Gizmodo: voting machine

Voting Machines With Disappearing Logs Finally Under Investigation

Rosa Golijan — Thu, 22 Oct 2009 21:00:00 EDT

We knew how you could hack a voting machine, but California has discovered that some of its machines practically invite you to play. Machines made by Premier Election Solutions are finally under investigation for their faulty, omissive, easily alterable logs.

The center of the investigation is the log design which allows "election official or someone else to delete votes without leaving an electronic trail." But according to a previous statement by Justin Bales, general service manager of the company making the machines, it's not so much a flaw in design as it is in planning:

We never . . . intended for any malicious intent and not to log certain activities," Bales said. "It was just not in the initial program, but now we're taking a serious look at that.

Whatever the cause or reason, at least new versions of the voting machines include more comprehensive logs as well as safeguards against alterations, but it's about damn time the previous ones are being investigated. [Wired]

Rube Goldberg Voting Machine Is Irreverent, Thankfully Irrelevant

Elaine Chow — Wed, 05 Nov 2008 03:30:00 EST

Well, the election is over! Luckily, it was pretty clear from about two hours in who would be the winner this time around , so even if there were a couple of iffy voting hijinks, it wouldn't be anything to take up to the Supreme Court. Still, some post-election voting humor never hurt anybody – check out this Rube Goldberg machine by some kids over at the University of California Berkeley and feel relieved that, unlike in 2000, it's easy this year to laugh about this kind of stuff. [Thanks Roland!]

How the Obama-Hating Voting Machine Fails

matt buchanan — Wed, 29 Oct 2008 11:00:00 EDT

Remember the voting machines in West Virginia that just couldn't bring themselves to let people vote Obama? Jackson County Clerk Jeff Waybright, who "hates stories like this" was good enough to show Video the Vote how a mis-calibrated voting machine would take a vote for Obama (or anyone) and turn it into a vote for another candidate—and not necessarily John McCain, either, though that's what would happen if you picked a straight Democratic ticket. So yeah, this could definitely happen to you.

Waybright actually seems like a really stand-up guy on people being able to vote the way they want, and details some of the measures they're taking to make sure that happens. The machines have confirmation screens, and they'll have techs at the polling places, just in case problems do pop up. It looks like an easy enough fix too—the same machine, when properly calibrated, should work just fine. So just be sure to double check your vote on Tuesday, wherever and however you're voting. [Video the Vote]

Voting Machine: No, You Really Meant to Vote for McCain

matt buchanan — Tue, 21 Oct 2008 17:30:00 EDT

Even though the great state of West Virginia is only at threat level orange for having the closest thing the average American has to a voice tampered with, in at least three counties, voters have complained that when they tried to vote for Barack Obama, the touchscreen voting machine cast their vote for John McCain. One voter reported that all of their Democratic votes, for every level of government, were magically transformed into ~~real American~~ Republican ones.

Some officials blamed it on user error for not touching the screens properly—Jackson County Clerk Jeff Waybright said that 400 people voted early using Election Systems & Software's machines without any problems at all. Oh and:

"I hate the fact that stories like this are printed. It makes everybody get scared. That is not good for anybody. Where the fault is, I don't know and the voter doesn't know. There needs to be good communication between the voters and the poll workers."

After being contacted by the Secretary of State's office, though, they've agreed to re-calibrate the machines. Ones of the counties with touchscreen wonkiness, Putnam, will actually use an optical scan machine with a full-size paper ballot on election day—the touchscreens are just for early voting, so it hopefully won't be an issue.

The takeaway is that whoever you're voting for, wherever you're doing it, whatever you're using, double-check it to make sure it was properly recorded before you walk out of the booth. If it's not, call the poll person over, it's what they're there for. Of course, if you see voting machines doing anything particularly crazy, be sure to let us know about it. [Wired]

Hacking a Voting Machine: Making Your Vote REALLY Count

Sean Fallon — Mon, 15 Sep 2008 11:45:00 EDT

After the Florida debacle a number of years ago, it really shouldn't come as a surprise that there are *gasp* vulnerabilities in the voting system. Take this hack of the Sequoia Voting kiosk for example. As you will see in the video, a trojan app can be easily installed via a USB key planted among a pool of keys used to initialize the system. While it is highly unlikely that a hack like this could be implemented in such a way that it has a major impact on an election, it is a frightening prospect nonetheless. [CrunchGear]

Diebold Voting Machines: Secure as Never

Matt Buchanan — Wed, 24 Jan 2007 22:55:12 EST

Proving they're getting on that whole (in)security thing, Diebold put a picture of the key that opens their voting machines online. Yes, the key—one key opens all of their machines. Result? Someone was able to copy it using the photo on the website. Makes you relish the days of hanging chads, doesn't it? – Matt Buchanan

Diebold Machine Key Copied From Photo at Company's Own Store [The Brad Blog]