Wrong Time for an E-Vote Glitch - BBV Sequoia Screws Up

[Kelvin Mace]

http://www.wired.com/news/evote/0,2645,64569,00.html?tw=wn_tophead_2

Wired News
Kim Zetter

When Sequoia Voting Systems demonstrated its new paper-trail electronic voting system for state Senate staffers in California last week, the company representative got a surprise when the paper trail failed to record votes that testers cast on the machine.

That was bad news for the voting company, whose paper-trail, touch-screen machine will be used for the first time next month in Nevada's state primary. The company advertises that its touch-screen machines provide "nothing less than 100 percent accuracy."

Voting activists maintain, however, that election officials don't want the paper trail because it opens the way for recounts and lawsuits if paper records don't match digital vote tallies. And they say that paper records would provide proof that the machines are not as accurate as companies claim.

Acting on public pressure for a paper trail, Sequoia became the first of the four largest voting companies to add printers to their voting machines earlier this year. Two smaller voting companies have had paper-trail machines for longer, but have had trouble selling the machines to election officials.

During the demonstration of the Sequoia machine last week, the machine worked fine when the company tested votes using an English-language ballot. But when the testers switched to a Spanish-language ballot, the paper trail showed no votes cast for two propositions.




This is VERY significant because paper was being used and the counts didn't match.

Note this offcial's remark:

"The problem was not with the paper trail. The paper trail worked flawlessly, but it caught a mistake in the programming of the touch-screen machine itself.

Paper is the only protection against faulty equipment and fraud.

David Allen
Publisher, CEO, Janitor
Plan Nine Publishing
http://www.plan9.org
http://www.blackboxvoting.com

Edit: Tried spelling "Sequoia" right this time.

[reprehensor]

1. Thanks for the link! nt

[Fovea]

2. Welcome to Westworld

Where nothing can go wrang.

[Jackpine Radical]

4. go wrang...

go wrang...
go wrang...
go wrang...
go wrang...
go wrang...
go wrang...

[napi21]

3. SHAME SHAME on Sequoia!!!

The primary thing you do BEFORE any presentation test is to test your equipment incessently! You try everything imaginable. Try to make it fail IN YOUR SHOP! Find the errors BEFORE you make a "very embarrassing presentation".

I hope some idiot gets fired over this one! Stupidity at it finest!

[Jackpine Radical]

5. Fired, hell!

Somebody oughtta get a medal for the high-profile exposure of the flaw--and the absolute necessity for a paper trail...
Wonder if somebody on the inside's on our side...?

[dw]

7. That's the stockholder's point of view.

My potential user's (i.e., victim's) point of view is: even if it works fine in every demonstration, I still don't want it counting my vote. I just don't trust it. And I don't trust the printed receipt. There's just too much damage they can do with no traceability.

Screw Sequoia and Advance and Diebold and everyone who's trying to 'market' dubious technology to make a buck at the risk of crippling our franchise as citizens of a democracy.

No state government should allow any one of these parasites to even get in the door, much less do a sell job on them.

[Terran]

8. Shame on them for what?!

They just proved how vital the paper trail is. We should be thanking them!

[Kelvin Mace]

9. But remember,

they had to be brought to the table KICKING and SCREAMING all the way.

David Allen
Publisher, CEO, Janitor
Plan Nine Publishing
http://www.plan9.org
http://www.blackboxvoting.com

[Kelvin Mace]

11. What does it say...

say about the BBV industry when they know they are giving a demo and EVERYBODY will be watching, EVERYTHING is riding on an ERROR-FREE demo of your product, and you still botch it by (if Mr. Charles is to be believed) "rushing" it? How much faith should we place in companies which promise "100% accuracy" and yet screw up completely? Just asking...

[PATRICK]

12. Well, are the officials smart enough

Not to simply throw away the printers as the problem? It still sounds like the pressure NOT to let the paper trail in, and their evasive maneuvers, is so blatantly suspicious any moron would question the sincerity of the BBV companies.

This is one big area that needs a lot of change before November and I just don't see enough of a victory soon enough. The real major points are just being caught by a few, certainly not the mainstream.

Isn't a state like Georgia hopelessly lost to accountability? A whole state simply because it is all touchscreen and Republican enough not to question.

I think a lot of the population(even people hoping Bush wins!)are feeling the main points, but they are poorly stated as glitches and vulnerability to teen hackers and dumb poll workers when the blind media weighs in- if ever.

[yowzayowzayowza]

6. This is the kinda...

story that REALLY needs to get around. Thx.
:kick:

[lcooksey]

10. What a mess

I've seen viruses that were better written than this voting software. Thanks for keeping on top of this important issue, David.
:yourock:

[Zorra]

13. Thread from the DU archives. "Republicans will never give up their

voting machines". Thanks to TruthIsAll for lots of great research.

http://www.democraticunderground.com/discuss/duboard.php?az=show_topic&forum=104&topic_id=252733

[Joanne98]

14. geeeeeeeeeezzzzzzzzzzzzzzzz

Do you beleive this? Unreal.

[Joanne98]

15. Rage Against The Machine

Rage against machines
Print this article
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By Stewart Fist
August 14, 2004
Icon

While Michael Moore's Fahrenheit 9/11 certainly deserved the Palme d'Or at Cannes, with George Bush as scriptwriter and main actor, it could hardly fail.

Rumour has it they are collaborating again on a sequel, Elections 11/04. The original idea came from Bush's brother Jeb a few years ago in Florida and Dubya's most flamboyant contribution to the new Moore epic has been to push through 2002's Help America Vote Act.

The idea is to replace those punch-card voting machines with whiz-bang computerised equipment because punch cards produced the famous hanging chads and butterfly ballots in Florida which many people found suspicious.

http://www.theage.com.au/articles/2004/08/13/1092340453061.html?oneclick=true

[Bushfire]

16. Thanks for posting this. n/t

:kick:

[Judi Lynn]

17. Will they try to get this swept under the carpet?

I surely hope they can't: "nothing less than 100 percent accuracy." Unbelievable.

Thanks for this important info.

[coreystone]

18. Who wrote the “flow chart” for this unreliable “paper trail”……..

System? I would assume that Sequoia Voting Systems would have wished to have had a “100%” reliable rating during this test. If the “code” of the program is that poorly written, with the paper trail “blowing the results”, then we are definitely in trouble as a democracy for our reliance upon technology to provide a more efficient voting system as compared to the old fashioned system of “paper ballots”! It may take longer to get the results; it might require a greater number of people to accurately tabulate the results; it might cost LESS money to have monitored volunteers to count the votes (instead of buying and maintaining the machines); but, if DEMOCRACY relies upon this technology to illustrate what the true will of the people is, then we should memorize “Brave New World”, escape to “Fahrenheit 451”, and keep reciting it for posterity.

Please keep in mind that this is, supposedly, under “optimum” test conditions of the manufacturer. Then, keep in mind that most of the electronic systems which will be used in this year’s elections will NOT even provide for a “paper trail”. Then, think about many of the other confounded variables which would possibly affect the final tabulation of votes.

No responsible business person would rely upon such vulnerable systems to insure for the financial accounting of one’s company. Why MUST we in our democracy?

Pooh! Pooh on the members of Congress that did not step up to support HR 2239, and, the Senate equivalent.

Pooh! Pooh! Indeed!

[TahitiNut]

19. To have tally logic depend on display language is a BIG RED FLAG.

Under no reasonable circumstances should the tally functions of the box have any change logical dependencies on the ballot/display language. This indicates coding logic that's either abysmally disorganized and deliberately obfuscatory, and/or designed with language-specific biases.

It's exactly the kind of behavior I'd expect from a deliberately fraudulent box: seemingly unrelated changes in tally behavior.

If I were to deliberately embed fraudulent code, I'd condition the execution of that code on obscure externals. Touching the screen in carefully predetermine places in a specific sequence, limiting certain "logic" to contextual attributes like language, primary v. general, certain digits in a voter sequence number, etc. If the code is written with spaghetti-logic, it's more difficult to find by examination. If the code has various testing and administrative 'logic' paths embedded within the supposedly 'live' (production) functions, it's even easier to hide fraud.


Credentials: I programmed professionally for decades at the applications, operating systems and embedded systems levels using many languages, including various Assembler languages, and compiled languages such as APL, C, COBOL, Forth, Fortran, Pascal, PL/I, Snobol, and even Autocoder. (Now you know why I'm a nut.)

[Kelvin Mace]

20. If I were a suspicious person...

I would wonder about writing code so bad that it would be VERY hard to prove deliberate fraud since the persons tinkering with the machine would be able to blame the code if caught.

If I were a suspicious person.

David Allen
Publisher, CEO, Janitor
Plan Nine Publishing
http://www.plan9.org
http://www.blackboxvoting.com

[TahitiNut]

21. Certain obfuscatory coding habits get reinforced in ...

... emotionally codependent programmers who become the only people able to unravel the 'logic' of their own code. It's a pseudo-"hero" thing -- riding in to save the day when a bug is found. To even have bugs is often a stroke to the ego of a programmer who wants it to be visible how "difficult" such a programming task is. If it works perfectly and any decent programmer can understand the logic, then it gets looked at as a SMOP (Simple Matter Of Programming) - no big deal. Many programmers LOVE to be a "big deal." It's both emotionally and economically rewarding. After all, if you do such things on contract or have job security issues, why not make the code in a way only you can deal with?

When such people then become 'architects' guiding the development of a system by several programmers, the unnecessary complexities can grow like Topsy.

[DubyaSux]

22. There was no error!

According to Sequoia spokesman Alfie Charles, the problem was not a programming error but a ballot-design error.

The english langauge test worked perfectly, but they were missing files for the spanish language version. This was a demo. This configuration error could not happen in real life because election officials, both republican AND DEMOCRAT, would not let this happen. The untis would have been proprely configured and tested.

Again, this was blown out of proportion (as usual), the machines were blamed (as usual) when they worked correctly, and the conditions were nothing close to what happens on election day (as usual).

Mr. Allen, you misrepresented this situation completely. There was NOT a mistake in the programming as you stated.

[Cronus Protagonist]

23. And you beleive a Sequoia spokesman?

And accept his explanation for why the unit failed the test, which is that it didn't fail due to an "error" but due to, well, a "misconfiguration", which wasn't an "error" and "couldn't happen" in real life?

Huh?

And why are you making arguments that reinforce the completley erroneus claim that these machines are reliable? Particularly when it's clear they are not in the slightest bit reliable.... I think you must have an ax to grind and it's not related to wanting accuracy in the polls.

If I were a suspicious person, I'd suspect your paycheck might depend in part from the sale of these broken vote-stealing machines, but I'm not that suspicious, so I'll just put it down to temporary insanity on your part.


SHOVE IT! - Drop Bush Not Bombs! - Hero Kerry AWOL Bush
http://brainbuttons.com/home.asp?stashid=13

[DubyaSux]

25. Not hardly...

The security and safety of my family rely on these machines. If we rely on the totally antiquated equipment and process used in past elections, we could have that stupid fucker we have in office now for 4 more years. I want ALL votes counted. The crap technology we've been using has not worked well and there's no reason to beleive it will in the future. We will still have over votes, under votes, no votes (by mistake), and ballots that confuse people.

I don't want my family put in harm's way because we end up with 4 more years of Bush because of pregnant-dimpled-hanging chads.

Some of you people need a conspiracy to beleive in and it's completely misguided. Just because a freeper owns a company doesn't mean that every worker working for him is a freeper and in on some grand felonious conspiracy.

I'm personally insulted that you people don't give honest hard working democrats in the process any credit. You make it seem as if these freepers are so smart, they can perpetrate some elaborate grand conspiracy among 5 different companies without a democrat figuring it out and putting a stop to it.

Personally, I would rather these evoting cynics to become part of the solution instead of part of the problem. Unfortunatly, there's no money in that and we will pay the price because they know many of you need a monster to believe in.

If you want to rig an election, throw a bunch of 8 year olds in a room and stuff ballot boxes. That would be easier than trying to find highly skilled technicians to do it with evoting while running the risk of bankrupting an entire industry.

The concerns are valid. The hysteria caused by Bev Harris et al is just non-sensical and doing more harm to the cause of getting all votes counted.

[Kelvin Mace]

27. I don't know anybody

who wants punch cards. I am all for EVM as long as they produce paper ballots (and we have national standards for certification). I have not advocated that the EVM's produce punch cards, but clearly printed, unambiguous ballots that act as a check to ephemeral digital tallies. Why is this wrong?

Your argument is familiar, I hear the same things all the time from EVM companies.

Also, I'm not Bev, nor part of her camp.

[Kelvin Mace]

26. I misrepresented the situation?

Could you please show me WHERE i misrepresented the story? I didn't write the headline or the story.

Where did *I* say the mistake was in the programming?

Kim Zetter wrote the story, and says that we must take Alfie's word for the reason for the problem since we are NOT permitted to see the votes being recovered.

A handful of posts and here you are making false accusations.

[DubyaSux]

28. My apologies...

Sir, you are correct. I attributed a statement to you that was not yours and I apologize.

In any case, this event was misrepresented and most people responding here never even bothered to read it because it told them what they wanted to beleive.

My other statements stand however. I think the evoting cynicism is getting in the way of progress and getting in the way of throwing Bush out.

You can scream paper trail all you want, but Palm Beach County had a paper trail in 2000 and people still couldn't get it right. I don't want a receipt because I don't want my freeper boss demanding to see proof I voted republican. He can't fire me for not doing it, but then again, he could fire me for being ugly if he wants. It's a hire-at-will state and he doesn't need a reason.

And I don't want people selling votes where receipts would be "proof of purchase". This paper trail is a slippery slope problem and the machines have been validated by republicans AND democrats to ensure their accuracy. There has not been one instance ever where a vote was no correctly counted during an election. All mistakes (including the subject here) have been human error - the same thing that could happen with or without paper trails.

[Kelvin Mace]

30. Again, you do not understand what we are asking for

You can scream paper trail all you want, but Palm Beach County had a paper trail in 2000 and people still couldn't get it right. I don't want a receipt because I don't want my freeper boss demanding to see proof I voted republican. He can't fire me for not doing it, but then again, he could fire me for being ugly if he wants. It's a hire-at-will state and he doesn't need a reason.

1) The paper trail we propose and the paper trail that existed in Florida are two VERY different things, like the difference between a picture of a tree drawn by a six year old and the same tree photographed by a 10 megapixel camera.

The ballot that we propose EVM's produce is clear and unambiguous.

2004 Ballots

President: John Kerry - John Edwards (D)
Senator: Erskine Bowles (D)
Congressman 12th District: Mel Watt (D)

etc.

Seem no dimples, pregnant chads, hanging chads or other ambiguity.

No one will pick up the ballot and say, "You know, that John Kerry looks a lot like George Bush to me."

2) Ballots stay in the precinct, no one takes them home. They are damn useless for a recount in your pocket. You cast your vote on the machine, the machine prints your ballot. You examine the ballot and accept it. The ballot is dropped in the ballot box, you never handle it. If the ballot is not acceptable, the machine prints VOID VOID VOID on it and you print another one. If the machine isn't recording your selection correctly, you call a poll worker and they know they have a problem.

At the end of the day you have digital count and a paper count. Personally I believe that you could count all and compare the totals but a lot of folk argue that point. Still, you then randomly audit a statistically significant number of precincts and compare digital to paper count. If the totals don't match (like today with Sequoia), only THREE possible explanations exist:

a) You miscounted the paper (most likely)
b) The hardware/software failed or was programmed wrong (like today)
c) Someone tampered with the hardware or software or stole paper ballots.

If the digital count doesn't match the canvass or diverges from the paper count, the paper count is used. If the paper count is off because of extra or missing ballots, the digital count is used.

Please learn what we have proposed as a solution before ascribing solutions to us. No activist that I am aware of has advocated for receipts, they have advocated a "Voter-Verified Paper Ballot" or VVPB for short.

I don't want anyone selling their vote. I also don't want vote selling made obsolete by BBV's that cut out the need to buy votes in a crooked election. <s> (this is a joke!)

Also, a lot of folks (like Bev) disagree with me on what is the most dangerous element of BBV. Bev sees it as fraud, which while a real danger given the pathetic security these machines have, pails next to the simple fact that these machines have failed and will fail because of poor design and crappy code. They run on Windows for crying out loud, in some jurisdictions Windows 3.1!!!!

No system is tamper-proof, but this system is more tamper resistant than EVM with NO paper ballot.

[DubyaSux]

32. Sorry...

Sorry..I just don't see that working.

While not bad in theory, here's the reality:

68 year old grandma caught a ride to the polls. Gets on the machine and gets through the vote.

Now, that's the time it normally takes to vote. But wait.

Now she needs to look at all the selections on the ballot (politicians, levees, state constitutional amendments, etc). She puts on her glasses, goes through all of them and for the life of her, didn't remember voting for the school levee. So, she voids it, tries again. Wash, rinse, repeat for millions of voters.

The point is, when you do a punch card ballot, you never see the results and are confident of your vote. And the same with evoting. Except with evoting, people are afraid some freeper is trying to steal their vote. And the democrats are letting them.

So, with paper ballots, it's the same process twice. Takes twice the time and costs many times more.

Now, I like the idea from the standpoint that all votes get counted which is paramount to me. But a two step process by people that can't figure out a butterfly ballot (and the reason we're even debating this subject) doesn't seem feasible at all. Elections would take days unless we doubled the amount of voting places.

If the machines are certified, the vote is done. Bev Harris can still scream fraud and assume us democrats are too dumb to prevent that from happening, but it still gets down to people casting their vote in secret and being done with it.

But I will concede that if this is a workable solution, I'd support it. It beats anything Bev Harris has to offer.

[uncle ray]

34. transparant as saran wrap

"So, with paper ballots, it's the same process twice. Takes twice the time and costs many times more."

yeah, but you know what? i don't care. there are things i want to make sure i get the best "deal" on, but after the 2000 selection, my vote ain't one of em. i want it done RIGHT, not cheap.

i don't give a fuck if they forgot to bring the right disc, paper, pocket protectors or whatever to the fucking demo, they FUCKED IT UP! i don't know what company you work for, but in my field you got one chance to satisy the customer, a demonstation is just as important as the real election. if they can't make the fucking machine function properly for a simple test, why should we be confident it will be ready for this election, or any upcoming election? if it don't work, keep it to yourself! this isn't figuring rocket trajectory, this is simple arithmatic! why would our government, who spares no expense on computers for the military that DO NOT FAIL by design, not spend the same on the computers that count the votes? failure is unacceptable at any stage except devolpment.

[harmonyguy]

29. not a programming error ??? Beg to differ...

If something as simple as a "ballot-design error" can cause the paper trail to show "no votes cast for two propositions", then there is a VERY serious flaw in the programming of the system. If professionally developed and tested, the software should verify that the system "include all of the files" needed BEFORE the user makes their selections. The very fact that the user was able to make their selections, supposedly without all the required files on the system, calls into question the integrity of the whole system. What ELSE can these supposed "ballot-design errors" control in the system?

Ballot design IS programming. The design of the ballot determines the sequence of processing steps and the resulting output. Ballot design IS programming and ballot design needs to be certified, just like the code burned into the machines. The layout of the ballot can DRASTICLY affect the outcome of the race.

HG

[GregD]

31. Unfortunately...

Ballot definitions are not being certified, and indeed are in many case developed by the vendors, and sometimes that programming is only verified by a "test deck" of sample ballots that is similarly provided by the vendor.

Ellen at www.votersunite.org has done a lot of research on this, and posted her research report here: http://www.votersunite.org/takeaction/three_items.asp

Ballot programming most certainly is something that should be certified, and is not being scrutinized at all in a satisfactory manner.

GregD

[truthisfreedom]

24. all i can say is hahahahahahahhahaha. told ya so, bozos. POS machines...

don't trust 'em without a paper trail.

[nolabels]

33. So now we know they will try to pull the fraud off

Ask me if I was going to be surprised (not)

The banana Republic has arrived