Diebold Election Results Released By AZ Judge

Windrip writes "A judge in the case covering the nature of the database used in Diebold Gems software during Pima County, Arizona elections has ruled the DB is not a computer program (pdf). The result is that the Arizona Democratic party will have the chance to review previous elections for transparency and accuracy. ''The Pima County Democratic Party sued the county this year for the electronic databases from past elections. The party requested the databases and passwords be released according to Arizona public-records law. Pima County denied that part of the request, while turning over other records the party asked for. In closing arguments of the four-day trial that began Dec. 4, Pima County argued the databases meet the definition of a computer program, which is protected by state law, said Deputy County Attorney Thomas Denker."

Re:Not again!

[Anonymous Coward]

Because if there was this 3rd part candidate capable of winning, the election could potentially be altered such that they do not win. If the elections aren't fair or aren't accurate, the most voted for candidate won't win. These people are just making an effort to ensure that the votes are counted properly.

Why does the Elections Office want to protect the data so much? Either they are protecting their own negligence or wrong doing. Either way, neither of those have a place in elections.

Programs, Data, fuzzy distinctions

[Theovon]

A database file is just data, to be interpreted by a database program.
But the database program is just data to be interpreted by the CPU.

Data vs. document is a spectrum. There is no clear distinction. We tend to think of documents as just information, describing some structured knowledge, which is true. But by contrast, we tend to think of programs as containing primarily step-by-step instructions. But those instructions don't execute themselves. They're input to something. And moreover, not all programs are instructions. Consider Prolog, where the functions are described in terms of logical relationships, and the step-by-step instructions are inferred by the interpreter. Just because the Prolog program doesn't include instructions, per se, doesn't make us say it's not a program. At the same time, the distinction between a Prolog program and an expert system knowledge base (in term of form and function) is not clear.

Everything is just data. What makes it meaningful is the order and interpretation that we impose on it.

Re:Programs, Data, fuzzy distinctions

[mea37]

Yes and no. Most modern architectures blur the distinction by allowing data and code to reside in the same storage, and even allowing you to treat a section of memory as data at one moment and code at the next (which in theory allows for some neat self-modifying code (but that hasn't proven useful in the consumer market at least) but in practice is the root cause of every email virus ever).

The principle difference, though, is that code is functional while data is expressive. You can argue that this is a fuzzy distinction itself, and in a sense you'd be right -- but that doesn't stop it from carrying very tangible 1st ammendment implications when applied to human language (in the US). So it's as good a test as any, IMO, to decide if a collection of 1's and 0's can be considered protected as a program.

And yes, there are cases where we could argue about whether a structure is functional or whether it's expressive. HTML tags. Certain DVD content. But the subject at hand -- a voting machine database -- are highly unlikely to fall in those gray areas.

Let's not pretend this was an enlightened attempt to make sure the lines were drawn properly. It was a technicality-seeking attempt to avoid releasing the requested information in spite of the legal requirement to do so.

The craptaculous /. edit

[Windrip]

Those of you truly interested in this story should read the firehose version [slashdot.org].

I think the links in the firehose version of the story are more apropos to this post's tags.

Of particular concern to me is the replacement of one the original post's links with one that references a newspaper I consider to be a parody of press oversight. I would never source that bloated, piss-stained, corporate catamite in any post I write.

So, when /. writes "Windrip writes", they're lying. I didn't write what was posted on the front page of /. I didn't even provide one of the links in the story.

Nevertheless, of particular interest to /. readers might be the forensic study conducted on the DB. I found it here. [azag.gov]

Re:DIebold Defeats Democracy

[lenski]

Myself, I try to stick to something like "there is some reason to doubt the integrity of the 2004 election, and the issue has never been throughly investigated".

In a word, yes.

I am very active in the central Ohio voting reform movement, and it is important to distinguish between statements I believe to be true versus statements that are demonstrably true. It's too easy to fall into a variety of traps and this work is far too important to lose credibility due to hyperbolic speech.

There is also the legal threat: Powerful, wealthy people are pissed off at people like me and I am watching my Ps and Qs carefully. The electronic voting systems people have been making *big* money here as they have been elsewhere, and they are no different from anyone else who does not want the gravy train stopped by a bunch of citizens insisting on honest elections.