Miami Herald Reports that voting Machines Favor Republicans

Photo Credit: Mize2oo5

Sometimes machines seem to have a mind of their own. . . The Miami Hearld reports that voting machines in Florida are registering votes for Republican candidates even when the voters intend to vote for Democratic candidates. You can read the original article here and the article that appeared in British media here.

It seems that heavily used machines sometimes require calibration. It takes alert poll workers in busy precincts to identify the problem and either recalibrate the machines or take them out of service.

HBO Documentary: Hacking Democracy

HBO is currently running a documentary about the vulnerabilities in voting machines. Here is a description from the HBO website:

In 2002, Seattle grandmother and writer Bev Harris asked officials in her county why they had acquired electronic touch screen systems for their elections. Unsatisfied with their explanation, she set out to learn about electronic voting machines on her own. In the course of her research, which unearthed hundreds of reported incidents of mishandled voting information, Harris stumbled across an "online library" of the Diebold Corporation, discovering a treasure trove of information about the inner-workings of the company's voting system. Harris brought this proprietary "secret" information to computer security expert Dr. Avi Rubin of Johns Hopkins University, who determined that the software lacked the necessary security features to prevent tampering. Her subsequent investigation took her from the trash cans of Texas to the secretary of state of California and finally to Florida, where a "mini-election" to test the vulnerability of the memory cards used in electronic voting produced alarming results. . .

Ultimately, Bev Harris' research proved that the top-secret computerized systems counting the votes in America's public elections are not only fallible, but also vulnerable to undetectable hacking, from local school board contests to the presidential race. With the electronic voting machines of three companies - Diebold, ES&S and Sequoia - collectively responsible for around 80 percent of America's votes today, the stakes for democracy are high.

Diebold, a manufacturer of a significant number of voting systems tried unsuccesfully to get HBO to cancel the documentary. Here is an article on their efforts with a link to their press release. The documentary is being shown on HBO during the months of November and December 2006. Here is a schedule.

The entire video was briefly available on Google Video but it has now been removed.

Election Day: Cross Our Fingers and Hope for the Best

Photo Credit: Spiralz

I just voted in Cuyahoga County, Ohio. Ostensibly, everything went smoothly. Poll workers asked for my ID. I signed my name. They escorted me a voting machine and inserted the media card. I made my choices and watched as a paper receipt under glass recorded each page and then scrolled out of sight in preparation for the next voter. As I left, lines were short and supervisors were observing and helping voters where needed.

It's the things I can't see that worry me. Is the process secure? What happens behind the scenes? What opportunity is there for the results to be audited? With the proliferation of electronic voting, and the widely known vulnerabilities of the technology and procedures associated with voting, do the results still represent the will of the people or are we too late? Could a small group of people "hack the vote" for a city, state, or for the nation? I read somewhere that the discrepancy between exit polls and actual results is increasing with each subsequent election. Is this evidence of manipulation of the results?

Here is an overview of some of the concerns, from a blog specializing in PC technology.