[ale] Re: Vote Today - Message from Marie

[Charles Shapiro]

Actually, I experimented with this at the shopping center. You can write
in a vote by selecting the "write in" option in the vote choices, then
selecting letters in a keyboard-like arrangement on the screen. Worked
for me at least in the demo.

-- CHS

On Tue, 2002-11-05 at 16:08, Greg wrote:
> Great.  I was really surprised also.  The state per se does not have a great
> track record with projects put out to bid (car driver insurance & the DFAC
> system come to mind immediately).  Dunno why with all of the brains in
> Atlanta alone.  Mr. Field Coordinator did not tell me that there are paper
> ballots, either, as was posted earlier, so I honestly have no idea
> whatsoever what the system is for counting votes.
> 
> Through out all of the posts one question remains unanswered; How do you
> write in a vote ???
> 
> Greg
>   -----Original Message-----
>   From: Dow Hurst [mailto:dhurst at kennesaw.edu]
>   Sent: Tuesday, November 05, 2002 3:56 PM
>   To: runman at telocity.com; ale at ale.org
>   Subject: Re: [ale] Re: Vote Today - Message from Marie
> 
> 
>   Just found out from my boss that yes, KSU CSIS Dept. was the architects of
> the system.  I know the chair, Merle King, and he is a dedicated honest
> person.  I have a lot of respect for him since he has treated me well here
> at KSU.  I'll ask and see if the code is available or could be made
> available.  I was quite surprised to hear about KSU's involvement since
> there is a lot of reputation on the line.
>   Dow
> 
> 
>   Greg wrote:
> 
> I just voted and specifically looked for those items which came up in
> previous posts.
> 
> First, the second instruction says to "Touch the vote you want to change to
> undo it and then vote again." or some such thing to that effect.  Seems ok
> to me, but intuitiveness is in the eye of the beholder.
> 
> Second, the clerk at the door was not keen on the lack of paper ballots.  I
> asked about recounts & was told that they would just take the totals out of
> the machines again ... "just like the first vote"  ... "yup".  "So a recount
> is somewhat impossible, huh ?"  "yup"  After admitting that he was just a
> simple clerk, I was jokingly advised to take it up w/ the State Secretary of
> State (hehe, redundant, huh?).
> 
> At this time a Field Coordinator (according to his ID - looked like a MS
> drone to me) told me in reply to several of my concerns that 1) they had
> batteries in the machines in case of power failure.  I did not ask as to
> whether they were AAA or D batteries.  Hopefully they were not the little
> CMOS batteries, though I have replaced only one of this type in my entire
> life.  2) the vote is recorded in three places, one including flash memory.
> OK, so any mistake is now multiplied times 3.  I get it.  Redundancy = =
> accuracy  3) In reply to my asking if I could see the code, I was told that
> the code was audited by Kennesaw State University to comply with Federal and
> State specs.  I am hoping that the KSU folks that reviewed the code were
> code knowledgeable in some if not many respects and instead were not the
> Political Science Dept. folks.  Mr. Field Coordinator did not answer the
> question, but what can you expect in dealing with anything touching politics
> ?? (ok, I'll say it "or M$").
> 
> At this time I left before asking any further questions, since my doctor
> told me my blood pressure is starting to get problematic (& I a wee lad of
> 39).  I left feeling as if this was an expensive piece of crap system w/ no
> redundant and independent check on it.  I would rather have the cards and a
> chad problem if it came to that.
> 
> As to another point in a post; so why not ask to see the code ?  Sounds like
> a worthwhile project to me.  I mean, did not taxpayer money fund this ?  I
> wouldn't buy a house or car without looking it over and software should not
> be any different.
> 
> If there is a tight race with plenty of discord, I am sure that all of the
> concerns & issues expressed on this forum will move to center stage in the
> media.  On one hand I wouldn't mind seeing the idiots who hoisted this on us
> get roasted in the national media, but on the other hand I would hate being
> tarred with the same brush just because I live in GA.  The SAT jokes are bad
> enough.
> 
> 
> Greg Canter
> 
> 
> 
>   -----Original Message-----
> From: Joseph A Knapka [mailto:jknapka at earthlink.net]
> Sent: Tuesday, November 05, 2002 1:32 PM
> To: Irv Mullins
> Cc: ale at ale.org
> Subject: Re: [ale] Re: Vote Today - Message from Marie
> 
> 
> Irv Mullins wrote:
>     On Tuesday 05 November 2002 11:35 am,  Matt wrote:
> 
> 
>       As soon as whatever you vote with/on is removed from your view, there
> is
> ALWAYS the potential for corruption to occur.  Why not just
>         have a little
>     faith in the process that's being used and get on with your
>         lives.  If you
>     feel the process is so flawed, don't use it.  Make them work a little
> harder by having to actually fabricate votes rather than just changing
> yours.
>         There always has been, and will continue to be, vote fraud.
>       Not necessarily. In "Applied Cryptography", Bruce Schneier outlines
> cryptographically secure protocols that prohibit votes from being
> changed by anyone other than the caster, prohibit ballot-stuffing,
> ensure that every vote is properly counted exactly once, and possess
> a number of other useful properties. With such an implementation,
> it would be impossible for even the programmer who writes the
> code to alter election results, since any voter can execute
> a cryptographic challenge against the results to ensure that
> their vote is correctly counted, and no one without an unreasonably
> huge amount of computing power would be able to alter the results
> without being detected.
> 
> If we're gonna use electronic voting, we ought to do it right.
> 
> -- Joe
> 
> 
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> 
> --
> __________________________________________________________
> Dow Hurst                  Office: 770-499-3428
> Systems Support Specialist    Fax: 770-423-6744
> 1000 Chastain Rd., Bldg. 12
> Chemistry Department SC428  Email:dhurst at kennesaw.edu
> Kennesaw State University         Dow.Hurst at mindspring.com
> Kennesaw, GA 30144
> *********************************
> *Computational Chemistry is fun!*
> *********************************


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