Court: Protecting trade secrets takes priority over election transparency

[IChing]

Source: Ars Technica

A Florida appeals court has upheld a lower court decision that denies requests for an independent source code audit of voting machines used by Florida's 13th district, which suffered election irregularities in a highly controversial congressional race. The appeals court has chosen to support a lower court decision which asserts that forcing voting machine maker Election Systems and Software (ES&S) to provide source code access to independent security auditors would amount to "gutting the protections afforded those who own trade secrets."


It all started when candidate Christine Jennings lost to Rep. Vern Buchanan by only 368 votes in a House race last year, the slimmest margin of any congressional race in the country. Irregularities in the election, particularly high undervote rates, caused Jennings to express doubts about the validity of the outcome. During the election, approximately 15 percent (or 18,000) of the total ballots cast in the district did not include a vote in the disputed race. By comparison, the absentee ballots in the same district and regular paper ballots used in neighboring districts only exhibit a 2 percent undervote rate for congressional races. The high undervote rates have been attributed to the ES&S iVotronic machines used in the 13th district.

Read more: http://arstechnica.com/news.ars/post/20070625-florida-appeals-court-says-trade-secret-protection-takes-priority-over-election-transparency.html

[midnight]

1. If source code is more important than transparency, we want

,only, paper ballots. Why is this even being discussed anymore. It's wrong if their is no transparency.

[Nikki Stone1]

14. Exactly

:kick:

[Selatius]

2. Take it to the Supreme Court. See what happens there.

I worry the Court will split 5-4 against the right to a fair election. Property law, however, will be strengthened at the expense of personal freedom, though. In that case, the only sensible solution is a constitutional amendment explicitly enumerating that the right to a public election trumps the private interests of vendors who may own voting machines.

[IChing]

4. Yep.......5-4

We the corporate powers of the United States of Corporations in order to form
a more perfect union and to preserve our powers hereby oversee the powers formally held by
its citizens in order to maintain control.

[DemSoccerMom]

3. Ah. ES&S. The new Dibold. n/t

[alfredo]

16. Diebold and ES&S share the Urosevich Brothers.

http://www.onlinejournal.com/evoting/042804Landes/042804landes.html

They are tied to the Ahmanson family, leaders of the Christian Reconstructionist cult.

[sandnsea]

22. The company never mattered

Every company's machines need to be audited because every company has had "glitches". The Diebold conspiracy was another waste of time that kept us from educating people on the real changes we need - all source code in escrow and every machine audited.

[redqueen]

5. Un-frickin-believable

*sigh*

[KansDem]

6. I fail to understand how counting votes could be so complex that it warrants "secret source code"

What are we talking about here? Citizen votes for Candidate A so the computer puts a "1" into Candidate A's column? How complicated can that be?

Let's call this for what it really is: a move to suppress investigation into "other" programs in the source code, like, the ones that flip votes, for example.

[jfkraus]

18. You're correct.

There is no complex code here...or at least there shouldn't be. The way this should be done is each state should hire a firm to build them an e-voting machine complete with code. That way, the state would own the code, instead of the firm developing it. The state could them make it open to public scrutiny. Very simple.

[Moochy]

20. Trade Secrets hide the

a) security holes left open due to "negligence" and plausible deniablity
b) plan to hide a)
c) plan to hide plan b)
d) plan to hide plans a-c and enable e
e) A christian dominionist president in 2012 for the rapture!

[eppur_se_muova]

7. Obvious solution: Don't use evoting, so no trade secrets are at risk.

Then everyone can be happy. :D

[sonias]

10. You got that right

Kick the trade secret vendors out of our election system. Either use Open Source or no software at all.

Sonia

[NMDemDist2]

8. ok that is seriously fucked up

excuse my language, K&N

[alllyingwhores]

9. Isn't that kind of the f_ing point!

The source code must be open to allow for transparent elections supposedly guaranteed in the constitution--or, what's left of it.

[Toots]

13. Umm where exactly is it guaranteed in the Constitution that vote counting be transparent?

I am not familar with that part of it. I am not doubting you I am just ignorant on that particular part. I was under the impression there was no such thing as a federal election. All are State, county or municiple as far as I know.

[liberal N proud]

11. A government for the corporations by the corporations

This is just further evidence that the Constitution has been changed without our consent of knowledge.
A government for the people by the people no longer exists.

[annabanana]

12. goddam it! New York just pushed back an attempt by

Microsoft (& others) to rollback legislation passed earlier to protect against proprietary software in voting machines.

I fear that Florida is lost for good now.

[nankerphelge]

15. In defense of the Judiciary...

The headline is wrong... the Court didn't make any such ruling. If you read the opinion, the court denied an extraordinary petition for certiorari that attempted to appeal a preliminary discovery order. The court clearly states that those types of petitions require a showing extraordinary harm that can't be rectified during the direct appeal at the end of the case. Otherwise, every ruling on every motion at trial would be appealed and the judiciary would be paralyzed. Judge Browning, who is the Chief Judge of the Court, and the other judges on the panel are all well respected and I don't find this outcome particularly shocking or unexpected.

[The Backlash Cometh]

17. The answer is simple, DON'T PRIVATIZE PUBLIC ELECTIONS!

[VTMechEngr]

19. Factual error in the story! CONN. 2nd was the tightest race.

Courtney won by 91 votes instead of the 167-vote margin counted on election night, according to results tabulated by 65 town clerks and reported to The Associated Press. Nearly 250,000 votes were cast.

http://www.boston.com/news/local/connecticut/articles/2006/11/14/recount_gives_courtney_win_in_2nd_district/

[farmbo]

21. Florida...the Law West of the Pecos...the land where votes go to die

Don't ever look for transparency in a Florida vote count. Unfortunately for ES&S, it looks as though they will be facing some Congressional subpoenas in the Fla 13th race in a couple of months.
From the article:


<snip>Although efforts to get the state to force ES&S to submit to additional independent code audits have failed, a bipartisan congressional task force working closely with the Government Accountability Office is actively scrutinizing the circumstances surrounding election irregularities in Florida's 13th district, and may decide to subpoena ES&S. The congressional task force plans to issue a progress report late next month, but the entire investigation is expected to last until September.<snip>