I found a Diebold Memo!

[ck4829]

Don't worry, I found it online, and it was obtained legally.

The thing that's illegal is what Diebold is doing.

"The reset mem card bug is potentially serious, but probably won't effect anyone. Memory cards were not being reset to not programmed when exiting election mode, and as a result the version number would not be incremented when they were reprogrammed after entering again. Just make sure all your memory cards have been reprogrammed since the last time you entered election mode, and you will be okay."

http://www.sims.berkeley.edu/~ping/diebold/lists/announce.w3archive/199902/msg00017.html

[electropop]

1. Hoo boy.

Tell me again what was wrong with paper?

[JDPriestly]

2. So, what does this mean in lay language?

[ck4829]

4. I don't know what it means either

But, the Diebold person admitted that it was serious.

[Boredtodeath]

11. What it means

When the polls close, one must go into the Administrator mode (with a special card) and choose "End Election" from the menu presented.

Only after End Election has been chosen can the end of day reports be run and the accumulation process begin.

Since it wasn't "ending the election" the reports could not be completed, and voting on the PCMCIA card could continue - forever.

[flyarm]

13. ohhhhhhh wow...get that to Conyers now!!!!!!!!!!!

please get that to Conyers immediately!!

and great catch!!..the wonderful minds here truely amaze me!!

[Hissyspit]

3. 'Just make sure...'

Oh, yeah. I feel so much better now about 'One Man One Vote' democracy in America.

[benburch]

5. Good Catch! nt

[sabra]

6. go to the index of this directory to get the low down

http://www.sims.berkeley.edu/~ping/diebold/

[jsamuel]

7. Sounds like the executable on the mem card was not changing

That could result in Kerry votes going to Bush or votes never getting reset after they are uploaded already.

The reason I think this is because the executable on the mem card is what interracts with the voting machine and what interracts with the computer when the vote tallies are being sent for tabulation. In other words, this is the central most important part of the vote security process.

Just guessing though.

[O.M.B.inOhio]

8. so if one had access to a potentially rigged machine....

what would one do to detect the manipulation or "open" the code for inspection? Just dreaming, but would like to be perpared should the opportunity arise.

[dbonds]

9. Sounds like it means it could be preloaded with votes.

[GreenPartyVoter]

10. Have you posted this in the election forum?

[sabra]

12. this is old news. but still very important.

meaning the memos have been known of for a couple of years now...

[Boredtodeath]

14. Here's the rest of that memo - MORE important

The poster stuff has lasted a week without exposing any egregious errors, so I think 1.5.8 is pretty stable. The Programmers Choice(TM) releases are 1.5.2 and 1.5.8.

The "poster stuff" is referring to uploading of election results. "Poster Completed" = Upload Completed.

1.5.8 Feb-24-99

* Fix internal error in race editor when using district rotation in options tab (1.4.1).
* Fix bug where exiting election mode would not reset mem cards to not programmed (1.5.6)

This is just a tiny portion of all that is, was and always will be wrong with electronic voting.