E-Voting Vendor: Programming Errors Caused Dropped Votes IDG News Service (08/22/08) Gross, Grant
as it appeared in the August 25, 2008 edition of ACM TechNews.
Premier Election Solutions, formerly known as Diebold Election Systems, admitted that its machines have dropped votes, saying a programming error caused hundreds of votes to be dropped in Ohio's March primary elections. The votes were dropped as the machines' memory cards were uploaded to vote-counting servers. Premier originally blamed the error on antivirus software, but the company now admits that a logic error in the machines' GEMS source code caused the miscount. "We now have reason to believe that the logic error in the GEMS code can cause this event when no such antivirus program is installed on the server," wrote Premier president Dave Byrd in a letter to Ohio Secretary of State Jennifer Brunner. "We are indeed distressed that our previous analysis of this issue was in error." Premier's Chris Riggall says the antivirus software could trigger the error, but it is not the underlying problem, and Premier's earlier analysis was incomplete. Premier also released a product advisory notice, warning users of its electronic-voting machines running some versions of the GEMS software and informing them on how to avoid vote loss. Riggall says Premier has developed a fix for the logic error, which is now being tested. Premier also has submitted a version of the GEMS software for federal certification, but the new software will not be certified before the U.S. elections in November. Click Here to View Full Article