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Hackers, Public Differ Greatly On E-voting

cweditor writes "Sorry to be touting one of my own Computerworld stories, but I only covered it because I found it so interesting. The Ponemon Institute surveyed 2,933 members of the general public and then 100 DEFCON and Black Hat attendees to get their views on electronic voting. 'The degree of difference was startling,' said director Larry Ponemon. It was the biggest split between 'experts and the public he'd ever found. For example, 83% of the experts said e-voting is less or much less secure against election tampering than paper ballots, compared with just 19% of the general public."

3 of 369 comments (clear)

  1. Re:I have said it before, and I will say it again by hpa · · Score: 1, Flamebait

    M-o-n-e-y

    Voting machine pushers are rich and politically well-connected (especially, apparently, with Republicans; or perhaps that's just Diebold.)

  2. Re:I wonder... by kalidasa · · Score: 0, Flamebait

    I would think that most of the general public who support e-voting would be democrats.

    Based upon what evidence, pray tell?

    The American Civil Liberties Union yesterday asked a Florida court to overturn a rule imposed by Gov. Jeb Bush that bans manual recounts of direct recording equipment (DRE) touch-screen systems. The move comes amid revelations that nearly all of the electronic records from the touch-screen voting systems used in the 2002 gubernatorial primary in Miami-Dade County were lost last November after a computer crash.

    One computerworld article

    Although she isn't scheduled to speak at the convention, Texas Rep. Eddie Bernice Johnson will call on prominent Democrats to help raise voter awareness about the challenges facing the security, reliability and integrity of electronic voting systems, a spokesman for her office said.

    [...]

    However, speaking on condition of anonymity, an IT industry source who met last week with members of Sen. John Kerry's staff said the Kerry campaign is considering a move to pull back from the position taken by the Democratic National Committee and Howard Dean's Democracy for America organization. Dean and the DNC have endorsed the voter-verifiable paper ballot requirement for e-voting systems -- something that only the state of Nevada has planned for November. According to the official, the Kerry campaign is considering support for verification of the final vote tally through some form of encryption.

    For many Democrats, however, the issue boils down to a Republican-controlled Congress that has refused to force voting-system vendors to open their software to inspection and verification.

    "The Republicans have an interest in not doing anything about electronic voting security," said Townsend.

    [....]

    But the e-voting security debate may have already damaged the trust of some Americans who will vote electronically this November. One reason for that is the appearance of a possible conflict of interest stemming in part from a comment made publicly last August by Diebold Election Systems CEO Walden O'Dell that he was "committed" to delivering Ohio's electoral votes to President George W. Bush.

    another Computerworld article

  3. Re:Interesting..... by james_in_denver · · Score: 0, Flamebait
    sorry... I just got the Blue Screen of Death...hey wait a minute, I'm running Linux

    hmmm....nevermind....diregard previous post

    I TRUST OUR GOV"T COMPLETELY!!!!!!!!!