[Mike Irwin]

Fairfax County, Virginia.

It's going to be something of a moot point, as only 8 or 9 machines were involved, and won't contain enough votes to swing any of the elections...

However, the new system apparently had some malfunctions.

The machines were, during the day, removed from precincts to be repaired without the voting tallies contained inside being secured.

Republican candidate for chair of the county supervisors Mychele Brickner's team filed a court petition, that was granted, to contest the counting of the votes on those machines.

Not sure what's going to happen now that she lost convincingly to her Democratic opponent.

These are not Diebold machines, I don't think, but IIRC are Winvote?

[Mike Irwin]

Here we go...

Link to article in the Washington (Com)Post...

Glitch prompts challenge to tallies in Fairfax County (http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/articles/A1397-
2003Nov5.html)


"Widespread problems with new touch-screen voting machines delayed election results in Fairfax County last night and led to a legal challenge by Republican officials.

Nine malfunctioning voting machines were removed for repair and then put back in service, a move that Fairfax Republicans said broke election law. Several hundred votes were under scrutiny, not enough to affect the outcome of countywide races.

A Circuit Court judge will hear arguments this morning on whether those votes should be set aside.

The new machines, meant to simplify voting, made the tallying of the votes more problematic. More than half of precinct officials resorted to the old-fashioned telephone to call in their numbers or even drove the results to headquarters, elections officials said. A handful of precincts resorted to paper ballots.

County elections officials said it was the slowest performance in memory for counting votes on election night. The problem came when precinct workers tried to electronically send results from the 953 new machines to election headquarters, unexpectedly overloading computer servers. (story continues at link)

[sm]

Interesing Mike.
Keep us posted if you will.

I didn't see our local news, but we here (central AR) had votes go to another district I'm told. No link, no futher word...just the feebs were gonna investigate, according to a message left on my recorder.

[Jim March]

And it's REALLY blowing up in California:

http://www.heraldtribune.com/apps/pbcs.dll/article?AID=@@2003311040586

[sm]

http://www.heraldtribune.com/apps/p...@@2003311040586
<snip>
Jim March, a Sacramento-based computer scientist and voter advocate who attended the meeting Monday, said the advisory panel's postponement was confirmation that Diebold has been using uncertified software - allegations he has been asserting for months.
<snip>

I've heard of this guy !! :D

Jim, my first thoughts on hearing of problems local to me, were the expose' you have found in CA. Then I read Mikes post, obviously more discrepensies around the country.

Kinda scary, instead of the places where you can only vote for one candidate...just rig the results to show all votes went for a canidate. I guess its more PC than some countries using threat of shooting family if one doesn't vote a certain way...Guns ain't PC you know.;)

[Mike Irwin]

Hey Jim,

We've discussed where I work before, SAIC...

What's interesting is that SAIC is apparently involved with the company that did the Fairfax County machines...

And the guy who won the election?

He's also an SAIC employee... :)

[Jim March]

Mike, the SAIC report in Maryland was woefully inadequate, and the redacting was just madness.

They noted that Windows CE was being used in the terminals, but failed completely to realize that CE has to be severely customized to whatever weird hardware the vendor is supplying, by the hardware vendor. Which in this case is Diebold, therefore it should have been certified (the source code analyzed by an FEC-approved testing lab, Wyle in this case).

That lack of certification means it's no more legal to use a Diebold touchscreen in an election than it is to give out free crack to voters at polling places. For more tech info on this, see also:

http://www.equalccw.com/sscomments2.pdf

or in HTML:

http://www.equalccw.com/sscomments2.html

Now come on, how do you MISS something like that?

And worse: the FEC regs say that "commercial off the shelf" ("COTS", in FEC-speak) software doesn't need cert. WinCE was passed off (falsely) as COTS. Well that means nobody is checking to make sure COTS software STAYS unmodified. So the Win2000 which is technically COTS at the central county vote collection system could be hacked to hell and gone.

The California SecState has apparantly realized Diebold has been using uncertified stuff in elections in Alameda County. Well DUH! We've had their entire EMail archives for two months now, there's DOZENS of cases of that described all through there. Including use of GEMS 1.18.14 for the November 2002 election when it wasn't certified until December.

We've got eyewitnesses in Marin County and elsewhere, polling place volunteers, who watched these dufuses modem the results in to county elections HQ with cellular modems. THAT ain't certified at all.

And we got a very credible eyewitness account from Georgia that's just mind-boggling:

I just returned from voting and it was a very creepy experience. As I was filling out the forms prior to receiving my ballot activation card, I noticed a rather dorky-looking woman sitting in the corner of the room with a lap-top in front of her. She was avidly staring at the screen with her mouth slack. Her cell phone rang as I was handing over my forms and I heard her say, “Yeah, I’m watching 17-ARW and 17-DRW right now. It’s under control.” Then, she hung up. I got the card, strolled over to the booth and noticed that my Touch Screen was headed, “17-DRW” which disturbed me. I looked over at the dork and she was back to staring at her screen.

As an aside, I don’t see how anyone could slip extra cards into the machine without someone noticing. This was suggested at the symposium as a possible means of voting fraud. First of all, the EVM’s aren’t really in booths with curtains like the older systems had. Instead they are sitting on what look like flimsy, aluminum tube, folding tables with three panels about 18” high on the back and sides. Your body is completely exposed so I can’t imagine someone being able to sneak out fraudulent cards without being noticed. There were four of us voting at six machines and approximately 18 poll workers – six of whom were standing around watching the voters. If I had lingered too long, I'm sure someone would have come over to investigate.

Anyway, I cast my vote and walked toward the woman in the corner. I was prevented from passing between the folding tables where most of the poll workers were sitting by a woman who jumped up and blocked my way.

“May I help you,” she asked brightly.

“Yes, please,” I replied nicely, “Who is that woman in the corner?” This caused the dork to look up at me with an expression I can only call fright. I could see the word “Diebold” at the bottom of a badge she wore around her neck.

The poll worker answered, “That’s our technical aide in case we have any problems with the machines going down or whatever.”

“Oh, I see. Well, what is she doing right now?”

The poll worker’s smile dimmed and she appeared anxious while the Diebold dork’s eyes widened with alarm.

“You see,” I continued, “I overheard her saying that she was watching 17-DRW and I just voted at 17-DRW. I want to know if she can tell who I voted for...”

At this point, a large man with a Diebold badge blocked my view of the dork and said, “You need to leave now, mam. I’m sure you don’t want me to call security.”

“Excuse me,” I protested, “I’m only asking questions, quite politely, I might add.”

“If you have any questions, ask them of the Election Systems Administrator in the Secretary of State’s office.”

“Ah,” I sighed, “But, he doesn’t respond to my emails. Surely…” At this point, the man took hold of my arm and firmly moved me toward the door. I shook off his hand and left.

I’m now feeling mildly anxious about the whole thing. It was weird. What do you think was going on? Did they have a malfunction and didn’t want to admit it? I confess the idea of causing a scene entered my mind but I lost my nerve – I’m a little too old to risk going to jail like I did when I was a young rebel. Maybe I can get my husband to go back with me at closing time….

Jim again. Dunno what's up here, but it doesn't look good. There's any number of ways to do data communication from the terminals to a laptop but if so, it's...jeez, WILDLY illegal. Off-scale. Uncertified, it violates voter privacy, and if the data link is two-way, it's fraud city.

God, I could go on for DAYS. http://www.equalccw.com/voteprar.html

"Diebold" is a fancy way of saying "MASSIVE corporate ethics failure from hell on the same scale as Enron". And while Enron had their Arthur Anderson to cover up for 'em, sorry Mike but...Diebold has SAIC performing the same basic role as AA did for Enron.

[tunaman]

There is quite a controversy brewing over Diebold. I suggest that you guys read some of the links here: http://slashdot.org/search.pl?query=diebold Diebold's systems seem to be extremely full of security holes that would allow them control over elections. Recently, some internal Diebold documents were leaked and Diebold has been suing everybody left and right to keep these documents private. Excerpts and links to the full documents can be found here: http://why-war.com/features/2003/10/diebold.html#excerpts Probably one of the best quotes is here:

“Johnson County, KS will be doing Central Count for their mail in ballots. They will also be processing these ballots in advance of the closing of polls on election day. They would like to log into the Audit Log an entry for Previewing any Election Total Reports. They need this, to prove to the media, as well as, any candidates & lawyers, that they did not view or print any Election Results before the Polls closed. However, if there is a way that we can disable the reporting functionality, that would be even better.” [source: http://chroot.net/s/lists/rcr.w3archive/200202/msg00051.html ] (emphasis added) "

and another:

“I need some answers! Our department is being audited by the County. I have been waiting for someone to give me an explanation as to why Precinct 216 gave Al Gore a minus 16022 when it was uploaded. Will someone please explain this so that I have the information to give the auditor instead of standing here "looking dumb".” [source: http://chroot.net/s/lists/support.w3archive/200101/msg00068.html ]"

Read for yourself. Diebold apparently feels that they should have full control over the way these voting machines function, and that audit features should be able to be disabled. I ask, what purpose does disabling audit features serve? IMO, any electronic voting machine should provide the voter with a paper receipt of how they voted, which allows them to make sure their vote was counted correctly, and after these receipts should be collected in case of a recount. If no recount is called within a specific time, the collected receipts would be discarded.

[Leatherneck]

Letters (e-mail, I presume) in the Wash ComPost this morning relate tales of machines going down and having to go out to be re-booted (and re-certified, I hope), long lines for a low-turnout election, and having to vote with all the eyes in the polling place watch while you cast your vote. What progress! :rolleyes:

TC
TFL Survivor
and past employee of SAIC, AKA "Kentucky Fried Physics"

[Waitone]

Somebody better get a handle on it or war will break out.

When you screw around with the vote you are endangering the legitimacy of our form of government. Computers allow fewer, hidden people to diddle the election process. It has to be stopped.

Punch card ballots is the only way to end the controversey.

[Kharn]

Punch cards? :uhoh: I'd rather use the optical scanner system Maryland has. Its sorta like the ScanTron tests from grade school, you connect the tail and head of the arrow pointing at the person you want to vote for. When voting in person, I believe, we used Sharpies (I've only voted in person once, had to absentee every time since then, absentee ballots are provided a very, very tiny pencil to use), so there's no way in heck someone could mis-interpret a vote during a by-hand recount, unlike the hanging, dimpled, pregnant, etc chads from Flordia's punch cards.

Kharn

[Waitone]

I like punch cards because it leaves a physical object recording the vote which is not processed or digested by a computer. In other words the entire chain of evidence is visible front to end. The only problem with punchcards is complexity of the ballot (which is a function of the dominant political party) or failure of the dominant political party TO CLEAN THE FREAKIN' PUNCHCARD TRAYS OUT.

We can not afford to have any aspect of voting hidden from the public.

[Kharn]

Waitone:
One disadvantage of the punchcard system is the ability to complete multiple ballots at the same time, by simply stacking however many cards in the machine at the same time. (In testing, having a very thick stack of ballots in the machine would produce dimpled chads on the bottom cards, there was no other way dimpled chads could be produced) An optically scanned ballot leaves the same record behind (in a more permanent form, as there are no chads that could fall out with rough handling), but does not allow multiple ballots to be completed similtaneously.

Also, optically scanned ballots have the politician's name right next to the arrow, so you dont need a machine to verify who you voted for (without a machine, you cant tell how you voted on punch cards, IIRC).

Kharn

[Sean Smith]

So we've gone from paper chads to electronic chads. Progress! :D

[BrokenPaw]

Almost any decent computer hardware platform with an OS like WinCE et al is capable of using 802.11b wireless networking. It's not necessarily easy to spot a machine that has it, either, unless you're a hardware weenie and you know what to look for; my Sony Vaio PCG-GRT100P Laptop has the antenna built into the LCD monitor, and the electronic widgetry concealed somewhere deep in its bowels. 802.11b has a practical range of at least a couple hundred feet, depending upon building construction and terrain.

If a "touchscreen voting booth" has this kind of network interface in it, and the interface is left active, anyone with a laptop (and the proper access codes[0]) could have access to the machine without ever having to touch the machine. What's more, no one would even have to see any wires running to the booth, other than its power cable. Nothing, therefore, to tip off the sheeple.

This opens up the possibility of directed tampering (by the people who make the booths, who put the wireless LAN interfaces in so that they could tamper with the results) and undirected tampering (by people who are not known to the ones who made the booths, and who tamper with wireless networks for any number of reasons).

This whole sort of thing is...kind of my area of professional expertise. :D

I'm betting that the "dorky-looking woman" in Jim's Georgia account had a wireless link into the voting machines.

-BP

[0] Or a decent WLAN cracking tool

[Kharn]

BrokenPaw:
Arent there small devices that give a reading on the wireless network status of an area (letting the holder know if there's a network in the area, and how strong the signal is)?

Kharn

[BrokenPaw]

Arent there small devices that give a reading on the wireless network status of an area (letting the holder know if there's a network in the area, and how strong the signal is)? Yup. There are. This (http://www.thinkgeek.com/gadgets/electronic/6447/) is one of them. Unfortunately, all it tells you is that a network is present; you'd have to use other means to determine what devices are linked into the network.

-BP

[Kharn]

The WiFi detector is listed as having a directional antenna, wouldnt that lead you right towards any 802.11 device in the area (such as Dorky Woman's laptop or the voting consoles themselves)?
That would sure be interesting...

Kharn

[BrokenPaw]

Kharn: The technical answer is: It depends. ;) These things are designed more for finding regions with "ok" signal levels, in areas where the signal is weak overall. I'd bet that once you got to within 50 feet of any equipment, the thing's directional antenna would become useless as a dowser, because even "off-lobe", the signal would be strong enough to show max strength on the thing. Best use, I would guess, would be to check for the presence of a WLAN where one is not expected to be (for instance, case a polling place before, during, and after the election. If there's no WLAN present beforehand, and none there after, but there was one during polling hours, you almost have a smoking gun (so to speak).

Bring a witness.

Is it legal to take a video camera into a polling place?

-BP

[Jim March]

http://www.userfriendly.org/cartoons/archives/03nov/xuf006115.gif

http://ars.userfriendly.org/

:D

[Malone LaVeigh]

Interesting interview on Democracy Now:

http://www.democracynow.org/article.pl?sid=03/10/30/1624227&mode=thread&tid=25

To counter this, New Jersey Congressman Rush Holt introduced a bill in the House of Representatives called the Voter Confidence and Increased Accessibility Act. The measure would require all voting machines to produce an actual paper record by 2004 that voters can view to check the accuracy of their votes. The paper records can also be used by election officials to verify votes in the event of a computer malfunction, hacking, or other irregularity. Sounds like a pretty good idea, huh?
AMY GOODMAN: What's been the response of Republicans in Congress?

[Reply from Rush Holt]: Silence.

I have about 60 co-sponsors on the bill, not a single Republican, and I've pleaded with the Republicans and said, look, this is not a partisan issue. This is not payback for Florida. This is not an attempt to get at the chairman of the -- of the manufacturer of these voting machines. This is just to preserve the sanctity of the central act in our democracy.

And the silence scares me.

You know, a number of my colleagues, Republican colleagues, have come up to me expressing some interest in this, some concern about the voting. I've explained my bill to them. They said that sounds good, let me go back and talk to my staff and presumably talk to the leadership.

And I never hear from them again.

[Jim March]

Diebold, ES&S *and* Sequoia are all led by major GOP-connected people.

I'm not at all surprised that the GOP doesn't want this to blow up. It'll blow up in their direction, which is largely unfair; I do NOT think a conspiracy that actually connects these lunatic companies to the GOP HQ would survive, too many people would know.

Well, sorry GOP, y'all are gonna have to face this sooner or later. It's turning into a pop culture phenomenon.

Next week I've got a writer from a VERY major magazine coming over in the evening (after 5:00pm) for an interview.

[Desertdog]

I voted with one of those scanning machines in the Davis recall election and I think that is the way they should go, not the electronic machine.
We went to a table and filled out a paper ballot, it went into the scanner and stayed there. A paper ballot if they ever need a recount, and I figure it could check for errors and count the ballots at the same time. One machine took care of everyone that voted there. Simple, easy, cheap.

[Malone LaVeigh]

I'm not at all surprised that the GOP doesn't want this to blow up. It'll blow up in their direction, which is largely unfair; I do NOT think a conspiracy that actually connects these lunatic companies to the GOP HQ would survive, too many people would know.My first impulse is to agree, but as I write this, I have to ask, "Then why don't they take the lead in a simple proposal like the bill in question?"

It would deflect the "blow up" away from them and fix the problem without assigning any blame for past stuff. Sounds pretty simple to me.

[cuchulainn]

Commerce’s NIST Launches Voting Standards Initiative at December Symposium

Symposium to Bring Together Stakeholders in Building Trust, Confidence in Voting Systems

FOR IMMEDIATE RELEASE:
Oct. 24, 2003

NIST and Help America Vote Act of 2002 (FACT SHEET (http://www.nist.gov/public_affairs/factsheet/voting_symposium.htm))

Philip Bulman
(301) 975-5661

As part of its responsibilities under the Help America Vote Act of 2002 (HAVA), the Commerce Department’s National Institute of Standards and Technology (NIST) will hold a symposium on building trust and confidence in voting systems at the agency’s Gaithersburg, Md., headquarters on Dec. 10-11, 2003. The two-day event will bring together a host of people with an interest in election technology, including federal, state and local election officials; university researchers; independent testing laboratories; election law experts; hardware and software vendors; and others concerned about or involved with the latest developments in voting systems.

Enacted by Congress in October 2002, the HAVA legislation gave NIST a key role in helping realize nationwide improvements in voting systems by January 2006.

NIST plans to use the December symposium as a springboard for its collaboration with the election community prior to the implementation of the HAVA. The meeting agenda will include four panel discussions on key issues for improving voting systems:

specification, testability and qualification;
security and openness;
usability and accessibility; and
next steps/consensus issues.
World-renowned experts in the voting standards arena are scheduled to take part in the symposium panels. Confirmed participants include:

Jim Adler, founder, president and CEO of VoteHere, a manufacturer of electronic voting systems;
Donetta Davidson, Colorado Secretary of State and treasurer, National Association of Secretaries of State;
David Dill, professor of computer science at Stanford University, and initiator of the VerifiedVoting.org Web site;
Doug Jones, authority on computer voting, voting history expert, former chairman of the Iowa Board of Examiners for Voting Machines and Electronic Voting Systems, and associate professor of computer science at the University of Iowa;
Rebecca Mercuri, electronic voting systems expert, assistant professor of computer science at Bryn Mawr College and research fellow at Harvard University’s John F. Kennedy School of Government;
Avi Rubin, associate professor of computer science and technical director of the Information Security Institute at Johns Hopkins University; and
Tom Wilkey, National Association of State Elections Directors, and former director, New York State Board of Elections.
NIST's Information Technology Laboratory, which is hosting the symposium and will coordinate NIST’s HAVA activities, has considerable expertise in the technical areas that will be the focus of the event. Additionally, NIST researchers frequently work with colleagues in industry, academic institutions and other government agencies to develop standards for emerging and rapidly changing information technologies.

For more information on the Building Trust and Confidence in Voting Systems symposium, including an online registration form, go to http://vote.nist.gov.

As a non-regulatory agency in the U.S. Department of Commerce’s Technology Administration, NIST develops and promotes measurement, standards and technology to enhance productivity, facilitate trade and improve the quality of life. For more information, visit www.nist.gov.

[Old Fuff]

And now Diebold has some more troubles .....


(Quote) Electronic Voting Firm Sued Over Threats
By RACHEL KONRAD

SAN JOSE, Calif. (AP) - Free speech advocates sued a manufacturer of electronic voting machines Tuesday, demanding it stop sending legal threats to groups that publish company documents leaked by a hacker.

Voting activists who have received the cease-and-desist orders, including students from at least 20 universities, claim the documents raise serious security concerns about Diebold Inc., which has more than 50,000 touchscreen voting terminals nationwide.

The Electronic Frontier Foundation and Stanford University's Cyberlaw Clinic filed for a temporary restraining order in federal court. (Unquote)

There is much more in the full article:

http://webcenters.compuserve.com/compuserve/news/story.jsp?floc=FF-APO-1700&idq=/ff/story/0001%2F20031104%2F205249458.htm&sc=1700

Doesn't look like the can keep sweeping it under the rug anymore.