French Voting Machines a "Catastrophe"

eldavojohn writes "The electronic voting machine has soured another election. Some French voters have reportedly turned away in disgust after facing up to two hours in lines to use the machines. Further, the article reports, 'Researchers at Paul Verlaine University in Metz said that trials on two of the three machines used in France showed that four people out of every seven aged over 65 could not get their votes recorded.' This article concentrates primarily on usability and efficiency, but surprisingly mentions little (aside from user trust issues) about the security embodied in the machines or whether it was satisfactory. I think all three aspects are important to anyone aiming to produce voting machines. The manufacturer of these particular machines is France Élection."

Comments

So all the parties that polled badly

[Timesprout]

In the highest turnout since the sixties are unhappy with the machines. Quelle Surprise. Strangely enough none of the main stream media seem to have noticed this 'Catastrophe'.

Re:So all the parties that polled badly

[Timesprout]

So not a catastrophe and not an issue with the machines themselves then. It's just an administration and logistical issue in a limited trial. Bullshit article on one of Slashdots pet hates is basically what you are trying to say I think.

No to voting machines.

[cuby]

You can call me old fashion but I am against all kinds of voting machines.
Democracy works when free elections can be held and its results checked by any common citizen.
I don't know in the US, but in Europe, any participant in the elections has the right to a representative in all the pooling stations. Any common person can count the votes and confirm its results. When voting machines exist there's no real way for this kind of direct check.
First, because even if the code is open source, only programmers can check it. This is unfair to any other kind of citizen.
Second, popular participation. The mobilization of thousands of people in election days, counting the votes is a blessing and a grant of democracy. I've been a representative in several elections and I tell you, people enjoy being there helping and feel proud of it.
Democracy is the power of the people not the machines.

Re:bad UI

[Yvanhoe]

I really think the article is misleading and/or didn't make his study correctly. I am a fervent opponent to electronic voting machines and I had to use these in my French town. So I decided to use them anyway but then I spent the day making people sign the paper version of the petition for maintaining paper ballots. I was outside a voting office and talked to every people coming out that had voted and asked them how they felt about that.

First surprise : 30% of the people I talked to signed the petition, based on their worries about the trust one can have in the system. In these 30%, there are two categories : people with a technical background who already knew the fundamental issues and also old people, who, contrary to popular belief, weren't afraid at all of a new machine but really had a problem with trust.

I have seen a lot of this shocking belief : "If it was not secure, computer people would tell us so". So I did, but most people are ready to hand over control to a small portion of the population. I also had a discussion with an official from the mayor's office telling me that these machines were totally secure because they were not computers but totally electronic machines (which is either nonsense or plain lie)

Good ole way works fine thanks

[Nicolas MONNET]

I voted on the good ole paper & ballot box system, it took a whole 1 min.

My cousin, in another part of the country, had to vote on a machine. He protested to the head of the polling station, who laughed it off (after all, what does he know about machines, he's just an average electrical engineer), cause, you see, it's been validated by the ministry of interior.

Who's the minister of interior? Oh, that's right, that fascist hugging, Microsoft cocksucking, software patent supporting son of a motherfucking female dog (my apologies to our canine friends).

it's really very simple

[circletimessquare]

or at least, it should be

check marks on a piece of paper, that can then be scanned optically, is no more complicated than voting should ever get. it's not a prolem that needs to be solved more efficiently. the more important consideration when it comes to democracy is legitimacy, trust. and if you can't feel it taste it touch it, if it's a voting machine contraption, or an electronic doodad, trust goes down

and for good reason: all voting mechanisms are prone to tampering. even with paper ballots, boxes of them can get lost, they can be scanned improperly, etc. but the point is, the more complicated the process, the more attack vectors you present. KISS: keep it simple stupid. a valuable concept in programming, a valuable concept when considering the voting process

the problem with people, especially on slashdot, is technophilia: we are always trying, almost fetishistically, to mechanize processes, even if they don't need to be. in most cases, this fetishism is harmless. but when faith in democracy is on the line, our technophilia needs to take a hike