Diebold considering dumping e-voting unit; Engadget says PLEASE DO IT

Apparently executives high up at Diebold, the company that brought untold amounts of frustration to voters and countless faulty elections across the US, are considering dumping their Diebold Election Systems business unit, which it seems is almost systematically attempting to tarnish its parent company's brand with its infamous e-voting machines. After strained relationships with government officials over the utter craptasticality of their boxen, Diebold expects to announce the future of DES early this year; although there's no way to guarantee the 150k deployed Diebold machines would be decommissioned if DES were dismantled or sold, we'd really like to see a progressive technology organization -- like, say, a major university, the Open Voting Foundation, or the EFF -- raise the funds, buy the assets, opens source the software, and ensure that by the time the 2008 elections roll around, every vote will be properly accounted for, even if cast on old Diebold boxes.

[dkrivas @ Mar 4th 2007 5:59PM]

The machines aren't going down with the ship as they say. The counties own the machines they purchased from DESI.

[Jeff @ Mar 4th 2007 6:31PM]

Personally I'd like to see some lawsuits and jail time. Unemployment just doesn't say "don't do this again" strongly enough.

[Revrant2394 @ Mar 4th 2007 6:52PM]

Such a mess, it's angering that people don't care about all of the fraud and problems these monstrosities caused, hopefully a more responsible(and not so politically funded and directed) entity takes control of this disaster.

[Spartacus @ Mar 4th 2007 7:18PM]

Yes, because the part of the system that is most broken is the voting machines... They may be crap, but then so are the names listed on them, so what difference does it make?

[walk2k @ Mar 4th 2007 7:03PM]

Open source, lol... yeah good idea, let's give every hacker in the world complete access to the source code... ???

NO f'n way, it has to be private and protected.

[bazald @ Mar 4th 2007 7:17PM]

Don't understand security at all, do you? Security by obscurity is a very poor defense against attack.

[Jeff @ Mar 4th 2007 7:30PM]

Protecting source code is almost impossible, and protecting a device from reverse engineering *is* impossible. The idea behind open source is that there can't be any hidden code that could sway the count one way or the other.

[Drew @ Mar 4th 2007 7:05PM]

I ask this with all seriousness. How difficult would it be to create an open-source voting machine or voting software that could be loaded onto a computer?

I would think with all the poli-sci people and computer science people out there, someone could organize a group to do this. The system would need checks and balances and ways to prevent tampering with the votes. I could see you getting a paper receipt like you do from the store that had all of your votes on there and a specific website for you to go to and check to make sure your vote was properly cast. While not everyone would, i think a fair number of people would check up on their vote and would quickly find whether or not the 2 lists matched up.

An open source system would also be extremely cheap i would think. This would be important for 2 reasons. 1) it would let communities easily switch, and 2) would prevent the open source company from having to receive 'funds' from different groups and investors who have their own interests at stake.

[maltinej @ Mar 4th 2007 8:44PM]

as if their voting machines were the only POS products they had. diebold makes ATM machines and ticket kiosks machines, and they ALL have problems, and are out of order 90% of the time. Diebold should just accept they are a company of inept people and close down forever...

[BatteryAcid @ Mar 4th 2007 8:48PM]

Thank God!

[Matt @ Mar 4th 2007 9:08PM]

Paper ballots are the only way to go.

[David @ Mar 4th 2007 9:15PM]

What is a progressive voting machine? One that is leftist friendly? Open source software has all the flaws of socialism: It leeches off of and lags behind true innovation and tries to keep everybody in lock step. It also makes a hackers job easier by providing blueprints to work from. Linux is nothing more than a free version of old Unix technology. Firefox doesn't do anything innovative. The true innovators have always been private for-profit companies.

[Bhowdy @ Mar 5th 2007 3:12AM]

The irony of the comments about how these machines are causing fraud is, well, ironic.

Lest we forget, many people insisted on getting such machines because their voters couldn't figure out the oh-so-complex punch card ballot.

And now the very same people are whining about electronic voting machines.

It is to laugh.

[GhostDoggy @ Mar 5th 2007 5:36AM]

I do not fear or mind electronic voting. I have zero means to follow-up that my time and effort is 'counted', and in the good ole USA your vote doesn't count anyway. So, the entire dillusion that e-voting is going to be abused takes a huge backseat to the fact that you do not count. Period!

Only the ignorant think that their vote actually counts for something. No law exists that assures otherwise. Now, can I have my at-home e-voting kit where I can not only pseudo-vitual vote on politicians, but also on bills, etc. as well?

[nutzareus @ Mar 5th 2007 3:31PM]

I've been using these machines for at least 3 years in my town. Not once did we have problems.

[CaptCaveman @ Mar 5th 2007 8:38PM]

I've got a better idea. Why don't the local governments just drop Diebold...

[bravo90078 @ Mar 6th 2007 3:18AM]

I'd say no; don't do it. They're just trying to rid themselves of any liability when the eventual evidence comes out within the next 3-4 years that they conspired to rig elections.