Voting Machine Security Studies Show Continuing Problems

Anonymous commented on a previous post that raised questions about the security of Diebold voting machines. Diebold changed the name of its voting machine division to Premier Election Solutions in August. Anon pointed to the State of Alaska website with information on the State's ongoing study of Alaska's voting machine security. The project has been contracted to the University of Alaska Anchorage (the Department of Engineering seems to be doing the work.) A key aspect of this study is the review of studies already done by other states. The whole Phase Ia report was contracted to cover:

Overview-level evaluation of recent studies relative to existing Alaska systems,
technologies and procedures
Inclusions:
• A brief review of studies and tests that have been undertaken that might be relevant to Alaska’s situation.
• A summary of the University of California’s and Florida State University’s tests and conclusions, analyzing the recommendations that were made and are applicable to Alaska’s optical scanning technology.
• Research and assess improvements made by Premier (formerly Diebold) based on
California and Florida studies and their applicability to our systems
• Assessment of existing Alaska systems and equipment and ability to upgrade security functionality
• Research other states that are conducting similar research. Determine potential points of collaboration, partnership and leverage
• General evaluation of Alaska’s election policies, processes and procedures
• Provide repository for public input via Division of Elections website. Use this input to guide suggested approach for interactive public input/response in Phase 2. Ensure that both UAA and Division of Elections have record of public input. ....

From the Phase 1 Executive Summary we get synopsis of the overview of studies done by other states:

What did the California and Florida studies find?
As part of Phase I, we reviewed a number of election-security studies done in other states. But our reviews of the California and Florida studies were the most detailed—and those states use the same or similar electronic equipment as Alaska. Generally speaking, the studies identified a number of worrisome vulnerabilities, including:
• Vulnerability to the installation of malicious software that could allow incorrect recording or miscounts of votes.
•Susceptibility to computer viruses that could spread from voting machine to voting machine and to election management systems.
• Insufficient control of access to and management of machines, potentially making them accessible to unauthorized people.
The manufacturer of the equipment—Premier Election Solutions [Diebold]—made improvements in its software and machines, based on these studies. Follow-up studies by Florida investigators found that newer versions of Premier software and hardware corrected some but not all the flaws identified.
• Identify areas of risk in Alaska’s absentee and questioned ballot system.
• Assess vulnerability of paper ballots to tampering, and contrast with risks in electronic system.
• Determine points in the election system where there should be more redundancy in personnel or procedures.

I don't have time to get all the details at the moment. Above are the highlights from the summary. You can go to the full Phase 1a Report. The Overview of Studies begins on page 29 of the report (p. 36 on the PDF file). It looks at reports on

• Maryland
• Cuyohoga County, Ohio
• University of Connecticut Voting Technology Research Center Report
• State of California “Top-to-Bottom Review” (TTBR) Report (and Diebold's response)
• Florida Software Review and Security Analysis Summary

I would guess these are among the more objective looks at voting machine technology in use. Perhaps we can get more into this later. A giant tip of the hat to Anonymous for the link.

The Diebold Effect More Serious than Tweety or Bradley Effects

Phil mentions the Bradley effect and the Tweety effect in his comment on the earlier post on the New Hampshire primary.

Bradley effect argues that white folks will tell a pollster that they will vote for a black candidate (former LA Mayor Tom Bradley) but in the secrecy of the voting booth, they don't.

Tweety effect argues that people get so angry at smug, mysogynist pundits that they change their vote to prove them wrong.

But as I raised in the earlier post today, I want to be sure that the discussions and investigations of the New Hampshire primary also consider seriously the Diebold Effect. This, as the name implies, is the effect of people tampering with the Diebold voting machines to tilt the vote to their advantage.

[See more recent post on State of Alaska study on other state voting systems.]

Checking on Jury Duty

My jury service number was between 450 and 500. Sunday night, Monday night, and Tuesday night it wasn't called. Tonight here's what they said:

AKRaven's recording recorded by AKRaven

Diebold, Clinton, Obama, Paul, New Hamshire, Fraud

I don't know what happened. Here's what I do know.

1. Voting machines, like those made by Diebold, have serious flaws that potentially could allow unauthorized people to reprogram them and to change the outcome.

2. Diebold has been a strong supporter of George W.

You'll notice that these links don't go to traditional media and they aren't that new. That raises other questions about why others aren't working on this now. Maybe Google pushes the traditional media back behind the blogs, but that doesn't hold up for other issues. But I trust my son's judgment on these things and he's strongly opposed to voting machines because they have too many problems.

3. Obama was leading by around 8-10% in the polls before yesterday's election in New Hampshire.

4. He was several percentage points behind Clinton after the election.

Polling of Democrats just before Tuesday's vote gave little warning of the New York senator's comeback, with most underestimating her strength. A USA Today-Gallup Poll gave Obama a 13-percentage point lead, putting her at just 28 percent. Another by CNN, local television station WMUR and the University of New Hampshire had Obama up 39 percent to 30 percent.

It wasn't just the pollsters. Journalists covering the candidates on their final full day of campaigning described larger, more energized crowds attending Obama's events than Clinton's. And from the Clinton camp came word of campaign shake-ups, as well as a moist-eyed candidate vowing to struggle on regardless — an appearance some analysts said helped humanize her and win supporters.

Exit polls conducted for The Associated Press and the television networks offered no obvious clues. Interviews with voters in the Democratic primary showed those who said they'd made their choice within the last three days — including those who said they'd decided on the final day — split about evenly between Clinton and Obama. (From Associated Press)

Reputable polls have a margin of error of 5% or less. This change is beyond that margin of error. Other candidates were predicted accurately. Though the Ron Paul camp is also grumbling apparently.

I've heard, on mainstream media, tended to blame the polls:

• It's hard to predict black candidates in biracial elections because people lie to pollsters about how they will vote.
• It was the Independents and women (Listen at least to 2:32)
  
• The pollsters need to reevaluate how they got it wrong
  

But it is only on the blogs that I'm hearing people raise the issue of voter fraud. I'm not saying it was voter fraud. I don't have omniscience. But, given what we know about the machines, and given the difference between the polls and the outcome, certainly one of the possible explanations people should be looking at is that someone tampered with the machines.

Now, it gives me some small comfort to think that the Clinton folks might have tampered with the machines, simply because it would mean when things get really dirty heading for the November election, that the Clinton camp might be the only Democratic opponent who could fight back against the Republicans in the dirty tricks department. Of course that is a pretty cynical perspective and it would be better to prevent the dirty tricks, but these, by their nature tend not be revealed until after the victor is comfortably in office. We should have laws that invalidate the election if it is proven the victor won by deceit and deception out of his campaign. Of course, that would lead to the other candidate trying to sabotage his own candidacy in the name of his opponent.


But another explanation would be that someone else messed with the machines. I still am not sure who the Republicans want to run against. Whatever they say is calculated. Truth is a strategic choice, not a moral choice. You can listen to Allen Raymond here talk about the book he wrote now that he's out of prison for tampering with the 2002 New Hampshire election. It's all so matter of fact. There's nothing wrong. He happened to get caught and paid his dues. It's not about morality, he says, it's only about winning.

Rove's advice to Obama on how to beat Clinton for instance. Is that because they hate her so much? Or because they are afraid of Clinton and want Obama to take her out? Or they want to give that impression because they really want to run against Clinton? Is it easier to defeat a black man than a white woman? Is this particular woman encumbered by enough negatives that they think it would be easier to defeat her? If they want her as the candidate, then they could have been behind tampering with the machines, if that happened.

I guess what irks me, is that when I google New Hampshire primary voter fraud all I get is blogs. Why do I have to go to a New Zealand site to get this story?

Given the huge discrepancy between the polling data and the vote, why isn't voter fraud one of the possibly explanations in the mainstream press? It isn't like they don't jump on other undocumented blog reports.

[More on this topic added here and here.]

Alaska Airlines 7271 (AKA 871) Arrives in Anchorage Finally

Instead of arriving at 5am this morning, a new flight was created that left Honolulu this afternoon and made it to Anchorage a little after 9pm.

So, here's the updated, somewhat corrected story. Mind you, this is what TOE related when he, his wife, and son arrived tonight based on the kind of information passengers can glean from each other and airline personnel and what they make up to fill in the holes. Thus it's not necessarily accurate.

The passenger last night had pneumonia and was having trouble an hour out of Honolulu. There was a doctor on board who treated the man and to be safe they returned to Honolulu. The patient/passenger was taken off. But then the medical equipment that had been used for the ill patient had to be replaced. It is part of the FAA required medical equipment. It was this they were supposedly waiting for. Not, as I understood this morning, for some equipment so the ill passenger could get back on board.


Then Alaska had to create a new flight number so the flight wouldn't be confused with today's 871. That apparently got caught up in some computer problems and after everyone got new seating, when they boarded they were told to ignore the new seating and go back to the seats they had the night before. AND, the passenger whose medical problems caused all this, was back on the flight. You'd think that they could have put him on the other flight to Anchorage today, but maybe he preferred the earlier flight even though he had to see all the people whose lives his illness had disrupted. TOE gave all the passengers high marks for behavior. Well, they did get an extra day in Hawaii. They might not have been so accommodating if this had happened when they were leaving Anchorage and would lose a day of their vacations. (OK, not everyone was there on vacation, but I bet most were.)

I understand Alaska Airlines only started its Anchorage-Honolulu run recently after buying out Hawaiian Vacations, but you'd think they would have back up supplies for the mandatory medical equipment readily available. And being the middle of the night is not an excuse since that is when their flights go everyday. And they had an hour notice that the plane was returning. Assuming this was the actual hold up, you'd think they could have just traded the plane's medical kit for a new one and gotten out of there as soon as the passenger was off before bumping into the time limit the flight crew could fly. But I'm sure there's more to the story.

Apparently there was a giant jam up for these passengers at the agricultural extension this morning as well. At least they'd all had a vacation in Hawaii before this all happened. And Alaska Airlines did pay for their hotel rooms in Honolulu last night.

And, as I said, this is the story as my friends knew it. I did not talk to Alaska Airlines to get their story.

Alaska Airlines Flight 871 from Honolulu to Honolulu

I got up at 5:30 this morning to pick up some friends at the airport. They said to wait until they called from the airport. It's only ten minutes away. So I checked my cmputer to see if they had landed already.




Hmm, that doesn't look good. I start thinking all these evil thoughts about Alaska Airlines. How can they strand people in Hawaii in the middle of the night? Boy, all those things people are saying about how Alaska Airlines is going down hill is really true. Etc.

About 7:30, TE called from Honolulu. They took off. About an hour out, there was a medical emergency and returned to Honolulu. They waited to get some medical equipment so the passenger could go. But it was the middle of the night and it took a couple of hours to arrive. But, by then, the pilots wouldn't arrive in Anchorage in time to meet the legal requirements about how long they can be on a shift. That was the gist of his message.

Hmmmm. There I was jumping to conclusions when the story was totally different. But it raises other issues. I have no idea what medical supply they needed for the patient (or even if I have that part of the story right). I don't know what the passenger needed, I can think of an oxygen tank as an example. I will assume that the passenger with the medical issues did everything right to prepare for the flight. But when they got back to Honolulu, and they got close to the deadline to leave within the pilots' legal time to get to Anchorage, it seems that leaving the one person in Honolulu and taking the rest on their trip would be the way to go. Now the one person, plus everyone else, missed the flight.

But, of course, there is surely more to the story.

Two More in the Class of 1908

The blogger at the Greek blog ΜΟΝΑ - ΖΥΓΑ came up with a similar idea to mine on famous people born in 1908. While looking for people born in 1908 he found my post and so he linked to mine and reposted my post. In a separate e-mail he added two more well known names: Ian Fleming (May 28, 1908 - August 12,1964) whose commemorative stamps come out tomorrow apparently (January 8, 2008) and Herbert von Karajan (April 5, 1908 – July 16, 1989.)

I've posted the first part of his post. Can you find the names? Ropi, you're working on the Greek alphabet, this should be easy. (There are three other names which the list I copied already had - Galbraith, Cartier-Bresson, and , Levi-Strauss)

Διαβάζοντας κανείς την ειδική έκδοση που είχε χθές το ΒΗΜΑ για τις επετείους που συμπληρώνονται το 2008, βλέπει πως τη χρονιά που άρχισε "κλείνουν" εκατό χρόνια από τη γέννηση των Χέρμπερτ φον Κάραγιαν, Ιαν Φλέμιγκ, Ανρί Καρτιέ Μπρεσόν, Τζόν Γκαλμπρέϊθ και Κλόντ Λεβί- Στρός.

Karajan Video Courtesy of YouTube

Ski Break

The jury recording last night said numbers 1-125 should come in today. I'm closer to 500. So I went off to Campbell Airstrip to go cross country skiing. With three extra minutes of daylight today (over yesterday) I need to take advantage.






























And on the way home going west on Tudor at 4pm, I got to see the left lanes backed up at least 1/4 of mile to turn left at the new Elmore Road.

To Live or Die in Wales 2

Two things have happened since I posted on Tony Hopfinger's story in The Walrus.
First, The Walrus has now posted the whole story, so my issues about getting permission from an appropriate group of elders is moot. The story is now available for all to read at the link above.

Second, I got an email today from an elder in Wales who I had asked if it was ok to post the article. He said he wouldn't know how to go about consulting the elders on this (modestly not including himself in that group) - to explain to them what a blog is and how everyone in the world can read it and give them the story. I'm going to take the liberty here and quote a bit of what he said in the email.

I imagine that in the end they would say in our language "azukiaq taimanapiruaq", meaning what a tragedy it was what happened. They, perhaps would be looking for the moral of the story or how it can help young people today, much in the way many traditional stories were structured, as an educational device. I, myself, would urge you to post the whole article on your blog spot. Mike's story, our story, needs to be told and spread so others begin to understand our lives, just as we, here need to read stories of others elsewhere and how they live.

I would note (and say thanks) that Jeremy commented on the first post:

The ethical questions you raise seem interesting, but trivial in our present context. News people shoot video and edit to create their own message. Advocacy journalists, such as Rupert Murdoch having no scruples feel free to twist the story to fit a predetermined message. Swift Boat advocacy groups change the course of history using techniques that would put Goebbles to shame.

I don't dispute that the issues Jeremy raises are significant and affect a lot more people than how journalists write about Alaska Native communities. But Jeremy's criticism could be made about nearly every post on every blog - there are more important issues to write about. And I have, in other posts written more directly to some of the issues he thinks are more important.

But I would dispute that this is trivial. Everything is connected. It doesn't matter at what point people become aware of their biases and the negative effects they can have on others. Once they have this awareness in one area, it can be applied in another area. Jeremy is concerned with the sort of intentional manipulation of information that George Orwell warned against long ago in the book 1984 and "The Politics of the English Language".



I think that if someone reads my post and Tony's article and reexamines unquestioned beliefs they have about rural Alaska, then they might also be more ready to question what they hear on any of Rupert Murdoch's media outlets. Understanding doesn't always come in a direct, linear path. Unexpected insights here, affect thinking there. One person can understand the implications of one story, someone else the implications of another story.

I also think in Jeremy's comments there is an understandable concern about the erosions of free press rights of journalists and that he can see me adding a level of permission needed to publish or broadcast something. There is a difference though between asking permission of those who normally have little or no power to protect themselves (what I was doing) and asking permission of George W. Bush before you write about the Iraq war.

The seemingly small courtesy of asking permission for something for which you legally do not need permission can go a long way. It shows respect - and respect for others is one of the most powerful ways to establish meaningful communication and peace among human beings.

Alaska Overnighters 13

My daughter emailed:

Hey -- It looks like my friend Paul is in a show. Maybe you guys would want
to see you...
m

So, what else could we do? Fortunately we got there a little early and got good seats, because Grant Hall was full. It appeared from the audience reaction that many of the people were involved with theater and knew each other.

Four playwrights were picked last night. From what I understood, they were each given a title, a director, cast assigned to specific characters. The playwright needs to write the play and the cast perform it 24 hours later. Given the conditions, this was really amazing.

The plays ranged from quite good to ok. But all the acting was worth seeing. They assigned another set of four plays for Sunday night, so there is still a chance to this. John McKay, the attorney who represented the Anchorage Daily News and KTUU in Federal Court during the corruption trials, was assigned as one of the playwrights for tomorrow night.
It was dark and the actors moved, so I figured I'd make the pictures small so they weren't too blurred.

Another All New Show - 8pm Sunday, Grant Hall at APU. $10 a seat. Great deal.