Diebold opscan problems in Vermont

[garybeck]

Voter notified me of this:

I inserted my ballot into the Diebold machine, which accepted it, but the LCD screen stayed at a count of 61.

The number did not go up to indicate that it had received my ballot and it did not reject my ballot. I noticed that the number indicated did go up as other voters inserted their ballot. I reported this to the town clerk, who did not write down my complaint, but assured me that they’ll catch it at the end of the day if there’s a discrepancy.

[Deja Q]

1. So much for privatization.

:shrug:

[aquart]

2. Suuuree they will.

[LisaM]

3. Are they supposed to write down your complaint?

I can't believe that they wouldn't memorialize it in some way.

[louis-t]

4. You WILL call the phone #'s to complain, won't you?

888-DEM-VOTE
866-MY-VOTE
866-OUR-VOTE

It may be too late for your vote to be counted, but someone in authority needs to check that machine NOW!

[garybeck]

5. it's not me, but that person will do it

I gave him the numbers and he said he would

[slackmaster]

6. Naive question - How do we know that number is supposed to be a count?

Does anyone have a link to some documentation?

[slackmaster]

7. OK, I have answered my own question - It's NOT a ballot count

According to a report by the University of Connecticut that details security vulnerabilities of Diebold optical scan voting equipment:

Figure 5: (Left): The setup for compromising the AV-OS. A standard laptop is connected through its serial
port to the serial port of the AV-OS machine. (Right): Dumping the memory contents through the serial line.
Anyone with physical access to the AV-OS can perform this operation since this function does not require any
authentication. The number shown in the LCD screen is the amount of remaining bytes before the dump is
completed (each card holds 128Kb of data).

I assume they mean Kbytes rather than bytes, but it's not a ballot count.

http://voter.engr.uconn.edu/voter/Reports_files/uconn-report-os.pdf

ETA It is OK to ask poll workers about these things. I quizzed one pretty thoroughly this morning, and he was happy to answer.

[garybeck]

8. I don't know but I'm about to go vote and I'll tell you

the voter told me he saw the number go UP when other people voted

and the SoS agreed it was a problem when he reported it.

[garybeck]

9. YES IT IS a ballot count!

I just voted on a Diebold Opscan. On the screen it clearly says "Total Count" and it incremented up by one when I inserted my ballot. As well, on the way out, one of the candidates asked me what the total count was and we all talked about the number on the screen. So, that number IS the total count on the machine.

[slackmaster]

10. OK, maybe documentation I linked to was for a different machine

Are we sure the LCD display doesn't have multiple functions? (LCD displays on printers and other machines do.)

The GOOD news is you have paper ballots that can be hand-counted.