MetaFilter posts tagged with vote and Diebold

Hacking Democracy

Espoo2 — Sun, 05 Nov 2006 16:01:46 -0800

Hacking Democracy. A frightening and well-made full-length HBO documentary.

If voting could actually change anything...

clevershark — Thu, 02 Nov 2006 12:25:25 -0800

The election isn't until next Tuesday, but already problems are being reported. It's not just in Texas, and not just in relation to everyone's favorite electronic-voting whipping boy, either; it's becoming clear that every vendor has its own unsolved security issues. In fact it seems that an increasing number of voices are warning that the US is in for an awful lot of contention from all parties involved after next week's vote, and that can't be good. Others are taking a non-disinterested rose-colored view of things and loudly proclaiming that there's nothing wrong with the system, or at least that no one should imply or infer or investigate the matter. Still others are quick to point out that there's nothing wrong with electronic voting, except when they're linked to a foreign government that doesn't get along particularly well with them. Whatever is true about the state of electronic voting in 2006, you can't deny that it has led to a certain plurality of opinions...

Oh, Cruel Fate To Be Thusly Boned Or How To Steal An Election

sparkletone — Wed, 25 Oct 2006 22:41:02 -0800

A manual for electoral apocalypse in America. Quite a bit's been written both on MeFi and other places about how bad Diebold machines are. Rolling Stone wrote an article about election fraud in 2004 that was discussed here on MeFi. Tonight, Ars posted a very thorough, very clear article about how we are completely screwed if we do not enact expensive, fundamental changes in how we handle elections in America. It's too late to do anything about the elections in a couple weeks, but perhaps steps can be taken to fix things before 2008...

Will the Next Election be Hacked?

Saucy Intruder — Fri, 22 Sep 2006 06:12:09 -0800

[O]ne muggy day in mid-August [2002], [Diebold consultant Chris] Hood was surprised to see the president of Diebold's election unit, Bob Urosevich, arrive in Georgia from his headquarters in Texas. With the primaries looming, Urosevich was personally distributing a "patch," a little piece of software designed to correct glitches in the computer program. "We were told that it was intended to fix the clock in the system, which it didn't do," Hood says. "The curious thing is the very swift, covert way this was done. . . . It was an unauthorized patch, and they were trying to keep it secret from the state," Hood told me. "We were told not to talk to county personnel about it. I received instructions directly from Urosevich. It was very unusual that a president of the company would give an order like that and be involved at that level."
- Robert F. Kennedy, Jr., Will the Next Election be Hacked?

Does it matter anyway?

Unregistered User — Tue, 01 Aug 2006 15:28:37 -0800

Worst Ever Security Flaw in Diebold Voting Machine A single switch is all that is required to cause the machine to boot an unverified external flash instead of the built-in, verified EEPROM."

Delivering the Vote, with Dividends

digaman — Tue, 04 Apr 2006 11:32:59 -0800

Whooops! While making a required filing to the state ethics commission, Ohio Secretary of State and gubernatorial candidate Kenneth Blackwell finds Diebold shares in his stock portfolio that he now claims to have bought "accidentally." Yes, that Diebold -- the e-voting company whose chairman promised to "deliver the vote" to George Bush. And yes, that Blackwell, whose state helped deliver the White House to the GOP. Blackwell insists that the humble amount of Diebold stock was in one of those "blind trust" type of arrangements that worked out so rewardingly for Senate Majority Leader Bill Frist. [newsfilter via RawStory.]

Diebold

Protocols of the Elders of Awesome — Tue, 13 Dec 2005 12:06:42 -0800

Diebold boss resigns pending fraud investigation

This is what demockery looks like!

dinsdale — Sat, 24 Sep 2005 14:48:00 -0800

Project Censored places "Distorted Election Coverage" at number 3 on their list of ignored news stories of the last year. In more recent ignored news a Diebold insider speaks out (which security guru Bruce Schneier considers "sensationalist" but "good information") - just as Diebold shares plunge and top executives flee. In July Diebold's voting machines were rejected by the state of California after "possibly the most extensive testing ever on a voting system" revealed a high incidence of crashes and paper jams. Not to mention the undocumented backdoor in Diebold's GEMS vote tabulator. Meanwhile, in Ohio, two officials of the Cuyahoga County Board of Elections have been indicted by a grand jury on charges that they "did not permit a random selection of precincts for the recount and it did not let witnesses oversee the opening of the sealed ballot cases and the first recount of the votes." And John Conyers is urging Americans to oppose a proposed national ID voting requirement, which he calls a "21st Century poll tax". Is this what democracy looks like?

Diebold

skallas — Wed, 17 Mar 2004 20:45:10 -0800

NationalCity Diebold ATM crashes, giving anyone admin access. Amazing, some college students found a crashed Diebold WindowsXP ATM and were able to use it like a desktop machine. Your money isn't feeling too safe right about now. Your vote is probably just as unsafe.