Slashdot Mirror
Who's Blocking Verified E-Voting?
ClarkEvans writes "The NY Times has a great editorial today calling out the League of Women Voters for their counter-productive lobbying against verified voting. The article states that Diebold voting systems has given lots of dough to these opposition groups." There's an AP story about the issue as well.
It's not the votes that count, but who counts the votes.
Since women have gained suffrage in the US, we've seen:
- Prohibition
- The Great Depression
- Nuclear weapons
- The Cuban Missile Crisis
- The assassination of JFK
- The Vietnam War
It's time to stop the madness! Repeal womens' suffrage now!
This reminds me of a group I heard about who set up a booth and handed out stickers encouring and "end to women's suffrage". Apparently plenty of females were in support of this, not knowing what the word meant.
And there was me thinking that maybe, just maybe, the corruptive rot of politics hadn't sunk through to supposed grassroots groups like this. Guess I should've thought better and realised that astroturfing like this is doable after all. How much power do these groups hold? With the money they're being backhanded by Diebold, they might be able to exert some unwanted influence on the issue. :/
--
GNAA
"But simply printing out a piece of paper will not, in our opinion, address all the security concerns. People are talking about a simple solution to a complicated issue."
Who says we can't have a simple solution? Printing out a piece of paper most certainly WILL address all of the security concerns. At a stroke it allows voter verification, recounts, and auditing to find both corruption and machine errors.
She's obviously not an engineer. Often, the simplest solutions are best.
The submitter appears to have some issue with the League of Women's Voters, an organization whose only crime is buying the arguments of the groups who have been tainted by Diebold money. If I didn't read the editorial, I would have been under the wrong impression that The League had taken money from Diebold.
My other sig is extremely clever...
is for some white-hat slashdot reader to go and actually steal an election as proof of concept and then publicize it. Sure he'll probably go to prison for the rest of his life, but he'll become a legend among techies...
take one for the team!
Just goes to show that almost no group is above being bribed.
"What's even more troubling is that the group has accepted a $1 million gift for a new training institute from Diebold, the machines' manufacturer, which put the testimonial on its Web site."
The author is right there is no need to choose between "accessible voting and verifiable voting".
Without paper verification evoting has no future here.
If you wanna get rich, you know that payback is a bitch
I've written the League several times over the last few months. Their stance is not only wrong-headed, but they refuse to listen to their constituency. The NY Times article refers to a group of disabled people, ones who happen to have a great deal of influence with the LWV, who were given foundation monies from Diabold. You cannot pretend that politics is not involved here.
... if the League of Women Voters is friggin' stupid enough to support a cause that breaks elections, they're working quite well to make people regret granting women suffrage in the first place...
Do not look into laser with remaining eye.
I've posted about this on Slashdot before but looks like it's appropriate to post again.
Here's a link to the realaudio stream of the radio show I refered to.
In our state our governor, Jeb Bush, is against the whole verified voting idea. Suprising considering the whole fiasco here in Florida last time.
My favorite argument against paper trails is how insanely expensive these machines would become. Really? I didn't know that the corner Kwik-e-Mart had one of these "expensive" machines to print a receipt for my $0.50 pack of gum. As far as I know, all ATM's have paper trails. How is it feasible to record a $20 ATM withdrawal but not a vote for supreme emperor of the earth for 4 years?
Politicus
The problem with an elecronic-only voting system is that without a tangible piece of evidence that you voted for candidate A over candidate B, any audit trail could potentially be just as corrupt or inaccurate as the initial vote was.
By including a tangible confirmation mechanism that's not electronic (like a paper confirmation), then the system can still be audited "by hand".
It's the same reason that financial companies are still required by the SEC to keep paper records of a lot of their activities.
I was in the park the other day wondering why frisbees get bigger and bigger the closer they get - and then it hit me.
-----
... The paper trail is the ambulance in the
Date: Fri, 7 May 2004 19:41:29 -0400
To: letters@nytimes.com
Subject: Secure Voting Techology
May 3rd's article "Who Hacked the Voting System?" begs the question:
why must these complicated voting systems be all encompassing?
Imagine a process where selecting candidates and tallying choices is
distinct. The voter enters a booth, uses a complicated touch-screen
machine, and emerges with a human-readable card clearly stating
their candidate. Then, the voter walks over to a brightly lit
election desk, feeds this card into the tallying machine, and
deposits their card into the ballot box.
Security is straight-forward. Voters will tell you when a
touch-screen system make an error. This leaves the tallying machine
to secure. Luckily, it is in plain sight and its operation is
simple. Further, if the tally is questioned, some or all of the
ballots can be reviewed by human eyes.
Candidate selecting technology is complicated. Card tallying ain't.
Let's keep them separate.
-----
Date: Sun, 23 May 2004 11:19:17 -0400
To: letters@nytimes.com
Subject: Demand Grows to Require Paper Trails for Electronic Votes
In the article Demand Grows to Require Paper Trails for Electronic
Voting, published May 23, 2004, Doug Chapin from the Pew Charitable
Trust said: "You can either build a fence around a cliff or put an
ambulance in the valley
valley. Certifying the machines and testing them in the first place to
make sure they are secure is the fence around the cliff."
I think Mr. Chapin's analogy is poor, it is not an either/or, one would
properly do both. However, if he insists with this analogy, I suggest
Verified Voting is more analogous with the ability to ensure that the
fence around the cliff is actually working. The only way to detect that
a voting technology reflects voter intent is to complement touch screens
with a simple print-out listing the canidates the voter has chosen. Then
the voter can review their choices and stuff this print-out into the
ballot box so random or challenge recounts can happen. Lacking this
ability to verify voter intent, we are left with only one way to ensure
that our democracy is working -- trust a for-profit corporation.
-------
Date: Fri, 11 Jun 2004 10:09:04 -0400
To: letters@nytimes.com
Subject: The Disability Lobby and Voting
I am so happy to see the NY Times call-out the League of Weoman Voters
for their counter-productive stand; also, I can't believe that despite
my calls, Senator Dodd has joined this nonsense.
An optical scan solution can offer the best of both worlds. A
disabled-persons friendly touch screen or audio-system can be used to
generate the ballot; while the actual counting of the optical ballots
can be done with a much simpler optical reader.
By breaking the problem of filling-out and counting ballots, we get the
best of both worlds; the intermediate ballot provides the paper trail.
It is also easier to test optical scanners for compliance -- there is
less code to review, and deterministic inputs/outputs allow testing to
be automated. Further, since only one optical scanner is needed per
district, and can be closely monitored. Let user-friendly voting
machines thrive, but make sure they don't do the counting.
The nice thing with a paper ballot or vote record is that the voter can verify that their vote has been recorded correctly and we know how to secure those ballots to prevent tampering so that if there is a need for a recount it can be done.
There is a third requirement for fair elections, and that is balanced coverage. Forget the liberal bias, or the conservative bias, the truth in the US is that there is a 2 party bias. 3rd parties are ignored, and given short coverage in the guide of 'to be fair'.... In Europe, 3rd parties quickly gain recognition due to the mix of ballot variety (lots of parties to consider), election style (more representive focused) and the coverage they get. Here in the US, if you aren't a Republicrat, or a Demopublican, you have to fight for coverage. People with a true shot, ie enough ballots that they could win, or will likely affect the course of the election should be coveraged with EQUAL access
I'm voting for Michael Badnarik Libertarian, who is also on almost all of the ballots
and so should you, if you think Government is out of control. Kush and Berry won't change that, and you're just voting for the lesser of 2 evils.
Vote for Good, vote Badnarik!
Help achieve Liberty in your lifetime - join the Free State Project - http://www.freestateproject.org
The Disability Lobby and Voting
The real problem with Diebold isn't the lack of a paper trail. It's that the machines can and are being changed after being certified as reliable. A machine that gives you a paper receipt of your vote isn't worth a damn if someone can hack the smartcard that records the votes to log something else after the certification is complete.
Two obvious requirements for a fair election are that voters should have complete confidence about their ballots' being counted accurately and that everyone, including the disabled, should have access to the polls. It is hard to imagine advocates for those two goals fighting, but lately that seems to be what's happening.
Yes, indeed. And even after reading every linked article I still don't understand how, exactly, that requiring paper trails for electronic voting machines could in any way impede equal access to polls (for the disabled or anyone.) A little help here -- please?
The issue is whether electronic voting machines should provide a "paper trail" -- receipts that could be checked by voters and used in recounts. There has been a rising demand around the country for this critical safeguard, but the move to provide paper trails is being fought by a handful of influential advocates for the disabled, who complain that requiring verifiable paper records will slow the adoption of accessible electronic voting machines.
OK, here's a stab at it -- "requiring verifiable paper records will slow the adoption of accessible electronic voting machines." But, er, why would it slow anything? And, if it does, can't we just use the "old way" (traditional polls) until the "new way" (electronic polls) is made more reliable and secure? I'll try again:
Leaders said paperless terminals, which about 30 percent of the electorate will use in the November election, were reliable.
Er, OK, but this is both tangential and arguable. I still don't see how requiring verifyable paper trails impedes anyone's access to the polls.
They had "no reason to believe" computer terminals would "steal your vote," the league said officially.
Well, there is some reason to believe that they'll make a mistake or be susceptible to fraud. See linked articles. Again, why do paper trails impede the disabled from voting? I'f I'm in the League of Women voters, it seems that, not only am I not going to get a straight answer to that, but I must support the position publicly (or at least not oppose it) -- yikes!:
League bylaws stipulate that local chapters must act "in conformity" with the national organization's stances. Individuals who take contrary positions cannot identify themselves publicly as league members.
League president Kay Maxwell says paperless computers, which can be equipped with headsets and programmed in multiple languages, make voting easier for the blind and illiterate, and for people who don't speak English.
OK, most computers are "paperless." Generally, it's the printers that have the paper in them. And, in my experience, most (all?) computers may have a printer connected without much trouble. Kay seems to imply that connecting a printer will break headset or multilanguage support -- wha? I'm still confused.
Furthermore, she said, demanding a paper trail so close to the presidential election would require hundreds of counties that have installed electronic systems to spend millions of dollars on printers, paper and technical upgrades at the last minute.
Well, I guess they should have done a little more due dilligence before sinking time and money into an insecure voting system. Why should we all have to pay for that stupidity?
For current members, Maxwell said, voter registration problems and dismal turnout -- particularly among minorities -- should be bigger worries than potential hackers.
These aims are not opposing -- it's possible to address security without impeding the ability of minorities to vote. I can't even see how the issues are related. Sounds like smoke and mirrors to misdirect attention away from the payola they're taking in from Diebold. Sad, really.
"From a voting rights perspective, we care a great deal about the openness of the system and access to the system, tha
everything in moderation
I'm a software developer with close to 20
years of experience. I was pointed to your position paper on VVPT.
Please accept my comments on your position paper.
Electronic Voting Machines and Voter-Verified Paper Trails (VVPT)
League of Women Voters
http://www.lwv.org/join/electionshava_dre- vvpt.htm l
The League of Women Voters strongly supports full and equal
voting rights for all eligible Americans, including persons with disabilities. The League also supports voter verification of ballots, including the requirement in the Help America Vote Act (HAVA) whereby the voter verifies the ballot before it is cast and counted. However, the League does not support proposals for a new requirement for paper-based voter verification - the voter-verified paper trail (VVPT) system that would require Direct Recording Electronic (DRE) voting machines to provide an individual paper confirmation for each ballot for each voter to verify.
A VVPT requirement undermines voting access for people with disabilities or limited English proficiency, raises costs, fails to guarantee security, unnecessarily complicates the voting process, undermines federal certification standards, and slows the replacement of outdated voting machines.
To be clear, VVPT would require DRE equipment to print out a physical paper receipt that the voter could review and then stuff in the ballot box. These printed ballots would then be the official record of the election.
These printed ballots would:
- be printed out when the user has completed selecting all
of their choices via the DRE's touch screen interface
- would only print out the individuals selected, and thus
is very simple to understand and uncluttered
- would be printed in the language used by the DRM machine,
cross-language support on paper is quite easy
- be in large font for reading impaired and could be handed
to an election worker to read for those who are blind
- would have an encoded version of the votes via a bar-code to
make scanning in the votes for semi-automated recounts easy
- would be printed on card stock using your average laser
or inket printer; thermal paper does not last long enough
To be more concrete about this, and to make it absolutely clear what
we are discussing, there is an open source application [1] with an
on-line demo [2] that produces this sort of printed receipt [3]. Be
advised that the user interface for making the selections is not
important to this discussion, the only thing that is salient is the
final receipt printed.
[1] http://www.openvotingconsortium.org/
[2] http://gyaku.pair.com/~vote/ballot2.html
[3] http://clarkevans.com/tmp/ballot-receipt.pdf
With this background, let me address your specific concerns. Before
you continue with this statements, I ask you to download the
referenced PDF file above and print this so that you can see exactly
what is being requested by the VVPT community.
* The voter-verified paper trail requirement undermines voting access. DREs make it possible, for the first time, for persons with visual disabilities or limited manual dexterity to cast secret and independent ballots.
The VVPT does not replace DREs. People would still use touch screens
to make their choices. The printed 'receipt' would be in the
individual's language and printed in a large enough font so that it is
absolutely clear.
Because DREs can be programmed in multiple languages, voters with limited English proficiency can participate fully and equally. The millions of Americans who face literacy challenges also can take advantage of the audio features of DREs to cast independent votes without embarrassment.
There is no reason why the printed receipt cannot print out results in
the voter's choice of language. During an official manual recount, it
wou
The League took a vote to make the change you suggested. Unfortunately, they used a Diebold voting machine, and the results were:
153% Nay
-12% Yea
I honestly don't understand the concept behind this e-voting. Why do Americans think that voting constantly needs to be mechanized? First, the goofy mechanical lever system. Then the goofy punch cards. now the goofy computers. And all in all none of it ends up ever being any cheaper or faster than just filling out paper ballots by marking an X.
Now everyone is talking about printing out a paper receipt for recounts etc. So now we are using at least as much paper as paper votes.
You *know* the first time these machines are used in any contested election, one of the parties will cry foul. And there will be a recount. Which will take just as much time with paper votes.
So why the *hell* not just use paper votes in the first place? Empty boxes, you mark an X. We have been doing this in Canada forever, and we are still doing it this year. Why? Cause it is cheap, and it works. There's no hanging chaffes, no computer error, no security issues, it's totally transparent to the public.
All of our money, nuclear power, nuclear weapons monitoring and management, life support systems, transport systems, airliners etc are managed by computers, yet apparently they are not up to the task of incrementing a counter for a name.
If Diebold machines get in the 2004 primary election, we're all screwed if we're not voting for Bush. Think about it.
If by some chance, Kerry wins the election, I predict all our critiques and cynacism will end up being used against us, as the mainstream media will suddenly ressurrect the Diebold story and use it as fodder to throw the whole election process into question, and likely land it back on the steps of the supreme court. I know that sounds like a ridulous assertion, but so was what happened last election.
With no paper trail to verify, and the media going apeshit because Bush has been dethroned, it wouldn't be unrealistic to have yet another major election up in the air.
The first thing I can think of, is if for example, they did away with providing a receipt for credit card transactions. Maybe a lot of companies would only deduct the correct amount but what would you do if someone over charged your account and pocketed the difference? You would probably not realize the error until after you received your bank statement and then disputing the issue would be more difficult without you being able to produce documentation to support your claim that there is an error.
It's so boneheaded and stupid I can't believe it is a subject to be argued over. Unbelievable.
Last time I voted for Nader. Not because I really wanted to vote for Nader, but because I wanted to vote for the viability of a third party.
But, now I know just how evil Bush is, so voting for a third party will just have to wait until 2008. Right now it's more important to make sure we're not down to one party by the time 2008 rolls around.
paintball
The same thing could be done much more easily now with absentee ballots. "You better register for an absentee ballot and bring it to the shop/church/nursing-home/whatever so your boss/pastor/spouse/doctor/parent can make sure you vote correctly".
I think going to a polling place to vote, where you can vote without anyone's interference, should be pretty much required - and the absentee thing should just be for really unusual circumstances, and not at all encouraged without a good reason.
It ain't astroturfing. If you'd, y'know, read the article, you'd notice that local chapters of the LWV are up in arms about this, and there's a very real chance that this issue is gonig to cause a change in leadership.
This is a case of Diebold buying the president of a nonprofit, and the members becoming outraged that their views aren't represented. Luckily, they can change that, and that's just what they're doing now.
--grendel drago
Laws do not persuade just because they threaten. --Seneca
Counting is what machines are good at. I trust them (as long the code controlling them is open for public scrutiny) much more than some group of (always biased) humans.
Actually, what machines are good at is following orders. If they're ordered to count, they count. If they're orderd to fake it, they fake it.
I too trust them to do a better job of counting than people - as long as that's what their orders (the program) tells them to do. But I have no way of knowing that the code that the public examined is actually the code running on the machine - and I trust the machine to help hide what code it's running if THAT's what it's been ordered to do.
That's why I can never trust the machine to count.
Now, I CAN trust:
- the paper a machine prints to remain unchanged until the period for recounts is over.
- electors (who are paying attention) to become irate if the machine prints the wrong votes
- the partisans for MY candidates and side on ballot measures to do their best at any recount to assure that the partisans for the OTHER candidates and sides don't fake the count.
So I will trust the election if, and ONLY if, the machines are printing the TRUE ballot, which is then checked by the voters and stored in a ballot box, and the electronic count on the machines is simply an accelleration, subject to being tossed out in favor of the manual recount if there's any question.
Note that once the audit trail is in place there is much less incentive to hack the voting machines. It would be ineffectual AND it would be detected. Without the audit trail there's no way to correct such tampering, or even know it has occurred. So there's a much greater likelyhood it will be attempted.
How do you know it hasn't happened already?
Bantam Dominique roosters crow a four-note song. Once you've heard it as "Happy BIRTHday" you can't NOT hear it that way
Why is it so damn important that results be known RIGHT NOW? Less than half the people in your country vote, and therefore don't care. For those that do your TV networks are projecting winners the second polls close. Up here we know the results before we go to bed. By morning most of the counts are official. Within days MPs are being sworn in.
Why is efficiency even an issue? I care about efficiency when I order a pizza. I care about efficiency when I buy a car. For one night every four years (or so) efficiency can go to hell. When deciding who will be governing me and my country I want accuracy.
It's worth noting that in their national elections in 2000, Canada had 21 million voters and the US had 105 million. You can see why the US might be a little more obsessed with the cost and speed elements.
Ah yes, the old "That won't work here, we're special" argument.
Yes, you have an order of magnitude more voters. But that also means that you have an order of magnitude more polling stations and volunteers to count votes. In terms of voting there is no fundamental difference between a Canadian city of 1 million people and an American city of 1 million people. The fact that you have 10 times as many of those cities is irrelevant to this problem.
Serve Gonk.
I don't know if people understand just how bad this could get. I was one of many who felt that the 2000 election was a bit fishy, but since it was really close, I could accept that it was effectively decided on a coin-flip. In any case, it was decided, and there was nothing reasonable to be done about it at the time. At least I knew there was another presidential election coming up in 2004.
Since then I've come to *really* distrust Bush and company. Besides the deceit leading up to Iraq, it seems that the Bush administration has developed a pattern of deciding that their desired policies are more important than legal and constitutional niceties like habeas corpus, trial by jury, the Geneva Conventions, etc. I can completely imagine some members of the administration deciding that "staying the course" is more important than the peculiarities of one election.
Maybe I'm over-reacting and being paranoid, but there are a lot of people like me, people who sat quiet after the 2000 election because they had faith our democracy would handle things eventually.
Now suppose the 2004 election is decided for Bush by state or two which uses a bunch of these voting machines. Then what do I do? Do I take it quietly again, when I've got no way to know if there was cheating?
Again, I'm one of many. Our democracy may not be strong enough to handle 35% of the public believing in a pattern of stolen presidential elections. After all, what do we do if voting can't change things?
While many slashdotters may think they would be able to verify for themselves that a voting machine hasn't been tampered with, I'm sure many of us could come up with a way to ensure our tampering wouldn't be detected.
We vote, what, every couple of years? It is arguably the most important thing most of us do for our country. Is counting bits of paper really that hard?
The only way I can see that the electorate can see for themselves that democracy is being done is for ballots, once marked, to be put into transparent ballot boxes, transported to the counting station in full view and counted in full view. I can see no other way the average person can be confident the election is fair.
Intellectual Property
Intellectual: of the mind
Property: that over which one has control
This just seems to be part of a larger problem of people unfamiliar with computers just not getting the issue so I've constructed what I think is a pretty good metaphor of the problem.
There's this company, called Diebold, and their employees are fast counters, really fast, so fast they can count all the votes in an election almost instantaneously. The problem is they need a warehouse to do the counting in.
So at all the voting stations they build themselves a warehouse. An election official come in a few months before the election and look around, lots of boxes are around, a whole bunch of different gadgets, the officials can't look over everything but it seems alright. The official remindes Diebold it's against the law to touch anything or let anyone inside before election time for security reasons. A couple days later the Diebold employee in charge goes back inside, he moves some things around and is seen driving up in moving trucks and taking boxes in and out but the election official doesn't see. One day when the Diebold employee isn't at the warehouse a guy is walking down the street and notices a door wide open, he wanders in and finds himself in the warehouse. He decides to take some pictures, windows are left open, most of the doors are unlocked or just have a piece of rope to tie them shut and their security alarm is a mute poodle. This guy shows the pictures around, security companies everywhere are just appaled, they can't believe how bad security is and are screaming it's way too unsecure to hold votes in but the government and Diebold ignore them.
So election time comes around and you have to vote. You go to the lobby at the front of the warehouse and go into your booth. There you mark your ballot as usual (except they have really nice ballots and pencils). Then instead of putting it in a box you go and give it to a person standing behnid the counter, it's supposed to be an elections official but it could also be a guy who snuck in off the street. Your ballot is out of sight for a minute as he carries it over and hands it to the Diebold employee, the Diebold employee then tells you he'll put the ballot in a box and he'll count it at the end with the others. He then goes into the warehouse and that's the last you, or anybody else but the Diebold employee, see of your ballot. After the election the Diebold employee comes out and tells everyone what he counted and who won the election, it not who most people expected and a couple people ask for a recount but the Diebold employee says that he threw out the ballots as he counted them so you just have to take his word for it. A couple of people ask why they didn't just put a photocopier and a traditional ballot box in the lobby where everyone could see it and no one could tamper with it. After marking your first ballot you would be be able to make exactly one copy of it, you could then put the second ballot in that ballot box and at the end if they wanted a recount they could just count the ballots in the traditional box. The Diebold employee (who lost a bunch of the ballots before counting them) says that his counting is good enough and that the old ballot box couldn't be trusted. Oh yeah, that Diebold employee was also campaigning for the guy who won.
Please feel free to redistribute this or give me any suggestions you might have on how to make it better. I've tried to be as factual as possible (not sure about leaving the upset in there).
I stole this Sig
...but nearly every guy I know would ask "what the hell does that mean" before getting too worried about it. However I've noted that a fair number of my intelligent female friends are quicker to act like they know what something means when they don't.
It's not that women are less knowledgable, but they're less likely to admit it, and risk looking stupid. Sad thing is that it usually backfires as there's few things stupider looking than being highly confident in one's ignorance.
I figure women do this is because of all the pressure for an intelligent woman to prove she's not ignorant. But really the smartest people are quick to ask questions and admit when they don't know something. How else would they learn so much?
Kinda sad that it works out that way.
Cheers.
I think I have a solution to all this voting nonsense. The first step is to issue every voting age american a Public and Private Key , as per PGP.
Then, when the voting is actually taking place, the votes are encrypted using the Government's widely-known public key, and is digitally signed using the private individual's Private key.
This way, even the voting machine doesn't know what votes a given data stream actually contains, since the signature of the individual changes the representation of the votes. When the gov't. recieves the vote, it decodes the message using it's own private key, and then re-decodes it using the voter's known Public Key.
In other words, don't count on a machine to do the counting at the voting machine level. Assign one public, open-source machine to decode all the votes once they have been registered. There is no reason for the voting machines to do the counting themselves.
Another possible method would be to use two seperate machines for the voting. The first has a touch-screen and all the bells and whistles, and punches you a physically verifyable ballot, which is then put into the second machine, which reads the card and asks you to confirm the votes again. When you do, then a physical counter is incremented. The first machine is all or mostly electronic, and the second entirely mechanical, so there is no funny business.
People act as if this issue (and, for that matter every other issue) has a clear solution. As if any reasonable or intelligent person can't debate the causes of the problem and the proposed solution! This is kinda arrogant. Most issues in politics are very complicated; simplifying them usually only helps the politicians and does not make a simple solution more desirable.
For instance, I wonder how many of those paper receipts could be dusted for fingerprints. Wouldn't that make it easier to figure out who voted for whom? Is it easier or harder to backtrack the voters than traditional paper ballots? And what about all those methods for electronic security. What makes a computerized voting system easier to fraud? If I wanted to fix a traditional election, all I'd do is replace ballot box with an identical one with my votes. Digital results can be harder to fake (md5 sums, multiple copies transported, and even quantum encryption could identify interception of the results by a third party).
Really, what's the difference between not knowing how a computer stores its information verses ignorance of how a box of ballots are handled? They both are vulnerable.
It is impossible to enjoy idling thoroughly unless one has plenty of work to do.
- Jerome Klapka Jerome