Mike ...Thanks for the informed details re: the computer voting machine
that I was wondering about.
I am a tech professional but I LOVE any type of system that does it's
job extremely well with elegant simplicity, minimal overhead and low
cost regardless of the tech involved.
To me those qualities, define good functional design. In the tech
field I think we often use computers unnecessarily to "reinvent the
wheel" and the motivation for doing so is a combination of myopic tech
fascination and the $ to be gained.
The computer voting machines you describe, seem unnecessarily fraught
with unwieldy power cords, battery overhead issues, various paper roll
issues, hacking security and storage liabilities and unnecessary cost
issues. The KISS theory (Keep It Simple Stupid) should apply here me
thinks.
All in all, it seems like a ballot machine like DataVote, that Tom and
Alvin had used and I found reference to, is the way to go. Bring back
IBM punchcards!! :)
db
Mike Sloane wrote:
db wrote:
I read an article about those or similar machines. Partly because of
the printer size issue and partly because of the cost, the printers
they built in were small and cheap. That made them hard to load by
the volunteer ... often senior citizen ... staff.
Our machines use tape rolls, the same tape that is used to print the
results - I forgot to mention those in the list of results objects in
my original message - they print a "zero tape at the beginning of the
voting day and then a "final tally" tape at the end. And the vote
counts have to match meters on the front of the machines (which can
get pretty complicated at the end of the day for a number of reasons
that have to do with "provisional voting", voters from other precincts
[legally] using machines in another precinct, etc.)
At election time,24% of all stations wouldn't print and by law, the
paper ballot was actually the official record. When they were
examined. the paper feed was jammed, often because of the guides had
bent when the paper rolls were inserted.
I can only tell you that we had no problems with the printers in our
county during the last three elections - about 100 machines. I cannot
speak to the quality of the printers or the staff at other counties.
Myself... I wonder how they deal with the power issue. They
obviously must run on battery power since I can't see how they could
deal with such a forest of extension cords and I see none in photos.
I would think there must be problems with having the computers and
printers run all day on battery power. Because of instant use need,
I doubt they could use any power conservation features. They must
use a honker of a battery and a PDA type processor. The printer is
probably the biggest power draw.
Each machine is line powered and has a battery back-up that looks like
a big car battery. At a couple of precincts, the poll workers either
neglected to plug the machines in or made other mistakes in setting
them up, and the result was that a couple of machines shut themselves
down after about 8 hours. Once they were powered back up, they resumed
their function with no other problems. The printers are essentially
small "cash register" type dot matrix impact type, and the resulting
paper ballot is only about 2"x6" (depending on the number of
candidates and public questions - on the school budget election with
only one question "yes" or "no" it was much smaller). The printers
only run for a few seconds after the voter touches the "cast ballot"
icon on the screen.
Then battery life issue becomes a problem if the devices are only
used and paid attention to once or twice a year...
My experience with similar batteries is that they do quite well in
those environments, at least for the first 4-5 years. After than, they
would probably need to be replaced.
More than average non tech bureaucrats can deal with it seems. In
the news, you can see that the machines are being dumped by many
municipalities....
I think that there is a lot of misunderstanding between the vendors,
the officials, and the public. While I have my own doubts about the
programming of the machines, I think that the actual vote count is
relatively secure. Part of the problem is that the move to electronic
voting was done before the technology was thought through and left to
a few entrepreneurs to develop. As a judge supervising the last
several elections in my precinct, I feel that the human interface has
a LOT to be desired, but the mechanical part is reasonably secure. The
biggest potential for problems that I see is that the machines are
stored in a local warehouse between elections, and I don't think it
would take much for a determined individual to break in to the site
and hack the software to bias the results - in a close race, even a 2%
bias (which would probably go unnoticed) would be enough to influence
the results. There has been much made about voter fraud and draconian
identity schemes imposed to prevent it, but I think the problem posed
by hacked voting machine software is orders of magnitude more serious
and has been paid little or no attention (the denials of the machine
vendors notwithstanding).
Again, I can only speak to our experience in Warren County NJ, not
anywhere else in the country.
Mike
db
Mike Sloane wrote:
Our county uses Sequoia machines that run on Windows 2000. They
produce: a count on the hard drive, a CD-R, a count on a memory
stick, and a paper ballot (that is stored in a sealed bin). The
paper ballot can be viewed through a Plexi-glass window prior to the
voter pressing the key for the second time to cast their ballot.
They get to reject the ballot and do it over twice. If they still
don't like it, the ballot is discarded, and they have to cast a hand
written "provisional" ballot that has to be approved by a special
judge assigned to the county election board. We have never had
anyone reject a ballot they cast, but I suppose it could happen. The
CD and the memory stick are removed from the machine at the end of
the day and hand carried back to the Board for counting. The
machines and the paper ballots are shut down and retrieved by the
board the next day. I suppose someone could break into the buildings
where the machines are kept for the night and mess with the results,
but I don't see how they could alter the paper ballots in the bin.
Plus, the CD and the memory stick would be at the court house, under
guard. The general feeling is that this approach is pretty good,
compared to others I have heard about.
We used to use optical scan machines that were dead simple and just
about "bulletproof", but they made us get rid of them and go to
"electronic" machines (that most of the voters hate and cost a LOT
of taxpayer money).
Mike
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