e-Voting: Death to Democracy!
The Diebold Corporation would like to count your vote this fall.
Diebold is the leading manufacturer of electronic voting equipment in the US. They offer an easy-to-use touchscreen interface that is supposed to streamline the voting process and all but eliminate the risk of voter error. Sounds great, right?
Wrong. The day that the US allows Diebold machines to run our elections is the day democracy dies in this country. The problem is that the source code controlling the machines is unauditable, and the voters do not receive any sort of reliable verification of their vote. These inadequacies leave the Diebold system entirely open to voter tampering and all-out election fraud. Diebold protects the source-code controlling these machines as a trade secret. They will not even allow the US government to audit the code for accuracy.
You may think it's pretty paranoid to think that a closed-source voting machine automatically means that our elections are at risk. Why should we suspect the integrity and impartiality of this company, Diebold?
Consider this: Walden O'Dell, the CEO of Diebold is a very prominent GOP fundraiser. He said the following in an invitation to a GOP fundraiser in Ohio, in 2003:
"I am committed to helping Ohio deliver its electoral votes for the
president next year."
Now, this is the guy that's heading the company that is essentially on track to run all US elections, using an unauditable, unverifiable electronic voting system. One would think he would try to maintain at least the appearance of being non-partisan, especially considering that the machines are so horribly prone to tampering. As long as the source code of their computerized voting systems remains unaudited, and as long as there is no
voter-verified paper trail in the process, Diebold voting has to be considered a complete farce, if not a total fraud.
Still not convinced? Following the contentious 2000 presidential election, a number of internal Diebold emails were leaked. One of them said:
"I need some answers! Our department is being audited by the County. I have
been waiting for someone to give me an explanation as to why Precinct 216
gave Al Gore a minus 16022 when it was uploaded. Will someone please explain
this so that I have the information to give the auditor instead of standing
here 'looking dumb'."
The "County" here is Volusia County, FL. There are about 600 voters in precinct 216, yet when it uploaded its results, Al Gore lost 16,000 votes. George Bush went on to eventually carry Florida by a few hundred votes. The Scoop has more than you can probably stomach about this.
Earlier this year, a voting advisory panel urged the state of California to stop using Diebold machines in its elections, and recommended that the state file civil and criminal charges against Diebold (warning: link opens popup ads). This followed an investigation of voter disenfranchisement during California's Democratic primary, which was traced to Diebold machines which were not certified for federal elections.
Today, the New York Times opined that the US government should fund the development of an open-source electronic voting system. This system would be auditable not just by the government, but by any citizen who would care to look at the code. In addition to the crucial requirement of auditable source code, I believe a reliable electronic voting system requires a voter-verified paper trail: after casting the electronic ballot, the voter receives a computer printout. She verifies that the printout reflects her intended ballot, and then deposits the recepit in a lock box. The paper ballots are then kept to be used in the event that a recount is required.
For more information, you may want to read Professor Aviel Rubin's testimony to the Federal Election Assistance Commission (link is a PDF file). You may also want to visit BlackBoxVoting.org. Bev Harris (no relation) is a real warrior in this battle, and a true patriot.
3 Comments:
Very cool site. But even making the software open source does not completely solve any problems; hardware is always a vulnerability too. Granted, a paper ballot will ensure accuracy if a recount occurs... but how do we know when a recount is necessary? Only when it is close? So basically, there is only accountability really if the election is close (i.e., the people fixing the election didn't do a good job). I'm afraid that in this case I think it is too important that it be a physical paper, and the electronics be limited to the simplest system allowable (such as optical counting/sorting). Other ideas?
You raise some good points. But, most of them apply to our current voting technology as well. Paper or punch ballots are still machine-counted, and the hardware/software that does this counting is subject to the same concerns you are talking about. I believe the federal election commission certifies these voting machines with some artificial ballots before the election, to ensure that they count accurately. The machines are then sealed against tampering so that they can be trusted to behave the same way during a real election.
Similar measures could be (and *should* be) taken in the case of an elactronic voting machine. The point is, Diebold's system would eliminate just about all of these safeguards.
I guess I am seeing shadows now, more than ever. So we have voting machines that are sealed after being certified by the Federal Election Board, but it is a faraday cage? With ubiquitous wireless devices, would it be so hard to sneak in a wireless receiver & controller into the election machines? I think that both hardware and software must be fully open-source, but how do we ensure that something this complex does not get modified while being manufactured? I feel like a luddite, but with something to switch as a vote, I have real concerns about the use of electronic voting in any step. Open source software is great, but do we require that each election office compiles from source? There are many more links in the chain when you are using electronic voting, pick your favorite to worry about.
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