I have noticed quite a few people linking to a news article reporting that Ohio released an illegal software patch to their voting machines. (Ohio requires that changes to the machines be certified by a government body.)
Normally, I don't go out of my way to debunk the intentional stupidity of journalists, especially when those journalists are associated with small independent news outlets that often don't have time to adequately fact check the claims of people who present themselves as experts.
This one, however, is particularly insulting. It alleges voter fraud at the highest levels of a majorly contested state. It is an article printed for shock value. The only value that it creates is to increase book sales for the authors of the article and ad-revenues for the press which improvidently chose to publish this article.
This article is poorly researched and tantamount to conspiracy theory:
This article is poorly researched and tantamount to conspiracy theory:
"This uncertified and untested software could easily malfunction and corrupt votes on the central tabulation machines, thus destroying any electronic record of the actual votes by citizens. This 'experimental' software, as outlined in the contract, has no security protocols. A 'man in the middle' attack, like the one that stole the Ohio election for George W. Bush in 2004, could be directly facilitated by this untested and uncertified software installation."
Actual experts strongly disagree with this assessment, and while the article may continue to use poorly constructed legal arguments to further muddy the waters, the fact remains that the technical claims made by the authors of this article are blatantly inaccurate, overblown, and move beyond the realm of mere exaggeration into the territory of pants-on-fire lies.
The machines which tabulate votes are physically separate from the computer that generates the elections reports.
The reports system was changed to fit with Ohio's election reporting system. It literally generates a list of candidates, and vote totals, and adds in comma's. That is all. In computer speak it is called a comma-separated-values file (CSV), and is used for things like exporting from Excel. The amount of testing required of this program is quite-literally comparing its output to the tabulation machines output.
This is not news, it is poorly researched fear mongering. There are serious problems with electronic voting systems, how about we talk about those instead of rampantly ridiculous rumors that don't stand up to the slightest review.
For a good article debunking this, I suggest: http://www.theawl.com/2012/11/the-truth-about-voting-machines
It contains a number of quotes from the Senior Technologist for the Center for Democracy & Technology. Long story short: he thinks it is ridiculous.
Disclosure: I am a Democrat, and I have every hope that Obama will take Ohio in a landslide.
However, political affiliation does not excuse allowing fear-mongering conspiracy theorists to attack a Republican politician who has seemed to act honorably in administering a closely-watched and hotly-contested presidential election. From Wikipedia:
Leading up to the 2012 election, Husted cast tie-breaking votes to enable Republicans on county election boards in some Democratic-leaning counties to establish regular office hours for early voting. In some counties more likely to vote for Mitt Romney, Democrats and Republicans on the boards voted to extend hours without the input of Secretary Husted. [12][13]
A day after The New York Times published an editorial pointing out the disparity, Husted delivered a directive that, for the first time in Ohio history, made early voting uniform across all counties.[12] Democrats complained that Husted's uniform hours would disenfranchise urban voters with long lines and curtailed access, while Republicans have stated that the directive provides for ample early voting hours.[14] [15] [16] [17]
Husted's directive has been covered by a wide variety of Ohio media. The Akron Beacon Journal [18] said "Jon Husted has leveled the field for early voting hours." The Cleveland Plain Dealer wrote "What Husted has ordered may not completely satisfy anyone, but at least it treats everyone equally" [19] and the Columbus Dispatch said that "Ohio Secretary of State Jon Husted has struck a fair compromise by standardizing early-voting hours throughout the state." [20]
His actions stand in sharp contract to the Secretary of State of Florida, who has failed in almost every way, to provide free and fair elections.
