Diebold and Sequoia

1
Diebold and Sequoia

• A Study of the Two Largest Suppliers of Voting
  Machines

2
Diebold

• Walden Wally ODell, CEO
• Supports Republican President George W. Bush and
  the Republican Governor of Ohio Bob Taft
• It is said that Diebold has political ties with
  the Republican party

3
Ohio, 2004

• Ohio in 2004 was the Florida of 2000
• Diebold had contract with state of Ohio to supply
  voting machines the machines were not vvpt.
• Diebold is also know to make ATM machines and
  ticket vending machines these machines supply
  paper receipts.

4
Accu Vote TS

• Analyzed machine from private party. Vulnerable
  to many attacks
• Malicious software can steal votes with little or
  no detection.
• Anyone with physical access to machines memory
  cards can install malicious software.
• Transfer vote from one candidate to the other one.

5
Sequoia

• Has been around since the 1890s making it the
  oldest voting equipment company
• Self proclaimed as Americas most experienced
  provider of touch-screen voting systems
• Also say they have an uninterrupted track record
  of successful countywide installations

6
More about Sequoia

• Maker of voting equipment and election support
  products
• was the first provider to incorporate Voter
  Verified Paper Audit Trail (VVPAT) technology
  into its electronic voting equipment for
  implementation in live elections (Nevada, 2004).
• used by in the United States throughout 17 states
  elections every time.

7
Sequoia also

• Offers 6 different styles of election machines
• Founded the Election Technology Council (ETC) in
  2003

8
ETC

• represents the voting system platforms for 90 of
  the registered voters in the U.S.
• organization's goal is to support policies that
  help voters vote and have their votes accurately
  recorded, verified and counted.

9
Sequoia failures

• Machines have froze up
• Programmers have not been careful with codes
• DREs have had instances where Votes do not
  register correctly

10
Examples

• Emil Danciu and Al Paglia cheated???
• Same problem happened in New Mexico and Nevada
  also

11
Problem at the top

• In 2001, Phil Foster, Vice president of Diebolt
  was indicted for selling machine parts at
  inflated prices.
• He pocketed over 500,000 before being caught
• Scam was never directly linked to Diebolt

12
Not careful enough

• Similar to Diebolds problem
• Sequoia software codes responsible for storing
  and counting votes were not properly protected
  leaving them open to a hacker
• Left a source code on an unprotected internet
  site

13
Discussion

• Are DREs trustworthy? Explain why or why not?
• Relation to classroom discussions.
• Possible future effects

14
Possible Solutions

• VVPT needs to be MANDATORY!!!
• Tougher laws holding the companies who make the
  machines responsible.
• Local/State/Federal government
• The people