RE: electronic voting tomorrow

[qsrvbas@xxxxxxxxxxxx (Tom Liotta)]

midrange-l-request@xxxxxxxxxxxx wrote:

>   2. Re: electronic voting tomorrow (rob@xxxxxxxxx)
>
>Nothing is trusted anyway.  Not paper ballots.  Not mechanical paper 
>ballots (hanging chads).  Nothing.  There will always be an argument 
>saying why it's bad.  Thus, should all attempts to improve be permanently 
>shelved?  After all, if it's all going to be tied up in the courts anyway, 
>why spend the money on trying to improve the equipment when it could be 
>better spent on something less controversial?
>
>Rob Berendt


So, you'd be comfortable with a scenario like...

You go to the polls and find the new Vote-O-Matic e-voting machines made by The 
Tom, Co., collecting all votes. And you choose to vote against Bob Badguy 
'cuz... well, 'cuz you think he's a bad guy. Bob wins, of course, and the 
electronic results show it clearly.

You're curious about it though, so you ask to review the procedures and find 
out that the software is proprietary and you're not allowed to review it. 
Hmmm...

You also do some digging and learn that Bob was an early investor in The Tom, 
Co., and still is a large stockholder. Hmmm...

With paper ballot counting, it's possible for observers actually to watch the 
counting process. But the e-vote systems in use in the U.S. today?

Sorry, dude. You just have to take the word of the vendors that (1) there are 
no hidden sections of code that only run on the First Tuesday in November, (2) 
that there are no possibilities of remote manipulation via wireless or internet 
even when network access to the vote repository database is possible, and 
(3)...??? All the "testing" in the world won't tell you what you _need_ to 
know; it will only tell you that the result was correct for the test runs.

If ever open-source was a rational path, e-voting systems is certainly a prime 
case. Few seem totally put off by e-voting as such. The complaints are mostly 
with how it's being implemented in secrecy.

Tom Liotta

-- 
Tom Liotta
The PowerTech Group, Inc.
19426 68th Avenue South
Kent, WA 98032
Phone  253-872-7788 x313
Fax    253-872-7904
http://www.powertech.com


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