E-Voting Companies Answer Critics With ... Spin

Whammy666 writes "Wired has a follow-up article which tells of how Diebold and other E-Voting machine manufacturers have enlisted the Information Technology Association of America (a trade public relations and lobbying group) to 'generate positive public perception' of the companies and to 'reduce substantially the level and amount of criticism from computer scientists and other security experts about the fallibility of electronic voting systems.' It seems the concerns about the lack of an audit trail are finally being heard as the industry is reconsidering its opposition to giving the voter a paper receipt of his vote. Of course, a paper receipt given to the voter still doesn't allow for a manual recount should an election dispute arise unless the receipts are collected and secured by election officials." Reassuring PR is Stage Two; remember that Stage One is silence your critics.

Comments

Re:Unfortunately Elections and PR do mix.

[fishbowl]

>The number one factor in determining an election
>was the amount of campaign dollars a canidate
>used for advertising

I guess you could say that is a problem, but then, if the liberals are so smart and progressive, why can't they make enough money to use this system to turn the power structure on its head?

Conspiracy theories aside, doesn't this mean that those with the influence to gain money, are met with a logical and natural reward of political power?

I'm surprised that people who want reform bother with opposition parties at all. I think it might serve their purposes better to JOIN the party with the influence and money. No matter how radical your ideas really are, take a moderate stance, but the whole time making sure the party in power thinks you're one of them...

Enough people doing this at the local level could transform government in pretty short order.

I think it would be hilarious if a Republican senator would just come out and bluntly say that the party is spending too much on useless crap, religion doesn't belong in government, education needs finance, the war on drugs is a failure, etc.

Not in the hotheaded way an opposition party member would say it, but in THEIR OWN language.

Fuck the Libertarian and Green candidates. If they had any sense, they'd go moderate and run on the GOP ticket. Get elected and then start making new rules, instead of saying how you wish things would be if only you could get into power.

Re:Sure... whatever... blah blah blah.

[ScrewMaster]

I am officially abandoning this thread ... Nitpickers Anonymous has overwhelmed me with minutiae. To all of you that fancy yourselves historians, let me make a recommendation: when you read someone's post, try very hard to get the point before you reply. Y'all have a real nice day now.