[ale] OT: electronic voting info

[Jeff Hubbs]

On Wed, 2003-09-24 at 02:53, Ronald Chmara wrote:
> 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.

The summary of my understanding is that there were enough variability
and suboptimal procedures in the Florida election process that the true
winner of the popular vote was not just unknown but unknowable.  In my
own personal rhetoric, I stop short of saying "Gore won;" to me, the
questionableness and uncertainty are the real problems, and evidence
that the process *could have been* manipulated is no less worrisome than
would be evidence that the process *was actually* manipulated.  

My issue with the electronic voting systems is that it places much more
of the process behind a kind of opaque veil in which manipulations or
errors can take place with little hope of detection or redress.  It is
not lost on me that, in this case, this veil is thrown up jointly by
Diebold and by the Government.  

> 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.

This is in line with my thinking.  Call me oldschool/greybeard if you must, 
but I can't think of anything better than a voting machine that produces a
paper tape that is both punched and ink-marked.  Tapes so produced can be 
fed into any manner of readers (and should be!) and, because of the ink marking,
could even be verified by eye.  

You know, the Carter Center has experience with monitoring elections.  I wonder 
if they've weighed in on this issue or would be useful in the national debate.

The way I see it, though, the horse is already out of the barn.  If you accept
that the use of electronic voting is the final step in turning our elections
into a sham and that sham elections are the hallmark of a despotic and corrupt
government, then take solace in the knowledge that in the end, despotic and 
corrupt governments inevitably fail.  

- Jeff