WP: Lost Votes in N.M. a Cautionary Tale (computer programming errors)

Lost Votes in N.M. a Cautionary Tale
As Election Day Nears, a Look at Problems in 2000 Shows Fallibility of Machines

By Dan Keating
Washington Post Staff Writer
Sunday, August 22, 2004; Page A05

ESPAÑOLA, N.M. -- Four years ago, about 2,300 voters traveled the winding roads through this remote county to cast their ballots before Election Day on state-of-the-art, push-button electronic voting machines. For 678 of them, their votes were never recorded....

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....the missing votes in Rio Arriba County show that even in the finest electronic voting systems -- New Mexico holds itself out as a leader after a decade of experience -- serious miscounts that could sway elections can occur if the computerized machines are not correctly programmed.

With many states making moves to electronic voting machines this year, critics of the new technology say it is fraught with the potential for fraud. But what happened in Rio Arriba County shows what some computer experts say is a far more pressing concern: mistakes in computer programming by inexperienced local election staffs....

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Critics have said the machines are not perfect and are subject to deliberate tampering, but the experience in Rio Arriba County shows that simple, benign mistakes in programming can lead to results being wildly off.

Mistakes are likely to arise when thousands of small counties nationwide program ballots for multiple districts with dozens of races in each election, said Steve Ansolabehere, a political scientist at the Massachusetts Institute of Technology who is participating in the CalTech-MIT Voting Technology Project. "That is the Number 1 problem with electronic voting: the programming for each election," he said. "These offices in rural areas do not have the staff with the kind of technical expertise necessary to do electronic voting."... The need for better training of local workers and volunteers is one point on which supporters and opponents of electronic voting agree....


http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/articles/A22536-2004Aug21.html

All it takes is a single blown fuse to disenfranchise hundreds or thousands of voters. Anyone seriously thinking about ev machines must come to the conclusion that they're not good as they stand right now.


SHOVE IT! - Drop Bush Not Bombs! - Hero Kerry AWOL Bush
http://brainbuttons.com/home.asp?stashid=13

Hey, cynical investigative geniuses. The fact it does glitch IS a fraud. It also gives an inviting cover to purposeful fraud. It, in fact, can BE fraud, but the stupid, misleading, disserving reporters at WP are putting this last very kind cover over company incompetence(which ITSELF can be intentional) because they are simply afraid or incredibly dumb. Agaiun, they are preparing to blame the poll workers and dumb state officials in a way that will never involve criminal charges. Just embarassment. Aw shucks.

And what about the follow-through with an obviously necessary paper trail- which incidentally is a roundabout way of proving this technology is a stupid intrusion into the marked record in the very first place!

And what about selling a defective product. oh no, that would be harder to say than "fraud". What a bunch of crippled rabbits or stooges work for the WP.

They should've also gone into the utterly worthless, but STILL often ignored by vendors, certification process, how that doesn't protect voters either.

Edit: You oughtta make that (with some edits, of course) into an LTE. Really.

American Indian and Alaska Native persons, 2000 - 13.9%

Persons of Hispanic or Latino origin, 2000, - 72.9%

White persons, not of Hispanic/Latino origin 2000 - 13.6%

http://quickfacts.census.gov/qfd/states/35/35039.html

Historically, American Indians and Hispanics vote overwhelmingly Democrat.

From the article:

"The Washington Post examined the voting results here because New Mexico had the narrowest winning margin in the presidential contest, and Rio Arriba County had THE LARGEST PERCENTAGE OF VOTERS WHO HAD NO PRESIDENTIAL VOTE. The review discovered that 203 voters turned out in one of Rio Arriba's voting districts, but the state's certified results show "0" votes were recorded for Gore or Bush. The same was true for the U.S. Senate and House candidates. In another district, two-thirds of those who voted in the month before Election Day -- early voting is allowed in New Mexico -- had no votes recorded in any races. Steve Fresquez, a state computer technician who oversaw vote counts for Rio Arriba County, said the electronic machines had been programmed incorrectly for early voters, but it was not discovered until days after the election."

This is outrageous! I wonder what Gore's true margin of victory was in New Mexico in 2000!

New Mexico Gore 365

http://www.bipac.net/page.asp?g=AFPA&content=Election_2004_presidential_margins&parent=BIPAC

I knew it was close, and that is why I checked the stats.

I have a very, very strong hunch that Gore took New Mexico by a far greater margin than that, and that there are other counties in New Mexico in which electronic voting machines were deliberately altered in some way in favor of republican candidates.

I am fully convinced that, if we can suspend all electronic voting for the November election, and substitute the paper and pencil voting apparatus that is so successful in Canada, John Kerry will win the Presidential election in a landslide, that Democrats will take back the Senate, and possibly the House of Reps.

Thanks for the link to the author of the article, I am going to do some more research on Rio Arriba County, and some other counties in New Mexico before I email. ;)

in your information, and its possible significance in New Mexico and beyond. I've found his email address among the writer e-mails on the WP website, keatingd@washpost.com, if you would wish to contact him.

regardless of political stance should realize that if one can cheat all can cheat. We will one day all wonder together; what is truth?

180

why aren't the repubs worried the dems (what if it was hillary?) will steal an election?

i wonder .............

Why aren't the Repubs worried? It is a mystery to me.

1. Democrats are nice people, they will not cheat?

2. Democrats are too stupid to 'Hack' into the computerized voting machines?

3. Does not matter how much Democrats cheat as Republicans can do it better?

All voters should be worried that their vote does not (will not) count and that they (we) have no way of knowing.

180

E voting is a great concept. However it is not stable, obviously.

Computer systems can perform with 99.999 percent efficiency if properly designed. Lottery systems and ATM machines are a good example.

However, these machines should create a bar code readable paper trail. Their code should be reviewed by many people and their data stored properly. I read somewhere these things were using an Access back end. That is bullshit, they should be running an enterprise database, and should be linking to multiple data stores.

Loosing data because a machine crashes is not acceptable. Most companies run systems that backup data hot and store it offsite. The NASDAQ is an example of an efficient, redundant system.

I plan on a paper ballot. All human systems will have error, until the e vote method error rate is proven to be below the paper system that is the only logical response.

The machine should print out a human readable 'paper ballot' that the voter can verify their choices on at the time they cast their vote. The laws must be changed to require that a statistically significant number of the paper ballots be randomly audited against the machine results immediately after the election and any discrepancy between the counts require a full audit of all the paper ballots! :)

There is NO REASON, unless fraud is the ultimate goal.

:kick::kick::kick:

consumer boycott for one day during the republican convention and demand paper ballots, in order to bring this issue into the full forefront of national attention. If no satisfactory legislative action is taken, then I suggest that we Democrats all participate in a nationwide general strike and boycott for the entire first week of October.

We have argued and pleaded for a reasonable, logical, and justifiable legislative action to correct this affront to our democracy without success, and without any reasonable argument being put forth against our request.

Now, direct action has become a critical necessity. The only legitimate peaceful and democratic means of asserting the wishes of the people is to shut down the country through a temporary non-participation in the workforce and the economy.

I feel a terrible flu coming on. I believe it is a virulent mutant form of the

Black Box Flu...:argh:

It may keep me home for a day in late August, and for the entire first week of October. ;-)

I deal with systems that read barcode. My statement about barcode comes from the fact that it is machine readable in case of a recount. Very fast, run through a machine, it matches barcode entry against database, two seperate auditable places to store data. This could be audited against the printed user response as well. Barcode allows for speed and protects against manipulation. Every lottery ticket is barcoded.

Having human readable responses on the output form would not cause a problem.

My point is the technology is not ready for mass use in what will be a close election.

... career as a software developer, I don't think I've ever authored a program that should be as BONE FUCKING SIMPLE as counting votes and adding up a total.

Anyone who cannot write such code without errors should get a job flipping burgers, they are a disgrace.

It should be simple.

However they have to link, validate, and total the data. Networking the devices to a central databese, validating data, and counting could cause problems in rural areas. How are they storing data, local on a Hard Drive or in write once media (smarter).

It is certianly not ready for mass use.

... just how much "validating" is done? I bet ZERO.

This program should accept votes, accumulate them and total them. Trust me, if this were money, there would be NO MISTAKES in counting, accumulating, totalling.

My point is not so much that we're dealing with incompetent programmers here (which we probably are), but simply that nobody gives a shit about making it right because it is only votes.

I mentioned the lottery system, nasdaq, and ATM systems as examples of stable electonic systems. Not foolproof but they run at 5 9's.

From what I have read the system is not stable. An Access backend is all that needs to be said..

If votes were dollars out of someone's pocket, they'd be counted accurately.

but fraud and vote accounting is small potatoes. The complexity and incompetence can very well be deliberate, organized in a deniably slipshod manner from above WITHOUT telling any of the programmers why they are doing such screwball programs.

The point is, if it is not crafted faulty on purpose to hide deliberate and clear backdoors, it might as well be. It's like asking why your company's assets are all located in the Cayman Islands and thinking it just silly instead of suspicious.

It doesn't sound dumb or incompetent, it sounds like the old shell game that no one in this country has ever policed very well. Vote fraud has always necessitated for agonizing court cases that never pierce the threshold of crisis or high crimes. If Diebold was making an Ebola super germ for Bush I bet it would be messy and stupid too, so when it did(oops) get loose AND IF they got blamed, no one would be criminally charged.