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Premier (f/k/a Diebold) Confesses Error

Here's a shocker:

A voting system used in 34 states contains a critical programming error that can cause votes to be dropped while being electronically transferred from memory cards to a central tallying point, the manufacturer acknowledges.

You knew it was Diebold (now known as Premier Election Solutions), right?

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  • Display: Sort:
    So does that mean..... (5.00 / 5) (#2)
    by Maria Garcia on Thu Aug 21, 2008 at 08:47:33 PM EST
    ...the last eight years never happened?

    We knew it was Diebold... (5.00 / 1) (#6)
    by DanAllNews on Thu Aug 21, 2008 at 09:07:10 PM EST
    ...we knew they were dropping votes... we just didn't know it was an error ;)

    what is f/k/a. Lawyer language? (none / 0) (#3)
    by Teresa on Thu Aug 21, 2008 at 08:57:15 PM EST
    I know a/n/a but not that one (though I can think of a few).

    formerly known as (5.00 / 2) (#5)
    by A little night musing on Thu Aug 21, 2008 at 09:01:42 PM EST
    I guess.

    I'm still trying to wrap my head around the idea that Ohio had antivirus software installed on the machines. WTF???

    See xkcd.

    Parent

    Sigh (none / 0) (#4)
    by Fen on Thu Aug 21, 2008 at 09:00:20 PM EST
    that was always a STUPID solution to the Florida 2000 mess. We need:

    1. paper trail to authenticate your electronic vote

    2. voters must prove who they are via drivers or state/national ID.


    Having looked a bit at this (none / 0) (#7)
    by andgarden on Thu Aug 21, 2008 at 09:08:15 PM EST
    my feeling is that some elections are just too close to be competently tallied by our infrastructure.

    No one will ever be completely satisfied as long as we let the states and their bureaucracies run elections. Not would everyone be satisfied if we did it with a national system.

    I think this is one of those really important things that we just can't get right. Motor Voter was a step in the right direction, HAVA I'm not so sure about.

    ALL of us should count the votes (none / 0) (#8)
    by Dadler on Thu Aug 21, 2008 at 09:30:18 PM EST
    We should all be checking each other's work, city by city, neighborhood by neighborhood, street by street.  Now THAT would be change.  Now THAT would be real democracy at work.  Imagine that.    

    Parent
    And I don't mean I count New York's votes (none / 0) (#9)
    by Dadler on Thu Aug 21, 2008 at 09:31:51 PM EST
    I mean, genuine and micro local control of the process.  Much more local than we have now.  Each block chooses someone to head the effort and everyone shares in the responsibility of accurately counting and making sure that acccurate count is recorded in the larger entity.

    Parent
    What was wrong with paper ballots!? (5.00 / 2) (#10)
    by zfran on Thu Aug 21, 2008 at 10:30:08 PM EST
    Too much chance... (5.00 / 4) (#11)
    by Romberry on Thu Aug 21, 2008 at 10:41:33 PM EST
    ...for an accurate count. ;)

    Parent
    What was the spokesman's name? (none / 0) (#12)
    by jerry on Thu Aug 21, 2008 at 11:18:16 PM EST


    Really? Well, I'll be! (none / 0) (#13)
    by splashy on Fri Aug 22, 2008 at 04:26:13 AM EST
    Who woulda thunk it? (snark)

    Yeah, now they admit it when the Repub years are about over, they have stolen everything thing they could, and made a huge mess to dump into the laps of whoever comes next (Dems, of course).

    Just in time for the Repubs to protest every result that shows Dems and others besides Repubs winning. Look for all kinds of caterwauling from them.

    There's an article in Scientific American (none / 0) (#14)
    by dutchfox on Fri Aug 22, 2008 at 09:24:04 AM EST
    Planning to E-Vote? Read This First
    In their rush to avoid a repeat of the controversy that plagued the 2000 presidential election, and to meet the requirements of Congress's hastily mandated 2002 Help America Vote Act, states and counties flocked to electronic voting systems they hoped would eliminate hanging chads and other flaws inherent in paper-based systems. Six years later, with another presidential election less than three months away, many e-voting systems are fraught with security glitches, and the technology has yet to prove itself as the solution voters were looking for.

    Such systems could allow voters and poll workers to place multiple votes, crash the systems by loading viruses, and fake vote tallies, according to studies commissioned by the states of California and Ohio within the past year [. . .]

    One of the reasons e-voting systems turned out to be such a failure is that the only people involved in checking these systems were the vendors, who wanted to sell their technology, and the local election officials, who were ill-equipped to understand the security issues. . .