Electronic Voting in the News

heymarcel writes "After a negative review of the Diebold voting machines by the State Gaming Control Board, it looks like Nevada has gone with a competitor for the upcoming election. And Secretary of State Dean Heller is requiring paper receipts. According to the Associated Press story, Nevada is the first state to do so." There's another story about Nevada voting machines as well. zapf writes "It appears that the major e-Voting machine vendors have banded together to form the 'Election Technology Council.'" Reader SemperUbi writes: "Demand for a voter-verified audit trail is really gaining momentum these days. The Voter Verification Act, introduced yesterday by Senator Bob Graham (D-Florida), would require a voter-verified paper audit trail, ban the use of 'undisclosed' software and wireless communications for voting machines, and require mandatory surprise recounts -- all in time for the November 2004 election. Rep. Holt's HR2239 in the House requires much the same thing. Resistance to both bills may focus on the aggressive timetable, but the effort is worth it -- as Warren Slocum once said, democracy ain't cheap. Take that, Diebold!" And finally, a Maryland newspaper dredges up an internal Diebold email that recommends gouging Maryland if the state wants paper printouts for its Diebold voting system.

Comments

And in Soviet Russia

[TubeSteak]

Money can buy you Best Democracy!

go ahead and mod me down, but mod the parent back up, because it really is true. I spent some time at a SIGGRAPH discussion session this summer and heard some very informed people discussing our IP laws. Surprise of surprises, the statement "we have the best laws money can buy" was tossed out and met with general agreement. How else do you explain the DMCA, almost anything Senator Hollings introduces, copyright extensions, and a whole host of legislation unrelated to news for nerds?

The golden rule: He who has the gold, makes the rules.
What'll be really interesting to watch is billionaire Souros's campaign against Bush. Money vs the entrenched power. Think of it as a test case for the parent's statement.

Re:Florida had their votes robbed!

[Zeinfeld]

Yes, Jeb Bush plotted to STEAL the Florida vote, and he disenfranchised the Florida voters. This is why the voters hated him so much that they voted him out in a landslide in the last Gubernatorial election in that state.

The malpractice of Bush and Harriss is extensively documented.

My original claim was a substantial number of people believe George W. Bush was not legitimately elected. There are 500,000 individual donors to the Dean campaign and about 90% of them hold that view. In the wider public there are millions who believe that the Florida count should have taken place.

That substantial numbers of people hold these beliefs is a fact that only the most partisan would dispute. whether or not the belief is true is acctually irrelevant to the issue of Diebold's problems.

Re:Florida had their votes robbed!

[Zeinfeld]

Ok- so you claim that these 450,000 people (90% of 500k) don't believe Bush was legitimately elected. Even though that is impossible to prove, lets assume it is true. There were over 105 million votes cast for President in 2000.

The candidate who gained the most votes was Gore. Clear majorities of Americans have called for the votes in Florida to be counted in polls as did four out of nine members of the supreme court. It is hardly an obscure or illegitimate belief.

Blanket dismissals and ad-hominem attacks by anonymous cowards do not change the fact that a lot of people believe this. If Diebold's CEO had spoken to some Democrats he would have understood just how seriously some people consider the threat of compromise of the election system.

I think that members of the NRA are often kooks, but that does not mean that I would not take their paranoid delusions into account if I was in the business of selling gun locks.