NYCPHP Meetup

[sbeam]

On Wednesday 27 August 2008 08:09, bzcoder wrote:
> Peter Sawczynec wrote:
> > But we cannot, just
> > cannot for some reason create a single working accurate voting
> > tabulation system. Just what (What?) is that issue?
> >
> >  
>
> Voting systems have to be at a level that volunteers can monitor and
> help out people who are voting.
>
> Computer geeks are slow to volunteer to help out on election day,
> therefore systems have to be simplified so people who predate computers
> can use them while at the same time cannot be prone to tampering by a
> few geeks who do volunteer.
>
> Than the few computer geeks who are interested go off and create  an
> open source project that is geared to stuff their philosophy of
> computing down everyone else's throat, while still not being simple and
> intuitive for my grandma to use.

Actually the main problem with the Diebold system wasn't bad usability, it was 
their completely closed, black-box nature, where you are forced to trust this 
for-profit entity that has some extremely interesting ties with other major 
government contractors that have not been squeaky-clean in the past. So we 
don't know A) that the machines tally what they say they tally or B) that the 
people who do know what code lies deep under the security system are really 
on the up-and-up and C) that the company is even competent to create such a 
system (Diebold is not). Paranoia? maybe, but not if they are really out to 
get you.

An open-source system which is completely available to inspection by 
activists, academics, concerned informed citizenry, etc. would actually be a 
better solution. I'm sure a system could be designed that grandma and the 
volunteers could use, without having to learning Perl or emacs or anything.  

But - good luck getting the mainstream government and software industry to 
pass on a chance to make a multi billion$ profit. And good luck getting a 
bunch of geeks to agree on anything. So you won't see a FOSS balloting system 
rollout in this lifetime - but what else would possibly allow trust of the 
system? Personally I am not qualified to inspect and vet such a system, but 
maybe if "they" say it's OK then it is. Maybe.

The fact is, a hardcopy paper audit trail is a lot simpler and you don't need 
a PhD in cryptology to understand it. And it might even be cheaper than a 
digital solution. So that is what we have, hanging chads and all. I think we 
have bigger problems.