Well, well. A little late to the parade, but thanks for showing up, Scott.

One thing that those of us who oppose these machines need to bear in mind is that there are real usability issues which, aside from the standard greed/corruption motives, make them desirable. One such usability issue is access for the visually handicapped. Right now, in many places, such folks need to be assisted in voting, which means their ballots are not secret. Many such folks have pressed for an alternative system, and electronic voting is attractive because on the surface it addresses many issues important to such people. The problem is that some important players in this, and I am thinking of a "disabled rights" advocate I heard on NPR in particular, are ill-informed about the true risks these devices present. All they know about is the upside, which for them is substantial. As a community, we need to demonstrate that we understand both the security and technical issues, AND the real usability requirements, lest we be dismissed as geeks who exaggerate risk and "don't get it".

Thanks for helping -- this really is an important issue. Malice aside, these systems seem so poorly-engineered that they turn elections into lotteries.

A final note -- while you are right to heap scorn on Diebold, they are by no means alone in this. Just a couple days ago, a competitor's system registered 144,000 votes cast in an election where there were in fact only 5000 votes cast. Ooops.

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