USA TODAY Front Page Report is a Big Step

[Senator]

From BradBlog...

Primary voting-machine troubles raise concerns for '06
By Jim Drinkard, USA TODAY

WASHINGTON — Problems using voting machines in the Texas and Illinois primaries this month have reinforced fears that the 2006 elections may be beset with glitches.

--

[drm604]

1. K&R

:kick:

[NVMojo]

2. I bet they will have it under control, yeah right!

snip...

The task is manageable, counters Michelle Shafer of Sequoia Voting Systems, an equipment maker that has customers in Pennsylvania and 19 other states. "We have seen this coming and have ramped up as best we can," and will be ready by November, she says.

...snip

it all depends on who one views this comment ...

[MadMaddie]

3. Wow the Rocket Scientist are awake today.....it's only taken

how many years now?

[RufusEarl]

4. They're talking about my vote,

I'm one of the many that are being disenfranchise with E-voting machines. "Help America Vote Act" my ass!

[Amaryllis]

17. They meant to say Hack America's Vote Act. Typo.

[EST]

5. Illinois has a long history of crooked polling.

Even before the current crop of gop-inspired, machine enabled election fraud.
I live in a very rural area and the voting process, unfortunately using an E S & S model 100 large paper ballot scanner, looks very solid.
I can't track the numbers and any fraud in collecting and collating results may well be fraught with malignant opportunity, but at the polling place, the process is exemplary.
Nice, big (huge) paper ballots make reading and coloring in the balloons easy, even for the visually impaired, and the process of verifying voter registration is simplicity, itself. Four or five booths, even with only one scanner, eliminate protracted waiting periods.
Anyone may vote in any primary, r or d, although my request for a dem ballot does earn me a few questioning looks from the hangers-around. At 6'4' and over an eighth of a ton in heft, I don't feel particularly intimidated, although a light complexion may help. Friendly, helpful poll workers make it an enjoyable experience.

[Bill Bored]

10. Any idea what the random auditing requirement is in IL?

Your experience sounds OK so far, but unless there are random hand counts and other safeguards, there is still some risk.

[EST]

11. No, I don't.

Of course the big push to DREs hasn't come this far, yet.
My intention is to do some nosing around.

[BeFree]

14. While nosing around...

...ask yourself if there is any way they can prove the votes were counted correctly. Then ask the officials. If you have any, ANY votes counted, tabulated, or calculated by electronics, - DRE or Scannned - then ask how they can prove to you that it was done correctly. If you have honest officials they will tell you, as my supervisor told me (DRE) "NO, I can't prove your vote was counted correctly."

Gawd Damn! They can't prove the elction wasn't stolen! Doesn't that piss you off? It pisses me off, up, and around. Don't stand for it any longer!

[hedda_foil]

12. IL random auditing - 5% of DRE VVPATs only.

Since the toilet paper VVPATs on the Sequoia Edge are almost unreadable, when they haven't jammed or failed during the election, it's all too likely they'll hand-scan the bar codes on the paper trail. Opscan ballots don't have to be randomly -- though that's where we have to go this year if at all possible.

[longship]

6. Chaos is our friend now

The Repugs are about to reap the whirlwind of the chaos that they have inflicted on our nation, this world. Unfortunately, it means that times are tough and will remain so long after ChimpCo is gone. In the meantime, chaos will reign, and will soon rein the Repugs in. They can't go down this same road much further. Things are breaking. The people are tired. The Press is coming alive.

Not long now. Not long.

[RufusEarl]

7. I do hope you're correct, i can't take it much longer.

[Land Shark]

8. Could we please cut the crap with "glitches"?

"Don't Glitch on Me" says this link over in General Discussion
<http://www.democraticunderground.com/discuss/duboard.php?az=view_all&address=364x739414>



The Glitches are certainly spread out over both the visible and invisible portions of the electronic voting process. the visible glitches will get dealt with, the invisible ones they have no reason to deal with because there's no negative feedback on it. So while the "glitches" may decline in the visible spectrum which is the smaller part, they'll still rage on in the rest, it will just SEEM LIKE A SMOOTH ELECTION.

The USA Today article already says it: we're early in the process, so expect more "glitches". TRANSLATION: with progress on the visible glitches USA Today will be solidly behind e-voting.

Don't put your eggs in the glitch basket, and don't let the reporters call crashes, malfunctions, fraud, or anything else with the glitch word that avoids all responsibility by everyone, so they are free to then blame the voter....

This article also talks about "human factors" being to blame. That is particularly exquisite logic/education torture, because the science of human factors teaches that if humans are encountering a technology and not able to navigate it to any significant degree at all, the PROBLEM IS WITH THE DESIGN OF THE TECHNOLOGY, not with the human.

Example: a 2 inch rise in a doorway is not to be blamed on the pedestrian who falls when studies show that 3% will trip and some will fall disastrously. That is a design defect and an unreasonable danger, not a "problem human"

[EFerrari]

9. This is an important point but let's be real.

In the short term, "glitches" will get us press.

We need to use that press to edycate people about the long term.

I guess I mean, let's not overlook that window of opportunity that this "glitch" phenomena provides in the short term.

[BeFree]

15. Glitches, smitches

It is not just glitches. They stole the damn election! There has been tons of press on glitches. Where has it gotten us? The best press so far has been the Hursti hack, a HACK. That is our line, not some excusable glitch. They stole the damned election by HACKING it!

[Amaryllis]

19. By hacking AND rigging. Rigging comes in the software from the vendors.

Hacking comes after the initial software development.

[BeFree]

20. Technically, you are correct

The software, however, was programmed to be easily hacked, and hacked it was, and not just the way it has been proven time and again.

The NSA could have hacked the software, the salesman for the company could have hacked the software, someone outside the booth with a wireless connection can hack the software.

If it was electonic, it could be hacked. And it was.

[Amaryllis]

22. Agreed, but far too often the possibiltiy of malicious code being

programmed in at the development level is overlooked. I am in a state where we have paper ballots, good checks and balances and chain of custody, and very good election officials, but we've had to work hard to get them to see the possibility that vendor software can be an issue in scanners and tabulators that count the votes..

[EFerrari]

25. Well, there is that.

:)

[Land Shark]

16. Think of the press as a parallel universe, all by itself the "glitches"

are both relatively innocuous and likely to go away. A large chunk of the "bad news" aspect of this is what WE BRING to the piece from the outside, an education that most others don't have. I think being real involves giving a lot of weight to this perspective. But you are correct it's not the only one.

All things being equal, we should "invest" our time and effort doing public education into things that last. if one favors HR 550, you're better off educating on the principles behind it that one favors rather than the number of the bill (it won't last, and might even be amended so as not to resemble itself -- in which case one doesn't want to be on record with all the politicians as favoring "550" without specifying the reasons for that)

[BeFree]

21. 550

Without getting all dirty following the details about 550, we can easily say that the idea behind 550 - getting rid of secret vote counting - is one anybody can, and should support.

550 is not the end all, it is just the first step.

Congress can, at any time, detail how federal elections are held. the law of the land now allows secret vote counting, 550 will radically alter that reality by taking the secret out of it. Its a step, a huge step that we all need to be behind, NOW.

[bleever]

24. Maybe we should call it "glitches and holes".

People "get", and are open to hearing about, "glitches". It does afford an opportunity, as pointed out above by sfexpat2000.

We should say "glitches and holes" over and over again. Get people wondering, what holes?

It opens the dialogue to:

Holes in verification, holes in security, holes in the handling of the votes and their counting.



Glitches and Holes in electronic voting.

[Land Shark]

26. Interesting; Black Holes = Black Box

[EFerrari]

27. You have something here, bleever. A transit from

the "glitches" people are open to and, the reality they need to learn.

:thumbsup:

[Land Shark]

28. yeah, they call it a "glitch" because it's a hole they don't understand

[EFerrari]

29. Exactly. Just as it was a "glitch" to many of us

before it was a "hole" we didn't understand.

:)

Edit: I don't believe that says what I want it to say. What I meant was, some of us went from the shiny "glitch" understanding to a whole different order of magnitude: seeing the holes.

/ing

[bleever]

30. DING!

Local newscaster asking:

"What is a 'glitch'? And in the age of ATMs and internet sites providing receipts with every transaction, what happens to your vote after you hit the button?"


The "glitch" is the doorway to comprehending the possiblity of the "fix".

[EFerrari]

31. Yes! We have to push on this. n/t

[Amaryllis]

18. Glitches is a lovely euphemism for errors, hacks, rigs, malfunctions.

[nicknameless]

13. Is everyone waking up yet?

K&R

[roseBudd]

23. Vote with your mouse, click through to register page views

Make sure USA Today knows this is the kind of story their audience wants to read.