www.azstarnet.com/allheadlines/235549 - IL: Sangamon County – Sangamon may need new voting machines
Current system not certified for mail-in
http://www.sj-r.com/News/stories/29196.asp - NY: LibertyVote Leaves New York
Last of the DREs pull outs of the Empire State
http://www.nyvv.org/boblog/2008/04/23/libertyvote-leaves-new-york/ - PA: Translation Poses Voting Challenges In Chinatown, Philadelphia PA
http://www.huffingtonpost.com/laura-j-mansfield/translation-poses-voting_b_98081.html - PA: Voting in Pennsylvania
http://www.opednews.com/articles/genera_suzanne__080422_voting_in_pennsylvan.htm - PA: Election Protection Coalition Fields Over 1,000 Calls Reporting Scattered Problems Throughout Pennsylvania
https://bradblog.com/Docs/CommitteeOf70_PAPrimary_ElectionProtectionUpdateRelease_1030pm.doc - PA: Rumors of e-vote Fraud in Pennsylania, but Voters Like Machines
http://www.popularmechanics.com/technology/upgrade/4260505.html - PA: Fayette County – New paper ballots a popular choice among area voters
http://www.heraldstandard.com/site/news.cfm?newsid=19508877&BRD=2280&PAG=461&dept_id=480247&rfi=6 - PA: Lackawanna County – Ballot error confuses voters
http://www.thetimes-tribune.com/site/news.cfm?newsid=19509191&BRD=2185&PAG=461&dept_id=416046&rfi=6 - PA: Lackawanna and Wayne Counties – Few problems with new voting machines
http://www.thetimes-tribune.com/site/news.cfm?newsid=19509198&BRD=2185&PAG=461&dept_id=415898&rfi=6 - PA: Lawrence and Mercer Counties – Mostly smooth sailing at polls, election officials in 2 counties say
http://www.vindy.com/news/2008/apr/23/mostly-smooth-sailing-at-polls-election-officials/ - PA: Luzerne County ““ Election Notes
http://www.timesleader.com/news/20080423_23notes_ART.html - PA: Montgomery County – Request to extend voting hours denied
http://www.thetimeschronicle.com/site/news.cfm?newsid=19509317&BRD=1306&PAG=461&dept_id=187823&rfi=6 - PA: Montgomery and Northampton Counties – Region’s Democrats crowd into polls
Even some too young to vote gather outside to cheer on favorites.
http://www.mcall.com/news/local/all-a1-5crush-5.6375816apr23,0,2986966.story - PA: Northampton County – Voters encounter few glitches at polls
http://www.nj.com/news/expresstimes/pa/index.ssf?/base/news-16/1208923534128410.xml&coll=2 - PA: Philadelphia – Compared to Other Primary Contests, Fewer Black Voters Turn Out for Barack Obama
http://www.blackamericaweb.com/site.aspx/bawnews/movingamerica08/pennblacks423 - TN: Davidson County – Davidson wants paper ballots
Officials urge switch now, but state says election too soon
http://www.tennessean.com/apps/pbcs.dll/article?AID=/20080423/NEWS0202/804230425/1009/news01 - Canada: New Brunswick to use provincewide electronic vote tabulation
http://canadianpress.google.com/article/ALeqM5iESEU4S7LHF8DEft1hQ1UFF0wl1g
**”Daily Voting News” is meant as a comprehensive listing of reports each day concerning issues related to election and voting news around the country regardless of quality or political slant. Therefore, items listed in “Daily Voting News” may not reflect the opinions of VotersUnite.Org or BradBlog.Com**
It is unfortunate that Populex was shafted when the Ciber lab was deaccredited by the EAC, and it is unfortunate that the federal certification process is prohibitively costly and time consuming to small vendors.
The Populex letter of response is interesting, but it lacks a comprehensive explanation of the security of their system. Identifying various security features is not the same as persuasively arguing for the overall security of the entire system.
That said, I hope Populex wins their argument – for entirely selfish reasons I hope to see small voting equipment vendors obtain a toehold in the market.
Nothing is unfortunate, all these machines that tabulate votes electronically must be banned nationally. If that means all these “equipment vendors” go bankrupt I don’t care, throw them in jail with chains.
Populex lacked the information on the security because it has no security, when votes are in electronic form they can not be validated by poll workers, or poll watchers, because they can not physically see electrons. All machines that tabulate votes electronically have the same exploit in their security.
For all you or I know specially crafted “logic bomb” chips (at the doping level) could be installed with part numbers stamped on of some other chip that tests okay on the bench, but when some signal RF, or Logic is applied the logic changes. What is the EAC going to do destructively reverse-engineer every chip under an electron microscope to provide public oversight? Didn’t think so, the they can’t be trusted, and neither can anyone selling electronic tabulation devices.
I disagree with you on wanting any equipment vendor that makes machines that tabulate votes electronically to have a “toehold” of corruption. (my emphasis)
You worry about cost of these machines?
I’ll tell you what they cost, they cost me the shredding of my Constitution, the wrong candidates elected, candidates breaking their oath of office, corruption infestation into nearly every branch of government, a false war that we were lied into, the control of the 4th estate by pentagon and Whitehouse, millions of people dead, corruption in wall street and the FED. Oh let’s see how much, I’d have to say about 62 Trillion dollars currently.
That breaks down like this:
“Our government says it is (we are) $9 trillion in debt but ignores the forward liability of Social Security and Medicare, which totals, at present, $53 trillion dollars in the mother and father of all “SIV”s.”
Source: Market Ticker
Also, I visited your website and I can’t help but notice your graphic symbol looks like a ballot being shredded.
http://www.glassboxvoting.com/i.../ballot150.png
As much as I appreciate and use linux and unix, the underlying operating system has NOTHING to do with tabulating votes electronically. The HARDWARE can still be exploited. Both windows based and unix based electronic tabulation device solutions have a big giant exploit. They can’t be validated by poll workers, or poll watchers because when the 0’s and 1’s are electronic they are invisible and it’s physically impossible to know what is happening.
My advice for “equipment vendors” is to stop making devices that electronically tabulate votes and profit off it at my country’s demise (these electronic vote tabulation devices have NOT HELPED THE DISABLED, THEY HAVE HURT US ALL!), and instead focus and concentrate on creating a device that helps the disabled PRINT a paper ballot to be hand counted.
e.g. HUMAN INTERFACE -> PROGRAMMABLE TEMPLATE -> PRINTER -> PAPER BALLOT -> HAND COUNTED -> PUBLIC OVERSIGHT WITH UNBROKEN CHAIN OF CUSTODY
You want that to be unix, linux, or windows, it doesn’t really matter. I like all three OS’s myself. You may have worked in electronics for 10 years, but I have been playing with electronics since the 80’s, and I am simply giving you the best advice your EVER going to hear.
When a program is coded up into so much crap that it’s better to just start over. Well electronic vote tabulation is such a crap program.
The sample ballots are printed somewhere, why are not real ballots printed as well? There is only one answer: Corruption.
The same concept, vision, and rules should apply for voter registration / roll books. No electronics except to print paper that can be distributed through proper policies and procedures.
The EAC can not be trusted because they have allowed hardware and electronic signals to tabulate votes in an abusive use of electronics. It’s common sense physics and yet “so-called experts” at the EAC still don’t get it. There’s only one answer, the EAC is corrupt leaving us citizens of the United States in a nasty catch 22 where we can’t elect good people to clean out the corrupt people that keep screwing up the system in the first place.
No I don’t want ANY “toehold” of corruption in my government. No thanks. All the electronic vote tabulation devices are good for is going into the chip shredding machine to be recycled as raw materials.
Brad, I hope you read this, if you haven’t already. By Barbara Bellows-TerraNova. (Have I seen her name here as a blogger?)
http://www.opednews.com/article...blind_eye_.htm
Phil, you are correct that the image you cited does need to be improved. In the original resolution you can tell that input turns into ones and zeros rather than confetti – the shredder analogy certainly isn’t a desired one.
> Nothing is unfortunate, all these machines that tabulate votes electronically must be banned nationally.
My ‘unfortunate’ comment above refers specifically to Populex’s certification effort being sunk because they were working with the wrong lab. Are you aware of Ciber’s history and the reasons for their deaccreditation by the EAC?
Supposing that the machines are not banned nationally, do you not believe that they should be designed better than the ones currently in use? In my jurisdiction I vote on DREs without paper records that are riddled with known vulnerabilities and whose manufacturers hide design and testing information behind a proprietary screen. Glass Box Voting is working to build a system that can offer greater assurance in the integrity of the votes cast, with a commitment to transparent design and test methodology.
> The sample ballots are printed somewhere, why are not real ballots printed as well? There is only one answer: Corruption.
Are you asserting that corruption does not occur in paper only systems?
> I am simply giving you the best advice your EVER going to hear.
Wow. Um, thanks.