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United States Editorial Security

ACM Eyes Policy Position on Electronic Voting 84

Posted by CowboyNeal from the agreeing-to-agree dept.
while(true) writes "The ACM is preparing to take a policy position on electronic voting in government elections. It has a poll page up to get feedback from it's members and where they also explain their proposed position. The proposed position calls for a paper trail to ensure a physical record of the vote. Go there and place your vote if you are a member. The ACM Public Policy Committee could be a valuable ally in many questions that are dear to Slashdot readers in the US. They have already spoken out on issues such as the DMCA, DRM, and private policing of P2P networks."
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ACM Eyes Policy Position on Electronic Voting More

ACM Eyes Policy Position on Electronic Voting

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  • Heh, (Score:5, Funny)

    by Grant29 ( 701796 ) * on Saturday July 03, 2004 @12:33PM (#9600305) Homepage
    If they can't trust electronic voting, how will they trust thier online poll?

    --
    Only 5 Gmail invitations left [retailretreat.com]

    • Re:Heh, (Score:3, Funny)

      by endx7 ( 706884 )
      Well, you haven't voted to get that changed, now have you?

    • Easily (Score:3, Interesting)

      by roystgnr ( 4015 )
      If they can't trust electronic voting, how will they trust thier online poll?

      Easily: they're the ones running it.

      If you let me personally set up every computer counting votes, I would trust electronic voting too. Unfortunately this probably isn't a solution to our election problems, since other people don't seem to trust me as much as I do.
    • You have to pay to get an ACM account, so they can verify that it's one vote per account per poll.

      We can't verify that they can verify, but you would think a gathering of professional computer geeks could do it better than slashdot.
  • Being the technology organization that ACM is, I expected it to offer a in-depth technical insight as to why exactly the current technologies were insufficient, theoretically what kind of technology was required end-to-end to make electronic voting trustable, etc. Instead all they say is "current technology suck so we need a paper trail". Not very scientific, eh?

    • Re:No technical evaluation (Score:5, Insightful)

      by skaffen42 ( 579313 ) on Saturday July 03, 2004 @12:47PM (#9600384)
      Actually, I think they did the right thing. They allowed their members, who are technology professionnals, to make thier opinions known. This is like complaining that the people running the voting booths doesn't tell you why you should not vote for a particulat candidate.

      Why have an opinion poll if you are going to bias it from the beginning?

      • Delphi (Score:5, Informative)

        by Jan-Pascal ( 21029 ) on Saturday July 03, 2004 @02:43PM (#9601044) Homepage
        This is almost a "Delphi study". A Delphi study is
        actually when you ask a number of professionals in a certain field about their opinion, or expectations, about a number of topics. Then you process the results, show the results to the same group of professionals, and ask their opinion again.

        Something like that.

    • Re:No technical evaluation (Score:5, Insightful)

      by lurker412 ( 706164 ) on Saturday July 03, 2004 @02:28PM (#9600970)
      Goodness, have you even bothered to look at their site?

      The site has links to sites that both favor and oppose paper trails. It then asks its members to state whether they favor or oppose hard copy records.

      The current results are running 94% for hard copy--85% strongly in favor, 9% in favor. The ACM will speak with a louder voice based on these results (if the voting trend continues) than they would if only the ACM Public Policy Committee gave its views.

      If you want science, you might consider reading the Communications of the ACM some time. I think you will find it quite a bit more rigorous than what you are used to here on /.

  • E-Voting Quality Control (Score:4, Interesting)

    by Dozix007 ( 690662 ) on Saturday July 03, 2004 @12:37PM (#9600325)
    E-Voting will not be trusted for quite a while. There are difficulties with authentication, and spoofing. I am glad to here ACM is trying to do something about it, as opposed to other companies just trying to scream out "I am better Uncle Sam, give me funding !", can anyone else guess why this project isn't opensource yet. Possibly because money talks more than common sense ?
    • Some of the quality control has already been done if only we'd examine others who've been trying this. An open source version is being used, and the interest there was for the same reason we had: a close election that had a separation of only a few votes. Check out
      http://www.wired.com/news/ebiz/0,1272,61045,00.htm

    • E-Voting will not be trusted for quite a while.

      It's not clear that E-voting should ever be trusted under any circumstance (unless there's a paper audit trail so the election results can be independently verified). The potential for tampering on the part of whoever tallies the vote is too high.

      Analogy: E-voting is like having a paper election, and giving all the ballots to one person. That person goes into a locked room, counts the ballots, and then shreds them. He comes out of the room and tells ever

      • It's not clear that E-voting should ever be trusted under any circumstance... The potential for tampering on the part of whoever tallies the vote is too high.

        It's not clear that any voting method should ever be trusted, for exactly the same reason. Any system can be tampered with.

        • It's not clear that any voting method should ever be trusted, for exactly the same reason. Any system can be tampered with.

          A system where a third party can independently verify the tally is much more trustworthy than one in which everyone is required to trust the tally. There will always be opportunities for fraud, but that doesn't mean we should make massive election fraud easy and undetectable.

          Besides, even if Diebold (or other E-voting terminal manufacturer) doesn't manipulate elections, the possibi

          • "even if Diebold (or other E-voting terminal manufacturer) doesn't manipulate elections, the possibility that they could casts a shadow of doubt over the whole democratic process."

            For example, some candidate wins a close election by a tie-breaking procedure. Assume for the sake of arguement that his party doesn't cheat (or at least not more than the the opposition), and the final result is 'fair'. What happens when the new elected official hits a rough spot, and slips in the polls? A lot of the people who
    • "Can anyone else guess why this project isn't opensource yet."

      Check out GVI [electionmethods.org], the Graphical Voter Interface.

  • Having a... (Score:3, Insightful)

    by Gorffy ( 763399 ) on Saturday July 03, 2004 @12:38PM (#9600334) Journal
    paper trail to keep tabs on the system replacing paper voting seems a tad pointless. Maybe waiting would be better.

    • Re:Having a... (Score:3, Insightful)

      by irokitt ( 663593 )
      Rather than mile-high stacks of punch cards, a paper trail in this case would be a briefcase full of spreadsheets, one for each district. Not nearly as cumbersome, and certainly an easier way to keep the system trustworthy.

      • Re:Having a... (Score:3, Informative)

        by spitzak ( 4019 )
        Wrong. There is in fact some piece of paper for every votor. Printouts from the system are useless, since they will just repeat what the system said the vote was, and can't prove they counted it correctly.

        • Re:Having a... (Score:3, Informative)

          by Artifakt ( 700173 )
          Having worked as an election official, I can tell you my state produces a paper trail that includes a printout of the system state at close of polls, and yet that printout is far from useless.
          The paper trail doesn't prove that the machine operators and judges didn't do some tricks, such as falsifying signatures on the rolls for people they knew weren't going to show up and then voting "for" them, but that's a trick that is risky until the polls are officially closed, and it assumes all the judges and m

          • It records the last maintenance dates when the machine was opened as well as the election day's use, so suspicious patterns of access have a chance of being detected, and there are presumably people who will ask why a particular machine was opened three times and stayed open for 45 minutes when the record show all the maintenance required was replacing an empty paper roll.

            I'm interested in why you think that (a) the computer's printout of its last maintenance date is necessarily correct, and (b) the main

            • For the same reason I don't think there is a subtle conspiracy to control the vote, and there are 30,000 members of that subtle conspiracy in my state alone, and none of them ever slip up, and the news media is in on it too, and oh Ghod, it's like that movie, the Net, they're everywhere I tell you.
              If the tech takes the time to undo everything needed to get at the EPROMs, that's going to pad the recorded time the case is open. Unless he adjusts the clock, the times the machine would show are consistent wi

              • I don't agree that a tech would need a large conspiracy, or a lot of time, or magic. He/she would need detailed knowledge of how the machine works, a supply of fresh seals (genuine or counterfeit), and an excuse to get physical access to the machine. Audit logs can be suppressed or faked. It doesn't take a long time if you already have the replacement components ready.

                Of course, the mondo approach is to replace the entire machine with a new one that looks the same and has the same serial number, etc. B

                • I'll grant you, we should assume many techs know more about the machines than is strictly necessary for their jobs, and that this is particularly likely for a tech that is up to something. And yes, seals can be counterfitted, if the tech can get a look at the numbers sheets and some other information. However, the tech may encounter a seal placed during a spot audit or by another tech, and if his procedure isn't supposed to involve cutting that particular seal, he has to get his counterfit made to match it.

    • Since when does insightfull mean not to think? (Score:4, Insightful)

      by Anonymous Coward on Saturday July 03, 2004 @01:01PM (#9600457)
      Paper trails are for authentication, which can be done by spot checks.

      Voting machines still allow easier voting and faster and more accurate counting, without the needs for lots of volunteers.

    • Re:Having a... (Score:4, Insightful)

      by SagSaw ( 219314 ) <slashdot@mmoss.STRAWorg minus berry> on Saturday July 03, 2004 @01:17PM (#9600543)
      Actually, there still are advantages.

      First, it will help avoid improperly compleated ballots (i.e. accidental over-votes and undervotes). It also makes it easier those who can't read english, are blind, or have other disabilities to vote.

      Secondly, it makes counting much easier. One possibility is that the electronic records are tabulated, and the paper records are made availaible for post-election audits. A second possibility is that the electronic voting machine prints a ballot which is both human and machine readable. These printed ballots are counted by machine after the election. If there needs to be a manual re-count or if an audit is desired, the ballots can still be counted by hand.

      • Re:Having a... (Score:3, Insightful)

        by vsprintf ( 579676 )

        It also makes it easier those who can't read english

        I keep seeing this argument, and it makes no sense. In this country, you can't vote unless you are a citizen (at least so far). One of the requirements [uscis.gov] for citizenship is "an ability to read, write, and speak English."

        • That's for naturalized citizens. Their page on Citizenship [uscis.gov] explains that if you are born in the US, you are a citizen.

          And even if your family CAN speak English, it doesn't mean they will at home, and you will likely learn whatever language you hear around the host as your primary (or only) language.

          Not to mention that many people who can read English may be much more comfortable in another language.

          • And even if your family CAN speak English, it doesn't mean they will at home, and you will likely learn whatever language you hear around the host as your primary (or only) language.

            I don't know of any requirement (except manufactured ones in California) to provide ballots in languages other than English. If a person does not have a working understanding of English, they should not be voting in this country, since they will not have an understanding of the issues and do not have a willingness to assimil

            • If a person does not have a working understanding of English, they should not be voting in this country, since they will not have an understanding of the issues and do not have a willingness to assimilate.

              This is an utterly absurd generalization. I've met many people who have a hard time communicating in English yet have a surprisingly deep understanding of the issues. On the other hand I've met many native English speakers that have no clue about political issues, let alone desire to learn. Keep in m

              • This is an utterly absurd generalization. I've met many people who have a hard time communicating in English yet have a surprisingly deep understanding of the issues.

                And you would know that how? How do all these people you know who can't read or understand English gain this deep understanding of American political issues when they can't understand a candidate's speech or read the party's platform in the original language?

                On the other hand I've met many native English speakers that have no clue about p

                • [PZ] I've met many people who have a hard time communicating in English yet have a surprisingly deep understanding of the issues.

                  And you would know that how?

                  In the case of Spanish speakers, I converse with them in Spanish. In the case of some of my friends' parents, they translate for me. Many that I've met can speak English passably but still have a hard time reading it.

                  How do all these people you know who can't read or understand English gain this deep understanding of American political issue

                  • In the case of Spanish speakers, I converse with them in Spanish. In the case of some of my friends' parents, they translate for me. Many that I've met can speak English passably but still have a hard time reading it.

                    So you're either claiming that these people really didn't meet the requirements for citizenship, or that they are natural citizens who can't read English, which I can't buy. I grew up in Southern California where Anglos are a minority. I schooled, lived, and worked with many first-generati

    • Re:Having a... (Score:2, Interesting)

      by zephyr1256 ( 729696 )
      Not at all pointless. The paper trail is not going to be used for a recount in every district. The idea is that you only recount a couple(ie, enough to have reasonable statistical confidence in the machines not checked) of random districts or machines for each vendor, to verify that the machines are accurate. This is a means of quality control. There would be no doubt or delay in these checks because of things like hanging chads, no basis for wondering what the 'intent' the voter had, because they will

    • paper trail to keep tabs on the system replacing paper voting seems a tad pointless. Maybe waiting would be better.

      Exactly. E-voting is a solution looking for a problem that doesn't exist. The whole thing is nothing more than hysteria whipped up by the media because a handful of geriatrics in Florida voted for the first time in fifty years and couldn't remember how.

      I've used butterfly ballots for decades, and I never had a problem with them. You don't have to worry about the little metal ballot h

    • Re:Having a... (Score:3, Insightful)

      by Anonymous Coward
      If it were so pointless why would all of the banks require transaction records printed for each transaction performed by ATM's, from vendors like Diebold, to back up the electronic transaction? Or why does a lottery ticket machine print in human and machine readable formats? My vote is more precious than cash. Its price has been paid in blood. I am not ready to let some fast talking gizmo marketer to proffer me anthing less than a human readable durable record of my choices. The cost of archive a few bi

  • Editorial tip (Score:4, Informative)

    by Quinn ( 4474 ) on Saturday July 03, 2004 @12:41PM (#9600353) Homepage
    In the summary (realizing it was a quote, but that's what square brackets are for in this context), you could have enlightened your audience with the actual meaning of "ACM", like so:

    The [Association for Computing Machinery] is preparing to take a policy position[...]

    • Re:Editorial tip (Score:5, Funny)

      by mattdm ( 1931 ) on Saturday July 03, 2004 @01:22PM (#9600566) Homepage


      Yes, it'd be good to do that with all computer-related acronyms. That's very important on a non-technical web site like slashdot. Why, in just the few last day's articles, we should have seen:

      • China Deploys IPv6 [Internet Protocol version Six] Network
      • NVidia Releases Linux [Linus + Unix] Drivers Supporting 4K [four kilobyte -- approximately four thousand characters] Stacks
      • YRO [Your Rights Online]: China Will Monitor, Censor SMS [Short Message Service] Messages
      • Apple: Alpine to Release iPod [um, "Internet Pod"?] Interface in Autumn [Fall] 2004
      • New Radar [Radio Detection And Ranging] Sees Through Walls
      • HDTV [High Definition Television] Comes to the Mac [Macintosh]
      • Dept. of Homeland Security Says to Stop Using IE [Internet Explorer]
      • Daleks [not an acronym] Exterminated From New Dr. [Doctor] Who

      And of course, let's not forget

      • Developers: On PHP [PHP [PHP [PHP [PHP [PHP [PHP [...]: Hypertext Preprocessor]: Hypertext Preprocessor]: Hypertext Preprocessor]: Hypertext Preprocessor]: Hypertext Preprocessor]: Hypertext Preprocessor] and Scaling

      Oh, how much better Slashdot would be.

  • Overwhelming support (Score:4, Informative)

    by Anonymous Coward on Saturday July 03, 2004 @12:44PM (#9600367)
    When I voted just now, they showed the current results -- nearly 85% of voters strongly agreed with the ACM's proposed position that there should be a paper trail. Wow.
    • When I voted just now, they showed the current results -- nearly 85% of voters strongly agreed with the ACM's proposed position that there should be a paper trail. Wow.

      As a card-carrying member of the ACM I have to wonder if there is a paper trail for that vote you just cast ... or are we being hypocrites?
      • There's a difference between a website poll and a federal election.

        • Re:Overwhelming support (Score:3, Informative)

          by Zarf ( 5735 )
          That was supposed to be a joke... sorry I didn't end it with a ":)" or something.

          I made a comment myself that said essentially that the systems which run democracy must be reviewable by the electorate ... essentially I feel all voting systems should be Open Source. I'll be sending a nice letter on the machinizations of democracy being openly reviewable and a matter of public record to the ACM Policy office in DC:

          ACM Public Policy Office
          1100 17th Street, NW
          Suite 507
          Washington, DC 20036-4632
          Tel: (20
          • Opening the source isn't enough. How do I check that the code running on the machine I place my vote on is compiled from the source code I checked? And how can I check the _compiler_?

            Actually, I don't really care about the software and all. Just print a paper ballot that goes in a box, and have the local representatives of the political parties, or anyone else interested, recount the paper ballots if they feel like it. That's all that's needed.
            • How do they know to recount? When do they recount? Perhaps the software tells them something that they feel means they should recount? Perhaps they recount every election?

              I think Open Source is important ... and that the source is a matter of public record ... along with the procedures used to determine when the paper ballot trail needs to be used. It is incomplete to say that just a paper trail is enough. Paper trails can be tampered with too.

  • Judging from the past... (Score:5, Interesting)

    by iamdrscience ( 541136 ) on Saturday July 03, 2004 @12:46PM (#9600383) Homepage
    They've already spoken out against the DMCA, DRM and private policing of P2P networks, eh? I guess that shows how little their opinion matters then, doesn't it.

    I'm far more interested in what the EFF's official stance is, considering they're the ones with the real legal and lobbying power (miniscule as it may be when compared to the twin bohemoths of the MPAA and RIAA)

    • I'm far more interested in what the EFF's official stance is . . .

      Why? Do you feel the ACM is violating Diebold's right to make a profit from American elections? The ACM and EFF are really dissimilar in purpose and function. I don't see that the EFF has a dog in this fight.

  • Why wouldnt this work: (Score:2, Interesting)

    by Anonymous Coward
    1. Ballots would be cardstock. with 'complete the line' method for marking choices. Each voter would get one blank vote card. The vote card would NOT have their name, voter number, or any identifiable information on it. The cards *should* each have a unique 'serial number' for accountability, plus some preprinted mark identifying what 'election' it was for.

    2. Voters can either complete the card by hand, or use an electronic terminal (which can be closed or open source, doesnt matter), which they would inse
  • As "hard" as some people seem to think punch card ballots are can you imagine the complaints if they put them on a computer? Also even if they have rock solid security there will be claims and disputes about how the results were "hacked" and the average sheeple will believe them rather than admit they lost. If they switch to evoting now florida will seem par for the course.

  • Canada (Score:5, Funny)

    by pipingguy ( 566974 ) on Saturday July 03, 2004 @01:34PM (#9600626)

    I voted last week and it was of those lame-o paper things where we had to mark an "X".

    It seems to me that this format is pretty old and should be coolified with the latest technology.

    • Re:Canada (Score:2, Informative)

      by greyhoundofdeath ( 783411 )
      I voted too, but you know what? It worked. And there was a paper trail for the half-dozen or so recounts that have been called for. It was close but we were able to get things sorted out without getting the Supreme Court involved. My only problem is that they gave me a pencil to mark my ballot which might explain why my guy didn't get in :( Why fix what isn't broken? You can probably tell where my ACM vote is going!

  • My poll comments (Score:3, Insightful)

    by ln -sf head ass ( 585724 ) on Saturday July 03, 2004 @01:37PM (#9600645)
    The republic is too important to leave in the hands of easily manipulated bits. A paper fallback record is the bare minimum of prudence when introducing computers into the process of electing our leaders. Without it, there can be no confidence of legitimacy of any future government, especially given the high-profile politicking of senior executives of voting machine companies.
  • I really wonder why people are so furious about paper trails.

    Remember the ghastly voting issues in Florida 2000?

    Well, they actually had paper trails, and it didn't change a thing. As it turned out, the courts ruled the recount illegal.

    It seems that legal deficiencies of the US voting system are a much bigger problem than missing paper trails.

    Don't forget that paper trails aren't immune to counterfeiting in any way. It's probably very easy to print a lot of paper trails with a standard PC and very little
    • It's true that if a vote has only one issue, hand counts aren't really that hard to do. Canada does them all the time, and it works well for them.

      But in the U.S., most ballots are much more complicated. We (in the US) have a tradition of wanting the citizenry to speak out/vote directly on a number of different issues, and having seperate local and state elections. It's a pain to setup a poll, and a pain go to a poll, so a voting decision is actually more complicated for US citizenry than a non-US citizen

      • Well, it also happens from time to time, that we here in Denmark get/have to vote for more than one thing at a time, for instance, the last election we had, we voted for city council, county council (sorta) and parliment.

        Seeing how we have 11 parties represented in parliment alone, and each of those parties usually have 10+ candidates on average, that's 110+ choices to choose from - just from the parliment vote.

        County and city elections are a bit less crowded, but I think the ballots I was handed were pro

    • Re:electronic voting isn't the problem (Score:4, Informative)

      by vsprintf ( 579676 ) on Saturday July 03, 2004 @03:40PM (#9601313)

      Well, they actually had paper trails, and it didn't change a thing. As it turned out, the courts ruled the recount illegal.

      The recount was ruled illegal because it was a selective (partial) recount and not completed within the limits allowed by Florida law. There have been thousands of recounts nationwide. Many places require an automatic recount if the margin of victory is small. Let's not extrapolate the whole from one apparently misunderstood incident.

  • eVoting: a solution in search of a problem? (Score:5, Informative)

    by coaxial ( 28297 ) on Saturday July 03, 2004 @01:53PM (#9600777) Homepage
    I can't help but think eVoting is a solution in search of a problem. Well not exactly, but it's overkill. The taxpayers are expected to shell out for expensive machines, that don't always work, and when they do work, aren't verifiably to be acurate.

    Compare this to Canada. They used paper ballots with big boxes next to the canidates' names. You place a mark in the box, and your vote is cast. After the polls close, they dump out the ballot box in front of anyone interested, and a representive from each party examines each ballot and tallys the votes. When ever vote has been counted and everyone's tally agrees, they call in the count is official. They place a phone call, and they go home.

    Simple. Cheap. Transparent. Effective.

    We could learn alot from our neighbors to the north.

  • hey... (Score:3, Insightful)

    by ShadowRage ( 678728 ) on Saturday July 03, 2004 @02:00PM (#9600817) Homepage Journal
    why not try to make evoting just an interface to already used methods, like punch cards. no, seriously, that way we dont get those crap about hanging chads again, and the elderly can have a touch screen which would be simple to select the candidates, out comes the card, and into the ballot box it goes.

    it can be that simple, and I'd rather have punch cards than electronic storage, since electronic storage can be corrupted, or changed. one hard drive failure in one voting machine or system could lead to a panic, punch cards may be old and simple, but they work! so, why not just combine the best of both worlds?

  • UN watchdogs have been requested (Score:3, Interesting)

    by charnov ( 183495 ) on Saturday July 03, 2004 @02:34PM (#9601005) Homepage Journal
    I looked on Drudge Report and it seems a couple of Representitives have requested UN oversight in the next election. It's Drudge, so who knows how accurate it is, but it would be wild to have UN observers validating the election. Personally, I think the elections should last a week and for an independent (publicly funded) group make sure every single eligible person votes. Or better yet, cast your vote on your tax form...heh.
    • Cast paper ballots the day after tax day.
      • That would be great! People seem pretty bitter around April 16th, and I imagine there would be a lot more turn-out, especially for candidates who promise (for what that's really worth) to lower taxes and cut waste.

        Of course it makes perfect sense that elections are more than half a year after tax day, with plenty of holidays to dull memories before the next tax day. Happy dumb people are easy to hoodwink.

        I heard recently that the IRS spends somewhere between $0.40 and $0.50 for each $1.00 they collect.
  • I think that you people miss the point of electronic voting:
    The government is simply the conventional city/state/nation/world-wide power-coordinating structure (or so the theory of democracy goes).
    With electronic voting WE DON'T NEED THAT STRUCTURE ANYMORE.
    Voting is a means to coordinated action. Electronic voting is a means of voting conveniently, without the need of government provided voting/power-coordinating services.
    With electronic voting we don't need a government.
    ANY kind of coord
    • And just who do you think does the convincing?

      That's right! The government! (in the form of law-enforcement personell, mostly.)

      The problem is, although it is relatively easy to get a concensus when dealing with an issue in the abstract (personX, conditionY, amountZ, etc.), the vast majority of people have very little trouble justifying to themselves making an exception for themselves.

      So, you have to implement personal costs to counter the personal rewards that ignoring the community's best interests (or

  • I want the paper. (Score:4, Insightful)

    by PotatoHead ( 12771 ) * <doug.opengeek@org> on Saturday July 03, 2004 @02:59PM (#9601116) Homepage Journal
    Having the machines provide an interface to more easily cast the vote has advantages for the blind, old and handicapped, and this is a good thing. For most of us, the paper method works just fine.

    I love tech, but if there is one aspect of live that deserves the luddite treatment, this is it. Why?

    Trust is one of the pillars of democracy. Participation is another.

    The transient nature of electronic bits combined with our inability to actually see them move and change breaks the chain of trust we need to be assured our system actually works. We can see paper move, we can know the persons who perform the tally. With bits, we simply have to hope the machine does what its creator says. Given our history, we are fools to place our trust into such a system. Concentrations of power have always proven bad, why would this be any different.

    The rush to speed the process is counter to the goal of participation and political discourse over the issues. Voting is not supposed to be quick. Voting takes time because it takes time to make the hard decisions. Since these decisions largely affect all of us, we should be taking the time to make them correctly. Coolness factor aside, the current push to modernize voting actually marginalizes the process. This is not healthy.

    Early in life, I saw the political process as being messy and time consuming. I did not always vote. Having gotten a bit older and wiser (thanks GW for getting me involved!) I see now the true value of the process.

    The last 4 years have shown me the result of hasty decisions made with broken trust and I don't want to experience any more.

    On a side note, why doesn't Kerry push this HARD! I don't get it. Somebody please explain this to me. Seriously. why not?

    GW has motivated me to stay involved and perform my civic duty. Not everyone agrees, but there are an awful lot of people who do. Why be lazy? Isn't this stuff important to you? To put this in /. terms: Remember when Lessig said, "Why won't they fight?" This is the same apathy on a broader scale with the same consequenses.

    I am going to perform my civic duty. My state, Oregon, has a mail in ballot system with its own problems. Still I call and write letters and tell people how electronic bits really work. I mailed a copy of "Black Box Voting" to my representitive along with a call to action on reforming the process.

    You folks living in the swing states should get off your duff and do the same because it directly affects you!

    Good results take hard work. This means casting your vote with due consideration over the issues, preferably with your peers prior to the vote. Some of us have to tally the votes cast, make sure you are one of them. Work hard to build trust with others doing the same. Ask to watch the process --it is public, afterall. Somebody said, "the price of freedom is eternal vigilence". (ok, so I need to work at spelling --civics first!)

    Ask your peers and representitives to see the process and show their trust with an open voting process. If they argue it's too much work, let them know there are plenty of unemployed and senior citizens willing and able to get that work done. If they don't understand the trust issue, talk about the machine and their inability to know what happens inside the wires.

    We need to close the circle of trust. The last election and its 4 year result should motivate a large enough percentage of us to make this a non-issue. The fact that it hasn't disturbs me. Do we really not give a fuck? Maybe we do need a bit more punishment and loss of freedom to make the point perfectly clear.

    I get it now, will you before it's too late to live long enough to see the damage undone?

    Fucking do something.

  • Back to the technology (Score:1, Informative)

    by Anonymous Coward

    For those excited about electronic voting (positive or otherwise), or those excited about the prospect of looking for bugs in JSP java code... used in an actual voting proces!

    Have a look at the source [ososs.nl] (Dutch site, code under "klik hier", english code/javadoc) of the voting platform used in the Netherlands for internet voting by out of country nationals during the last european elections. Its GPL, share and enjoy.

    Nothing says "internet voting != secure" as a piece of proof of concept code that could have

  • The possessive of "it" is "its", not "it's."

    Geeks used to pride themselves on being pedantic. What the hell happened?
  • Incidentally... the Computer Professionals for Social Responsibility (CPSR), which in the range of computer-related professional organizations is on the more issue-activist end of the spectrum, has been quite active on voting technology. Check out the organization's e-voting working group [cpsr.org].

    Also, the CRSP testimony to the Election Assistance Commission [cpsr.org] is worth a read.

  • I have an idea. Why not adapt the ballots to the needs of the humans who cast votes, and design the voting/counting machines to cope with the ballots? You know, instead of adapting ballots to the needs of the machines and asking the humans to cope with it? ACM has a CHI [human-computer interaction] SIG, but voting system vendors don't seem to have heard the term.

  • Comment: If physical records are mandatorily kept and a process is established whereby recounts are requested for the physical records, I expect every election to be challenged and recounted, ending up being worse than the status quo (adding the first electronic step) and driving the public opinion against the usefulness of such electronical systems. I'd rather see great redundancy in where the results are sent electronically and independent automatic (fast) counts for the potential of electronic voting to
  • My main complaint with the ACM's proposed policy statement is that it includes hyperlinks to statements by organizations both in favor and opposed to the policy.

    The whole point of presenting a statement is to control what you're saying. You can't do that if you're linking to what others say. Presumably the links were included to indicate what 'responsible' organizations were saying both in favor of and in opposition to the policy.

    What if one of the organizations rearranges their web site and the URL moves

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