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"Thomas J. Paladino Jr." wrote in message ... "Ed Rasimus" wrote in message ... On 06 Mar 2004 17:03:57 GMT, (Dav1936531) wrote: From: "Thomas J. Paladino Jr." I have to pretty much agree with this article. Fully electronic voting machines are a horrible, horrible idea. Absolutely. The lack of a paper receipt of how a vote was cast is the first step towards creating a "banana republic" wherein elections are stolen and fraud rules. Trustworthy recounts will be impossible. If Bush wants to make Constitutional amendments, amend the Constitution so that a paper receipt is required in all votes at Federal, State, and possibly even the local level. And I am truly concerned that the electorate of the US doesn't seem to be too concerned about the potential for abuse these voting computers represent. Dave You guys have to be kidding. Or, you've never paid attention during the years of voting before an electronic terminal. Where have you been keeping all of your previous paper voting receipts? Oh, you forgot that you've never before gotten such a document? When I grew up in Chicago (that citadel of Democratic democracy and vast Republican wasteland), we voted with large mechanical machines. You entered a big telephone booth sort of kiosk and clicked little levers down to select your candidate, then moved a huge railroad switch sort of master lever to "cast" your ballot. No receipt, no returns. All done and all the records are in the big metal box. Now, after the brouhaha about hanging chads, you want technology to fix the problem, but not really? So, you mark with a pencil (a #2 pencil) and scribble a spot in an oval. You put the paper through a slot into a box to be read by a Scantron. Are you sure that happens today? Are you sure that box makes it down from the polling place to the County courthouse? It always has. Paranoia serves no useful purpose. With both sides observing elections and all players buying into the system, the reliability of high tech voting shouldn't be dangerously compromised. And, regarding the original author's piece--does it make a difference where the machine was made? Is there a lot of significance if the software is noted as version 4.2.4 on the back and only 4.2 on the screen? Gimme a break. No, you're absolutely right, and I don't think that paranoia is helpful either. But this technology has too many ways to screw up (and here in NYC we still use those big telephone booth lever/crank things). At least somewhere there needs to be a paper trail for all involved parties to audit. I too used those big booths. Now we use Scantrons. I also agree there should be a man readable record maintained as each vote is cast. I don't insist on paper but I am at a loss for a likely subsitute. There was a large conference of IT professionals and software industry bigwigs who came out strongly against these all-electronic systems, basically saying that there would be no possible way to go through all the code on these machines and detect any tampering or design flaw with enough Ah, balony. I'm tempted to write a program right here & now suitable for running a voting machine. Such a program would be fairly straight forward and simple. accuracy to base elections on. And even so, it would be too complex for laymen (the people) to actually go through and check themselves. We would And the workings of the big booth voting machine or the Scantron reader are simply enough for them to do so? always be relying on some kind of professional (who may or may not have an agenda) to examine these records for us and give them a thumbs up or down. Regardless of the result, there will always be far too many questions left unanswerable. As an IT professional from back when we were computer scientist/programmers I have to concur that a computer system will crash at some point and lose data. Loss data that *is* each and every vote cast on a particular machine is very, well, "bad". The difficulty in electronic voting is keeping your paranoia level high enough on your hardwa triple redundant nonviolable memory on battery powered cards, optically isolated from the rest of the machine and read back checked after each cast vote would be just the start. Will a paper record, regardless of what the software people say, ordinary people can subpoena the records and count the votes by hand. Since they are machine printed, there are no doubts about hanging chads and such. And Until the ink fades or isn't printed heavily enough. Paper jams can go unnoticed for several lines. Showing the created record to the voter creates the possibility of exposing the previous voter's. people should get a copy of the paper record as well, so that they can verify their vote. A simple printer with carbon paper connected to these machines would solve all the problems. One copy goes to the voter, the other straight into a box in the machine. Oh great, create a record, that can be demanded, that you "voted the right way". Better have some serious safe guards to prevent it leaving the voting area. I guess I have to say that electronic voting is doable and it can generate a paper trail. It must not be done sloppily though. There are problems but likely not where you, or I, might first think. |
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Ed Rasimus wrote:
Paranoia serves no useful purpose. With both sides observing elections and all players buying into the system, the reliability of high tech voting shouldn't be dangerously compromised. And, regarding the original author's piece--does it make a difference where the machine was made? Is there a lot of significance if the software is noted as version 4.2.4 on the back and only 4.2 on the screen? Gimme a break. Sometimes there have been paper "receipts" of the vote and sometimes not. But I think a paper backup for "electronic" forms of voting really is important. It takes a lot of effort to change or invent votes people cast "the old fashioned way". It takes only a few lines of code for it to be done electronically. And what happens if the vote is a statistical tie? You're back to counting paper, which is very difficult to count when it doesn't exist. Recently, in a test case of a touch screen voting machine, it was discovered someone had [maliciously] changed the order of the candidates from the touch screen to the actual code doing the count. A vote for candidate A actually registered for candidate B. The military was playing with the idea of allowing absentee voting by web, but has dissed the idea for the coming election. A wise choice I think. SMH |
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