Testing and Certification Difference Between Lever Machines and Computerized Vote Counting Machines

[Wilms]

“It is important to stress that testing and certification approaches that may be successful with immutable, closed-system mechanical devices may not be effective with mutable, flexibly modifiable software systems. The pre-election testing and certification processes that can predict with a high degree of certainty the election-day operation of a static mechanical lever voting system, precisely because its functions are visible, immutable and finite, cannot be used to predict the operation of mutable software-driven voting systems.”

Expert Affidavit of Alexander A. Shvartsman, Ph.D.

in support of Nassau County Lawsuit to Keep Lever Voting Machines
March 19,2010

http://www.wheresthepaper.org/10/NassauExpertAffidavit.pdf

[Bill Bored]

1. Oh yeah? We'll see about that. Let's see what the great Avi Rubin thinks:

"The current certification process may have been appropriate when a 900 lb lever voting machine was deployed. The machine could be tested every which way, and if it met the criteria, it could be certified because it was not likely to change. But software is different. The software lifecycle is dynamic. As an example, look at the way Apple distributes releases of the iPhone software. The first release was 1.0.0. Two minor version numbers. When the first serious flaw was discovered, they issued a patch and called it version 1.0.1. Apple knew that there would be many minor and some major releases because that is the nature of software. It's how the entire software industry operates.

"So, you cannot certify an electronic voting machine the way you certify a lever machine. Once the voting machine goes through a lengthy and expensive certification process, any change to the software requires that it be certified all over again. What if a vulnerability is discovered a week before an election? What about a month before the election, or a week after it passes certification? Now the point is that we absolutely expect that vulnerabilities will be discovered all the time. That would be the case even if the vendors had a clue about security. Microsoft, which arguably has some of the best security specialists, processes and development techniques issues security patches all the time.

"Software is designed to be upgraded, and patch management systems are the norm. A certification system that requires freezing a version in stone is doomed to failure because of the inherent nature of software. Since we cannot change the nature of software, the certification process for voting machines needs to be radically revamped. The dependence on software needs to be eliminated."

http://avi-rubin.blogspot.com/2007/08/secretary-bowens-clever-insight.html

Hmmm. Pretty much the same.

[Stevepol]

2. All so obvious. One more brick of fact to add to the tons already being ignored by the MSM.

Thanks for the post.

[Bill Bored]

3. .