Only By Design

What little I know of computer programming can be put in a bean bag and still leave room for lots of beans. But I do know this – higher quality accounting software keeps a record of all transactions, including those in which transactions are deleted. There’s always a trail for the auditors to follow. They know who did what, and when it was done.

Election machines have such audit logs. But Premier Election Systems (formerly Diebold) machines have an additional feature – a built-in “Clear” button that allows traceless deletion of the audit logs. (And five of the company’s models delete the first deck of ballots automatically – it’s supposed to be used to delete the test deck before actual use, but in practice deleted real votes.)

So the machines don’t count votes correctly, and can easily by tampered with.

No self-respecting voting machine manufacturer would allow such sloppiness. It’s so common, so basic, so well-known, that such a flaw could only be there by design.

Current versions of Premier Election Solutions (formerly Diebold) have such design flaws. All of them in 34 states.

How ’bout that.

10 thoughts on “Only By Design

  1. No self-respecting voting machine manufacturer would allow such sloppiness. It’s so common, so basic, so well-known, that such a flaw could only be there by design.

    Nonsense. They build their software as cheaply as they can get away with. When states are buying their software without that functionality and aren’t complaining (either because they don’t know or don’t care), what motive do they have add it?

    Bad software design, especially in a fairly new industry, isn’t a conspiracy, it’s an inevitability.

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  2. So, more thoughts. This is exactly the sort of thing that is going to have to happen to make Diebold change their software. They’re going to have to be threatened with decertification. Auditing and logs are afterthoughts most of the time and if you’re not required to have them, well, it’s easy to cut that because of time and cost constraints. Election system or not. You can’t cut that from accounting software because that’s essentially its entire purpose and because what’s required of accounting software is pretty fleshed out at this point. It’s nice to think that all software companies take some pride in their products, but they’re out to make money. If shitty software is making you money, you’re a success and that’s all the people running things need to be “self-respecting.”

    So I don’t think this is a good argument for a conspiracy, but it’s another argument for not using the damned machines. Software verification and testing of the necessary depth and breadth is not easy. There’s just no cost-effective way to verify these systems to the necessary degree.

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  3. Don’t worry, after ACORN cleans takes over running the census, they’re going to tackle these problems in the polls.

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  4. No – this is so blatant that even we non-software brains can figure it out. Gaming software has more security built in. The article states that The flaws, built into the system for more than a decade, are in serious violation of federal voting system certification standards.

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  5. Diebold or its associates have never been convicted of voter fraud.

    Irrelevant – if they enable it, they can always say,as they are in CA, that it is mere incompetence. They are trying to blame the county, but the machines are plainly easy to hack.

    Diebold is apolitical.

    Walden O’Dell, CEO of Diebold:””I am committed to helping Ohio deliver its electoral votes to the president next year …” – he’s a longtime Republican, he was a member of President Bush’s ”Rangers and … million people who cast their their ballots using Diebold machines that year. The matter is in court.

    Diebold is tested for accuracy.

    The problem is electronic voting machines themselves – even if carefully designed, they are easy to hack, by Diebold itself through pre-election patches, or by local officials.

    Diebold CEO would never stand up and make statements like this.

    See above.

    ACORN has never been convicted of vote fraud, and anyway, I’m talking about election fraud, which is far more massive and significant.

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  6. No one from ACORN has been convicted of voter fraud either, Swede. That whole FBI investigation that was magically started before the last election has now been closed. No charges filed, because no voter fraud was committed.

    *cue Swede talking about voter registration fraud*

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