Democracy Expires

"Ed Rasimus" wrote

You guys have to be kidding. Or, you've never paid attention during
the years of voting before an electronic terminal. Where have you been
keeping all of your previous paper voting receipts? Oh, you forgot
that you've never before gotten such a document?

When I grew up in Chicago (that citadel of Democratic democracy and
vast Republican wasteland), we voted with large mechanical machines.
You entered a big telephone booth sort of kiosk and clicked little
levers down to select your candidate, then moved a huge railroad
switch sort of master lever to "cast" your ballot. No receipt, no
returns. All done and all the records are in the big metal box.

Now, after the brouhaha about hanging chads, you want technology to
fix the problem, but not really?

So, you mark with a pencil (a #2 pencil) and scribble a spot in an
oval. You put the paper through a slot into a box to be read by a
Scantron. Are you sure that happens today? Are you sure that box makes
it down from the polling place to the County courthouse? It always
has.

Paranoia serves no useful purpose. With both sides observing elections
and all players buying into the system, the reliability of high tech
voting shouldn't be dangerously compromised.

And, regarding the original author's piece--does it make a difference
where the machine was made? Is there a lot of significance if the
software is noted as version 4.2.4 on the back and only 4.2 on the
screen? Gimme a break.

It might. What was inserted for the x.x.4 version? Was it recertified by a
bipartisan group before the election?

The problem I have with the current crop of e-voting systems is lack of
implementation control.

It *could* be done well, but that doesn't appear to be happening.

Reports of vendor techs removing systems back to the office for 'repair' and
no recertification prior to the election, untrained poll workers ("How do I
restart this?"), and swept under the rug 'known problems'.

One election system last year(?) used MS Access as the backend DB. While
Access may be a good smallscale tool, it is nowhere near secure or stable
enough to be trusted to handle an election. Expecially when the db is left
on a LAN, unsecured. Anyone could change the data, and no one would know. I
use and develop in Access daily, and would never, ever consider it for an
election system.

Even worse is the wireless solutions. Each booth is wirelessly connected to
a central server. Given the lack of controls in other areas, how locked down
is that wireless traffic?

What e-voting purports to fix is the user interface. Chads evidently have a
problem. 'Filling in the circles' is the same. People screw it up.
So fix that. A good GUI, maybe on a touch screen, prints out a standard
'vote'. Circles filled in the same way, every time. The voter slides it into
the Scantron scanner, and the paper is retained in the locked box in case of
future need/verification/recount.

Not much different than now, but you won't have stray marks on the paper, or
hanging chads. The part the voter touches (the 'computer touchscreen') is
merely a printer, not a tabulator/reporter.

A company where the CEO states "I am committed to helping Ohio deliver its
electoral votes to the President", and gives sizeable campaign funds should
not be allowed to build and sell the machines and the software to deliver
those votes.
That he is pro-Republican makes no difference. If he were visbly
pro-Democrat, I'd feel exactly the same.

Just has that air of shadiness. "Use this. Trust us, it's secure"

Pete