You cannot blame congress for this one. Voting systems, or even voting methods, are not federally mandated because this is NOT a function of the federal government. Article 2, section 1 of the constitution reads: "Each State shall appoint, in such Manner as the Legislature thereof may direct, a Number of Electors..." In other words, the framers ducked the issue! As a result, 50 states are free to "in such a manner...direct" the voting for their electoral college representatives. Which means that there is no way to legislatively mandate VVPAT or any other technology, for what is interpreted as a "states rights" issue.
Secondly, there is no trick to creating security voting systems--but there is also little profit. This is a tiny, tiny marketplace, with a tiny profit margin, in which no one (vendor, official, or citizen) really wants to pay the high costs of security--be it better systems, better proceedures, or better wages for voting judges. Who else but the retired have the time or desire to spend working a polling site for minimum wage? Who would pay for a bonded courier to get the pieces delivered to and from the site in a guaranteed tamper-proof process? Who would pay to develop for a completely open code, if they could not guarantee a profit? And who should pay the lab costs for the review and certification of the open code, to ensure that it meets necessary standardss?
You should realize that 16,000+ Counties, who work with/under 50 (sorry, DC) State Secretaries, pay for voting systems that are used 2-4 times in as many years. The rest of the time, other than the brief spin-up period prior to election, they and their supporting servers, software, personnel, etc., are a government managed commodity, which means they are handled as cheaply as possible. Think big, centralized, minimally secure county warehouses; lowest cost bidders to maintain; cheapest, quickest scope of work for programming. Security, then, is just an another un-funded mandate that the county/state elections board cannot afford.
Meanwhile the federal efforts, under the Elections Assistance Commission, create "voluntary" guidelines that try to be universal and end up so vague as to be useless.
Once again,/.'ers start pondering the mystery of: "I'm the smartest guy here, why aren't I in charge?"
Because CEO skills are different, the education is different, and (super-secret insider information next!) the language is different. An MBA teaches few useful skills; but it does teach you the framework, mindset, culture and language of upper managment. And it is very hard to build the relationships that are critical to upper management success, without mastering the tools that make you recognizable to the others of your class/strata/level.
Of course, if you aim for upper upper management, then you really need to be born into it, and go to the right schools, and pledge the right fraternities, and marry into the right family, to learn that culture and language. Very few (yea, I know, Gates) can ever make that transistion to Fortune 500 CEO from scratch. And the correlary? Money cannot buy class.
No, it's more like exposing yourself to an 8 year old. I have a hard time understanding the right you would assert for your idiot friend's to post obscene material on a school yard, regardless of the day of the week.
>>"Organized sports are communist."
C'mon, it's hard to be a communist union, when you are a state-sanctioned monopoly.
Still, you've inspired a new tag line!:
From each, according to their ability;
to each, according to their marketability.
Slashdot Mirror
You cannot blame congress for this one. Voting systems, or even voting methods, are not federally mandated because this is NOT a function of the federal government. Article 2, section 1 of the constitution reads: "Each State shall appoint, in such Manner as the Legislature thereof may direct, a Number of Electors..." In other words, the framers ducked the issue! As a result, 50 states are free to "in such a manner...direct" the voting for their electoral college representatives. Which means that there is no way to legislatively mandate VVPAT or any other technology, for what is interpreted as a "states rights" issue.
Secondly, there is no trick to creating security voting systems--but there is also little profit. This is a tiny, tiny marketplace, with a tiny profit margin, in which no one (vendor, official, or citizen) really wants to pay the high costs of security--be it better systems, better proceedures, or better wages for voting judges. Who else but the retired have the time or desire to spend working a polling site for minimum wage? Who would pay for a bonded courier to get the pieces delivered to and from the site in a guaranteed tamper-proof process? Who would pay to develop for a completely open code, if they could not guarantee a profit? And who should pay the lab costs for the review and certification of the open code, to ensure that it meets necessary standardss?
You should realize that 16,000+ Counties, who work with/under 50 (sorry, DC) State Secretaries, pay for voting systems that are used 2-4 times in as many years. The rest of the time, other than the brief spin-up period prior to election, they and their supporting servers, software, personnel, etc., are a government managed commodity, which means they are handled as cheaply as possible. Think big, centralized, minimally secure county warehouses; lowest cost bidders to maintain; cheapest, quickest scope of work for programming. Security, then, is just an another un-funded mandate that the county/state elections board cannot afford.
Meanwhile the federal efforts, under the Elections Assistance Commission, create "voluntary" guidelines that try to be universal and end up so vague as to be useless.
Once again, /.'ers start pondering the mystery of: "I'm the smartest guy here, why aren't I in charge?"
Because CEO skills are different, the education is different, and (super-secret insider information next!) the language is different. An MBA teaches few useful skills; but it does teach you the framework, mindset, culture and language of upper managment. And it is very hard to build the relationships that are critical to upper management success, without mastering the tools that make you recognizable to the others of your class/strata/level.
Of course, if you aim for upper upper management, then you really need to be born into it, and go to the right schools, and pledge the right fraternities, and marry into the right family, to learn that culture and language. Very few (yea, I know, Gates) can ever make that transistion to Fortune 500 CEO from scratch. And the correlary? Money cannot buy class.
1) Keyboard are too complex for me to understand.
+ 2) Therefore, A giant invisible man must have created them.
= 3) You MUST include my inane "theory" in your school curriculum.
AAARRGH!!! I CAN'T SEE!!!!!! Oh, wait. It must be that flash of blindingly obvious insight. (with apologies to scott adams)
No, it's more like exposing yourself to an 8 year old. I have a hard time understanding the right you would assert for your idiot friend's to post obscene material on a school yard, regardless of the day of the week.
Damn, if only I had some mod points with which I could raise this comment!
>>"Organized sports are communist." C'mon, it's hard to be a communist union, when you are a state-sanctioned monopoly. Still, you've inspired a new tag line!: From each, according to their ability; to each, according to their marketability.