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."

Comments

How Is This Possible?

[quanticle]

From the article, it seems like the elections commission certified all voting machine manufacturers despite the fact that none of them were in compliance with the law. How was the elections commission allowed to do this? Wouldn't the logical solution have been to certify none of the voting machine manufacturers until they came into compliance with the law?

Am I missing something here (e.g. time limit)?

Re:How Is This Possible?

[D.A. Zollinger]

Most people are not logical. As an example, math is logical, and the majority of people suck at math. But I digress...

I believe what you are missing is politics. The director of the elections comission wanted to show to his superiors that he is doing something useful and tangible. Was the director/members aware of the state law? I am sure they were. Do they have the power to force vendors to open their code? Not really. All they can do is tell the vendors, "We're not going to certify you until we can review your code."

My guess is that they were put under pressure to get some sort of electronic voting system in place for the 2006 elections, and instead of doing what would be right for the people (follow the law, protect the voters, etc), they did what would be better for someone else's political career ("See what wonderful things we are doing with state money?" and "No more antiquated voting methods for our citizens!").

I'm glad the EFF called them to task on this one.

Re:I'd like to see this taken farther

[jcr]

I'm no fan of democracy as all I see in democracy is the ability to manipulate the vote to further the interests of the elite.

That's election fraud, not democracy.

-jcr

Re:cool

[jeremy111]

I don't think the issues is with who "won" the last two elections, but weather our choice in elected officials in the future will be determined by some unknown black box of voting. Think FICO credit scores and how that was made to be understood by the majority. Also, consider every application that you have ever updated. Did that update occur just because? NO, it did not. There was something not right and the update "fixed" the issue. DieBold, et all, need to make their money; but electing my leaders, their way, is not the way. If you want to do business with my elections, make it TRANSPARENT. If you cannot make you money that way, make it some where else.

Re:I'd like to see this taken farther

[Rydia]

Uh, you're comparing an economic system with a governmental system? Wha? What would a free-market government look like? Who would issue currency? How could you enforce rapidly-changing laws? How could you do all the wonderfully unprofitable things that governments do, like funding education? Competition isn't going to help students in any aspect other than their pocketbook, since it'll be a race down to the bottom to try to provide the most cheap, bare-bones system posible. And how would you regulate trade? The closest I can come up with is a greek system of city-states, but even those had civic governments. I just don't see how you can compare free-market capitalism and democracy as political systems.

Oh, and you can fix past errors in judgment. Laws can be repealed (even amendments!) and courts can find laws unconstitutional, even if they were found consitutional before, if "society's understanding of the facts have been fundamentally altered." To paraphrase Justice O'Connor.

Re:cool

[DarkOx]

This has nothing to do with GW. I do agree that he did win as you say but that is not the point at all. The point is that as a citizen I have or should have a right to know how the ballot process works and it should be auditable. These things are not possible if the voteing machine is a black box and nobody but those who built it know what goes on inside. I don't know about but I am not sure I want to put my faith in some company who made a voteing box to conduct a fair election. These types of things are part of public life and their workings should be public domain. Its the same situation with the breathalizer and redlight camera trials going on around the country. If I am to be convicted of a crime based on some machine's results, I have a right to know how it works so that I could question the system's accuracy in court. Equipment that plays a roll in our democracy should be Open for all to see and understand if interested.
  Government is supposed to be TRANSPARENT in a republic like ours. This is why you can watch congress on CSPAN, sit in on a trial, speak at your town meeting etc. The very fact that we allow all these things shows as a society we value this transparency. We should not allow it to be taken from us through the use of magic black boxes everywhere that nobody can talk about what they do or how they work because some company has a patent or won't release their soure or whatever. Any and ALL equipment used in our governing process should be Open Source pure and simple no exceptions this nation was built on transparency lets have some. In fact this really should be a Constitutional Amendment!

Re:"even though", not "because"

[brianosaurus]

Duh. The same place every criminal gets the authority (and stones) to override laws. They just do it, and hope they don't get caught.

Oops. Busted!

Re:"even though", not "because"

[megabunny]

This whole voting machine issue is so lame.

We just had municipal elections here in British Columbia and I used a 'voting machine'. You mark off your votes on a letter size piece of paper by darkening the circles. Then you feed it face down into a scanner, which deposits the page in the ballot box after tallying it.

Election results are available quickly from the machine.

Hand recounts are perfectly possible because of the hard copy record.

What is so difficult about requiring hard copy records? Votes are worth one sheet of paper.

Chuck