Slashdot Mirror
Building a Better Voting Machine
edmicman writes "Wired News has an interesting article about what would make the perfect voting machine: 'With election season upon us, Wired News spoke with two of the top computer scientists in the field, UC Berkeley's David Wagner and Princeton's Ed Felten, and came up with a wish list of features we would include in a voting machine, if we were asked to create one. These recommendations can't guarantee clean results on their own. Voting machines, no matter how secure, are no remedy for poor election procedures and ill-conceived election laws. So our system would include thorough auditing and verification capabilities and require faithful adherence to good election practices, as wells as topnotch usability and security features.'"
Yes these first attempts at computerized voting machines have some serious problems. No it doesn't really matter in the end though.
Either we trust the people running our elections or we don't. If we don't there isn't a technological measure possible to prevent fraud. If we do it is mostly a moot point. Personally I have seen enough examples to believe Democrats routinely steal enough votes to gain a 1 or 2 point advantage in any national election and substantially more in certain local races. But we Republicans simply spot em the handicap and go on to win elections.
And yes I said DEMOCRATS steal elections. Think about it, who runs the elections in every major city? Who runs the elections in most smaller cities? How many precincts are entirely run by Democrats vs how many can you find without a single Democrat in the audit loop? Ok. So we have now established who has opportunity. Motive is easy; Democrats, like most politicians desire power. Democrats also tend to believe the ends justify the means.
Consider that every important documented case of election fraud in the 20th Century was Democrats cheating. Lets start with the dead in Chicago putting JFK over the top, along with some outragous fraud by LBJ's machine in Texas of course. I live in Louisiana and can still remember Sen Landrieu winning her first election from a strong turnout among the dead in New Orleans. Now lets consider the multiple smelly elections in WA and we won't even discuss what passes for government in NJ, and I'm comparing and contrasting to my own legendary LA.
And I'll even give a pass on FL in 2000 even though the recount conducted by the press gave the state to the Republicans. After all the Democrats were trying something totally new in that case, lose and have the courts award the race after the polls closed. That is nothing any change in voting machines or elections laws can fix.
But like I said, there is enough transparency that in any national election fraud can't swing the totals more than a point or two and the Electoral College minimizes the damage in Presidential elections.
Democrat delenda est
A better voting machine would filter out the stupidity of the masses by selectively reducing votes of people who make bad decisions at the polling places. Just look at our country's history! How many times could we have avoided disaster if we had only had smart computers making real-time decisions about the validity/importance of individual votes?!?!?