Monday, November 01, 2004

How Voters Can Render California's eVoting Machines Inoperable

I was having dinner with my parents last night. They run the poll in their precinct, and they just recently received the Diebold voting machines to be used in eVoting. An in-box note came with the equipment which basically said:

"When using the audio headset with a voting machine if used more than 4 times on a single machine, you will receive a message that says 'Out Of Memory' and the voting machine will shut down. Please move the headset to a different voting machine after 4 uses, otherwise the voting machine will be rendered inoperable"

This is gross incompetence at all levels. The company should not be putting out machines that can crash (most likely huge memory leaks), and the state should not be approving these.

2 comments:

Steve said...

I'll try and get over to their house with a scanner tonight, and post a copy here. I had asked my parents for the original, but they wouldn't relinquish it until after Tuesday (obviously, they considered this vital documentation to have during the election process).

To my mom's credit, she also said that she would be moving the headset after just three uses.

Unknown said...

As Steve's later post shows, the memo indicates the eVoting machine can be rebooted and will operate. However, it also indicates a more insiduous problem -- a memory leak.