E-Voting: a Flawed Solution in Search of a Problem

blorg writes "In the promised follow-up to last-week's I, Cringely column on E-Voting (discussed on Slashdot here), Robert X. Cringely discusses his proposed solution to the electronic voting mess. The ideas in this piece have all appeared already on Slashdot, but this stands as a well-argued condensation of them into a single article. In the article, he looks briefly at possible solutions for the auditability problem but ultimately argues that technology introduces more problems into elections than it solves. Instead, he suggests that elections can be run quicker, cheaper and fairer using the paper-based Canadian model."

Comments

Toronto Mayoral election was a really good system

[General_Corto]

Some of us hosers have had a couple of elections recently: the Ontario provincial election and the city council/mayoral election.

I was most impressed by the mayoral elections. In Toronto (don't know about the rest of them), the voting was electronically tallied but had a built-in audit trail.

The ballot was pretty simple: you connected two parts of an arrow together that pointed at your choice of candidate. None of this Florida confusion, you literally pointed at who you were voting for! Then, the ballot was read by a scanner that was placed over a large box. The scanner confirmed that your vote had been counted correctly, and the box kept the ballot.

At the end of the day, the election TV coverage was almost farcical because almost all the results were in within an hour. If any candidate wanted to contest the vote, all the original ballots had been retained as part of the system.

Maybe that would be a good system for the U.S.

Re:That's only part of the "problem"

[core plexus]

Give me somthing to vote for other then Sock Puppet A or Sock Puppet B and I may care more.

Here's how: "An often overlooked approach to getting the attention of your representatives is to get involved in their campaign. Very few people contribute money or time to a campaign, and those that do are rewarded by having the ear of the politician when they are elected. Even if they aren't elected, they usually have influence on those that are elected, and there is always the possibility that they will run again." Source

-cp-

President Bush to Liberate Alaska!

Federal vs. State responsibility

[Irishman]

As a Canadian, I have to agree with Cringley, we were all laughing during the election of 2000 and still laugh at the e-voting system. We had an election call, a campaign and a vote faster than the count of 2000.

The one problem with his suggestion, as I understand it, is that the states are responsible for the design of the ballot in the USA. In Canada, the ballot design is dictated by Elections Canada (a non-partisan government agency) Every poll must have the same design for the ballot. The design is all candidates on a single piece of paper that folds 3 times. The candidates names are alphabetical and in white on a solid black background. The vote is marked in a white circle next to the name.

I guess to have a Canadian style ballot would probably require a constitutional change in the USA, with the states giving up some control over the elections.

Re:Paper receipts

[schwaang]

At least votes bought directly from thousands of people are more democratic than thousands of votes bought from, say, the CEO of Diebold.

California's Secretary of State announced last month that California will have a paper trail for its electronic voting machines (starting in mid-'05). It's a good thing IMHO. press release(PDF)

Dave Barry said the same thing last year

[rakerman]

How to vote in 1 easy step

Re:Blame Canada

[alphaseven]

Canadian cost per capita: $1.81
US cost $3.27

One of the main reasons it's cheaper is because all elections are run by a single body, Elections Canada, but in the U.S. elections are generally run by individual counties, each having to make their own ballots and having their own procedures. This also adds to the problem where poorer counties would have to make do with older equipment.

It would be cheaper and more efficient if each state had a single body that administered elections, buying equipment in bulk, but most states "pass the buck" onto counties for budget reasons, even though it ends up costing taxpayers more in the end.

Why the Canadian system works well

[comandante frito]

The key to the success of the Canadian system and the principle that the US needs to adopt is that the vote counting is entirely transparent and out in the open. Fraud is very difficult in that environment. There are at least two, and often many more, eyeballs watching every count. It is both repeatable and auditable. The number of eyeballs watching is what is really important. No part of the counting or reporting the count to other officials is out of sight or secret.

Voting machines are really hopelessly obscure and not open in any way and fraud is so easy that it is laughable and ridiculous to even consider them. The criminals will love it. It's a perfect way to make voting meaningless and to ensure that the US eventually becomes a dictatorship. Good luck to the sheep who are willing to let this happen -- soon you will be roast mutton.