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EFF: North Carolina Sued for Illegally Certifying Voting EquipmentEFF: North Carolina Sued for Illegally Certifying Voting EquipmentPosted Dec 10, 2005 22:34 UTC (Sat) by rmstar (guest, #3672)In reply to: EFF: North Carolina Sued for Illegally Certifying Voting Equipment by huffd Parent article: EFF: North Carolina Sued for Illegally Certifying Voting Equipment
That is a little paranoid, i would say. A properly audited and monitored
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EFF: North Carolina Sued for Illegally Certifying Voting Equipment Posted Dec 11, 2005 4:09 UTC (Sun) by h2 (guest, #27965) [Link] << That is a little paranoid, i would say. >>
I wouldn't. Especially since there is a possibility that this company was part of significant election fraud in the ohio elections. Disregarding whether or not this is true or false, the possibility that it could be true without anyone being able to prove it demonstrates conclusively that the idea of having electronic voting without having direct access to the source code is completely insane if you care about living in a democracy. Some of us don't, some of us do.
Obviously, this software should not have been developed by a commercial entity, it should have been open source, developed by some consortium of computer science professionals, academics would seem the most obvious.
If you trust your country's future to this type of non-transparent, non publically run, technology you are opening the door to a very unpleasant future, some of which we are already priviged to be witnessing today.
EFF: North Carolina Sued for Illegally Certifying Voting Equipment Posted Dec 11, 2005 9:13 UTC (Sun) by dlang (subscriber, #313) [Link] he didn't say that the current system and the way it's being deployed is fair or acceptable, he was responding to the idea expressed above that there is NO way for an electronic voteing sytem to be anything other then a way to cheat the election.
EFF: North Carolina Sued for Illegally Certifying Voting Equipment Posted Dec 11, 2005 23:13 UTC (Sun) by man_ls (subscriber, #15091) [Link] And I think he had a point. Complex voting systems only benefit the establishment; as nettings expresses below much better than I can, a simple voting system should be a basic requirement since it is the basis of accountability and reliability. It's not easy to see how an electronic voting system can be made simple.
Simple electronic voting Posted Dec 12, 2005 7:46 UTC (Mon) by xoddam (subscriber, #2322) [Link] You could start by *trying*.http://www.slate.com/id/2107388/ This system is far from ideal (no paper trail!) but it *is* simple.
Simple electronic voting Posted Dec 12, 2005 13:36 UTC (Mon) by man_ls (subscriber, #15091) [Link] The devices mentioned in the article linked contain a microprocessor. Can you assure it is functioning correctly? With paper ballots anyone can verify how the system works, plus it leaves an audit trail; with these devices you have to trust the chip manufacturer. Where are the results tallied? This is not what I would call "simple".
EFF: North Carolina Sued for Illegally Certifying Voting Equipment Posted Dec 12, 2005 13:16 UTC (Mon) by carcassonne (guest, #31569) [Link] It's not easy to see how an electronic voting system can be made simple.Well, you could start by taking a look at the source code of the Australian Capital Territory voting system: Electronic voting and counting It was used in 2001 and 2004. Don't ask me if it was successful or what, I only noticed the page very recently. Lots of details are provided on the site, check it out. If anyone has comments about that system, please share.
EFF: North Carolina Sued for Illegally Certifying Voting Equipment Posted Dec 11, 2005 9:17 UTC (Sun) by andyh (guest, #26163) [Link] How do we know that the source code provided by the vendor or the open source project actually matches the code in the machines the state uses? The vendor may well provide binaries that don't match the source code. If the software is open source, the government could easily patch the code to favor the incumbent.
E-voting is a problem of trust. The systems only differ in who the voter is expected to trust. Do you trust an independant company or the government to accurately record votes?
EFF: North Carolina Sued for Illegally Certifying Voting Equipment Posted Dec 11, 2005 10:16 UTC (Sun) by rmstar (guest, #3672) [Link] E-voting is a problem of trust. The systems only differ in who the voter is expected to trust. Do you trust an independant company or the government to accurately record votes?I think governments, companies, citizens, etc. are entitled to a modicum of a-priori trust. If this is not aplicable, then it really doesn't matter that much who wins an election because your society is rotten and not going anywhere nice anyway. E-voting has the (potential!) advantage that the number of points of failure are limited, as opposed to hand-counting. Bright, trusted people can (in theory) check the system for failure, and lots of other people can make sure that this is actually the system that is deployed (using seals etc.). Yes, a determined, evil government can use them to fake elections, but frankly, you don't need computers for that. Hopefully the EFF is successfull in making sure that these machines are properly audited and work as intended.
EFF: North Carolina Sued for Illegally Certifying Voting Equipment Posted Dec 12, 2005 13:08 UTC (Mon) by carcassonne (guest, #31569) [Link] How do we know that the source code provided by the vendor or the open source project actually matches the code in the machines the state uses? The vendor may well provide binaries that don't match the source code. If the software is open source, the government could easily patch the code to favor the incumbent.Sources should be built at an official, neutral and approuved by all location. The resulting binaries checksumed and shipped back to the vendor. Then it is the responsability of the vendor to use those binaries. if found at fault, sanctions will be used. Aw, forget that, the vendor won't like it. And maybe the developers won't either. Or at least those that always seems to have last-minute fixes to throw in.
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