[ale] OT: electronic voting info

[Ronald Chmara]

On Tuesday, September 23, 2003, at 07:14  PM, Greg wrote:
> I was just about to say "if it ain't broke don't fix it", but I guess 
> I got
> beaten to the line. If there needs to be a recount, fine - all, yes, 
> *all*
> recounts in FLA had Bush the winner.

Bzzt!  (Wrong.)

If you chuck all of the questionable *overseas* military ballots, Bush 
lost.... The chads are not the *only* problem. There's more than one 
way to hack a system as irregular, bizarre, and inconsistent as US 
voting.

>  If we need to count ballots 3 times,
> fine with me.  As long as all recounts have the same result in a
> non-partisan count, I am fine with that - in fact that just proves the 
> point
> that punch card ballots show reproducibility.
> Greg

My ideal touch-screen system would have a user verified spool tape, a 
user receipt, and electronic tallying. If the votes were challenged, 
the spool tape could be consulted. Worst case would require 
user-receipt checks.

Of course, a black-box doesn't mean elections will be more or less 
manipulated... it's just a tool. Voting boxes can be lost, be they 
real, or electronic. Dead people have voted quite regularly on every 
system....

*shrug*

-Bop
Ronald Chmara
Ronin Professional Consulting LLC
678-530-9542
"Throughout human history, we have been dependent on machines to 
survive. Fate, it seems, is not without a sense of irony." --Morpheus, 
"The Matrix"