Angry

On Thu, 29 Dec 2005 08:43:31 -0700, "Matt Barrow"
wrote in ::


"Hilton" wrote in message
nk.net...


CHANGE THE F&$*#ING CHANNEL IF YOU DON'T LIKE WHAT'S ON


I didn't think an airman was capable of such inane rudeness. Your
boorish behavior reflects badly on us all. Please consider an
objective self-assessment and tendering an apology.

Peter Duniho wrote:
Open source does make access even easier, but it's by no means required for
the purpose of providing sufficient inspection. I definitely disagree with
the claim of "significantly easier to detect flaws". Open source isn't more
readable, it's not less obfuscated, it's not easier to validate. It's just
publicly available. That's all.

you haven't been looking at much code, proprietary or open source if
you believe so; when you write code that you know is potentially going
to be scrutinized by the best mind out there -- whether it is going
to be the case or not, but you can be it will, by your next potential
employer -- if said potential employer is not a moron -- next time you
apply for a job and by people who matter in the field, the average
programmer tends to do things differently it seems than what is
done for code which is known to remain proprietary (who's going to look
at it? Pointy Haired Bosses?) and where being readable and unobfuscated
is a known bad carreer move (do you really want your code to be easily
taken over by the nice folks of the newly opened field office in
Bangalore?); I have seen good and bad code in either proprietary
or open sources, you bet, but by far, the worst piece of junk I
ever had to look at were proprietary, no contest.

--Sylvain

now this is of course completely off the topic, isn't it? :-)

"Sylvain" wrote in message
...
you haven't been looking at much code

lol...the fact that you would even say that simply shows how little you know
about me (and about the prevalence of maintainable code generally).

Suffice to say, the rest of your reply is way off base.

Recently, Peter Duniho posted:

"Jose" wrote in message
[...]
An electronic voting machine whose software OTOH is open, public, and
whose compiling and loading into standard interchangable chips and
media is properly supervised is much more difficult to rig. I would
have more confidence in such a machine.

I would not.
[...]
I do agree that an open source software voting machine is preferable.
But IMHO, the more important aspects are for the voting machine to
provide a paper record of the vote, and for the voting results to be
audited.

Specifically, electronic voting machines ought to spit out a paper
ballot very similar to what is used today. The voter should inspect
the ballot to verify it has recorded their vote accurately. Then,
some small percentage of voting machines should be selected
(randomly, of course) for their output votes to be compared to
manually counted paper ballots from those machines.

I agree with you. Further, the percentage of sampled machines should not
be "small", as in 1 or 2%, but significant, as in at least one machine
from each precinct. The paper proofs should be printed at the same time,
with the voter inspecting both for accuracy, and then give one copy to the
registrar (or designated official). That copy would be used to verify the
electronic tally. The question becomes, what to do if there is a
discrepancy?

It really angers me that such basic and simple methodology is not even
being discussed, much less that Diebold is pawning off an approach that is
completely unverifiable, and that politicians are buying into it.

Neil

It isn't a simple as just print a receipt. If you print before the
voter presses the final button and the voter changes their mind, the
receipt and the machine do not agree. If you print a second receipt then
you have two receipts for one voter. If the receipt and the machine
disagree and the voter presses the final button anyway, which one is the
true vote?

There is no way to count the receipts by hand so now you need a entire
new set of machines to count receipts which brings you back to many of
the problems with punch cards.

"Neil Gould" wrote in message news_Psf.48165

I agree with you. Further, the percentage of sampled machines should
not
be "small", as in 1 or 2%, but significant, as in at least one machine
from each precinct. The paper proofs should be printed at the same
time,
with the voter inspecting both for accuracy, and then give one copy to
the
registrar (or designated official). That copy would be used to verify
the
electronic tally. The question becomes, what to do if there is a
discrepancy?

It really angers me that such basic and simple methodology is not even
being discussed, much less that Diebold is pawning off an approach
that is
completely unverifiable, and that politicians are buying into it.

Neil

Recently, sfb posted:

It isn't a simple as just print a receipt. If you print before the
voter presses the final button and the voter changes their mind, the
receipt and the machine do not agree. If you print a second receipt
then you have two receipts for one voter. If the receipt and the
machine disagree and the voter presses the final button anyway, which
one is the true vote?

Why would a receipt *ever* be printed before the "final" button is
pressed? At that point, printing them in duplicate is not a problem.

There is no way to count the receipts by hand so now you need a entire
new set of machines to count receipts which brings you back to many of
the problems with punch cards.

Why couldn't receipts be counted by hand? As a method of verification, the
task isn't all that large. Still, if the receipts followed a standard
layout, they could be counted by machine quite easily.

Regards,

Neil

"Neil Gould" wrote in message
...
Recently, sfb posted:

It isn't a simple as just print a receipt. If you print before the
voter presses the final button and the voter changes their mind, the
receipt and the machine do not agree. If you print a second receipt
then you have two receipts for one voter. If the receipt and the
machine disagree and the voter presses the final button anyway, which
one is the true vote?

Why would a receipt *ever* be printed before the "final" button is
pressed? At that point, printing them in duplicate is not a problem.

There is no way to count the receipts by hand so now you need a entire
new set of machines to count receipts which brings you back to many of
the problems with punch cards.

Why couldn't receipts be counted by hand? As a method of verification, the
task isn't all that large. Still, if the receipts followed a standard
layout, they could be counted by machine quite easily.


Additionally, just because a receipt is printed it does not mean that the
vote recorded is the same as printed on the receipt (screen says vote for
"X", receipt says vote for "X", record vote as a vote for "Y"). It appears
there is no way to insure fraud is not a part of the voting process. The
only thing that can be done is try and minimize the fraud.

Receipts can be easily faked also. Even with the bat codes on them, if
let's say 6 million were faked, are we going to try to recertify 6
million receipts by hand?

"Tom Conner" wrote in message
nk.net...
Additionally, just because a receipt is printed it does not mean that the
vote recorded is the same as printed on the receipt

True. That's why a hand-recount is needed of some percentage of the paper
ballots, as an audit of the machine-counted votes.

[...] It appears
there is no way to insure fraud is not a part of the voting process.

As long as human beings are involved at any part of the process, there will
be the potential for fraud. The problem is that currently, the potential
for fraud is VASTLY higher than it should be.

The only thing that can be done is try and minimize the fraud.

Indeed. So, let's do that thing.

Pete

On Thu, 29 Dec 2005 18:10:26 GMT, "Neil Gould"
wrote in
: :

Why couldn't receipts be counted by hand? As a method of verification, the
task isn't all that large. Still, if the receipts followed a standard
layout, they could be counted by machine quite easily.

What method would you employ to assure that the receipts are not
forgeries?