Alan,
Some EXCELLENT points my friend. If you could have slipped back maybe 5 or 6
years ago and queried poll officials from all over the country (no one in
their right mind would admit it now <BG>) as to the problems, issues they
had with vote tabulating, etc. ANY way votes were taken, it would greatly
undermine what happened in Palm Beach County. Not that problems don't need
to be fixed. Just that there is no perfect way of doing this stuff and there
have been problems for years. No dark deep conspiracy or anything. Of course
it becomes a bigger issue in close elections.
Chuck
-----Original Message-----
From: cpf0000-bounces@xxxxxxxxxxxx [mailto:cpf0000-bounces@xxxxxxxxxxxx] On
Behalf Of Alan
Sent: Wednesday, July 07, 2004 7:56 PM
To: Open discssion among iSeries Users
Subject: Re: [CPF0000] Re: Evoting "train wreck"
Tom Liotta wrote:
> And what would that prove? Abso-freakin'-lutely nothing except that
> they worked flawlessly at those times.
>
> It provides no reason to believe the
> systems/architectures/methodologies are secure from _future_ problems
> and manipulation. In fact, IMO, significant success in the near future
> would be worse than multiple failures; successes would lessen any
> pressure to use better systems.
>
> From my perspective, it's similar to giving new users *ALLOBJ special
> authority and monitoring for abuse for a while. "Well, there were no
> problems this week nor any week since giving everyone *ALLOBJ. Looks
> like it was a good decision. Let's do it everywhere!"
>
> Tom Liotta
Uh, there was one famous company that actually did that (or worse, maybe
it was qsecofr, but it was one horrendous level), but just on the help
desk system where they had the same applications (home-grown). So no
production stuff was done, but it only lasted a couple of months (egads!
that long?) until the IT guys got exasperated and limited everybody's
authorities. Whew!
I already have an example where it went "smooth", Tom. I voted on the
first touch screens here in the Miami area. I pressed the last confirm
button and off went my vote in bits and bytes. Guranteed secure by the
makers of the iVote machine! Yeah right! Went off without a hitch. The
votes were tallied and announced later.
But how do I know? How am I supposed to make sure? In an election won or
lost by less than 300 votes (like Florida's official count in 2000), how
is anybody going to verify anything? Those numbers in some local races
kick off an automatic recount. If it comes up one vote different, then
what?
And just like in 2000, the politicos and the media are able to
manufacture a big mess where there wasn't any. Butterfly ballots have
been used for many many years, hanging chads even longer. No problem (I
still prefer an "X" in the box). But all of a sudden here comes this big
whooshing roar out of Palm Beach County. Did you ever stop and think
about that? There was no reason except some political strategizing and
some media hype-masters who blew that up. And that's what it looks like
they're preapring for this one.
So it's separate issues, not just the mess that may happen anyway.
(1) The most important issue, is that touch-screen voting and counting
computer storage as ballots with votes is inherantly not the most secure
voting method by any measure.
(2) The recount problem We in these lists know what a problem we get if
we total the same field in the same file and get two different results,
even if it's a penny different.
(3) The "cynical political exploitation problem", where some group of
politicians makes it their issue in the public mind. We have intelligent
people on this list already apparently falling into this trap. Each half
of the "unified two-party cartel" has its own claim to special sins, but
I refuse to let either of them own this issue.
- Alan
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