E-Voting FUBAR

[Turtle]

As we near the Fall elections in the US, the unreliability, high costs, and vulnerability of electronic voting machines is developing into a serious issue.
Here's a new report from Princeton on just one such system:
http://itpolicy.princeton.edu/voting/ts-paper.pdf

What do you think about using this technology? FUBAR, or not FUBAR; that is the question.

[Mercedes Benzene]

Not entirely FUBAR. I think that the technology is good in theory. We just need to get all the bugs worked out. Using such electronic voting systems could seriously improve the efficiency of the voting process... but as I said, things need to be fixed.

FUBAR for this year = yes.
FUBAR for the future = probably not. <<< if we work to improve.

[Racoon]

I agree with Turtle.
There needs to be a paper trail in these sorts of ordeals..

Sorry MB, you're still a bit naive when it comes to politics and corruption and voting.. Lucky You; but you'll learn quickly enough eventually.

If they can rig it on paper, it can definitely happen electronically...

Nice link Turtle-san

[Mercedes Benzene]

Sorry MB, you're still a bit naive when it comes to politics and corruption and voting.. Lucky You; but you'll learn quickly enough eventually.

Mhmm.
I read the newspaper every day, and I live < 20 miles from the white house.
I took AP Government, and AP law. Got A's in the classes and 5s on the AP exams.
Yup. Naive I am.

More like politically gifted.
You don't have to be any older than me to understand corruption and the inner-workings of politics.

[Racoon]

Originally Posted by Mercedes Benzene

Mhmm.
I read the newspaper every day, and I live < 20 miles from the white house.
I took AP Government, and AP law. Got A's in the classes and 5s on the AP exams.
Yup. Naive I am.

More like politically gifted.
You don't have to be any older than me to understand corruption and the inner-workings of politics.

You'll be cynical sooner than later then
and realize newspapers spoon feed the masses what "they" want to tell you.
It wasn't meant as an offense.

E-Voting has too much potential for corruption/tampering.
There needs to be a paper trail. Paper, Rock, Scissors reality here.

Are you even legal voting age?

[pgrmdave]

Racoon - just because somebody is young, or not jaded, does not mean that they are naive. In this case, I do agree that a paper trail is needed - I want my vote to have something tangible behind it, something that I can touch and hold. But that doesn't mean that those who disagree are naive, just that they have more faith in the machines/electronics/computers/human nature.

[Tormod]

Originally Posted by Mercedes Benzene

I live < 20 miles from the white house.

I live less than 10 miles from the Norwegian Parliament *and* the Norwegian Government (hell, I even work for the State).

Somehow I think distance is slightly irrelevant here.

[Boerseun]

Originally Posted by Racoon

E-Voting has too much potential for corruption/tampering.
There needs to be a paper trail.

Anything can be tampered with. And, with a secret ballot, I don't see how a paper trail will help you. Okay, so you'll have a few piles of ballots to count after the fact, if there's any doubt about the first count. And you can re-count them fifty times, and you'll get fifty different totals. That's no solution.

You should keep in mind, at one time a pencil and a scrap of paper was state-of-the-art, and people probably mistrusted that as well.

E-voting? I'm all for it. And backups of all the involved systems will give you a pretty accurate 'paper trail' if there are any doubts as to the outcome.

Politicians are normally too stupid to be efficient hackers.

[hallenrm]

Originally Posted by Boerseun

Politicians are normally too stupid to be efficient hackers.

But most often they have sufficient money to hire smarter people, who unfortunately are too often too willing to sell their brains!!

[Boerseun]

Originally Posted by hallenrm

But most often they have sufficient money to hire smarter people, who unfortunately are too often too willing to sell their brains!!

True enough, but what's easier;

Hiring an IT-boffin at one hell of a price to hack into an encrypted system in order to change the outcome, or

Giving a couple of guys a few bucks to make a few boxes filled with ballot papers 'dissappear'?

The outcome is the same, but I think short-circuiting the voting process through cheating as explained above, is actually easier with the current paper-based system.

No system is perfect, surely, but we shouldn't be shooting down any new improvisation because of its possible pitfalls without considering the shortcomings of the existing one.