LawMeme LawMeme Yale Law School  
LawMeme
Search LawMeme [ Advanced Search ]
 
 
 
 
Links: Troubles for E-Voting Machines
Posted by Steven Wu on Monday, November 17 @ 16:58:02 EST Legal Technology
Eugene Volokh reports on the latest troubles with electronic voting machines in California.

From this article:

State and county officials were dismayed last week to learn that Diebold Elections Systems Inc. altered the software running in Alameda County's touchscreen voting machines yet neither submitted it for state testing nor even notified state authorities of the change.
And from this article:
School Board member Rita S. Thompson (R), who lost a close race to retain her at-large seat, said yesterday that the new computers might have taken votes from her. Voters in three precincts reported that when they attempted to vote for her, the machines initially displayed an "x" next to her name but then, after a few seconds, the "x" disappeared.

In response to Thompson's complaints, county officials tested one of the machines in question yesterday and discovered that it seemed to subtract a vote for Thompson in about "one out of a hundred tries," said Margaret K. Luca, secretary of the county Board of Elections.

Ouch. Of course, this raises a question I've always had: what happened when the current voting technologies were first introduced, replacing even older systems of voting? (This description of the history of voting technology only mentions some controversies.) I imagine that there must have been some outcry then as well, and certainly some problems with implementation.
 
Related Links
· More about Legal Technology
· News by Steven Wu


Most read story about Legal Technology:
Abusive E-Mail Subpoenas Are Actionable Under Federal Law

Options

 Printer Friendly Page  Printer Friendly Page

 Send to a Friend  Send to a Friend

Threshold
  
The comments are owned by the poster. We aren't responsible for their content.

Re: Troubles for E-Voting Machines (Score: 0)
by Anonymous on Tuesday, November 18 @ 02:10:48 EST
Last week? Um, this has been public knowledge for about 2 months at my count.


[ Reply to This ]


Re: Troubles for E-Voting Machines (Score: 0)
by Anonymous on Tuesday, November 18 @ 09:24:12 EST
I imagine that there must have been some outcry then as well, and certainly some problems with implementation
But there could never have existed a system that was as closed and unauditable as can/does exist in today's digital world.


[ Reply to This ]


Re: Troubles for E-Voting Machines (Score: 0)
by Anonymous on Tuesday, November 18 @ 11:48:06 EST
Coverage of news about Diebold and the posting/mirroring of its leaked memos is coordinated from here. [wiki.volitant.net]


[ Reply to This ]


Related Diebold news (Score: 0)
by Anonymous on Tuesday, November 25 @ 17:43:55 EST

http://www.theregister.co.uk/content/55/34175.html

They also make ATMs. They were not patched and got hit by a worm. Of course part of the problem isn't Diebold's fault (assuming they aren't managing the ATMs), but not having a patch ready before a worm hits on such a widely used protocol is just asking for this kind of trouble.


[ Reply to This ]


Leges humanae nascuntur, vivunt, moriuntur
Human laws are born, live, and die

Contributors retain copyright interests in all stories, comments and submissions.
Everything else copyright (c) 2002 by the Information Society Project.

This material may be distributed only subject to the terms and conditions
set forth in the Open Publication License, v1.0 or later.
The latest version is currently available at http://www.opencontent.org/openpub/.

You can syndicate our news with backend.php

Page Generation: 0.201 Seconds