Building a Better Voting Machine

edmicman writes "Wired News has an interesting article about what would make the perfect voting machine: 'With election season upon us, Wired News spoke with two of the top computer scientists in the field, UC Berkeley's David Wagner and Princeton's Ed Felten, and came up with a wish list of features we would include in a voting machine, if we were asked to create one. These recommendations can't guarantee clean results on their own. Voting machines, no matter how secure, are no remedy for poor election procedures and ill-conceived election laws. So our system would include thorough auditing and verification capabilities and require faithful adherence to good election practices, as wells as topnotch usability and security features.'"

The Better Mousetrap

[ackthpt]

Build a better mousetrap and the world will beat a path to your door*

* Subject to verification of safety by Underscribblers Laboratories; application, denial, re-application, re-denial, vetting by 12,256 paper shufflers, 52,469 rubber stampers, 245,193 red tape processors; re-re-application and final acceptance by the USPTO. Further said design must be the subject of scrutiny, in that it does not deprive any current american mousetrap assembly personnel or their employment in most favoured states, diminish compensation of executives, tip political balances one way or the other by being to simple or complex for the average lemming to operate, or threaten the United States Strategic Mousetrap Reserve. Further said design must be accepted by the US Mousetrap Think Tank and Allied Trade Council, 5870 G Street, Washington DC. Said mousetrap must be put forward in the US House of Representatives and Senate before proffering for acceptance by the head rat himself. Should said design be deemed without backdoor, defect or flaw**, please include next of kin to notify upon your mysterious disapperance.

** Particularly in Ohio where victory is already predicted by a mousetrap supplier who is a solid supporter of the head rat's party and has pledged to deliver as many votes for the head rat and his pals as possible. We can't have him looking bad now, can we?

Lines of Code = Tax Code

[AeroIllini]

"If you've got 50,000 lines of code, that's approaching the complexity of the U.S. tax code," Wagner says.

Could you please express that number in Libraries of Congress? If you laid out all those lines of code without newlines, how many times would it wrap around the Earth?

Re:Open source & peer review

[tonyr1988]

When that majoriy agrees that a system is secure, then it's ready for use.

Exactly! That's where Diebold's machines come in. You can use them to determine when you've hit that majority!

Re:Don't build anything

[Anonymous Coward]

Canada, one of Americas greatest neighbours to the north...

Canada does lead the world in being just north of the United States.