Florida Touchscreen Votes Don't Cut It . . .

[CaptnKirk]

Seems that it would violate the State Voting Laws

So the 'O-Fishals' don't get their way in Electronic Voting, much to Diebold's sorrow.

There must be a way to recount and verify the vote in a close election.
Now Glenda Hood, who used to be the Mayor of Orlando is the official that replaced
Katherine Harris under Bubba Jeb, and she aims to maintain that subservient role.
When I lived there in O-Town Glenda Dood-Witch had a habit of awardding her husband's
company(s) no bid contracts from the city for just about anything you could imagine.
Partisan Politics run deep when there is an established 'Good-Ole-Boy(Babe)' network.
-------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------
<CLIP>
A state rule barring the 15 Florida counties with touchscreen voting from conducting manual recounts is at odds with state law, which requires hand recounts in some close elections, a judge ruled Friday.
A coalition including government watchdogs and other interest groups sued the state, arguing the law requires provisions for hand recounts in every county, no matter what voting technology is used.

Administrative Law Judge Susan Kirkland agreed, writing that state law clearly contemplates "that manual recounts will be done on each certified voting system, including the touchscreen voting systems."

With a primary election Tuesday and more than half the state's voters in counties that use touchscreens, it is not clear what those counties will do.

Secretary of State Glenda Hood, who issued the ruling preventing manual recounts in touchscreen counties in April, was considering appealing Friday's decision, a spokeswoman said. An appeal would keep Hood's rule in place.

Elections supervisors in some of the 15 counties with touchscreens had asked the state what they should do about a law requiring manual recounts when elections are particularly close, because the machines the counties use are not programmed to create a paper record of each vote.

The Division of Elections issued the rule in April saying that because touchscreens do not let people vote for the same candidate twice or unintentionally fail to vote in a particular race, there was no reason for touchscreen counties to conduct hand recounts.

"The touchscreen machines were put in place to avoid the problems that were encountered in the 2000 election," said Jenny Nash, a spokeswoman for Hood who criticized Friday's ruling. "This ruling is a step backward to that time."

Florida's voting system has been under scrutiny since 2000, when it took five weeks of legal maneuvering and some recounting before Republican George W. Bush was declared president over Democrat Al Gore.

 

[Format C:]

From the same article...

Kurt Browning, the elections supervisor in Pasco County, which has touchscreens, said his county had no plan for recounting by hand, and said there was no practical way to do so.

But Vicki Cannon, the supervisor of elections in rural Nassau County, north of Jacksonville, said she could do a hand recount of touchscreen votes if the election were close enough to require it.

"Certainly we could if the state directed us to," Cannon said. "I would assume that we would print our ballot records, and count the candidates' names. Time consuming, maybe. Difficult? I don't think so."

Sounds like the judge made the proper decision if there is indeed a way to perform a "manual recount". If there isn't then I don't see how the machines can legally be allowed to be used until the law is modified. So we may end up dealing with Chad Part II. Great. Just great. Now if only we could do something about all those convicted felons, dead people, and dual registered New Yorkers that will no doubt be voting for the Dems, again.

 

[SViscusi]

Originally posted by: Format C:
Now if only we could do something about all those convicted felons, dead people, and dual registered New Yorkers that will no doubt be voting for the Dems, again.

You could do eliminate all those people who happen to have names similar to felons. You could put out fliers saying that tickets will have to be paid at the election booth, or that election day has been moved to a different date, or you could just not count the votes. Oh wait that already happened 4 years ago.


Don't be a asshole and turn this into a partisan thing. :disgust:

 

[ElFenix]

wasn't it the paper votes that caused all this mess to begin with?

 

[conjur]

With Deibold putting that programmer (who embezzled money from a law firm via a back-door) on their board, electronic voting scares the hell out of me.

An update:
Electronic-Vote Critics Urge Changes to System
http://story.news.yahoo.com/ne...nm/campaign_hacking_dc

WASHINGTON (Reuters) - Voting activists on Wednesday enlisted computer experts, a trained monkey and a man on a hunger strike in a last-minute pitch to convince officials to improve the security of electronic vote-counting systems.

With six weeks to go before the Nov. 2 presidential election, activists said officials still have time to set up a paper trail as a counterweight to an electronic voting system they portrayed as wide open to manipulation.

"It's not too late; there are some security measures we can put in place," said Bev Harris, executive director of the activist group Black Box Voting.

The debate over electronic voting has largely centered on touch-screen systems like Diebold Inc.'s AccuVote-TS, which will be used by roughly one in three voters this November.

But a far greater threat is posed by the software used to tabulate votes on the county level, which counts not only electronic votes but those cast using traditional paper-based methods, Harris and others said.

"The touch-screen machines that we've been focusing our attention on, they're just the tip of the iceberg," said Joan Krawitz, co-founder of the National Ballot Integrity Project.

At a press conference, computer-security experts demonstrated what they said were flaws in tabulating software made by Diebold and Sequoia Voting Systems.

Experts showed ways they could alter vote totals without a password, record a vote for one candidate as a vote for another, or simply erase the vote totals completely.


'NOT REAL-WORLD'

They also showed a video of a chimpanzee hitting two computer keys -- "delete" and "enter" -- to erase records that vote totals had been altered.

Diebold and Sequoia spokesmen said people were unlikely to get access to make any changes, and any attempts to alter the vote would be caught by security procedures already in place.

"It's not a real-world scenario," said Sequoia spokesman Alfie Charles. "It's unfortunate that they use disingenuous tactics to try to frighten the electorate this close to an election."

But Harris remains unconvinced. "I have yet to find a computer professional anywhere who says this is an adequate design, an acceptable design, or a design that makes any sense," she said.

A pale-looking man named John Kenny said he was on a hunger strike until the election to publicize the issue. He said he had lost 12 pounds so far.

While it is too late to fix such flaws, officials should ensure that they have a paper backup of vote counts on every level, Harris and other activists said.

Officials should print up paper ballots rather than relying on touch-screen systems, and print out vote totals in each precinct and deliver them by hand to make sure centralized vote-counting computers are working properly, they said.

Congress has authority to force local officials to improve their procedures if they are reluctant to do so, they said.

But it has so far shown little interest in voting security, and bills that would require touch-screen systems to print out votes have failed to make it out of the committee level.

 

[CycloWizard]

This brings up the question, yet again, why is Diebold still in the voting systems business? Further, why isn't anyone else? I can write a program in ten minutes that does the job with 100% accuracy and sends the results to a database on a central server for instant counting, and I'm far from a programming guru. Someone else needs to step up to the plate and make something that works. :thumbsdown:

 

[Vic]

I'm voting by mail. While it may be state law that everyone votes by mail in Oregon, IMO people everywhere else would be wise to do the same.

 

[sandorski]

Just put a simple ribbon printer(similar to a stores Till) on it, have it Print out the persons voted for(actual names, no Chads, no bads) and be done with it. It couldn't be any simpler and boggles my mind that it wasn't conceived that way in the first place..

 

[Vic]

Originally posted by: sandorski
Just put a simple ribbon printer(similar to a stores Till) on it, have it Print out the persons voted for(actual names, no Chads, no bads) and be done with it. It couldn't be any simpler and boggles my mind that it wasn't conceived that way in the first place..

shhh... 😉

 

[BaliBabyDoc]

I find it curious that so many elected officials are trying so hard to PREVENT a manual recounting of ballots. In many countries (even developed ones) they still count votes by hand. If there's any kind of dispute . . . they count them again by hand.

If the panhandle of Florida only used touchscreens and places like Broward and Dade had "countable" ballots, Republicans would have screamed bloody murder during the recount of 2000. Oh nevermind, I forgot that Republicans screamed bloody murder b/c they didn't want ANY votes recounted.

 

[CycloWizard]

Originally posted by: sandorski
Just put a simple ribbon printer(similar to a stores Till) on it, have it Print out the persons voted for(actual names, no Chads, no bads) and be done with it. It couldn't be any simpler and boggles my mind that it wasn't conceived that way in the first place..

Better yet, make them type in the names of the person they want to vote for. If they can't spell it, they can't vote. 😀

 

[Spencer278]

Originally posted by: sandorski
Just put a simple ribbon printer(similar to a stores Till) on it, have it Print out the persons voted for(actual names, no Chads, no bads) and be done with it. It couldn't be any simpler and boggles my mind that it wasn't conceived that way in the first place..

Ok let say the machine prints out the votes. Now I go to vote and steal the paper. Now do you use the machine count or just throw out the votes because they can't be hand recounted. Any secure voting machine has to have counting and voting complete independent.

 

[sandorski]

Originally posted by: Spencer278

Originally posted by: sandorski
Just put a simple ribbon printer(similar to a stores Till) on it, have it Print out the persons voted for(actual names, no Chads, no bads) and be done with it. It couldn't be any simpler and boggles my mind that it wasn't conceived that way in the first place..

Ok let say the machine prints out the votes. Now I go to vote and steal the paper. Now do you use the machine count or just throw out the votes because they can't be hand recounted. Any secure voting machine has to have counting and voting complete independent.

Ballots have always had the risk of being stolen, so I think the concern is misplaced.

 

[Spencer278]

Originally posted by: sandorski

Originally posted by: Spencer278

Originally posted by: sandorski
Just put a simple ribbon printer(similar to a stores Till) on it, have it Print out the persons voted for(actual names, no Chads, no bads) and be done with it. It couldn't be any simpler and boggles my mind that it wasn't conceived that way in the first place..

Ok let say the machine prints out the votes. Now I go to vote and steal the paper. Now do you use the machine count or just throw out the votes because they can't be hand recounted. Any secure voting machine has to have counting and voting complete independent.

Ballots have always had the risk of being stolen, so I think the concern is misplaced.

But anyone one can see the ballot box. No one is able to see the machine. Have a print addes an extra point of failure instead of reducing failures. It creates the questions about which total to use the increase the ways voting can be tampered with.

 

[XZeroII]

Originally posted by: ElFenix
wasn't it the paper votes that caused all this mess to begin with?

No, the problem was between the door to the cubicle voting booth and the voting machine.

 

[cquark]

Originally posted by: CycloWizard
This brings up the question, yet again, why is Diebold still in the voting systems business? Further, why isn't anyone else? I can write a program in ten minutes that does the job with 100% accuracy and sends the results to a database on a central server for instant counting, and I'm far from a programming guru. Someone else needs to step up to the plate and make something that works. :thumbsdown:

There are other voting companies like ES&amp;S, but ES&amp;S (technically, its precursor AIS) was founded by Bob and Todd Urosevich. Bob moved to Diebold to head the elections division. Todd's still an important executive at ES&amp;S. Together their companies will count about 80% of the vote in the 2004 presidential election.

 

[conjur]

Mysterious touchscreen voting machine found
http://www.usatoday.com/news/p...hine_x.htm?POE=NEWISVA

ANNAPOLIS, Md. (AP) ? Members of the State Board of Elections were surprised to hear reports Tuesday that Diebold touchscreen voting machines similar to those used in Maryland were found abandoned recently on a street and in a bar in Baltimore.
Joseph Torre, voting systems and procurement director for the agency, confirmed that one machine was found, but assured board members it did not belong to Maryland.

"It wasn't one of ours," he said. "All 16,009 units are present and accounted for."

"That takes your breath away," board member Joan Beck said.

Torre said he was aware of only one machine being found, although election officials from Baltimore said they got a second call from someone saying he had found two machines on the sidewalk. He was told to notify the state agency, but Torre said no call was received.

Torre said the machine that was turned in did not have a state identification number on it and the serial number did not match the number of any of the machines purchased by the state. He said Diebold Election Systems had been asked to check the serial number to try to determine where the machine might have come from.

David Bear, a Diebold spokesman, said he was not aware that a machine had been turned in.

Asked about the possible origin of the machine, Torre said, "You can buy one on eBay."

Yeah...this election is going to instill so much confidence in the voting public. :roll:

 

[conjur]

http://www.washingtonpost.com/...s/evoting/evoting.html

Esp. check out the video on electronic voting.