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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."
India, the worlds largest democracy recently had an all electronic voting. Thats a few hundred million voters. Isn't he USA one of the most educated countries in the world ? The highest distribution of luxury goods ? 99% of the voters has cable TV, whereas in india many voters see a monitor once every 5 years : when they vote.
When will I end this grieving ? When will my future begin ?
I really think the old paper balots where the best bet. When I lived in New Hampshire you filled in a paper balot and they fed it into a machine to be counted. (Think SAT tests here). THe computer counted it, but if they had to I am sure that they could re-do it by hand.
It was easy, cheap and low tech. I really think much of this e-voting a solution looking for a problem.
Erlang Developer and podcaster
It is a well kept secret that modern hardware requires magic blue smoke to operate correctly. When a user or system failure allows the magic blue smoke to escape then and only then the hard drive will make grinding noises, the monitor will go blank, the processor will over-heat and be destroyed.
When the people fear their government, there is tyranny; when the government fears the people, there is liberty.
The ITAA is a lobbying arm of the big hardware/software corporations. They're the ones that keep issuing studies saying that there's a 'shortage' of American IT workers so the U.S. needs to bring in more H-1B's and outsource more. I'd say they have about as much credibility as certain other more well known *AA's.
[Insert pithy quote here]
Guess we do things differently up here. I've worked at the polls in Canadian elections, and we have to take a class beforehand - the only thing we were told, IIRC, was that the voter can take all the time they require. No interference.
And we STILL get to count all the votes and declare a winner the same evening. (Yes, we still use paper ballots, so we can do a recount if one is requested).
Hey, maybe we should export our "use a paper ballot technology" to the US.
Opensecrets information on this group.
As somebody who ran a polling station once, hand-counting is pretty damned easy. A couple thousand voters go to each polling centre, There's a half-dozen or so polling booths, that's only a few hundred votes to count.
You count them in front of a peer and volunteer party representatives. Then to be pedantic, your peer counts them again.
The count starts, of course, once the polls close.
If you think of the level of real patriotism left in the U.S., is it really that hard to find a school or public facility to vote in? Is it really that hard to find people to sit at the polls? Is it really that hard to find people to watch over and audit this process?
These electronic voting companies make it sound like voting is drudgery which nobody will volunteer to help with... there is no end of volunteers!
BTW, I've been told that there's at least one state, I don't recall which one, (Winconsin? Wyoming?, some "W" state I've never been to) which uses a similar system to that of Canada.
The fact of your voting is recorded, but in such a way as not to be able to link your name to a particular ballot paper. In case the ballot slips are secretly marked or anything like that, you can pick your own if you feel sufficiently paranoid {you aren't forced to accept the one the presiding officer gives you}; so it's secret.
That's simply not true. In the UK your ballot papers have serial numbers on them (not secret marks, but obvious serial numbers on the back) which connect each ballot to the counterfoil on which your electoral role number is written when you receive the ballot.
The idea being this can be used in cases of electoral fraud.
The ETC is one of the parts of the ITAA.
2
From:
http://www.electiontech.org/answers.php#
Who are the founding members?
Founding members of the ETC are: Advanced Voting Solutions, Diebold Election Systems, Election Systems & Software, Hart InterCivic, Sequoia Voting Systems, and Unilect Corporation.
"this is the ITAA?"
For the most part the ITAA == Professional Liars Association.Remember them making all those tech worker shortage projections right in the middle of the dot com collapse? 1.6 Million, 900K, then 600K.
At the same time the tech industry was laying off workers faster than you can imagine. They did it to promote their H-1B agenda.. Note: They're still at it.
Debunking the Myth of a Desperate Software Labor Shortage...."The congressional General Accounting Office found ``serious analytical and methodological weaknesses'' in the [ITAA/Dept. of Commerce] reports.";
The ITAA was counting all the positions held by Computer consultants and contractors as UNFILLED!!
Yikes !!!
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Now for a little bit about the ITAA with electronic voting and Mr. Miller's pitch to the electronic machine manufacturers. August 22, 2003, Democracy for Sale, CHEAP!
"Harris Miller (ITAA) Gives the intro spiel about the company and how it can help the industry stave off short-term attacks" from academics and "activists".
"Harris: .. And there can be two scenarios there: The companies may
want to hide behind me, they dont want to say anything... frequently
that happens in a trade association, you dont want to talk about the
issues as individual companies. We have that issue right now with the
Buy America Act, for example in congress. No company wants to act like
its against Buy America -- even though theyre all against it so I
take all the heat for them."
That's not just the UK. Almost all European countries vote in the same exact way. And no one this side of the Atlantic was able to figure out why Florida's manual recounts took more than a few hours.
Most importantly, your claim that the felon list was in any way just a suggestion is flat out 100% untrue. You can see the law for yourself at http://www.flsenate.gov/statutes/index.cfm?App_mod e=Display_Statute&URL=Ch0097/ch0097.htm which clearly states that the chief election officer is ordered to (11) Create and maintain a statewide voter registration database.
You are reading the wrong law. The administration of the statewide voter database is detailed in Chapter 98 of Florida Election laws, specifically 98.0977:
(d) When the supervisor of elections finds information through the database that suggests that a voter has been convicted of a felony and has not had his or her civil rights restored or has been adjudicated mentally incompetent and his or her mental capacity with respect to voting has not been restored, the supervisor of elections shall notify the voter by certified United States mail. The notification shall contain a statement as to the reason for the voter's potential ineligibility to be registered to vote and shall request information from the voter on forms provided by the supervisor of elections. As an alternative, the voter may attend a hearing at a time and place specified in the notice. If there is evidence that the notice was not received, notice must be given once by publication in a newspaper of general circulation in the county. The notice must plainly state that the voter is potentially ineligible to be registered to vote and must state a time and place for the person to appear before the supervisor of elections to show cause why his or her name should not be removed from the voter registration rolls. After reviewing the information provided by the voter, if the supervisor of elections determines that the voter is not eligible to vote under the laws of this state, the supervisor of elections shall notify the voter by certified United States mail that he or she has been found ineligible to be registered to vote in this state, shall state the reason for the ineligibility, and shall inform the voter that he or she has been removed from the voter registration rolls. The supervisor of elections shall remove from the voter registration rolls the name of any voter who fails either to respond within 30 days to the notice sent by certified mail or to attend the hearing. (e) Upon hearing all evidence in a hearing, the supervisor of elections must determine whether there is sufficient evidence to strike the person's name from the registration books. If the supervisor determines that there is sufficient evidence, he or she must strike the name.
You will notice that the entire responsibility of verifying the names on the statewide list, notifying potential ineligible voters, and striking ineligible voters from the registration rolls is soley in the hands of the County Election supervisors. The State Department of Elections has no discretion in the matter beyond providing list of potential ineligible voters. The State doesn't even have any say in the appeals process -- it is handled by the county circuit court in a de novo trial goverened by the rules of that county.