Can America Trust Electronic Voting?

A anonymous reader writes: "The Sacramento Bee wrote an excellent article about the issues surrounding electronic voting. It was written by the Yolo County clerk/recorder and a professor of law at UC Davis. They quote sources such as Peter G. Neumann and Diebold's president Walden O'Dell."

Comments

Hasn't Australia just mandated a paper trail

[Space cowboy]

... for their next election, which seems to be the best option to me. Voter gets a piece of paper (anonymous) which records his/her vote. The slip has to be left at the polling station in a sealed container, and in the event of "it screwed up", the slips get counted...

Simon.

Re:Hasn't Australia just mandated a paper trail

[phalse phace]

All I know is that California recently mandated paper receipts for all its voting machines. Sucks is that this isn't required for all of them until 2006, which is a little too late for the 2004 elections.

Except he was not appointed

[Anonymous Coward]

"Bush is by far the worst president ever appointed by the Supreme Court. --maddox.xmission.com "

Whether or not he is the worst president, you are accepting someone's lie as fact. The Supreme Court did not appoint him. The Electoral College did, however, through the usual process of election.

All the Supreme Court did was refuse to bother with a frivolous appeal filed with them. They in effect did nothing and let the real results of the election stand.

Re:Except he was not appointed

[Mr. Slippery]

The Supreme Court did not appoint him. The Electoral College did, however, through the usual process of election.

And the Supreme Court - acting in violation of federal, state, and international law, as well as judicial rules of procedure - selected Florida's electors.

All the Supreme Court did was refuse to bother with a frivolous appeal filed with them. They in effect did nothing and let the real results of the election stand.

Your recall of events is hazy. If they'd done nothing, the recount would have continued.

The "real results" are that:

• slightly more more people in Florida cast ballots for Gore than for Bush
• if a large number of black voters had not been illegally disenfranchised, the margin would have been higher
• if ballots conforming to Florida law (and to internal consistency) had been used in Palm beach, the margin would have been higher still

Re:absolutely not

[Qzukk]

I understand that it is vogue in many minority "clickish" groups to engage in vitriolic hyperbole in regards to our President.

Yeah, too bad so much of this vitrol is true. Take a look at this article on ZDnet. Its about that guy at Intel that got arrested, and the "evidence" that let the US hold him for over a month in solitary confinement (check the date on the article and the date in the story). He was a Citizen of The United States. A citizen. You know, the people who make up this country, live here, and who are guaranteed certain rights such as due process, a speedy trial, and representation? You? Me? Note also the end of the article:

A Washington Post investigation last fall said the Justice Department has imprisoned at least 44 people, including seven U.S. citizens, under the same law, with some held for many months and possibly over a year.

So he's not an isolated case.

According to what was released by the government (who has recently felt an unusual need to hide the truth from its people on a lot of things, such as trials, so its entirely possible they have other charges they're neglecting to let us know about) Mike's crimes were growing a beard after the sept. 11 attacks and visiting China during the same time that a group of other people arrested the year before had visited. Ah, sweet justice.

Did you know that Bush said he doesn't read the newspapers? Yeah, thats right, he "trusts" his advisors to tell him whats worth knowing in the news. These are the same people that brought us nukes in the middle east, magical disappearing WMDs that nobody has found yet, and our current foreign policy of "piss everyone off".

As for Bush's belief in "democracy", he'd rather be a dictator. Out of context? Joking? You decide.

Nobody "underestimates" Bush. The fact is, the poor man is an idiot and a puppet for the people pulling his strings and whispering in his ear who we didn't vote for and who we have no control over. Your examples of Germany and Japan are great ones, too bad they shine brighter than the US right now.

Verifiedvoting.org -

[Speequinox]

The org is on the ball: http://www.verifiedvoting.org