Diebold comes clean, admits voting machines are faulty

Diebold comes clean, admits voting machines are faulty

www.engadget.com

For years, Diebold has embarrassed itself by claiming that obvious faults were actually not faults at all, and during the past decade or so, it mastered the act of pointing the finger. Now that it has ironically renamed itself Premier Election Solutions, it's finally coming clean. According to spokesman Chris Riggall, a "critical programming error that can cause votes to be dropped while being electronically transferred from memory cards to a central tallying point" has been part of the software for ten years. The flaw is on both optical scan and touchscreen machines, and while Mr. Riggall asserts that the logic error probably didn't ruin any elections (speaking of logic error...), the outfit's president has confessed to being "distressed" about the ordeal. More like "distressed" about the increasingly bleak future of his company.

(visit the link for the full news article)

How do you react to this? With outrage, or with applauding the honesty?

www.engadget.com
(visit the link for the full news article)

Additional Source

Consider me to be in a state of shock. For nearly half a decade Diebold has always responded in the identical way to every single report of a problem or security vulnerability with its e-voting machines: attacking those who pointed out the problem and claiming it really wasn't a problem at all. This has happened time and time again that I'm not even sure how to react when the company (renamed Premier to get away from the Diebold name stigma) has finally admitted that its machines have a flaw that drops votes. Oops. It's warning 34 states that use the machines of the problem which was highlighted in the lawsuit Ohio filed against Premiere/Diebold. Not only that, but it's admitting the flaw in the software has been in the software for the past decade.

So, uh, why was the company blaming anti-virus software just a couple months ago?

As a programmer, something is still a little fishy to me.

"...critical programming error that can cause votes to be dropped while being electronically transferred from memory cards to a central tallying point..."

They then go on to describe it as a "logic error".

It seems to me that there should be no logic behind whether or not a vote should be transferred. Further, it seems to me, that the application of logic, to this process constitutes fraud. Calling it a logic problem indicates that a "decision" is being made based on one or more variables. This fact alone, eliminates the possibility that the votes are being dropped by error, as there should be no conditions under which EVERY vote is not transferred. This implies intent, and intent equals fraud.

This is a cover story for the fact that they are likely covering up the fact that they are rigging the elections.

I would rather claim 'accident' then 'intent' because an accident wil be more readily excusable.

Liars...

I agee it would seem they are admitting to lesser faults in order to cover-up bigger lies.

Yup...slight of hand...helpful should real legal action ever be pursued.

Of course, we all know that will never happen.



B-A-N-A-N-A

R-E-P-U-B-L-I-C

[edit on 24-8-2008 by loam]

Is there any real reason to vote, then?

What the hell is the point in voting if it is just an empty action?

I agree, this is a slice of pablum pie for the masses. Criminal. If we had a REAL Department of Justice, they would be all over this!

Of course, super-citizens (read: corporate-citizens) are never subjected to the same legal standards as us lesser citizens.

If I had the opportunity to ask a direct question of these 'executives' I would love to ask them how it feels to know that in future history, their efforts to conceal the truth will be recalled as laughable folly.

reply to post by MemoryShock


I'm not sure how to answer your questions.

Perhaps I'm still delusional enough to suggest that not all of the posts one votes for are rigged, so there's at least that.

Originally posted by Maxmars
If we had a REAL Department of Justice, they would be all over this!

Oh, you mean one that believes all violations of the law are crimes?

Link.

(This thread just gave me an idea for my signature. I've been waiting for one.)

[edit on 24-8-2008 by loam]

Originally posted by MemoryShock
This is a cover story for the fact that they are likely covering up the fact that they are rigging the elections.

I would rather claim 'accident' then 'intent' because an accident wil be more readily excusable.

Liars...

I feel that this is probably as close to the truth as we will be allowed to get.

I am rather apathetic to the announcement. Kind of a "der " moment when I read it. It does nothing to change what I already knew (although I would agree that 'accident' was used rather than the more obvious 'intent').

I have already been livid by the results and that doesn't change, nor do I have more confidence in the voting system, not to mention I could not have already BEEN less confident.

Nevertheless, I vote. The fact that they are cheating doesn't exclude me from my responsibility to do what I know is right.

Originally posted by MemoryShock
Is there any real reason to vote, then?

What the hell is the point in voting if it is just an empty action?

I humbly submit that there is a reason to vote. A very important one.

Pressure. It is the means by which pressure can be asserted on the political leadership club. The reason they engage in this charade is because they want something, and much to their chagrin, we can, by voting, disturb their plans considerably.

Just look at those states which have forced international ventures closely tied to 'both' parties' agenda. By resisting their objectives, they forced them to re-launch the pro-corporate agenda (some think it's the NWO, I think that's just a smoke screen). This agenda, was politically greased to succeed, from beginning to end. But those people voted into office, although an abysmal minority, did have an impact.

Sans, vote, they would simply place who they wanted in power, something we see with 'appointees' all the time. They have many ways to skin a citizen.

But the pressure of the uncertainty of the vote keeps them maneuvering all the time. More and more frequently they maneuver themselves into a very 'bad' position, like with Diebold.

Many would agree that such a tool would have allowed them to void the pressure the voting public can assert. If they are so inclined to remove the 'risk' I feel it affirms the still enduring value of the election process.

Now if we could just do away with - "the electoral college."

This is both terrible and good news.

Terrible that they have been aware of failures and covered it up.

Goods news is that this company should be banned as a government supply contractor and from contracts for voting equipment.

That is one bad job of testing software. I bet even an average company would have found that problem. Poor testing, IMHO. This tells me it was cover up to prevent delays and maintain profits or at the worst to rig elections.

An independent group of software professionals should be allowed to review the code and determine the effects of the problem. I guess that will be to much to ask in this situation.

reply to post by Maxmars



I was really confused about the electoral college and the purpose of it. I have done much reading to try and understand it (although I may still be way off on the understanding). From what I gathered, the intent of the original framers for the voting processes was that congress members were voted in by the individuals whereas the president and VP were voted in by the state.

When we vote, we are not voting for the pres and vp per se, but rather for the person who will actually be doing the voting. These ppl have pledged to vote for the corresponding candidate to represent the majority of voters in that state.... but here is where it seems sneaky, they are not bound to vote for the candidate of the majority.

I understand the intent (I think) of the forefathers and agree if we could do a couple of things to make sure that the process is being fair.

1. Lock the elector into the choice made by the ppl in the state for which they are representing.
2. Inform the ppl that they are voting for the electors rather than the candidates themselves.
3. Citizens of the state should be allowed to view the vote being cast by the elector (I do believe, although as I said, I am still unclear of the process in detail, that some states do allow for this... tx being one.)

I don't think the electoral college should be done away with altogether as I understand the reasoning, but in this day and age where the government and inner workings of such are a mystery to the general public, THOROUGH education of the system as it was meant to be needs to take place and openness of critical matters such as voting should be demanded.

The hilarious thing is that we have only two candidates, neither of them interesting or vote-worthy and then have an unreliable voting-system to top it all off. That would be sham x3

reply to post by Skyfloating


So true.

It will be hilarious when the voting machines register none of the candidates as the winner. A logic error in the rigged software.

Edit:syntax

[edit on 8/24/2008 by roadgravel]

Originally posted by roadgravel
An independent group of software professionals should be allowed to review the code and determine the effects of the problem. I guess that will be to much to ask in this situation.

But that was the whole reason for all the long drawn-out fighting about mandating that the code be open source. By forcing the code to be available to public scrutiny, it makes it impossible to conceal it's functionality.

Those involved (of course, the corporatist agenda) used the need to protect 'trade secrets' to keep the code commercially viable. At the same time, completely removing any possible oversight. Nice. The American government miraculously chose not to invoke 'eminent domain' - unlike they have of late been won't to do with private citizens land.

It's an interesting story, the whole stubborn insistence that the code remain 'unseen' despite the mounting evidence of it's unreliability. The governmental acquiescence to the corporate interest in maintaining the sanctity of 'trade' in preference over the simple fact that the interest of the American nation and its entire population were on the line ... go figure.

From this day forward, I will consider the entire Diebold matter to be a laughing stock; representative of the void of wisdom surrounding the political-elite socialite culture and it's desperate machinations to maintain supremacy over the citizens of the nation (in sad fact, the world.)

I need some sleep... sorry for the rant.

reply to post by justamomma


Star for you! I think you are definitely on the right track, especially when you mention education.

The government we elect (and have been electing for quite some time now) has a strong influence on education everywhere in this country.

Why is it that our school-age children have virtually no factual training in the functioning of government? The actual history and development of our concept of citizenship is alien to them. 'Civics' is sadly missing from our framework, and history is not far behind. Especially political history.