So your only evidence that they are not using a proprietary format NOW is that they weren’t using a proprietary format three years ago, even though they were sharply criticized for using an open format three years ago?
Sorry. I find it far more likely that they were using Access, people screamed about it, and they converted (or added) an excrypted proprietary step to the storage of their data.
That’s nonsense. If the company were deliberately committing fraud, they could simply overwrite the data the their altered, fraudulent data and then present it as the original. Demanding to see the original format because you suspect the company of altering results is not a meaningful audit step.
Again - that claim relates to the 2001-2002 time period. It’s now 2006. That’s an awful long time to fix things. Diebold says they have.
What is your evidence that they haven’t?
Aren’t voter’s votes supposed to be secret anyway? I would have to assume that the raw data would include who voted for what, correct?
I do some work for a local candidate and I can get a list from the SecState’s office that will tell me who voted in what election, but not how they voted. Maybe the Alaska Dems should try there?
You can indeed put calculated fields in an Access table, but to be honest, in a table for voting information, using those would be a bit on the scary side, with a single exception, a timestamp. Timestamps aren’t really rocket science in the Microsoft world, as a single built-in function call generates one. So no, that’s not a valid reason for them to hide the raw data.
If you’re really asking if they could write a formula that said make 1 out of 10 (or example) votes for candidate A switch to candidate B using a calculated field, yes that’s possible.
The company no longer has the data to be able to change it. It’s just trying to keep it out of the hands of the people asking for it.
How would the raw data show who voted for what? When I go into vote, my identity is checked off on the voting rolls, and I’m given a card with a magnetic strip that allows me to access the voting machine, but so far as I know, there’s no link between my identity and that ballot. The guy just picks up a card from a pile and hands it to me, with no cross-referencing between the ballots and the cards. So the machine can’t “know” who voted for whom.
The Republicans don’t want to be put in jail for rigging the vote, that’s all there is to it.
First, we’re talking about what Diebold was using in 2004, not 2006, secondly, yes, there is every indication that they were still using GEMS. In fact, they’d probably use a different stall tactic if it had changed, as the request was quite specfic in nature, and would only work if they used the same format. Here is the request. In fact, I think at this point the impetus is on you to prove that it is in any format other than MS Access. Even their lawyer says no such thing. He simply says that the structure of the database file is proprietary.
You still haven’t answered the bigger questions:
Do you want our election process to be this secretive?
Do you still want it to remain secretive when the numbers don’t add up?
Who should have control over these secrets?
Nope, not the raw data from the ballots. As Evil Captor noted, there is no connection between the record of who voted and the information on the ballots they used. Voting ballots are completely anonymous. If the Diebold electoral data did somehow record voter identification in any way, that would be just as egregious a violation of proper electoral procedure as any monkeying around with the vote tallies.
if that’s the case, what is your objection to the people that now have the data exporting it to a common format? You cannot be accusing them of manipulating the data during such a conversion, right? And this would satisfy Diebold’s objection to the release of proprietary data formats.
What would be, exactly?
If someone asked my bank to divulge their data formats so they could be audited, I’m sure they’d decline. I fail to see why forcing Diebold to release their proprietary data formats is crucial to the process of auditing them.
I don’t agree that “the numbers don’t add up.” Ultimately, the state should control the process. But if the state chooses to contract the process out, the contractor is entitled to keep his trade secrets secret when the contract agreed to in advance says as much. Chaging the rules of the contract after everyone signed it and the compnay held up their end of the bargain is wrong.
If you want to do things differently, hire a company that won’t use a proprietary data format. I have no heartburn with that. I have a BIG problem with hiring a company, promising them that their data format will remain secret, and then forcing them to reveal it.
Because it already is in a common format. No need to mess with it.
Sure I can. Heck, if I did something sneaky in the database, but didn’t have to let anyone see the database, that’s exactly where I’d cover it up.
As noted earlier in the thread, I would be happy to do the conversion. That would allow me to see any funny business on the db side of things. If you think I’d trust that to people who are adamant about not letting me see it, think again.
The more I read, the more I understand exactly why they want to see the original files, in their entirety. Diebold has been using bizarre methods that no honest auditor would accept. For instance, they make copies of the tables that are loaded into the system from the precints, and instead of using the tables that are directly loaded for reporting purposes, they use these copies. I haven’t seen anything to indicate to me that there is any sort of referential integrity at play here. Would you like for your bank to have an internal file that they use to access your account information, and a completely separate file showing you your account information? If you worked with data you wouldn’t.
I don’t see why your bank would decline that request. In the banking world, the data is what is secret. The formats are usually widely known. Data structures are just not that secretive. Would linking to a ton of data structures to widely used vertical market applications, directly on the vendor’s own websites, convince you of this? What if I tell you the structure of any table I’ve created for any client of your choosing? Nothing secretive there. For instance, we use a datetime column with the column name DlOrdBegDt to signify when a deal would begin that is based on the order date. We use DlOrdEndDt to signify when it would end. My competitors are drooling now.
Have you not read the links? The numbers don’t add up.
I do, too. Can we agree that we shouldn’t be using Diebold then, since they don’t want their’s public? I’m fine with that.
I have no problem with making that a condition of award.
No, no…nothing so devious as that. I’m just trying to give the benefit of the doubt, attempting to ascertain what could possibly deserve “trade secret” status. Certainly a set of fields and data types is a stretch.
I’m not sure, but I think you’re interpreting that in a broad “something’s fishy” sense. I think it was written literally – the vote tallies don’t add up, indicating a tabulating error at best, intentional malfeasence at worst.
No, really, Bricker, what would be a “meaningful audit step” here, to determine whether the votes were honestly tallied or not? How would you go about it?
Other than a timestamp, I can’t think of a single possible calculated field that would make sense in an election process. They’re also pretty damned rare in databases in general (with a few non-election related exceptions) to be honest, as calculated values can be calculated on the fly repeatedly as needed, both in the application and on reports, as long as the source data doesn’t get changed, so there is no real need to store it.
Yep, the numbers just truly didn’t add up, which is why someone wanted to look in the first place. More votes were tallied in some reports than there were actual voters.
For any interested nerds out there, here is an open proposal, and you’ll notice by how simple the xml schema is that there just isn’t a need for a complex data structure. I really like the combination barcode/human readable printed ballot at the end, and can think of many ways of using that to both reduce fraud, and also reduce the suspicion of potential fraud, which I think is just as important.
Voting in this country should be easy, free, quick, open, and honest for all.
We’ve kinda switched from, “Was there vote fraud in Alaska and why won’t Diebold let us find out?” to “Let’s not use propriety databases any more in election machinery.” I think the second sentiment is fine, but it sounds like everyone has pretty much conceded the point that Alaska voters don’t have the right to know if their elections were conducted honestly or not.
I don’t concede that point. Bricker is all incensed that a company should be forced to give up its “proprietary” data – though all the evidence is that it’s in a very common format. Well, I’m all incensed that the voters of Alaska may have been the victims of fraud, and I think their interests trump Diebold’s. Easily.