Maryland Scraps Diebold Voting System

beadfulthings writes "After eight years and some $65 million, the state of Maryland is taking its first steps to return to an accountable, paper-ballot based voting system. Governor Martin O'Malley has announced an initial outlay of $6.5 million towards the $20 million cost of an optical system which will scan and tally the votes while the paper ballots are retained as a backup. The new (or old) system is expected to be in place by 2010 — or four years before the state finishes paying off the bill for the touch-screen system."

Stuck with the bill.

[Ethanol-fueled]

Perhaps the state could sell some of the Diebold devices to help pay the bill that they're stuck with. They may garner a cult following(like the iPhone) of hackers and tinkerers. The devices are worthless as voting machines but they may be coaxed into second lives as kiosk-style internet machines, etc.

Paper ballots are pretty horrible, too

[harlows_monkeys]

What they should do is use this [punchscan.org]. It seems to address all of the problems with machine votes, AND all of the problems of the traditional system.

Especially in Chicago, NYC and the East Coast.

[Anonymous Coward]

The difference is that both Diebold and their clients (the banks) have a vested interest in making sure ATMs *DO* record every transaction accurately.

Unlike state government agencies, the banks, especially many of the ones in Chicago, NYC and up and down the east coast of the US, are run by the kind of folks who might be inclined to provide a set of concrete sneakers to anyone who sells them untrustworthy ATM machines. And the ATM makers know this.

Lawsuit time?

[Iphtashu Fitz]

I wonder if we'll be seeing a slew of lawsuits against Diebold coming in the next few months/years as the states try to recoup the cost of their investments in the Diebold voting machines. I'd bet that they'd have contracts with Diebold that would hold them responsible for failures in the equipment. Given the reports from NH that seem to indicate discrepancies between what Diebold equipment reported and hand recounts I'd think that's a pretty good indicator that the Diebold equipment is faulty.

Re:Where can Diebold hide now?

[zappepcs]

Actually, they could have scored a huge boost in credibility *IF* they had said, wait! We'll pay for the NH recounts because we are certain our machines are good, and if anything is found to be wrong, we'll fix it before the next primary or caucus.

But that is not what they did... instead, there was a conversation in a darkened back room somewhere that went something like this:

Politician: I thought you said it would be undetectable?
Company Rep: I thought you said we'd not be prosecuted?
Politician: You didn't say you'd fsck it up this badly.
Company Rep: I did what you told me you wanted, give or take a couple of votes.

Politician: This is not going to be good, you had better hide the evidence now, bury it deeply.
Company Rep: No problem, we just paid Britney another $2 Million to pee on the courthouse steps.

profit!

Re:Where can Diebold hide now?

[NickCatal]

I read somewhere that Deibold wants out of the business because it is like 10% of their revenue and 90% of their PR headaches.

I love optical scanners. They are so easy to do, quick to report, and easy to check if there is a problem.

What a lot of people don't realize is that on election day those boxes are carted around escorted by agents from both parties. There is no funny business to be done because it is being watched the entire election with lawyers for both parties parked around the area ready to respond to a phone call and judges literally sitting at their desks all day waiting for phone calls. Even if the 'seal is broken' the box was watched from point a to point z by reps from all parties involved.

But it is more fun to claim rigged elections.

Re:Optical scan ballots

[karmatic]

Optical scan ballots really aren't a dramatic improvement in reliability.

They can be. Have the touchscreen device print the vote onto the paper ballot, and a barcode with a checksum. Scan it optically and verify it against the checksum.

Anyone can verify their ballot - they simply look at what is marked. Misreads simply don't happen - if the two don't match, there is a problem. Give they guy a new ballot (replacing the old one), and have him do it again.

If the hand recount doesn't _exactly_ match the automated totals, it can be scanned in batches (any size). Count X ballots, scan X ballots. If they don't match, there is a problem.

As a nice side effect, machines don't have to be trusted, and don't have to have a network connection either. The machine can't screw up your vote without marking the wrong thing (or the CRC would be wrong), and you can check that yourself before it's counted. Recounts can be done by hand, and in the event of total system failure, you can still mark the silly thing by hand.

As a nice bonus to this, you get the benefits of touchscreen voting - secret ballots for the blind (audio), multiple language support, pictures, the ability to offer more in-depth descriptions of line items, etc.

It's not exactly rocket science.

Re:Where can Diebold hide now?

[Mitreya]

Diebold are going to have real trouble building their reputation back up after this; even though other machines may be vulnerable, the fact that this case has been so well publicised is seriously going to damage Diebold's public image.

And pigs are certain to fly anytime now.
Some states appear to question their machines. Others don't. But I don't see anything about states demanding their money back for the scrapped equipment. And therefore I don't think Diebold is too concerned! They already sold the frigging machines. In fact, they probably prefer to have a chance of selling another round of machines in a few years once the legislative body is changed (or better-bought) rather than simply do maintenance support on the machines already sold.

Re:Especially in Chicago, NYC and the East Coast.

[g-san]

Well, I assume by your tone you are talking about the US. Here is my anecdote for the day:

On a recent gameshow (1 vs. 100), first question was who was so and so's step son. Some actress got married and by the marriage the stepson is like 5 yeas younger than the dad. Whatever, I can't remember the question or answer, that is completely useless knowledge (unless you are an agent or something). Out of 100, only 3 people got it wrong. Not bad. 97% of the people in that set knew the answer.

Next Question: What is the third highest rank in the Senate called?
Out of 97 people, a third got it wrong.

Now these are people who were screened for a TV gameshow. They should be smarter than the average bear. A third got it wrong.

These and people less intelligent (than gameshow contestants) are the voters. What do you think they care about more? What do you think they spend more time exposing themselves to, politics or OJ and Britney? That is the true hopelessness of our situation. If you know of a way to get 200 million people to stop paying attention to a drug-addicted talentless dead-beat mom or other Hollywood scuttlebutt, I would love to hear it. You want us to run a marathon to stop election fraud when most of the public barely knows how to crawl. Nevermind the 100 yard dash to comprehend why our economy and world reputation are crumbling to dust. IMHO, that is the answer to your question.

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Proud to be a Marylander

[tie_guy_matt]

Today I am proud to be a Marylander! I would break out singing a round of "Maryland My Maryland" (still Maryland's official song) if it weren't a song written at about the time of the civil war about what a jerk Lincoln is and how we should join the Confederacy.

Funny in 140 years or so Maryland has gone from that to being one of the more progressive states in the union. Seriously, don't let our past fool you Maryland is a great place to live -- and for the record we never did leave the union. Now let's not get into what the states official motto translates to.

Windows CE insanity

[olman]

While I don't give a hoot about how americans do the physical act of voting, as an electrical engineer I'm appalled about using something like Windows CE to implement a god-darn voting system!

If the voting system is more complicated than a basic 4-function calculator, you're doing something waaaaaaay wrong. Maybe you should just licence the system Brazil uses? Or India? That's where your hi-tech comes from theses days anyhow.