, 2003-11-12
Grave concerns over the security of electronic voting machines in the United States means the heart of American democracy is at risk.
Expand all |
Post comment
"Bill Gates Elected President: FEC Surprised"
2003-11-13
Penguinisto (1 replies)
Penguinisto (1 replies)
Electronic Voting Debacle
2003-11-13
Dave Collins (1 replies)
Dave Collins (1 replies)
Paper voting has a significant advantage over electronic voting.
Sure it takes a little longer to count the ballots. But are American citizens really willing to trust the manufacters of the machines, just to allow the media to provide election results sooner ? I don't think it will kill anyone to wait another 8 hours for the definitive election result, especially if the result is more trustworthy.
Sure, paper voting costs more. That is the cost of democracy. Pushing a button is not simplier than inserting a paper in a box. So, to citizens, technology does not make voting any simplier. I'd even think that for elder citizens, it makes it more complicated.
What electronic voting is supposed to make simplier, is the counting of the votes. It is my opinion that this simplification is made at the cost of reliability. Having 20 people around a table, counting and recounting every vote, ensures a certain level of integrity and independance. Trusting a manufacturer of voting machines is simply wrong.
In the article, examples are given where "some voters using Diebold machines tried to vote for one candidate, but the machine would instead register a vote for the opponent", or that "one out of every hundred votes for Thompson actually resulted in a subtracted vote for the candidate".
Now, who does the programming of these machines anyway ? Is it that complicated to select the right variable, and perform an arithmetic operation of "N+1" on it ?
Chris.
[ reply ]
Link to this comment: http://www.securityfocus.com/comments/columns/198/23745#23745