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E-Voting Problems Are Mostly User Error, Says ITAA
grcumb writes "InfoWorld is carrying a story today which mentions a press kit being distributed by the Information Technology Association of America. Its purpose? To 'help journalists put election equipment-related snafus in context.' Most e-voting problems, they insist, are [l]user issues, where people who don't know how to deal with the new technology cause delays as they seek assistance. They don't seem to feel the need for journalists to understand basic system design issues (like making sure your computer and human processes work), why testing didn't identify these problems, nor why this is better than paper ballots."
The problems with e-voting are user error? That's funny I thought it had something to do with miscounted votes, buggy or crashed systems and clearly biased voting machine companies.
Hell! If it was user error this whole time then the solution is obvious -- we need a phone in every voting booth with a direct line to some Level 1 tech support guy! Can you picture this?:
Support Guy: "Thank you for calling Voting Machines, Inc. my name is Tony, how may I assist you today?"Voter: "I'm having a problem voting -- smoke seems to be coming out of the back of the machine and there is a bad grinding noise."
Support Guy: "Yes sir. Before I can help you I need your express service code."
Voter: "I don't know where that is! This machine is not letting me vote."
Support Guy: "Sir, I can't help you without your express service code."
Voter: "Grrr. It's XXX-XXXX-XXXX-XXXX-X"
Support Guy: "Thank you sir. Now is your voting machine plugged in and turned on?"
Voter: "Yes! Why is smoke coming out? It won't let me vote."
Support Guy: "Is your ballot on the screen or do you see the desktop?"
Voter: "I don't know! Grrr... what about the smoke??"
Support Guy: "Sir, I have a procedure that I need to follow and that procedure requires me to know if your ballot is on the screen or not."
Poll Worker: "Sir, state law only allows you three minutes to vote. You need to hurry up and finish."
Voter: "Damnit! I am almost out of time. How can I vote?"
Support Guy: "Sir, your voting machine is clearly infected with spyware and we don't support that. I highly recommend that you call Microsoft for further assistance. Thank you for calling Voting Machines, Inc. and have a nice day."
Voter: "How do you know it's spyware? We haven't even gotten anywhere yet!"
[Click. Dialtone. Sounds of fire sirens in the distance]
Voter: "Hello? Hello?"
Poll Worker: "Sir, your time is up."
And just think of the fun if they outsourced the support center overseas....
I want peace on earth and goodwill toward man.
We are the United States Government! We don't do that sort of thing.
# Don't complain about lack of options. You've got to pick a few when you do multiple choice. Those are the breaks. # Feel free to suggest poll ideas if you're feeling creative. I'd strongly suggest reading the past polls first. # This whole thing is wildly inaccurate. Rounding errors, ballot stuffers, dynamic IPs, firewalls. If you're using these numbers to do anything important, you're insane.
Just what we need, another double A organization.
RIAA
MPAA
ITAA (It's new!!! : ^D)
I suggest we all comence drinking heavily and then meet up at AA.
The cancel button is your friend. Do not hesitate to use it.
the way they went about it was condescending and insulting to the journalists
Of course this can only add to the image that most people already have of geeks being condescending towards anybody that doesn't understand what they are doing. The actual article linked from Infoworld only adds to this image.
For starters the damn article is titled "Problems with e-voting? Blame the humans". Let's take some other choice quotes: "Poll workers may not have plugged in the machines", "would be better off pointing the finger of blame at clueless poll workers".
Clueless poll workers? Maybe the writers of the "press-kit" should take some time off their overpaid jobs and go work as a poll-worker for $6 an hour (shift starts at 5:30am and runs until 10pm or later). Because if you aren't part of the solution....
I want peace on earth and goodwill toward man.
We are the United States Government! We don't do that sort of thing.
Perhaps the United States should drop those machines, use paper ballots and outsource the actual counting to India. With more than one billion citizens, India is the biggest Democracy on the planet, and they always get their ballots counted in time for their electors to mount their horses and take a two-week-trip to Washington.
When I went to vote in 2000 it was a multi-fold 8.5"x11" (I think) ballot with the names in large type, use a marker to connect an arrow by the candidates name. None of this punch card chadding, miss aliging of marks, or any of the many faults in the butterfly ballot. The only way you could screw that up was to drool until the ink smeared.
Oh my god, did I just figure out the next big problem, drooling idiots shorting out the touch screens.
Bacardi + slashdot = negative karma.
Yeah, but in India everyone is already trained in level 1 tech support.
...you're part of the precipitate.
"Nobody writes jokes in base 13." - Douglas Adams
> What are you doing on November 2nd?
Working, so that I can pay taxes to the government that is supposed to provide a working voting system.