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RE: Paper ballots this November? - 8/7/2008 10:23:59 PM

Vendaval

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quote:

ORIGINAL: DomKen

The strange thing about all this is the comapnies making these voting machines are mostly companies that make ATM's. So they clearly know how to make physically secure machines and how to produce software able to pass securitystandards in the financial industry but for some reason these voting machines have serious issues all over the place.

Yes, that is very strange.

For instance I just heard about an issue with one of Diebold's systems that has an IDR port, a wireless infrared port commonly used for synching PDA's and the like to desktop computers. This port is behind a locked cover but instead right on the side of the machine. California is apparently telling any jurisdiction that uses this model to cover the port with tape. Can you imagine a bank tolerating an ATM with an exposed interface port of any kind?

No, of course not. And having 4 years to fix the security problem has not been enough?

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Post #: 21

RE: Paper ballots this November? - 8/7/2008 11:38:09 PM

DomKen

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This has been something of a farce all around.

The software in the systems available after the 2000 elections in many cases had never been certified secure by independent testers. Diebold routinely makes the source code for their ATM's available for review by independent testers but flatly refused to allow their voting machines to undergo that same testing. When they were finally forced to do so the machines failed.

Those same systems also did not provide any sort of physical receipt for use as a audit or recount tool. Some machines only kept running totals and not each ballot in memory so it was impossible to determine if someone had voted properly after the voter finished voting. When the feds and a bunch of states started telling Diebold and the other companies involved that they had to start providing a paper receipt for recount and auditing purposes they tried claiming the machines could not have such a device added.

Programming the ballots into the machines had to be done at Diebold and then a Diebold tech would go out and physically put a memory card, think camera memory, into each voting machine. This of course was expensive for the election commissions and raised suspicions that Diebold or a tech could easily commit untraceable fraud.

Some suspicious results also popped up when the touch screens actually got used in elections. One fairly well known case was a losing candidate getting precisely the same percentage of the vote in every precinct using the touch screen machines. It could have been coincedence but with no audit trail it raised eyebrows.

All in all I'll take the optical scan machines that at least result in a physical ballot.

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RE: Paper ballots this November? - 8/8/2008 3:20:59 AM

candystripper

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What I really wonder is whether legal teams have already been assembled in swing states to litigate whatever the election results may be. I think Gore did this country a huge injustice by setting a precedent of taking an election and turning it into a court battle -- whether you feel the election was properly decided (at any point). I suspect this phenom will recur now in many jurisdictions and we will be the subjects of courts, not our own elected officials.

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RE: Paper ballots this November? - 8/8/2008 6:46:04 AM

bipolarber

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Actually, I think the great disservice was done by the FL election comission, who didn't really do an actual recount. They just did a batch verification, which didn't really verify anything... (did you watch the movie "Recount" on HBO?) Instead, we let a republican member of the supreme court of that state decide for... the republican! (big surprise there!)

And the country gets stuck with the first four years of President "Peanut," and the self-appointed ventriloquist VP Cheany.

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Post #: 24

RE: Paper ballots this November? - 8/8/2008 2:03:55 PM

Vendaval

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What is the difference between an actual recount and a batch verification?

quote:

ORIGINAL: bipolarber
Actually, I think the great disservice was done by the FL election comission, who didn't really do an actual recount. They just did a batch verification, which didn't really verify anything... y.