Voting Machine Wars (again) and why I'm in Virginia

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Jim March

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Leaving tomorrow AM for home though. Here's the fallout:

http://www.bbvforums.org/cgi-bin/forums/board-auth.cgi?file=/1954/47342.html

It actually reads better as a PDF, as the embedded graphic layout is much better:

http://www.blackboxvoting.org/hammertime.pdf

Upshot: we have credible reports of voting machines running in Virginia that are fake. That is, the vendor shipped radically altered parts into the field contrary to what was in the certified, tested system. It's the first allegation of that sort...all previous discussions on bad certifications have involved software swaps, not hardware.

Pictures of the differences leaked:

http://www.bbvforums.org/forums/messages/73/differences_in_machines-44965.pdf

To prove it, we'd have to compare the certified parts list with what's in the field...but it turns out that due to multiple snafus, the paperwork for the original test lab certification isn't on file in ANY government office and therefore there's no way to confirm the authenticity of systems in the field.

On paper the certification process for commercial airliners and voting machines is broadly similar. In practice, the difference in professionalism is just stark. If there was a merest whiff of a hint of bad parts in a 747, papers WOULD be checked.

With voting machines, papers CAN'T be?

:uhoh:
 
I am not opposed to the concept of electronic voting, But I am very concerned with the implementation.
From learning to secure my own computer, I have learned that security is something that is widely ignored by the public and even those in the computer industry.
I would like to see a secure system used nation wide. That is not happening.
 
Gyaaahhhhhh . . . . that ain't good.

Thanks, Jim. I have a question about getting CCW information in California I'd like to PM you about, but don't rush to it. It'll wait.
 
I am somewhat surprised that this thread has gone all day with so little comment.
With all the talk of voting and who is the best choice, wouldn't it be nice to know that your vote is counted. And that it was cast for your choice and not changed by the machine.
This is as important an issue as who to vote for in the first place.
 
IMO there must be a hardcopy of each ballot, and random hand-tallies from same must be compared to electronically collated results before results are certified.

Also voter registration must be renewed in person every four years.

Burdensome on the infirm, multitasking busy folk, lazy folk and bureaucrats? Yes. So what?!
 
FYI -- Last month the Governor of VA signed into law legislation (HB2707, SB840) requiring that only optical scan machines using paper ballots can be used in VA. It also bans the use of any type of wireless communication by voting machines.
 
Yeah, on NEW systems. In some VA counties these ghastly AVS systems may still be in use through '08.

But ignoring the issues with this particular critter: look at how screwed up the certification and oversight process is. That affects ALL electronic voting, even optical scan.
 
RNB65,thats good to know. This law does exactly what?

Here's what he found:

Per the one person now left at the Virginia State Board of Elections handling voting system certification (Barbara Cockrell), the state board approved WinVote changes after the changes had already been done.

What was involved in approving these changes? Well, not code review, according to Cockrell. So literally anything could have been inserted into the voting machine programming purporting to be something else – a hidden midday wireless results broadcast, the digital notes for a small Bach partita -- the point is, no one examined what the changes really were at all.

It's voting rights blasphemy. WinVote is used in Virginia, Pennsylvania and Mississippi. Citizens living in these locations only get to exercise their Constitutional right to choose their representatives if AVS programmers allow it. No citizen oversight whatsoever is permitted, forcing citizens to trust the government and its private vendors.

At no time since has AVS obtained updated certifications at the federal level for any product.
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Whats wrong with like a scantron?
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There's still a ton of ways to rig even a good optical scan election.

1) Who decides which ballots to scan? Fail to scan ballots from the "wrong" type of voter geographically, you can rig an election.

2) If mail-in ballots are scanned before election day, is anybody using those as a secret "Zogby poll from hell" and illicitly reporting accurate forecasting to a political party office?

3) What about the central registration of voters at the state level? There's a private-source electronic database controlling incoming voter registration data - if it's "slow" in certain areas, that can rig an election. Or a "felony purge" can be way, WAY too broad covering names only loosely like those in criminal records.

4) If you're going paper ballots, where do the blank ballots come from? Are they being tracked? Diebold has a ballot printing plant in Everett WA that has a stated rate of mis-prints (scrap) of 25%, far in excess of normal printing plant standards for complex documents (6% to 8% or so). Are extra pieces of paper getting printed? Throughout the recount process in the WA state governors race of 2004, bags of previously uncounted paper ballots kept turning up. Did they come out the back door of that Everett plant?

This is just for starters...

There's ways around some of these issues. I'll post details of a good system later tonight.
 
AVS WinVote

Aw nuts, that's what I get to vote on here in the city.

Do you think Mayor Bloomberg could spare a couple of investigators to aid the Commonwealth of Vriginia in straightening this out? ;)

John
 
Seems like someone in VA has been eyeing the political workings in Chicago with some envy. Everyone "knows" how upright and honest the voting system in Chicago is.

The problem is not that a system is electronic or paper. The problem is can the system be subverted by someone to alter the results in a desired manner.
Both electronic and physical means of recording votes can be tampered with.
The difference is that an electronic tabulation can be played with remotely with little physical evidence and only an electronic audit trail that is useful only if it is used by honest people.

A paper vote system can be abused but is harder to alter and abuse due to the sheer volume of material involved. No one person or small group of persons can alter a vast quantity of paper ballots without risk of being caught. With an electronic voting record one really savvy person with access can wreak havoc and potentially go undetected. That is one of the advantages to the old "count em by hand" "stack em in a box" paper ballots.
 
Sort of a related question: How the the popular vote affect the electoral college? I've never understood how exactly my vote actually influences the decision of the electoral college. Nobody ever bothered to teach that part of government to me.
 
How the the popular vote affect the electoral college?
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Generally, if you win the popular vote in a state, then all the electoral votes go to the winner. So you can be president of the US with 26% of the actual votes (just win 51% of the vote in 51% of the state populations).

More precisely, from the Wiki:

On election day, voters cast ballots for slates of Presidential Electors pledged to the candidates for president and vice president. In most states, the candidates that win the popular vote have their entire slate of Electors elected. At the time of the state canvass of the vote, the Secretary of State (or equivalent) signs a special form called the Certificate of Ascertainment which sets forth the people elected to the office of Presidential Elector, along with the number of votes cast for every party's slate of Elector nominees. These Certificates of Ascertainment are forwarded to the Office of the Vice President to be used to verify that the people who cast the electoral votes are in fact the people who were elected for that purpose.

Two states do not elect the Presidential Electors as a single slate. Maine and Nebraska elect two electors by a statewide ballot and choose their remaining Electors by congressional district. The method has been used in Maine since 1972 and Nebraska since 1991, though neither has split its electoral votes in modern elections.
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To further confuse matters, occasionally the electors don't vote for their party. I know one elector (Roger MacBride) voted for a Libertarian in the 1970s.

Most of the world does it differently (i.e. has some kind of proportional representation).
 
I think if someone is tampering with a voting machine the punishment should be locking someone up and throwing away the key. That's basically placing a group of people in power that we, as a majority, did not ask for or give permission to.

If our votes don't even count and just anyone can be put into power, how's that any different than the former USSR? I mean, what's the point of saying we're in a free country?
 
Generally, if you win the popular vote in a state, then all the electoral votes go to the winner. So you can be president of the US with 26% of the actual votes (just win 51% of the vote in 51% of the state populations).
Click to expand...
My politics proffessor(and the text book) explained that the popular vote is actually for the electors. You put down a repub for pres, and the effect is a vote for the repub electors. Made me curious about what would happen if you allowed people to request a ballot listing the electors seperately. You'd then be able to vote for, say half libertarian electors, and then half repubs. No need for an amendment to make the change either.
 
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