BOUND TO CAUSE COMMENTS djf 50 Percent of Sequoia Voting Machines Flawed

[David Farber <dave () farber net>]

________________________________________
From: Tom Fairlie [tfairlie () frontiernet net]
Sent: Wednesday, July 16, 2008 8:44 AM
To: David Farber
Subject: Re: [IP] 50 Percent of Sequoia Voting Machines Flawed

I've designed (or have had a hand in designing) many types of computer
systems, from very big to very small, so I have at least a little bit of
credibility to allow me to comment on this story.

Designing a voting machine (something I've actually considered doing)
seems like a VERY straightforward thing to do. The basic operation of
it and the user interface seem pleasantly constrained by history, well
known user expectations, and the law. All of these serve to limit the
system requirements for such a machine to a very manageable number.
Thus, verifying and validating (i.e., testing) the machine would also
seem to be very straightforward.

The fact that a country like the U.S. cannot "git er done" in an area
that is critical to maintaining our democracy (especially given our vast
technical prowess), demonstrates to me our levels of corruption more
than our levels of ineptitude.

To be fair, it sounds like Mr. Kellner is more on the inept side ("I am
shocked, shocked, that a major voting machine company would have
any major problems!"), but I'm talking about the voting machine
companies themselves.

If our Department of Justice was actually concerned about *justice*
(no joke, when was the last time they actually rendered something
tangibly useful to the public?), this would be cleaned up in a few weeks.

There would be a national standard for the voting process and an
open source, federally inspected program that ran the machines that
supported it. Every precinct in the country would undergo random
inspections and audits and local governments would help distribute
the cost and effort involved such that it was affordable (basically, I
think it could fit within existing budgets--especially those currently
expanded by the constant integration and removal of "new" systems).

The only commercial aspect of the process would be the outsourcing
of their manufacture by our government. Several companies would
be chosen to maintain an ecosystem of diverse competitors and keep
prices down (much like the telecom industry, at times).

Sounds easy until you try to make it happen. There's simply too much
money involved in rigging the game to allow anything fair or practical
to exist. (And we used to complain how corrupt communism was! ;-)

Tom Fairlie


----- Original Message -----
From: "David Farber" <dave () farber net>
To: "ip" <ip () v2 listbox com>
Sent: Monday, July 14, 2008 2:23 PM
Subject: [IP] 50 Percent of Sequoia Voting Machines Flawed



________________________________________
From: lynn [lynn () ecgincc com]
Sent: Monday, July 14, 2008 2:48 PM
To: David Farber
Subject: NY: 50 Percent of Sequoia Voting Machines Flawed

http://blog.wired.com/27bstroke6/2008/07/ny-50-percent-o.html

NY: 50 Percent of Sequoia Voting Machines Flawed

New York state is in the process of replacing its lever voting machines
with new voting equipment, but the state revealed recently that it has
found problems with 50 percent of the roughly 1,500 ImageCast optical-scan
machines (shown in the video above) that Sequoia Voting Systems has
delivered to the state so far -- machines that are slated to be used by
dozens of counties in the state's September 9 primary and November 4
presidential election.

Douglas Kellner, co-chair of the New York State Board of Elections,
expressed frustration with the vendor, saying it appeared that Sequoia was
using the state's acceptance testing process to find problems with its
machines in lieu of a sound quality-control process.

"There's no way the vendor could be adequately reviewing the machines and
having so many problems," he told Threat Level. "What it tells us is that
the vendor just throws this stuff over the transom and does not do any
alpha- or beta-testing of their own before they apply for certification
testing. Then they expect that we'll identify technical glitches and then
they'll correct those glitches. But correction of those glitches is an
extraordinarily time-consuming process. And its very disappointing that
this equipment is not ready for prime time."

One main problem with the machines has been the printers. The ImageCast
machines are special optical-scan machines that include an LCD screen, a
printer and a ballot-marking device that allows disabled voters to use
them. Disabled voters view the ballot on screen or hear it read to them
through headphones, then make their selection using special attachments (a
device with buttons or a sipping straw), after which the machine prints
out a paper ballot that gets read by the optical scanner component.

The printer, Kellner noted, is a core component of the machine. But they
malfunction "if you don't feed the paper exactly right or if the buttons
aren't pushed just right," he said. They also have trouble handling
write-in candidates. If a voter's writing exceeds a certain width, Kellner
said the printer shuts down without indicating why it's shutting down.

"These are serious glitches that should have been picked up in the
vendor's own quality-control process," he said.

snip




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