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Sun 16 Nov, 2003 10:43 am
I'd like to use this thread as an area to hold good information on this issue.
I'll start with this link below, which links to further studies and commentary...
http://weblog.siliconvalley.com/column/dangillmor/archives/001205.shtml
I am concerned about another theft of democracy.
Bev Harris has an excellent site also;
Black Box Voting. Here's a quote from it:
Quote:"I would not want a voting machine that was only accurate 98% of the time. I take that back- there are some times when that would be a good thing..."
---Sen. Saxby Chambliss (R-Ga.), whose defeat of Vietnam war hero Max Cleland defied polls and baffled pundits
from PD's link
Quote:"It's like a financial institution that doesn't keep records. You can't audit it and tell whether there's been embezzlement," Dill said.
But elections officials and manufacturers of voting machines have resisted the idea, arguing that touchscreen machines are proven in rigorous software testing by federal and state governments.
That argument took a blow last week as Diebold officials privately conceded to state and county elections officials that while a federal contract lab had certified its software changes, the state itself had never seen them.
snip
Diebold has moved aggressively to address criticism. It sent threatening letters to students and Internet service providers who posted internal Diebold e-mails that pointed up software security problems. The Electronic Frontier Foundation sued Diebold to stop the letters, alleging they infringed on the students' First Amendment rights.
Notice how they "address criticism"?
They threaten people with lawsuits to stop them from telling the truth.
I have a stockpile of URLs on this subject, but I before I drop them in I'd like to see what others have to say...
For those of you who get the Sundance Channel, there is an excellent documentary on the Florida imbroglio in 2000. It's called "Unprecedented" and it airs today at noon EST. Highly recommended viewing.
(edit: it's on now--and it will also be shown Wednesday 11/19 at 9:00PM and Saturday 11/22 at 12:45AM, I think those times are EST)
Like I keep saying, the voting hysteria will never stop. Any company that makes a voting machine will never be trusted, especially in national elections. This is good and bad, the electorate goes to the polls already feeling defeated, on the other hand, the system needs scrutineering and overhauling, and like most things, it will get worse before it gets better.
Most of the scrutineers I know in the US fell asleep long ago. It's just not a fashionable profession in the "so what" nation.
It is ludicrous to contend that we can make a machine to flawlessly dispense $20 bills but that a similar machine cannot be trusted to flawlessly count marks on a piece of paper. Blatham your thread will merely support the propensity of some wobbly minds on this forum to create and perpetuate conspiracy theories.
By introducing this thread you take your cynicism to a new level which I would call political nihilism.
http://www.geocities.com/liudegast/nihilism.html
There is always a potential for abuse. Many nations use electronic voting, even third world nations where such abuse is more prevalent and the concern is greater.
The mystical nature technology has for those who do not understand it makes for some scenarios that are very ugly. One could imagine a teenage hacker deciding the next president or some such.
But there are simple ways around it. It can't be hacked if it's not accessible and there is no real need to make ballot boxes accessible on a network. They can all be compartmentalized. they could still be hacked individually (in theory, in practice it would be damn easy to thwart) but then again individual ballot boxes are already susceptible to foul play.
Making electronic voting secure is not difficult. The very nature of it's function makes it technologically as easy to secure as an ATM.
The current system is far more prone to error. The world was laughing at America when Florida's antiquated system made a mockery of America.
Brazil prided themselves in that their machines for electronic voting were investigated. The third world nation was more advanced and it's rare enough for them to revel in it.
In Brazil their system manages to make it simple for even the illiterate to vote and the margin of error is far less than that of the US antiquated systems.
And there hasn't been any compromised security or abuse either.
Well, unless you want to argue that there has and it's been hidden, bit then it's a matter of proving a negative and mixed with conspiracy these things are impossible to disprove.
The potential for abuse exists, as it always does. But if you aren't already leaning toward an answer you might want to investigate the systems in which electronic voting is already in place instead of dealing in hypotheticals. The existing use should allay some of the fears.
The machine which flawlessly dispenses $20 bills does so flawlessly because it is programmed to do so on behalf of a bank which doesn't want its reputation ruined. The machine which counts votes is programmed by companies (Diebold, for example, which also does ATM machines) having close ties to a particular political party. Forget about whether those ties automatically guarantee skewed votes; ask yourself whether there is sufficient distance between specific political parties and the voting process. Perception (no, not you) is everything here. The American voter has to -- HAS TO -- be sure that the vote has been counted correctly or voters will not vote.
And Perception (that's you), cut out the crap. You are the last person to accuse Blatham or anyone else of creating "ludicrous" and conspiratorial threads. Look in the mirror, lad.
Don't worry bout the ad homs perc, the notion that it's an inordinate fear is not likely to be accepted regardless of who contends as much so the attack on the individual is a red herring.
The article blatham posted has a very simple measure I'd implement if only for the sake of technophobes: a hard copy generated by the ballot box. It'd be a piece of cake and would address the crucial issue (the perception of "electronic" being "intangible").
Craven -- That's the remedy being proposed now by Congressman Rush of NJ. The problem is that there are technos saying "it's impossible" (per NYtimes and on NPR). To which I say, if I can buy gas at the pump and get a receipt, why would it be impossible to have a print-out of a vote.
Impossible is a dumb word for them to use. It might require a significant amount of money but it's the easiest way to breach the intangible vs. tangible gap.
Heck, make it print two, one to go in the ballot box in case someone manages to force a manual count to verify the electronic one and another "recipt" for the voter to take home to be certain that that particular slip isn;t tampered with.
I don't think it would help secure the system against abuse in a real life scenario but it takes care of so many hypotheticals that it's worth it even if only to instill voter confidence.
An excerpt from the following link which gives excellent examples why suspicion about electronic voting machines is not just a conspiracy theory.
Quote:Who makes the vote-counting machines?
This is an article about just three things: disclosure, conflict of interest and potential for manipulation. It is not a conspiracy theory or a political point of view. I think you'll agree with me: We don't care who wins the election, as long as it's who was VOTED FOR.
http://www.talion.com/election-machines.html
Tartarin wrote:Craven -- That's the remedy being proposed now by Congressman Rush of NJ. The problem is that there are technos saying "it's impossible" (per NYtimes and on NPR). To which I say, if I can buy gas at the pump and get a receipt, why would it be impossible to have a print-out of a vote.
So the NYTimes and NPR(your liberal heroes) are perpetuating the myth that it is technically impossible to make an electronic voting machine secure----no duplicitous agenda???????
Diane's article takes great liberties with the technological realm and indicts electronic voting for many reasons not unique to electronic balloting at all.
Craven de Kere wrote:Heck, make it print two, one to go in the ballot box in case someone manages to force a manual count to verify the electronic one and another "recipt" for the voter to take home to be certain that that particular slip isn;t tampered with.
I still don't understand why this isn't done for these systems. Let the person select their prefered language and cast their ballot and then electronically record their vote and print out two receipts. One to be deposited in a receptical at the polling place should a manual recount be needed and a second for them to take with them (if they want to). The paper reciepts could be bar coded and scanned for recounts... (Which I would suggest should be automatic) which would reduce recount times to almost nothing.
perc
I started the thread because this issue is one which I don't know enough about, and because it is beginning to gain some broad attention. My thought was...'let's find out what's going on'. And voting security/accuracy is no new issue in itself.
If you are asking me 'does bernie think an American election might be rigged?'...my answer is that 'we already know they have been'.
If you are asking me 'does bernie think Carl Rove might rig an election in this manner if he thought he could get away with it?'...my answer is 'yes, I think he might be that unscrupulous, like others before him.'
If you are asking me 'does bernie find it worrisome that the corporations making these machines have close ties to the Bush administration?'...my answer is 'sure...there's a reason why scrutineers come from more than one party.'
The solution, as always, is some reliable (and not overly slow) means of verification. Craven's idea of a double printout, one to the voter and one to a typical box sounds ideal.
This is an entirely valid issue for folks to maintain an ongoing alertness.
craven
I'll have to take your word on the technical point, but did you read the footnotes through to footnote three source five?
Perception -- You confuse the message with the messenger.
I can't see why, if I can write a note to myself with the machine I'm now working on, press "print" and have that message very precisely pop up on paper -- why I can't go into a voting booth and, effectively, do exactly the same thing. The problem enters with a smart-ass designer who (while wrangling with the software) says to himself, "But if she votes 'Dean' and the machine simply prints out 'Dean,' that's embarrassingly simple and plain, so I think I'll create a ballot-like thing with lots of lines on it, nice and symmetrical, kind of like that butterfly ballot everyone loved so much. That'll show them I know stuff about design and software by gum.."!!
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