[ale] OT: Voting machines cracked in California

[tom]

On Fri, 3 Aug 2007, Jonathan Rickman wrote:

> Security involves more than pure technology. It is a process, as you all
> know. All these evaluations of voting machines are meaningless in the grand
> scheme of things. The real issue is the process in which the machines play
> a part. Based on my observance of electronic voting in Georgia, the process
> is fairly sound. The simple addition of the paper receipts that are verified
> by the voter and dropped in a slot beside the terminal for use in auditing,
> along with slighly better physical security for the machines themselves
> would provide adequate assurance of the integrity of the process. New voting
> machines with full system design specs disclosed, running fully audited code
> would be nice, but not the most efficient use of taxpayer money when simple
> low tech measures can improve the process so easily.

Nicely said even if I don't quite agree with you.

Patching up a system adopted in haste with improperly understood 
characteristics doesn't seem to be a good use of taxpayer resources to me. 
I may be wrong, but backing out and trying again more slowly and along 
several different avenues of approach would ultimately be more robust, 
better tested, and therefor ultimately a better use of money.

In this forum, for the moment, we can thus agree to disagree.