Guilty of electronic voting fraud
March 25, 2010 11:40 AM   Subscribe

The verdict of United States v. Russell Cletus Maricle et al. is in: all defendants have been found guilty by a Kentucky jury. What makes this case more interesting than your average vote rigging scheme is that this is the only one that involved electronic voting machines.

One element of the conspirators' scheme exploited a weakness in the design of the electronic voting machines in use in certain districts.

Voters were told that their votes had been recorded when they pushed a button labeled “Vote” on the machine. In fact, there was an extra step—one that allowed the voter to review his vote and change it if desired. The vote wasn’t officially cast until the voter pushed another button marked “Cast Ballot.” So when voters walked out of the booth after having pressed “Vote,” the conspirators allegedly waltzed in, changed the vote, and then cast the ballot once the votes had been “corrected.”

Even though a number of (very good) security experts had analyzed the devices in question (ES&S iVotronic machines) and had found other flaws, none had spotted this particular one until it was too late.

This trick was low-tech. It exploited voter confusion rather than any inherent bug in the machine—and it shows that a security threat can often come from a quarter you don’t expect.
posted by cgs06 (37 comments total) 9 users marked this as a favorite
 
It's not really voter confusion but more like bad interface design. Which I think IS an inherent bug in the machine.
posted by amethysts at 11:53 AM on March 25, 2010 [6 favorites]


Participants checked lists of voters to identify those who would take bribes and lined up people to drive them to the polls, where precinct workers made sure they voted correctly and gave them a sticker or ticket to redeem for their payment, according to the indictment and testimony.

So these voters were complicit in the act also? This seems to be more about vote buying than machine fraud. Or I'm confused.
posted by Big_B at 11:55 AM on March 25, 2010


No--after the voters thought they had finalized their votes, the poll workers came back to the machines and switched them. The voters were not complicit. The polling officials were.
posted by saulgoodman at 11:56 AM on March 25, 2010


I think this scheme involved both vote buying and vote tampering.
posted by jeffamaphone at 11:57 AM on March 25, 2010 [2 favorites]


"Cletus"? He's really, honest and for true named fucking CLETUS? Okay, it's his middle name, but still.
posted by DecemberBoy at 11:58 AM on March 25, 2010 [8 favorites]


Some folks will never eat a skunk, but then again some folk'll...
posted by Mayor Curley at 11:58 AM on March 25, 2010 [11 favorites]


The scheme had a number of facets, including vote buying. The electronic voting element doesn't come out in most press accounts, including the one I linked to, unfortunately.
posted by cgs06 at 12:07 PM on March 25, 2010


Some folks will never eat a skunk, but then again some folk'll...

If he's missing a toe, I say throw in another year in the pokey on general principle.
posted by DecemberBoy at 12:09 PM on March 25, 2010


Shame that it is too late to submit R. Cletus Maricle to the NotY.
posted by Threeway Handshake at 12:14 PM on March 25, 2010


The indictment describes a conspiracy to exploit this ambiguity* in the iVotronic user interface by having pollworkers systematically (and incorrectly) tell voters that pressing the VOTE button is the last step. When a misled voter would leave the machine with the extra "confirm vote" screen still displayed, a pollworker would quietly "correct" the not-yet-finalized ballot before casting it.

The "ambiguity" mentioned here is the fact that the voting instructions indicated that pressing this one particular red "Vote" button on the machine would finalize the submission of your vote; but in fact, there was still another, final-final confirmation screen.

The poll workers conspired by deliberately misleading voters about the need to submit their votes on the final-final vote confirmation screen not described in the instructions.

Once the voters left the vote machines without completing the final step, the poll workers would quietly slip over to the machines and modify the votes before finally submitting them.
posted by saulgoodman at 12:16 PM on March 25, 2010 [2 favorites]


the poll workers would quietly slip over to the machines and modify the votes before finally submitting them.

There should be an automatic 20-year federal prison sentence for vote tampering (assuming the evidence is there), and it needs to be strict and severe, otherwise it sends the message that monkeying around with the democratic process is okay. On the other hand I won't get my hopes up, as electronic voting manufacturers so far have gotten away scot-free with all kinds of bullshit over the years.
posted by crapmatic at 12:26 PM on March 25, 2010 [3 favorites]


(and good on this jury... it's a start)
posted by crapmatic at 12:28 PM on March 25, 2010


Even though a number of (very good) security experts had analyzed the devices in question (ES&S iVotronic machines) and had found other flaws, none had spotted this particular one until it was too late.

That doesn't surprise me. I can easily see a team of IT nerds seeing the two-step process to get your vote cast as a proper, logical process. They'd see it in much the same way as they'd see getting a "Are you sure...?" prompt when you click to empty the trash as a correct process. Because of this, I can easily see them passing this part over in their review.

The big bug, of course, was the labeling of the button. "Vote" means, to those voting, that pushing the button would cast their ballot. One can only imagine the tortured, technical thought process employed by those who developed this machine, that allowed them to think that "Vote" could mean anything else. This strikes me as yet another example of the disconnect between developers and end-users.
posted by Thorzdad at 12:29 PM on March 25, 2010 [4 favorites]


I wonder how Mutton and Cleatus list "professional vote buyer" on their resumes. Would it be under activities and past times or professional experience?
posted by banannafish at 12:31 PM on March 25, 2010


The verdict of United States v. Russell Cletus Maricle et al. is in: all defendants have been found guilty by a Kentucky jury. What makes this case more interesting than your average vote rigging scheme is that this is the only one that involved electronic voting machine

What did the jury use to vote on the verdict?
posted by cjorgensen at 12:34 PM on March 25, 2010


The penalty for vote tampering should be death. I don't take any pleasure in that, human life is a sacred thing and to end one is terrible, but such a fundamental betrayal of democracy calls for nothing less.
posted by atrazine at 12:34 PM on March 25, 2010 [2 favorites]


The penalty for vote tampering should be death.

Very amusing. Sort of.
posted by malusmoriendumest at 12:56 PM on March 25, 2010


After Eugene "Mutton" Lewis, a convicted drug dealer who said he'd bought votes for decades, testified about a candidate giving him $1,000 and asking for help, a defense attorney asked if there weren't ways to help a candidate besides buying votes.

"Not that I know of," Lewis responded.


THAT got some coffee on the monitor...
posted by warbaby at 12:56 PM on March 25, 2010 [1 favorite]


Very amusing. Sort of.

I'm not joking.
posted by atrazine at 12:59 PM on March 25, 2010 [1 favorite]


A quick poll of my office determined that 30 billion people believe that Russell Cletus Maricle et al. should get life in prison. Roughly 26 thousand of the one people polled thought et al. was a funny name, even compared to Cletus.
posted by It's Raining Florence Henderson at 1:01 PM on March 25, 2010 [1 favorite]


So when voters walked out of the booth after having pressed “Vote,” the conspirators allegedly waltzed in, changed the vote, and then cast the ballot once the votes had been “corrected.”

On the old school voting machines, they prevented this by having the "Cast Ballot" lever open the curtains. Skipping that step was pretty hard, no matter how little attention you paid.

Funny how we forget old lessons.
posted by smackfu at 1:13 PM on March 25, 2010 [3 favorites]


smackfu, I for one would hesitate to enter a voting booth that relied on software to exit.
posted by tommasz at 1:19 PM on March 25, 2010 [1 favorite]


The penalty for vote tampering should be death.

Agreed. A charge of treason would make a fine justification.
posted by coolguymichael at 1:29 PM on March 25, 2010 [1 favorite]


They face up to 20 years in prison, though their sentences will likely be less under advisory guidelines.

That's funny, because my guidelines advise me that the sentences shouldn't be reduced at all. Fraud and corruption like this are one of those unbelievably corrosive things that can quickly screw up any place that suffers from it.

White used his connections to have a Thompson supporter arrested and staged a shooting of his own van


A Republican staged a shooting of his own property to smear an opponent? But, but...they are pillars of virtue!
posted by quin at 1:33 PM on March 25, 2010 [3 favorites]


I have a special hate reserved for this kind of corruption, and think the penalty should be worse than that for murder.
posted by BrotherCaine at 2:02 PM on March 25, 2010


I've worked as a poll worker helping people with the e-vote machines. Ours have that same "cast ballot" step, and on occasion I've pushed the button when the voter walked away and I wasn't quick enough to stop him (yeah, illegal, but what else am I going to do, dump the vote?). However, our machines featured a waving flag after your ballot was cast, and we told the voters that when they saw that, they were finished, and that kept the walk-aways to a minimum.
posted by Jimmy Havok at 2:26 PM on March 25, 2010


He's really, honest and for true named fucking CLETUS?

Cletus Alreetus Alrightus.

Anyone sharing the same name as a Frank Zappa song is OK by me.
posted by three blind mice at 2:59 PM on March 25, 2010 [1 favorite]


quinn Heck, that's nothing. Here in Texas, back in 1980, a state Rep named Martin hired his cousin to shoot him in the arm and claimed that a satanic group called the "Guardian Angels of the Underworld" was responsible. He maintained that they targeted him because he was a good Christian man and opposed Satan.

Turns out it's illegal to hire people to shoot you in Texas, and when the truth came out and Martin was charged with that crime he sued his cousin for taking the job.

So, yeah, hiring people to shoot you is a long tradition for conservative wackjobs.
posted by sotonohito at 3:07 PM on March 25, 2010 [1 favorite]


Turns out it's illegal to hire people to shoot you in Texas, and when the truth came out and Martin was charged with that crime he sued his cousin for taking the job.

Voter fraud is one thing. Candidate fraud, unfortunately, is a problem everywhere.
posted by three blind mice at 3:40 PM on March 25, 2010


Just a point of anecdata to counter the anti-Cletus-as-respectable-name sentiment that MetaFilter seems to have adopted: One of my favorite bosses was named Cletus. When people asked him about his name, he'd just amp up the south in him and say, "Yup. Just alike m' paw an' 'is paw afore him!"

I don't know what this says about him, but he left a high-paying but unsatisfying job as some kind of computer tech at IBM to work on the railroad.
posted by The Potate at 4:04 PM on March 25, 2010 [1 favorite]


Here in Texas, back in 1980, a state Rep named Martin hired his cousin to shoot him in the arm...

Fucking nepotism.
posted by fatbird at 4:12 PM on March 25, 2010 [6 favorites]


This trick was low-tech. It exploited voter confusion rather than any inherent bug in the machine—and it shows that a security threat can often come from a quarter you don’t expect.

It's not a bug, it's a feature! That lets attackers steal votes. But it's supposed to be there. For Sure.

Also, this wouldn't work in a high-traffic election. But yeah, those machines were full of holes. Thank god most places have gone back to optical scan system.
posted by delmoi at 4:16 PM on March 25, 2010


Also, People should be sentenced to death? Some of you need to get a grip.
posted by delmoi at 4:21 PM on March 25, 2010


Which party benefitted from this fraud?
posted by Chocolate Pickle at 4:52 PM on March 25, 2010 [1 favorite]


Clever of ACORN to hire a guy named Cletus to do its dirty work.

Layers within layers.
posted by notyou at 5:05 PM on March 25, 2010


Which party benefitted from this fraud?
posted by Chocolate Pickle at 4:52 PM on March 25


From the analysis and the comments, looks like the Republicans benefited. Hope that helps.
posted by Optimus Chyme at 7:16 PM on March 25, 2010


Optimus Chyme: "From the analysis and the comments, looks like the Republicans benefited. Hope that helps."

Makes no difference to me, either way it's one of many things undermining an active democracy. I'm glad they caught 'em
posted by Sportbilly at 9:16 PM on March 25, 2010


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