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EFF Sues NC Election Board
Kludge writes "The EFF is suing the NC elections board. The board certified several voting machine manufacturers although none of the manufacturers would comply with the state law (passed unanimously) that the machine code be kept in escrow."
The board certified several voting machine manufacturers even though none of the manufacturers would comply with the state law (passed unanimously) that the machine code be kept in escrow. Not because.
"The board certified several voting machine manufacturers even though none of the manufacturers would comply with the state law (passed unanimously) that the machine code be kept in escrow."
"DOES NOT COMPUTE" The Slashdot summary claims the board certified the manufacturers because they wouldn't put their code in escrow. It's more likely the EFF is suing the board for certifying the manufacturers despite their refusal to place their code in escrow. First dupes, then ads, now stories that don't even make sense.
REM Old programmers don't die. They just GOSUB without RETURN.
Right now, the Libertarian Party is also suing the NC State Election Board because the Election Board is only allowing residents to register as "Democrat", "Republican", or "Independent". More importantly, they're also suing because NC has taken all alternative parties off of all ballots. I can't even vote for a Libertarian or Green or Reform Party candidate in the state of NC. The gizmo they use to count the ballots is just red herring. That debate is fabricated to keep people's wheels spinning about relatively unimportant things, while the big problems are being ignored. The real problem lies in the fact that choice has been removed from the process. Now, citizens get to vote for Bad or Worse, with both sides (Bad and Worse) colluding to keep the status quo.
I don't respond to AC's.
Read the guys explanation as to why he was certifying them, it was because none of them were prepared to meet the escrow requirement that he certified them.
If one of them had broken ranks and put their code in Escrow, he would have certified just that one.
My gast was totally flabbered by the explanation, and you don't like to say such things, but I recall Diebold and the American association for the blind, suddenly demanding electronic voting, while at the same time getting a new $17 million equipment centre as if by magic....
As a North Carolinian I was a little shocked to see the EFF was suing the state elections board. Then I read why. Why does the elections board think they can just ignore the law? I am all for having electronic voting and I imagine that it will help out the process considerably but we certainly shouldn't add more risk for fraud and error. Voting accuracy should be priority #1.
Switching to Linux can be an adventure!
The actions of the election commission to appear to be illegal, but it's not quite so bad as suggested in the summary--the commission told Diebold et al. that they can begin selling if they are able to place all code in escrow by December 22, while the law appears to require that all code be in escrow and have been reviewed before the commission can give approval.
Anyway, I'm cheering for the EFF.
Be a PATRIOT--because the only thing we have to fear is the lack thereof.
Is that to say, you suck at math?
Logic bits:
"Most people are not logical. As an example, math is logical, and the majority of people suck at math."
l --- is logical
m --- good at math
m->l
~m
-----
~l
Argument is false. Author is illogical
m->l
~l
-----
~m M.P.
Author is bad at math
(True argument)
This open-source system was developed by a number of well known names in the open source community - eg - Andrew Tridgell (Samba), Martin Pool (Apache), and Rusty Russell (ip-tables / netfilter).
This system is in active use. All elections for the ACT government in Australia are now run using this system. Votes are lodged either at an eVACS terminal or - if lodged on paper ballot sheets - are manually entered into the electronic system for counting. That is - all votes end up in electronic form before counting / preference distribution is done automatically by computer.
Obviously the $200,000 cost of development of such an open, accurate, and secure system is clearly not high enough to give US governments' bank rollers the belief they are getting value for money from their political donations! Maybe Halliburton can develop such a system for use in the US for a billion or so?
more info and source code from the electoral office and recommendation for continued use.
As a canuck who has never voted in the USA, I had the same question as you. This question is addressed in the MIT Voting Technology Project's report from circa 2001 with a picture of Jean Cretien putting a ballot in a box. The thing is that elections in the USA are *WAY* more complicated than they are at home. You vote not just from your MP and MPP, but for the sheriff, judges, senators, congressmen, etc, etc. Some counties can have over 100 races on the ballot.
Also, other regulations make the process more complicated. Consider LA County, which is one of the largest in the USA. They are required to randomize the order of the candidates in each race across the polling stations, plus they put out the ballot in seven languages. Not only are the ballots huge and complicated because of the number of races being contested, but they have dozens of different ballot configurations.