Slashdot Mirror
Buggy Voting Machines
dkleinsc writes "The NYTimes is running an article arguing in layman's terms that voting machines are inherently buggier (Sperm sample required. Sorry ladies) than most software systems because they are not tested properly. A fun quote: "Extensive discussions are under way at sites like VerifiedVoting.org, CalVoter.org, and the "news for nerds" forum Slashdot.org about inexpensive, practical ways to make automated voting as reliable as, say, buying books online. Their recommendations make sense."" We makese sense? Wah?
I TRUST computers. When I first used A.T.M.'s, nearly 30 years ago, I carefully saved receipts in a folder and matched them with the bank's monthly statement. Now I sometimes stuff the receipts in my wallet, but I almost never look at them again. The only banking error I've encountered in all those years was when a human teller left a final zero off a deposit I had made.
I still pore over credit card statements, but mainly to see whether some person, not some machine, has issued the proper refund credit or made an improper charge. I've sent e-mail messages to the wrong people by mistyping an address or hitting the oh-so-dangerous "Reply All" button, but never because the system routes it where it shouldn't go. When I travel, I assume that the e-ticket I booked through my computer will be valid and that frequent-flier miles will show up in my account.
Yet when I went to my polling place in Washington on Election Day, I waited an extra half-hour in line to cast a paper ballot, instead of using the computerized touch-screen voting machine. Am I irrational? Perhaps, but this would not be the evidence.
A columnist in The Washington Post recently suggested that nostalgia for paper ballots, in today's reliably computerized world, must reflect a Luddite disdain for technology in general or an Oliver Stone-style paranoia about the schemings of the political world.
Not at all. It can also arise from a clear understanding of how computers work - and don't. The more you know about the operations of today's widely trusted commercial computer networks, the more concerned you become about most electronic-voting systems.
The phenomenal reliability of the systems we trust for banking, communication, and everything else rests on two bedrock principles. One is the universal understanding in the technology world that nothing works right the first time, and maybe not the first 50 times.
When I worked briefly on a product design team at Microsoft, I was sobered to learn that fully one-fourth of the company's typical two-year "product cycle time" was devoted to testing. Programmers spend 18 months designing and debugging a system. Then testers spend the next six months finding the problems they missed. It is no secret that even then, the "final" software from Microsoft, or any other company, is far from perfect.
Today's mature systems work as well as they do only because they are exposed to nonstop, high-stakes torture testing. EBay lists nearly four million new items each day. If a problem affects even a tiny fraction of its users, eBay will be swamped with reports immediately.
Millions of data packets are being routed across the Internet every second. If servers, domain-name directories or other components cannot handle the volume, the problem will become apparent quickly. Years ago, bank or airline computers would often be "down" because of unforeseen problems. Now they're mostly "up," because they've had so long for flaws to become exposed.
The second crucial element in making reliable systems is accountability. Users can trust today's systems precisely because they don't have to take them on trust. Some important computer systems run on open-source software, like Linux, in which the code itself can be examined by outsiders.
Virtually all systems provide some sort of confirmation of transactions. You have the slip from the A.T.M., the receipt for your credit card charge, the printout of your e-ticket reservation. If your e-mail message doesn't go through, there is still the copy in your "Sent" folder. This is the technology world's counterpart to the check-and-balance principle in the United States government. The first concept, robust testing, protects against unintended flaws. The second, accountability, guards against purposeful distortions.
Which brings us back to electronic voting. On the available evidence, I don't believe that voting-machine irregularities, or other problems on Election Day, determined who would be the next president. The appare
The world's first national vote in which citizens could vote via Internet took place in Switzerland on September 3. The country, which has a direct democracy that calls on citizens to vote on issues as often as four times a year, has had much success in allowing Internet votes in several cantons over the past several years. Swiss officials, recognizing the success of the local programs, became convinced that it was secure enough to try it out in four Geneva suburbs on a national referendum. Citizens of those regions were allowed to choose between postal voting, going to a traditional ballot booth, or voting via Internet.
Geneva's e-voting system uses a method of two-factor authentication that provides foolproof security. Citizens receive a card which gives them their option of voting over the internet, by mail or in person. The card includes a 16-character personal ID code, and a four-character security code, similar to a PIN number, which voters must scratch off to reveal. The voter who chooses the online option then visits a Web site and types in the personal ID code, and then a secure connection is established. Then, an online ballot form is provided. Before casting their vote, the second authorization factor must be entered, and the voter then types in their security code, along with their date and place of birth.
Because the online voting system is tied to a single register of voters, authorities can protect against voter fraud (multiple voting). The safeguard guarantees that a person can vote only once, whether in person, by mail or on the Internet. There are, of course, no hanging chads, and the results are extremely accurate. It took Swiss officials 13 minutes and five seconds to count the online votes in September's ballot. Twenty-two percent of voters from the test regions cast their ballots online.