A lot of things are done at the last minute for innocent reasons.
Much more concern should be raised if there were patches/upgrades applied during the count or shortly after the election to cover any tracks.
When we get to election reform, this should be one of the items of transparency. The patch log should be public and no patches within a certain amount of time before the election, say 30 days. During those 30 days, ballots have to be run and tested. This is not foolproof, as a hack could be triggered by date, but it's an improvement over the way it is today.
The same 30 days should apply after the election or until the election is certified and all legal challenges are over, whichever is longer.
Assume everything is on the up-and-up here. (it isn’t)
IANA software tech guy. But, I’m guessing rolling out a last minute update isn’t great practice. Your beta testers are American voters in a Presidential election. Seems like you should have had all of this worked out ahead of time.
But seriously, how hard should a program like this be to code if you weren’t going to cheat? It’s literally just counting. I know there is a security issue (in a fair system) but counting ballots seems like something I could learn to code in a weekend.
I am a software guy and I assure you that since voting machines have clocks the timeframe in which a patch is applied does not matter. Cheating could be triggered by time.
The machines do image recognition so the code is quite complex and prone to missmatches. It is not just counting punch holes like the old ones.
Machines should only be used to do a control count of a manual count. Like a helping tool not be the main show.
... I’m guessing rolling out a last minute update isn’t great practice.
It's a horrible practice.
It happens much too often in most IT sectors usually due to incompetent IT managers who say "Just do it, we'll fix the problems later" after the tech staff tell them "It's not ready yet."
This late an upgrade is not surprising.
A lot of things are done at the last minute for innocent reasons.
Much more concern should be raised if there were patches/upgrades applied during the count or shortly after the election to cover any tracks.
When we get to election reform, this should be one of the items of transparency. The patch log should be public and no patches within a certain amount of time before the election, say 30 days. During those 30 days, ballots have to be run and tested. This is not foolproof, as a hack could be triggered by date, but it's an improvement over the way it is today.
The same 30 days should apply after the election or until the election is certified and all legal challenges are over, whichever is longer.
Assume everything is on the up-and-up here. (it isn’t)
IANA software tech guy. But, I’m guessing rolling out a last minute update isn’t great practice. Your beta testers are American voters in a Presidential election. Seems like you should have had all of this worked out ahead of time.
But seriously, how hard should a program like this be to code if you weren’t going to cheat? It’s literally just counting. I know there is a security issue (in a fair system) but counting ballots seems like something I could learn to code in a weekend.
Seriously.
It is a TABULATOR. The functions should be simple arithmetic.
WHAT THE HELL NEED IS THERE FOR ALGORITHMS?
or is it ONE Person, 0.6775446454 Vote?
I am a software guy and I assure you that since voting machines have clocks the timeframe in which a patch is applied does not matter. Cheating could be triggered by time.
The machines do image recognition so the code is quite complex and prone to missmatches. It is not just counting punch holes like the old ones.
Machines should only be used to do a control count of a manual count. Like a helping tool not be the main show.
It's a horrible practice.
It happens much too often in most IT sectors usually due to incompetent IT managers who say "Just do it, we'll fix the problems later" after the tech staff tell them "It's not ready yet."
It is a matter of WHO did the "upgrades", and his very outspoken motives.
Not to mention the kickbacks he gave to the politicians, from the citizen-paid Dominion contract.