Virginia voter registration down due to cable cut

Wed Oct 14 13:49:15 UTC 2020

On Tue, Oct 13, 2020 at 5:15 PM Christopher Morrow
<morrowc.lists at gmail.com> wrote:
>
> On Tue, Oct 13, 2020 at 2:41 PM Sean Donelan <sean at donelan.com> wrote:
> >
> > On Tue, 13 Oct 2020, Christopher Morrow wrote:
> > > <cough>spof</cough>
> > >
> > > the vita folk have a history of 'not really understanding large scale
> > > compute/network operations' :(
> >
> > Reportedly, the VITA data center and Virginia voter registration system is
> > back up.
> >
> > According to VITA, a Verizon fiber was struck during a roadside utilities
> > construction project near Route 10 in Chester, VA.  As network engineers
> > know, fiber cuts happen all the time due to construction.  Malicious cuts
> > and sabatoge occur, but are rare and usually obvious. Absent clear and
> > compelling evidence, assume normal stupid reasons for outages.
> >
>
> sorry I meant that: 1) yes clearly it's still the middle of
> roadwork/backhoe season, 2) i'm surprised that a single path failure
> for their production datacenter was enough to take the system offline.
> 'spof' there meant: "Wow, a single point of failure in their outside
> plant?"
>

... and there is now a lawsuit about this:
Groups file lawsuit after Virginia state websites shut down for hours
on last day of voter registration

"An accidentally severed fiber-optic cable in Virginia effectively
shut down most of the state’s online voter registration on its last
day Tuesday, prompting voter advocates to file a lawsuit in federal
court seeking an extension of the deadline that they argue thousands
of voters missed because of the disruption."...

https://www.washingtonpost.com/local/va-politics/virginia-state-websites-shut-down/2020/10/13/8e4443d8-0d5d-11eb-b1e8-16b59b92b36d_story.html

W
> >
> > There are various long-term structural problems with election
> > administration across 10,000+ jurisdictions in the United States.  A lot
> > of duct-tape and heroic work needed by election administrators to keep
> > things running.
> >
> >
> > Election administration in Australia, Norway and Luxembourg tend to score
> > the best with 10 out of 10 according to international election observers.
> >
> > Election administration in the United States of American tends to score
> > around 7 or 8. There will be problems and delays. Not perfect,
> > embarrassing and USA should do better. But still a full and free election.

-- 
I don't think the execution is relevant when it was obviously a bad
idea in the first place.
This is like putting rabid weasels in your pants, and later expressing
regret at having chosen those particular rabid weasels and that pair
of pants.
   ---maf