Cringley on E-voting

alfredo writes "I am shocked that this story from I Cringley hasn't been sent in and posted at Slashdot. I thought the slashdot crowd would be all over this. Robert X Cringley has a take on the voting scandal a bit different than what we have seen in the past, and promises more to come."

Comments

Re:VOT1NG ON TEH SPKOE!!!1

[Anonymous Coward]

Australians designed a system two years ago that addressed and eased most of those concerns: They chose to make the software running their system completely open to public scrutiny.

Although a private Australian company designed the system, it was based on specifications set by independent election Hot Cocks, who posted the code on the Internet for all to see and evaluate. What's more, it was accomplished from concept to product in six months. It went through a trial run in a state election in 2001.

Re:VOT1NG ON TEH SPKOE!!!1

[tr0llx0r]

The Aussie system is called eVACS (Electronic Voting and Counting System), and it runs on linux. Our company did some work on it. The main contractor is Software Improvements.

The whole system is open to public scrutiny - several people have reported bugs, including an academic. Nice contrast to the DMCA...

Re:Moot?

[bheading]

The point is more than moot; I'm a software engineer and like most people here I love fixing problems with computers and electronics. But the important point here is that electronic voting is a solution to a problem which does not exist.

Having attended several election counts in the UK, I have to ask why you guys don't you do what we do - have the electorate mark their ballot papers as appropriate, and then count the votes BY HAND a a count session to which *all* of the candidates are invited ? This way all of the candidates can clearly observe the ballots being counted, and can quickly flag the official(s) in charge of the election if there's something fishy afoot. There's no room for any fiddling of the vote to take place, and thus no room for suspicion or paranoia. It's sane, understandable by the non-IT literate (in other words, the majority of the public) and there are NEVER any disputes about votes being counted wrongly. The views of all of the candidates are sought on the counting of erroneously marked or spoilt ballots.

Even better, since the votes are all simply deposited in a sealed box (opened after the count) parties who are particularly paranoid and suspicious about the count can put their own seal on the ballot box. That way they can be satisfied that no-one has attempted to interfere with the votesHow could this be achieved with electronic voting or even the existing mechanical mechanism in the US ?

Machine-based counting has only one benefit - the results are known more quickly. I doubt the election is cheaper to run, as the machines need to be maintained and the ballots specially printed to work with them. The worst problem with the whole caboodle is that neither the candidates nor the public can easily examine what the machines are doing while counting. In that respect electronic votes are *even worse* as you press a button and your vote disappears into a black electronic box - anything could happen to it, open source or not!

The single most important priority here is that the general public can see that their vote isn't being fiddled and have confidence in the democratic process. A regime where there is widespread discontent over the way the votes are counted isn't a democracy.

Re:Voting Errors Mostly Human

[Mr. Slippery]

The infamous "butterfly ballot" certainly seemed simple enough to me, and to the third graders to whom it was shown, and to the Democratic Party officials who designed and approved it, and nobody seemed to complain when it was published in the newspaper, but I'm sure I'm missing something.

At least four things, actually:

1. The ballot did not conform to Florida law
2. You, the third graders, and the Democratic Party officials probably did not see the ballot in situ. Palm Beach voters slipped the card into an angled frame, which created visual (due to the angle) and mechanical (it didn't always get fully seated) problems.
3. Even if Democratic Party officials had seen the ballot in situ, their failure to act does not deprive voters of the right to equal protection.
4. Using the instructions given on the ballot, it was impossible to vote for half of the candidates. The ballot told voters to punch the hole to the right of the candidate they choose.

if you take the time to consider your vote, and act carefully to get it right, why should somebody else, who had no idea for whom they voted, have just as much say?

Thing is, with the screwy layout you didn't have to carefully consider your vote if you were voting for the first guy on the list - who happened to be Bush. (No conspiracy about the design meant to be implied, it just worked out that way. Had it worked out with Gore in punch position 1, and a bunch of Bush votes being miscounted, I'm sure Democrats would be pointing fingers at "Republican voters who were too dumb to follow instruction" while Republicans would be crying for accessible voting.)