Slashdot Mirror
ACM Eyes Policy Position on Electronic Voting
while(true) writes "The ACM is preparing to take a policy position on electronic voting in government elections. It has a poll page up to get feedback from it's members and where they also explain their proposed position. The proposed position calls for a paper trail to ensure a physical record of the vote. Go there and place your vote if you are a member. The ACM Public Policy Committee could be a valuable ally in many questions that are dear to Slashdot readers in the US. They have already spoken out on issues such as the DMCA, DRM, and private policing of P2P networks."
In the summary (realizing it was a quote, but that's what square brackets are for in this context), you could have enlightened your audience with the actual meaning of "ACM", like so:
The [Association for Computing Machinery] is preparing to take a policy position[...]
#19845
When I voted just now, they showed the current results -- nearly 85% of voters strongly agreed with the ACM's proposed position that there should be a paper trail. Wow.
I can't help but think eVoting is a solution in search of a problem. Well not exactly, but it's overkill. The taxpayers are expected to shell out for expensive machines, that don't always work, and when they do work, aren't verifiably to be acurate.
Compare this to Canada. They used paper ballots with big boxes next to the canidates' names. You place a mark in the box, and your vote is cast. After the polls close, they dump out the ballot box in front of anyone interested, and a representive from each party examines each ballot and tallys the votes. When ever vote has been counted and everyone's tally agrees, they call in the count is official. They place a phone call, and they go home.
Simple. Cheap. Transparent. Effective.
We could learn alot from our neighbors to the north.
This is almost a "Delphi study". A Delphi study is
actually when you ask a number of professionals in a certain field about their opinion, or expectations, about a number of topics. Then you process the results, show the results to the same group of professionals, and ask their opinion again.
Something like that.
Well, they actually had paper trails, and it didn't change a thing. As it turned out, the courts ruled the recount illegal.
The recount was ruled illegal because it was a selective (partial) recount and not completed within the limits allowed by Florida law. There have been thousands of recounts nationwide. Many places require an automatic recount if the margin of victory is small. Let's not extrapolate the whole from one apparently misunderstood incident.