Slashdot Mirror
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."
Maybe I'll be a little 'off-topic' but I would like to add some reflexion to this article.
E-Voting and its problems are a clear example of what is happening: we are giving to our computers and networks more and more 'power' over our own lives. This wouldn't be a problem if security was some exact science.
We still have big problems with computer security and while we didn't fix them yet (anyway can we really fix them ?) the overall 'value' of the data that goes through our networks is fast increasing.
This, I think, will be even worse in the near future because the software, systems and networks we use will be more and more complex and it will be harder and harder to maintain a good level of security on them.
You could argue that the problems exposed in the article are not related to security. I would say 'not yet'.
But something really interesting is said: "These machines leave no 'paper trail,' that is, no voter-verifiable record allowing a retrospective audit of the votes recorded as cast for each candidate or ballot proposition.".
Everything in these system is 'virtual'. It makes it easier to loose, to replicate (to steal) or to alter information. I'm quite afraid about that.
Maybe the E-Voting system is not connected to Internet, which increase security of course, but maybe one day it will...
Iraq: war to save the U
... 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.
Physicists get Hadrons!
Perhaps. But I've said this many times before (as have others) and I'll say it again:
Why does an e-voting machine have to be anything more then a fancy dumb terminal with a printer attached? Don't record the votes to a hard drive or flash card (or the worst possible idea: networked to some central server). The machine should be nothing more then a gateway to print a paper ballot.
This ensures that the ballot is filled out correctly, gives the user ample time to correct any mistakes (before printing the ballot) and lets them verify it with their own two eyes before they drop the paper ballot in the lockbox.
Said ballots can then be counted with OCR software -- or by hand if it comes down to a manual recount.
Open source or not, I do not trust the vendors of these machines ("I'm going to deliver Ohio's electoral votes to Bush next year") enough to assume that my vote is actually counted on that hard drive. Even if they released open source code, how do you really know that's what's running on the machine itself? Once the election is over it's too late as Florida proved.
I want peace on earth and goodwill toward man.
We are the United States Government! We don't do that sort of thing.
So why not just do what we do here in Canada: make the ballot as simple as possible, just mark an X by your candidate. All that's on the ballot is a list of names and a box by each one.
Why bother with electronic voting? We get our results around an hour after the polls close, plus there's much less room for voting fraud (and I'd assume it's cheaper).
According to all the "media recounts", Bush won the election unless you counted the votes against methods prescribed by Florida law -- much like Johnny Carson's Carnac. I don't know if you understand US Presidential Elections, but our President is elected by the Electoral College not by the popular vote. Bush won by 2% in the Electoral College.
Bush and his government do not listen to the UN, detain prisoners with no charges, and therefore do not believe in democracy.
The UN does not dictate to the United States because we are a sovereign country. It would unconstitutional for President Bush to allow the UN to dictate to USA. The US does not detain "prisoners" without charges. We do, however, place into detention terrorists that have attacked or are plotting to attack the US or its military. It is very simple not become a guest of Gitmo, do not conspire with terrorist organizations that threaten to cause mass casualties. We do believe in democracy in America and brought it to many nations around the world. Two shining examples are Germany and Japan.
I understand that it is vogue in many minority "clickish" groups to engage in vitriolic hyperbole in regards to our President. Those that have underestimated our President's intelligence or will have found themselves on the losing side of not only elections but of history. There are many complaints that can be brought up about our President such as his love of big government programs but it is rare to ever hear valid ones from his foes, much to their electoral peril. President Bush main strength is that he is constantly underestimated and overly mocked.
Strange women lying in ponds distributing swords is no basis for a system of government.
Most people are missing the point. An election must not only be fair but it must be seen to be fair.
I have no idea why the US has such problems with their voting. In the UK everyone votes on paper..... with a fucking pen. (No dimpled chads crap!) It is counted by hand and is never out by more than 10 votes in 30,000. We also have the result by the early hours of the morning.
The point is if you want to go and count all the votes yourself you can. The whole idea of an election is that it is open. For this there must be a paper trail. Why complicate the matter? The other point is that it is secret. Who I vote for is none of anyones bussiness. I would always be nervous with electronic voting for two reasons. I want to know that my vote has really bean counted and I want to know that I am anonymous.
As regards election fraud it is easier to imagine someone messing with an electonic count than someone turning up with a few suitcases of paper and trying to stuff them into a ballot box in fron t of the election officals.
.
There's one problem with this scheme, namely lack of anonymity. Also if you give a receipt it opens the door to bribery, since an outside party can verify who you have actually voted for. Anyone with access to the database can also see who you voted for.
Voting has to be anonymous.
"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.