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US Elections Dominated By Closed Source. Again.
An anonymous reader writes "Another American election is almost here, and while electronic voting is commonplace, it is still overwhelmingly run by closed source, proprietary systems. It has been shown that many of these systems can be compromised (and because they are closed, there may be holes we simply cannot know about). Plus they are vulnerable to software bugs and are often based on unstable, closed-source operating systems. By the inherent nature of closed software, when systems are (optionally!) certified by registrars, there is no proof that they will behave the same on election day as in tests. The opportunities for fraud, tampering and malfunction are rampant. But nonetheless, there is very little political will for open source voting, let alone simple measures like end-to-end auditable voting systems or more radical approaches like open source governance. Why do we remain in the virtual dark ages, when clearly we have better alternatives readily available?"
Who's "we"? The American people aren't choosing to have the current, unverifiable voting systems in place. They simply have no idea of the alternative, and no power to bring it about even if they did. Frankly, I don't think it matters. The American political system is broken. What does it matter how they count the votes, when those votes mean so little?
It can be go tiem now plees?
Closed source outsource YOU !
Yours In Vladivostok,
K. Trout
It's never open source's fault. There's always an excuse blaming something else.
I beg to differ. Women are the root of all evil OR equal to evil, depending on how you do your proof.
Women = Evil
"Christ what a design! I could eat a handful of iron filings and PUKE a better emergency pump than that!"
However, I would actually consider the inability to have a recount a positive. It saves money for the taxpayer and reduces confusion and legal challenges after the election.
Written like a true neo-con. Of course, it's even more efficient if a court decides that the votes don't need to be counted at all. Recent history: check it out. Just don't call it democracy.
The examples were following the on-topic discussion. The point of this was that paper doesn't guarantee security.
I'm sorry that you couldn't handle a simplistic example from the real world without having a conniption about equal time.
And all the boxes are under watch by representatives of all parties 24/7 throughout the recount process? And none of them could have possibly missed a person dropping two ballots into the box, having brought one that was already filled in with them?
And you're certain every box was checked in advance to make sure it didn't come with some votes already in it? And you're positive that in no location anywhere in the country did someone manage to distract the polling workers long enough to add/swap a box? And even if such an act was caught on camera, you can guarantee that all the film from every station was watched even if there wasn't any indication of tampering?
My point is that there's plenty of opportunity for tampering even with physical copies. I'd much prefer a system of open source electronic machines locked down with layers of security. Copies of the physical machines would be made available year round with people encouraged to try to tamper with them without it being detected.
I'm pretty confident that with a few years of hard work, we could get electronic machines that made it harder to effect the result of an election than if paper ballots were used.