Voting Machine Mess: Diebold upgrade "times out" after 2.5 minutes

[kpete]

Voting Machine Mess: Diebold upgrade "times out" after 2.5 minutes

A Diebold "software upgrade" is likely to cause problems for voters this fall in up to 34 states. The "feature" will cause the voting machines to "time out" if a voter takes more than 2 1/2 minutes to make a selection. This causes problems, delays and embarassment for voters (often the elderly or challenged) when it happens, and ties up election workers who have to assist the voter and re-start the the voting process. This "feature" is not new, however, activists believe it was first used in Maryland.

Johnson County computer voting machines prone to take a 'time out' By FINN BULLERS The Kansas City Star
http://primebuzz.kcstar.com/?q=node/14307

Fifty-five days before an election of a lifetime, a tiny bit of computer code is threatening to erode public confidence in Johnson County’s election process.

....In February, Johnson County upgraded touchscreen voting machines with a new software release from Premier Election Solutions Inc., based in Allen, Texas.

Buried in the release notes was a mention of a new time-out feature that makes the voting machine eject a voter card if there has been no activity for 2 minutes and 30 seconds.....

more at:
http://blackboxvoting.com/s9/index.php?/archives/269-Voting-Machine-Mess-Diebold-upgrade-times-out-after-2.5-minutes.html#extended

[Suich]

1. Premier Election Solutions is Diebold,

just a different name. Gee, what a surprise!

[kster]

2. Simple to manufacture, would make hand counting at the polling place possible

Common Sense tells you that this is the easiest answer for ballot counting but yet their are people here on the DU that support electronic/mechanical secret vote counting methods?????


Transparent Ballot Box, for 500 - 800 Paper Ballots, with Deposit Trap and Counter
Easy to use, sturdy and stackable. Lockable with two individual locks. Deposit trap is operated using a lever which is coupled with the counter. Can be safely stored in the reusable protective box.






http://www.kaiserkraft.co.uk/equipment/transparent_ball...

Don't let the ballots leave the polling place before they are HAND counted.

K&R

[Suich]

3. You've found DU'ers that support electronic/mechanical secret

vote counting methods? Where? I've never seen one....ever.

[WillYourVoteBCounted]

4. Rebecca Wilson of Save Our Votes says

This feature has been wreaking havoc in MD since 2006 in our TS machines...

I believe Linda Lamone requested that Premier add this "feature" to the software
to solve the problem of the "fleeing voter" -- a voter who fails to hit
the "cast ballot" button before leaving the voting machine. After 2.5
mins of a voter not touching the screen, their ballot is cancelled and the smart
card is made inactive and spit out. Supposedly this prevents the opportunity for
fraud -- for the next voter or an election judge to change their vote and then cast
it.

As a chief election judge, my precinct has never had a "fleeing voter."
We train our judges to get the smart card from voters leaving the machines. If a
voter has left the smart card in the machine, the election judge explains that they
need to cast the ballot to eject the card. Not a problem. But the "time out"
solution is a huge problem. Voters panic when they see the screen turn red and
start counting down from 30, even though we warn them about the feature in advance.
Usually by the time they get a judge to help them, it's too late and their ballot
has been cancelled. We don't make them vote provisionally, though -- we reissue
the card and they have to start all over again. But first the chief judges have
to verify that their ballot was not actually cast, which we do by counting the number
of "voter authority cards" kept with that machine to see how many voters
have used it and compare that to the number of ballots recorded. If there is 1 more
"card" (actually a flimsy thermal receipt from the e-pollbook printer,
but before e-pollbooks it was on card stock) than votes recorded on the machine,
we know the ballot was cancelled.