Re: [tlug] Somewhat OT- open source software for US voting machines

["SL Baur" <steve@example.com>]

On 10/6/08, Edmund Edgar <lists@example.com> wrote:

> You can then count the votes either by using the computer's records or by
> counting the bits of paper.
>
> (Of course, if you decided that the bits of paper were the final word on the
> matter rather than the computer's records of what it printed, you could say
> that you're not doing e-voting at all; You're just doing traditional paper
> voting with a more sophisticated pencil.)
>
> Strikes me that it should be possible to create a better audit trail with
> two methods of counting the votes - especially if you divide responsibility
> properly so that the people responsible for managing the computer systems
> are different from the people responsible for managing the ballot boxes.

You have gone to the expense of creating an electronic system
that cannot be trusted with anything.  You still have to count
the paper receipts.

Why go to the expense of creating an electronic system when
it is pointless?

Take a timeout and read up on Zimbabwe[1] if you have not
been following the situation there.  It's a long slow train wreck
and the US is headed in the same general direction.

I did NOT grow up hearing people whine about Dick Nixon
getting cheated out of the Presidency in 1960.  It does not take
more than two brain cells to rub together to figure out that he
WAS cheated out of the election.

I HAVE heard people ignorant of US law whining about Algore
losing even though he won the popular vote.  They continue
to do so.

I think the election in 2000[2] was fairer than the election in 1960.
The difference being that not very many people trust election
results in the US any more.  Electronic black box voting is not
going help anything and make things worse, given the reputation
of Diebold, etc.

-sb

[1]  The "coalition" government now in place may end up taking
more lives than Mugabe has to date.

[2[  And, of course, I fully support the electoral college system
due to the fact that it allows rural "fly-over" country a fair voice
in national politics.  That's just what it was designed to do.