E-Voting Undermines Public Confidence In Elections

Jeremiah Cornelius writes "Techdirt columnist, Timothy Lee, hit the metaphoric nail on the head, claiming that e-Voting undermines the public perception of election fairness - even when there is no evidence of wrongdoing. 'In a well-designed voting system, voters shouldn't have to take anyone's actions on faith. The entire process should be simple and transparent, so that anyone can observe it and verify that it was carried out correctly. The complexity and opacity of e-voting machines makes effective public scrutiny impossible, and so it's a bad idea even in the absence of specific evidence of wrongdoing.' Add to this the possibility technical faults, conflicts of interest and evidence of tampering, how long before the US vote is viewed as an electronic pantomime?"

Comments

dude, you're retarded

[circletimessquare]

"The issue here is that YOU (not me) are writing off e-voting because it is easier to compromise. Easier, sure, but only *easier* (not possible as opposed to impossible)."

no voting mecahnism is immune to tampering. but you admit paper ballots are harder to tamper with meaningfully. therefore, you will choose the method that is easier to tamper with (by your own admission)

because you're interested in... drum roll please... better accuracy

wtf?!

Re:dude, you're retarded

[Sciros]

Do I HAVE to expect the system to be tampered with? What if I don't? What if I think that if we can get better accuracy, maybe we actually will? Hmm... maybe *I* have even more faith in democracy than *you*, hah :-P

so we both have faith in democracy

[circletimessquare]

but apparently i can think about the possibility of tampering, while you won't think about it all... at the same time, confronting me with the problem of accuracy

(brain explodes in logic contradiction)

Re:so we both have faith in democracy

[Sciros]

I can't believe you're this stupid. There is no logical contradiction here. Let me break it down so you can hopefully understand this.

1) accuracy is not 100% with UN-TAMPERED paper ballot counting
2) accuracy is BETTER with UN-TAMPERED electronic voting
3) if you assume tampering then accuracy becomes irrelevant
4) (therefore) if I say acccuracy is relevant, then I don't assume tampering

Got it?

While electronic voting is *easier* to tamper with, that doesn't mean it's *more likely* to happen. Those are two entirely different things. And unless you can prove to me that voting results WILL be tampered with, my concern with accuracy is entirely relevant and not at all in contradiction with my lack of concern with tampering.