October 29, 2014

Unverifiable touch screen voting machines causing problems again

Brad Blog -  100% unverifiable touch-screen voting systems reportedly began flipping votes from Democratic to Republican in Texas, and from Republican to Democratic in Illinois, and then from "NO" to "YES" on an anti-choice measure in Tennessee. Now it's reportedly happening in Maryland. Again.

 .... Whether these systems fail (as they often do), whether they are hacked (as they easily are), or whether they work accurately, voters can never know one way or another --- and that is the core problem with them.

Nonetheless, these machines are still in use across the country in 2014. One of the very first states to foist them on voters back in 2002 was Maryland, when they installed 100% unverifiable Diebold touch-screen voting systems across the entire state.


... The Baltimore Sun reported that the state GOP in Maryland is "calling on the state Board of Elections to investigate reports that voting machines are switching ballots cast for GOP candidates to their Democratic rivals"...

Marsha Epstein of Pikesville said she ran into the problem when she went to vote at the Reisterstown Senior Center's Hannah More campus. She said she tried to vote for Republican Larry Hogan for governor but the machine recorded a vote for Democrat Anthony G. Brown.

Epstein said she pointed out the problem to an election judge, who told her to try again.
"I had to do it three times to keep it on Hogan," Epstein said. She said she had no problems voting in the other races on the ballot. Voters from Howard and Harford counties called The Baltimore Sun to report similar problems.

William Childers of Havre de Grace said something similar happened to him when he cast his ballot Sunday at the Higher Education and Technology Center in Aberdeen. He said his vote for Hogan registered without a problem but when he tried to vote to re-elect Republican Rep. Andy Harris, that line lit up temporarily but then switched to Democratic challenger Bill Tilghman.
...Joe Cluster, executive director of the state Republican Party, said he believes he knows the reason the vote-switching reports are only coming from Republicans. He said it's not a matter of fraud, but of ballot position. The Democrat in each race is listed above the Republican, he noted. His theory is the when the mistake crops up, it's more likely to penalize the bottom candidate.

That theory has been offered over the years. The top candidate is the "default", and if the selection is not made perfectly by the voter, or the screen is out of calibration, the selection may return to the default position. This year, though historically there have been far more reports of Democratic votes flipping to Republicans across the country over the years, apparently, its Democrats in that "default" position in Maryland.

...Back in 2007 The BRAD BLOG obtained and then released the "Risk Assessment Report" of Diebold's electronic voting systems, as commissioned by the state of Maryland from the Scientific Applications International Corporation (in 2003).

The long-sought report was described as "The Pentagon Papers of Electronic Voting" by some in the computer science and security community at the time, as it documented all manner of vulnerabilities in the touch-screen systems and Diebold tabulators. It was even withheld from state lawmakers for years, until we released it, and it contained redactions made by unknown sources who appeared to be either tied to Diebold itself or otherwise very close to the company and interested in downplaying what SAIC documented as enormous vulnerabilities.


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What to do if you notice your touch-screen vote flips? See our report which includes a list of steps you can and should take. The most important step you can take, however, is to avoid the problem all together by voting on a hand-marked paper ballot. If you are not allowed to do so on Election Day in your jurisdiction (and, you may want to check, because many states and counties allow it but don't go out of their way to tell voters), then vote on paper with an absentee ballot if you still can. Then deliver it on Election Day to your precinct, rather than mail it in. That's the best way to optimize the chances of your vote actually being counted and in the way that you had intended.
 

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