The authors seem to believe that they have statistically proven that e-voting is buggy.
NO. It's the paper voting, which is screwed! Before e-voting, only those who could read and held a pencil could vote. Now, even people that can only operate a TV can vote. This is the explication for the difference!
Nope. Statistically, in average people change their mind in comparable counties in the smae pattern. However, the study says that accounting for the usual patterns (race, income, etc.), there is still a siginficant statistically NEW pattern: Whether the county used e-voting or traditional voting.
If there is not a bug in the study, this is so embarassing that e-voting should no longer be trusted (and therefore be banned).
However, the main critisism of the author was that applying for European wide patents is much too expensive, because you need to pay each national patent office -- and provide a translation.
From my own experience I can say that this is true (and forced us to concentrate on only three big markets in Europe).
However, it is not true that applying for a patent in the US is much cheaper. There the embarassing hight costs stem from the patent lawyers (and you'll need tehm, if you want to get a patent and not yourself a lawyer).
Computers should not be used to counting votes for one particular reason:
Nearly everybody can count and thus verify that votes are counted correctly. The vote counting is open to anyone, so that YOU can personally check that the votes in your district have been counted correctly.
Even open source is not good enough, because: 1) Only a small percentage of people are able to uderstand the code 2) Even then, the code is not verified 3) You must ensure that the code has actually been used on the given computer (and OS) 4) You cannot check counting in real-time
However, you can personally verify that paper votes have been coorectly put into the box by the voter, and you can personaly watch the vote counting and see if anybody tries to cheat in real-time. Then you can note the votes in your district, and later check with the official nubers. Demand a recount if the numbers differ.
Sometimes the simplest technology is the best, in this case paper and pencil. A voting process must be fully transparent to be legitimate.
1) why using coputers to cast votes at all? 2) if using coputers, why should they be from private, competing corporations?
Especially, see also Schneier's comment: If you use different voting machines with different error distribution in different parts of the country, errors do no longer cancel out statistically.
To see voting as a business stimulus (selling voting machines), is really missing the point of democracy.
What's the point to using computers, when only one voting per year happens (in average)?
First hiring people and using paper for this voting process is less expensive, second less error prone, and it's probably even more user friendly.
And you can organize a paper ballot to be fully counted within hours per state (obviously you will use computers in the backoffice, but you won't need them to cast the vote).
The good ole trick from Julius Caesar works perfectly fine (since decades now): Divide et impera!
Long ago, I boycotted DVDs because of CSS now I've got three players hooked up to the TVs, a NetFlix subscription, and DeCSS is still illegal.
I am still not having a DVD player for the reason above; and probably will never have. After all, I watch a movie normally only once (+ the repitions in free TV). The only reason for DVDs are small kids, who love repetitions; so have luck in
boycotting Disney....
The biggest difference between classical voting and voting engines is the level of trust.
With classical voting, your trust your eyes or eyes of an idependent person. You vote, sit in the voting hall, watch that nobody tampers with the box, and wait until the votes are counted (and ensure that they are counted correctly).
Try this with voting engines! If you cannot verify that they are counting correct, do you trust it?
And why have voting machines at all? To have the statistics two hours earlier? To help the disabled? To have less expensive polls (why should that be the case?)?
Unless somebody gives a good reason why voting machines are better than the traditional paper voting, I am against it.
Absolutely true: Methods are mathematics and therefore not patentable. So far the theory.
Unfortunately, the EPO and the USPO allow to patent methods in combination of an apparatus, which is nothing else than a computer.
Good for EU based companies that those patents are currently not enforcable. Bad for them that they will be, if the proposed law materializes.
Bad for EU based companies that sell software on a global scale that this is not enough. They still need to be compliant with the US patent laws, as soon as their software can be sold/is installed in the US.
And this is actually the problem: As a EU based company, I need a way to publish our inventions (call it whatever you want) to create prior art so that no US based company can just patent our ideas. However, if I just publish the methods in a journal/conference/whatever, anybody can just implement them without inventing them again. So, the only way I see right now, is to file a patent. And it's easier (and less expensive) to file them with the EPO for a European company.
Now, I call this a classical lose-lose situation. I'm agains software patents, but I need them because they exist on a very big market. In addition filing a patent is a lot of work and costs a lot of money.
Maybe, I'll publish them in latin in a very obscure journal, and hope that nobody reads (and understands) them to create prior art. Don't laugh: I heard that this is done...
Slashdot Mirror
The authors seem to believe that they have statistically proven that e-voting is buggy.
NO. It's the paper voting, which is screwed! Before e-voting, only those who could read and held a pencil could vote. Now, even people that can only operate a TV can vote. This is the explication for the difference!
Nope. Statistically, in average people change their mind in comparable counties in the smae pattern. However, the study says that accounting for the usual patterns (race, income, etc.), there is still a siginficant statistically NEW pattern: Whether the county used e-voting or traditional voting.
If there is not a bug in the study, this is so embarassing that e-voting should no longer be trusted (and therefore be banned).
Interesting answer that you got.
It totally misses the point: YOU (or everybody) have the right to recount.
If nobody trusts electronic voting, then it should immediately be forbidden. Period. If you don't trust the voting procedure, democracy loses.
Everything said in the parent post is true.
However, the main critisism of the author was that applying for European wide patents is much too expensive, because you need to pay each national patent office -- and provide a translation.
From my own experience I can say that this is true (and forced us to concentrate on only three big markets in Europe).
However, it is not true that applying for a patent in the US is much cheaper. There the embarassing hight costs stem from the patent lawyers (and you'll need tehm, if you want to get a patent and not yourself a lawyer).
Computers should not be used to counting votes for one particular reason:
Nearly everybody can count and thus verify that votes are counted correctly. The vote counting is open to anyone, so that YOU can personally check that the votes in your district have been counted correctly.
Even open source is not good enough, because:
1) Only a small percentage of people are able to uderstand the code
2) Even then, the code is not verified
3) You must ensure that the code has actually been used on the given computer (and OS)
4) You cannot check counting in real-time
However, you can personally verify that paper votes have been coorectly put into the box by the voter, and you can personaly watch the vote counting and see if anybody tries to cheat in real-time. Then you can note the votes in your district, and later check with the official nubers. Demand a recount if the numbers differ.
Sometimes the simplest technology is the best, in this case paper and pencil. A voting process must be fully transparent to be legitimate.
1) why using coputers to cast votes at all?
2) if using coputers, why should they be from private, competing corporations?
Especially, see also Schneier's comment: If you use different voting machines with different error distribution in different parts of the country, errors do no longer cancel out statistically.
To see voting as a business stimulus (selling voting machines), is really missing the point of democracy.
What's the point to using computers, when only one voting per year happens (in average)?
First hiring people and using paper for this voting process is less expensive, second less error prone, and it's probably even more user friendly.
And you can organize a paper ballot to be fully counted within hours per state (obviously you will use computers in the backoffice, but you won't need them to cast the vote).
The good ole trick from Julius Caesar works perfectly fine (since decades now): Divide et impera!
The last thing the world needs now, are Americans driving with over-dimisioned SUVs propelled by a mini reactor...
I am still not having a DVD player for the reason above; and probably will never have. After all, I watch a movie normally only once (+ the repitions in free TV). The only reason for DVDs are small kids, who love repetitions; so have luck in boycotting Disney ....
The biggest difference between classical voting and voting engines is the level of trust.
With classical voting, your trust your eyes or eyes of an idependent person. You vote, sit in the voting hall, watch that nobody tampers with the box, and wait until the votes are counted (and ensure that they are counted correctly).
Try this with voting engines! If you cannot verify that they are counting correct, do you trust it?
And why have voting machines at all? To have the statistics two hours earlier? To help the disabled? To have less expensive polls (why should that be the case?)?
Unless somebody gives a good reason why voting machines are better than the traditional paper voting, I am against it.
Absolutely true: Methods are mathematics and therefore not patentable. So far the theory.
Unfortunately, the EPO and the USPO allow to patent methods in combination of an apparatus, which is nothing else than a computer.
Good for EU based companies that those patents are currently not enforcable. Bad for them that they will be, if the proposed law materializes.
Bad for EU based companies that sell software on a global scale that this is not enough. They still need to be compliant with the US patent laws, as soon as their software can be sold/is installed in the US.
And this is actually the problem: As a EU based company, I need a way to publish our inventions (call it whatever you want) to create prior art so that no US based company can just patent our ideas. However, if I just publish the methods in a journal/conference/whatever, anybody can just implement them without inventing them again. So, the only way I see right now, is to file a patent. And it's easier (and less expensive) to file them with the EPO for a European company.
Now, I call this a classical lose-lose situation. I'm agains software patents, but I need them because they exist on a very big market. In addition filing a patent is a lot of work and costs a lot of money.
Maybe, I'll publish them in latin in a very obscure journal, and hope that nobody reads (and understands) them to create prior art. Don't laugh: I heard that this is done...