Electronic Voting

moultano

<div class="IPBDescription">The death of democracy?</div> <a href='http://www.commondreams.org/views03/0131-01.htm' target='_blank'>http://www.commondreams.org/views03/0131-01.htm</a>

Even if the claims in that article are baloney, the potential for wrong doing is unprecedented.
Read this, particularly the part at the end -> <a href='http://www.acm.org/classics/sep95/' target='_blank'>http://www.acm.org/classics/sep95/</a>

I had trouble finding the article I was looking for. If anyone can find a better one, please post.

We need to demand open source, open architecture, paper trails, and independant verification.

Am I crazy, or is anyone else as scared about this as I am?

MonsieurEvil

Maybe everyone should step back and read a few books about the history of Chicago politics before they start saying that electronic means are somehow more suspect than paper means. I get paid electronically. I do my taxes electronically. I pay my bills electronically. I use credit, debit, and check cards electronically. I buy products electronically. I design systems for businesses that do many of these things, but with literally billions of dollars a day flowing through them, all electronically. All of these things involve putting trust in secure systems, all of which arguably affect my daily life far more than picking out my mayor. All of which overseen by far fewer and less regulated parties then a political process.

I am not agreeing or disagreeing with whatever people have to say in this topic. I am saying stop and think before too much rhetoric and other things start spewing. If anything, making voting easier should make voting more likely.

Gestalt!!!

moultano

<!--QuoteBegin--MonsieurEvil+Apr 29 2003, 01:17 PM--></span><table border='0' align='center' width='95%' cellpadding='3' cellspacing='1'><tr><td><b>QUOTE</b> (MonsieurEvil @ Apr 29 2003, 01:17 PM)</td></tr><tr><td id='QUOTE'><!--QuoteEBegin--> Maybe everyone should step back and read a few books about the history of Chicago politics before they start saying that electronic means are somehow more suspect than paper means. I get paid electronically. I do my taxes electronically. I pay my bills electronically. I use credit, debit, and check cards electronically. I buy products electronically. I design systems for businesses that do many of these things, but with literally billions of dollars a day flowing through them, all electronically. All of these things involve putting trust in secure systems, all of which arguably affect my daily life far more than picking out my mayor. All of which overseen by far fewer and less regulated parties then a political process.

I am not agreeing or disagreeing with whatever people have to say in this topic. I am saying stop and think before too much rhetoric and other things start spewing. If anything, making voting easier should make voting more likely.

Gestalt!!! <!--QuoteEnd--> </td></tr></table><span class='postcolor'> <!--QuoteEEnd-->
In all of those situations, its in the interest of the people designing the systems to make them secure. There are also ways of verifying exactly what took place. Would you pay your bills electronically if you could never check any transaction records or keep an account of it yourself?

There isn't a problem with making the voting machines secure. In most cases the data isnt even sent anywhere. It's read directly from the machine. The danger is if someone within the company deliberately designs them to tally votes incorrectly, and if this happens, the lack of a paper trail ensures that there can never be a recount.

I'm a CS major. You're preaching to the choir here <!--emo&:D--><img src='http://www.unknownworlds.com/forums/html/emoticons/biggrin.gif' border='0' style='vertical-align:middle' alt='biggrin.gif'><!--endemo--> . But when I hear that the code for these machines is 3000 lines of spaghetti, I get very very worried.