In a nutshell, it seems some technical experts are questioning the coding and security procedures for the new voting machines that are scheduled to go online for 50 million voters in a couple of weeks.
The worst part of this article is that all the people with a vested interest in there not being any problem are basically saying "trust us, everything is OK" without actually addressing the issues, or even acknowledging there are issues in the first place.
To me this seems like it is going to be a major fiasco. In a race this close, where litigation is extremely possible after the results are tallied, a huge number of the votes will be unverifiable (no recount possible).
Posted by Hobbes (Member # 433) on :
quote:the original Diebold code wasn't subjected to unit testing
If this is true ... wow ... I think I speak for programmers evverywhere when I say: Ahhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhh!!!
Hobbes Posted by KarlEd (Member # 571) on :
I suspect if there is litigation in any of the swing states this election, all the e-votes will have to be thrown out because it will be impossible to verify their authenticity or to perform a recount.
Posted by Sara Sasse (Member # 6804) on :
Whoa.
Posted by pooka (Member # 5003) on :
I guess it would have been good to have a year where we use the old method as well as the new method. :sigh:
Posted by Icarus (Member # 3162) on :
I have been very concerned about this since I first heard about it. It seems only logical to me to expect that this will have major problems. I hope I am wrong.
Posted by pooka (Member # 5003) on :
I wonder if they will have any problems with people who are deeply allergic to technology. You know, like people who can't wear watches? It's really more like technology is allergic to them.
When we first had intimations of this kind of problem, why didn't we request absentee ballots? Aren't those generally all written? I don't mean to put my head in the sand, but worrying about this now is just going to stress me out.
[ October 22, 2004, 12:30 PM: Message edited by: pooka ]
Posted by ssywak (Member # 807) on :
Apparently, you can dial in to these machines, change the vote tallies around, and leave--all without leaving any traces.
In fact, the access password is KJN B*****
Posted by The Federal Government (Member # 6807) on :
Oh, no you don't!
Everybody, look away while I erase this password.
OK. You can look back now.
(Whew!)
Posted by TomDavidson (Member # 124) on :
What gets me -- what really gets me -- is that everyone I know who knows about this issue is deeply concerned about it, and almost everyone I know knows about it. But despite this, there's been no serious effort among politicians to respond to that concern.
Posted by pooka (Member # 5003) on :
What have various people done? Written their reps? Hunger strike? It's too late to even do that effectively.
Posted by Mike (Member # 55) on :
Agreed, Tom. I think the reason is that this is really a difficult problem, beyond the technical ken of nearly every politician who might have the means to effect changes in this area. The fact is, there is provably no way to design an election system that
has a secret ballot and
allows for accurate auditing of the results.
If you want a proof, I'll be happy to oblige. Therefore there must be some trust within the system. Putting such trust into the hands of a company that has shown its partisan leanings as well as its general incompetance is probably a bad idea. This problem of trust is nothing new, by the way. The new part is that the system is becoming more homogeneous, so is more susceptible to a single attack.
![[Smile]](smile.gif)
![[Frown]](frown.gif)
![[Angst]](graemlins/angst.gif)