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Sequoia Disclosing Voting System Source To DC
buzzinglikeafridge writes "After Sequoia voting machines registered more votes than there were voters in DC's primaries last September, and the city threatened a lawsuit as a result, the company agreed to disclose technical details of the system (including source code) to the city. Although this isn't the first time the company has disclosed the source code of its machines, it is the first time the machines' blueprints will be handed over as well."
I don't understand how voting machines can be so complicated that such gross errors occur. Surely it can't be much more than a glorified counting program that also keeps some sort of log about what it's done. I'm making the presumption that these programs are for some reason very complicated, and that's why errors like this are more frequent than they should be. Can anyone either explain why they're so complicated or give another reason why they seem to spew out so many errors?
(Aside from the witty "they're all programmed to vote for candidate X!" responses.)
Yes, I am sure that secret ballots are essential. Not only can an open ballot leave you open to retaliation (an extremist group says "Anyone who votes for Candidate X is going to be on our hit list") but it also lets them buy votes a la "$50 for anyone who votes for Candidate Y" (by the way, at $50 for each voter takes about $3.5 billion if you want the same popular vote that Obama got last year. Obama spent around $0.6 billion, think any corporations would be willing to fund a candidate?)