Democracy Expires

From: Ed Rasimus


(Dav1936531) wrote:
Absolutely. The lack of a paper receipt of how a vote was cast is the first
step towards creating a "banana republic" wherein elections are stolen and
fraud rules. Trustworthy recounts will be impossible.

If Bush wants to make Constitutional amendments, amend the Constitution so
that a paper receipt is required in all votes at Federal, State, and possibly
even the local level.

And I am truly concerned that the electorate of the US doesn't seem to be too
concerned about the potential for abuse these voting computers represent.
Dave

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?

Actually, I meant ballot...not receipt....but was having a brain fart at the
time I wrote. A paper ballot produces a solid, irrefutable (mostly) record of
how a voter's vote was cast.

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.
Ed Rasimus

Let's not forget that these machines will, no doubt, be sold in the export
market to young democracies, other then merely being used in the US, wherein
election fraud has historically been a real problem.

For instance, just look at Iran's recent "election". The hardliner mullahs
disqualified a whole slew of reform candidates prior to the election, much to
the disdain of the world press corps and many observing governments that now
view the current Iranian government as lacking cedibility due to the
manipulated slate of candidates allowed to run.

How much easier for the Mullahs to have maintained their international
credibility by allowing the reform candidates on the ballots only to have them
"soundly defeated" at the polls using this "error proof", "non-abusable"
computerized voting system......buy merely manipulating the data via means not
readily apparent to the non-computer programming language literate general
population. Voila!!!! Rigged election and international credibility of the
"elected" government still intact.........and NO paper trail to prove
otherwise.

At least with paper ballots, court room proof of fraud is more readily
producable.

See what I am getting at?
Dave

"Thomas J. Paladino Jr." wrote in message
...

"Ed Rasimus" wrote in message
...
On 06 Mar 2004 17:03:57 GMT, (Dav1936531) wrote:

From: "Thomas J. Paladino Jr."


I have to pretty much agree with this article. Fully electronic voting
machines are a horrible, horrible idea.

Absolutely. The lack of a paper receipt of how a vote was cast is the
first
step towards creating a "banana republic" wherein elections are stolen
and
fraud rules. Trustworthy recounts will be impossible.

If Bush wants to make Constitutional amendments, amend the Constitution
so that
a paper receipt is required in all votes at Federal, State, and
possibly
even
the local level.

And I am truly concerned that the electorate of the US doesn't seem to
be
too
concerned about the potential for abuse these voting computers
represent.
Dave

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.

No, you're absolutely right, and I don't think that paranoia is helpful
either. But this technology has too many ways to screw up (and here in NYC
we still use those big telephone booth lever/crank things). At least
somewhere there needs to be a paper trail for all involved parties to
audit.

I too used those big booths. Now we use Scantrons.
I also agree there should be a man readable record maintained as each
vote is cast. I don't insist on paper but I am at a loss for a likely
subsitute.

There was a large conference of IT professionals and software industry
bigwigs who came out strongly against these all-electronic systems,
basically saying that there would be no possible way to go through all the
code on these machines and detect any tampering or design flaw with enough

Ah, balony. I'm tempted to write a program right here & now suitable for
running
a voting machine. Such a program would be fairly straight forward and
simple.

accuracy to base elections on. And even so, it would be too complex for
laymen (the people) to actually go through and check themselves. We would

And the workings of the big booth voting machine or the Scantron reader
are simply enough for them to do so?

always be relying on some kind of professional (who may or may not have an
agenda) to examine these records for us and give them a thumbs up or down.
Regardless of the result, there will always be far too many questions left
unanswerable.

As an IT professional from back when we were computer scientist/programmers
I have to concur that a computer system will crash at some point and lose
data. Loss data that *is* each and every vote cast on a particular machine
is
very, well, "bad".

The difficulty in electronic voting is keeping your paranoia level high
enough
on your hardwa triple redundant nonviolable memory on battery powered
cards, optically isolated from the rest of the machine and read back checked
after each cast vote would be just the start.

Will a paper record, regardless of what the software people say, ordinary
people can subpoena the records and count the votes by hand. Since they
are
machine printed, there are no doubts about hanging chads and such. And

Until the ink fades or isn't printed heavily enough. Paper jams can go
unnoticed for several lines.
Showing the created record to the voter creates the possibility of exposing
the previous voter's.

people should get a copy of the paper record as well, so that they can
verify their vote. A simple printer with carbon paper connected to these
machines would solve all the problems. One copy goes to the voter, the
other
straight into a box in the machine.

Oh great, create a record, that can be demanded, that you "voted the right
way".
Better have some serious safe guards to prevent it leaving the voting area.


I guess I have to say that electronic voting is doable and it can generate
a paper trail. It must not be done sloppily though. There are problems
but likely not where you, or I, might first think.

Ed Rasimus wrote:

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.

Sometimes there have been paper "receipts" of the vote and sometimes
not. But I think a paper backup for "electronic" forms of voting
really is important.

It takes a lot of effort to change or invent votes people cast
"the old fashioned way". It takes only a few lines of code for
it to be done electronically.

And what happens if the vote is a statistical tie? You're back
to counting paper, which is very difficult to count when it doesn't
exist.

Recently, in a test case of a touch screen voting machine, it was
discovered someone had [maliciously] changed the order of the
candidates from the touch screen to the actual code doing the
count. A vote for candidate A actually registered for candidate B.

The military was playing with the idea of allowing absentee voting
by web, but has dissed the idea for the coming election.

A wise choice I think.


SMH

In article ,
(Dav1936531) writes:
Actually, I meant ballot...not receipt....but was having a brain fart at the
time I wrote. A paper ballot produces a solid, irrefutable (mostly) record of
how a voter's vote was cast.

No, a paper ballot, (In the locked Ballot Box) is proof that _a_ vote
was cast. There's nothing in, on, or under a recorded ballot that
shows how "A voter's vote was cast". And that's thw way it should be.
You wouldn't want the Party Loyalty Squads shaking you down when you
leave the Polling Place, would you?

Let's not forget that these machines will, no doubt, be sold in the export
market to young democracies, other then merely being used in the US, wherein
election fraud has historically been a real problem.

For instance, just look at Iran's recent "election". The hardliner mullahs
disqualified a whole slew of reform candidates prior to the election, much to
the disdain of the world press corps and many observing governments that now
view the current Iranian government as lacking cedibility due to the
manipulated slate of candidates allowed to run.

How much easier for the Mullahs to have maintained their international
credibility by allowing the reform candidates on the ballots only to have them
"soundly defeated" at the polls using this "error proof", "non-abusable"
computerized voting system......buy merely manipulating the data via means not
readily apparent to the non-computer programming language literate general
population. Voila!!!! Rigged election and international credibility of the
"elected" government still intact.........and NO paper trail to prove
otherwise.

And imagine what a boon it shall be for the Mullahs' Minions to be
able to demand the Voting Receipt of everyone leaving the Polls. All
in order to se that they had, indeed voted, after all. And, after all
the dissidents disappear, I think we could pretty much guarantee that
the next election would, in fact be an overwhelming landslide, no
matter how it was counted.

--
Pete Stickney
A strong conviction that something must be done is the parent of many
bad measures. -- Daniel Webster

From: (Peter Stickney)
Date: 3/7/04 10:43 PM Eastern Standard Time
Message-id:

(Dav1936531) writes:
Actually, I meant ballot...not receipt....but was having a brain fart at
the time I wrote. A paper ballot produces a solid, irrefutable (mostly) record
of how a voter's vote was cast.

No, a paper ballot, (In the locked Ballot Box) is proof that _a_ vote
was cast. There's nothing in, on, or under a recorded ballot that shows how "A
voter's vote was cast". And that's thw way it should be. You wouldn't want the
Party Loyalty Squads shaking you down when you
leave the Polling Place, would you?

You've misinterpreted the meaning I was trying to convey. The paper ballot
proves a vote was cast and how it was cast (who was voted for), NOT which
individual voted for whom. Of course the secrecy of who actually votes for whom
must be preserved. This is so fundamental to the system I hardly figured anyone
could misinterpret what I wrote.
Dave