Doubting Electronic Voting

twitter writes "The NYT is raising the alarm on electronic voting. After citing expert opinion on the need for a paper trail, they then quote election officials and vendors who dismiss that opinion as the ignorant work of dreamers. The reporter titles his article, 'To Register Doubts, Press Here' and seems less than convinced."

Comments

Free mirror

[Bendy Chief]

No reg, wheeeee....

The article

Bon appetit.

bound for corruption

[meatbridge]

it happened in florida in the 2000 elections. thousands of minority voters were deemed unqualified to vote because a corrupted registration system declared them to be felons. this occured because they shared a name with a felon others were barred having been convicted in the year 2009. if we can't get the registration right what chance do we have for the actual votes.

Misgivings

[foo fighter]

I'm definetly a techno-geek, but I'm also a pragmatist. Electronic voting isn't going to solve any more problems than it creates.

A bunch of my concerns that haven't been addressed in the media:
* The hardware and software are proprietary and not open to public review. My paper has a full page copy of the ballots before every election so the public can review it.

* Not accessible. How do people missing vision or limbs use them?

* How are the results audited? Do the electronic logs go into the public domain?

* Is the incredible expense and TCO of these machines justified? Paper ballots are practically free by comparison.

* What about absentee voting? What wacky "voting method of the future" can we come for that?

Brazil

[Gleef]

National Semiconductor and Unisys (two American companies) made a really good electronic voting system for Brazil, they've been using them since 1996. It has a tamper resistant paper trail, so it is completely auditable, unlike most of the systems described in the article. From what I've heard, the machines work quite well, and people are happy with them. (Please, if someone has actually voted with these, share your experiences)

I fail to see how having a paper trail with electronic voting is "dreaming", it strikes me more as "required", particularly if we want to consider our government democratic.

The US government does NOT run elections

[YetAnotherAnonymousC]

Unfortunately, the US government runs its own elections, rather than a truely impartial third party

An important point, though: the Federal government does NOT run any elections, period. Elections are the responsibility of the states. This was done on purpose so that the federal government could not rig elections for itself. Of course, as we've seen in practice, federal intrusion in state business has become so commonplace that federal action frequently affects state elections, from Federal voting rights acts to the 2000 presidential election. Of course, the ends could be said to justify the means for much of this federal interference. But there is a legitimate states' rights/federalism argument to be made against any federal interference in state elections.

Bartcop

[Rudeboy777]

For a glimpse into the potential repercussions of the Diebold e-voting machines used in the last federal election look here.

WARNING: This is really unsettling stuff and may cause you to lose (more) faith in the U.S. election system.

The roadblocks weren't physical

[Concerned Onlooker]

The real road block came well before election day when approximately 57,700 "felons" were excluded from the voter rolls. The list was determined by a company called DBT Online.

The list was determined in this manner:

Most of the voters (such as "David Butler," a name that appears 77 times in Florida phone books) were selected because their name, gender, birthdate, and race matched--or nearly matched--one of the tens of millions of ex-felons in the United States. Neither DBT nor the state conducted any further research to verify the matches. DBT, which frequently is hired by the F.B.I. to conduct manhunts, originally proposed using address histories and financial records to confirm the names, but the state declined,the cross-checks. In Harris's elections-office files, next to DBT's sophisticated verification plan, there is a handwritten note: "DON'T NEED."

This is taken from a story by Greg Palast did for Harper's Magazine and can be read here. Even more details can be had in this article.