Thursday, July 08, 2004
Electronic voting machines - what's the fuss about?
It sounds like a great idea. You vote on a touch-screen terminal, there's no room for confusion or hanging chads, and the systems can be programed for use by disabled people.
So why are people protesting the idea? Are they just paranoid?
No. The more expertise someone has in computer security, the more alarmed they get about the current generation of electronic voting machines. The vendors have been making silly mistakes and refusing to let outside experts look at how their machines work. I do mean silly mistakes. Security experts have dropped their jaws and wondered "WHAT were they THINKING?". If you think problems are unlikely, remember that a virus got into cash machines at Bank of America.
What's the answer? Should we voters insist on getting paper receipts when we vote, like some of the activists suggest?
Paper receipts aren't enough. Building a secure system is like keeping yourself healthy -- no one single thing will do it, you have to get a bunch of things right. Get one security detail wrong, and it ruins the security like smoking ruins your health.
We'd get the best of both worlds if you voted on a computer and it printed out an old-style paper ballot. Then the computer could help you understand the ballot, but we'd have paper available for recounts.
What we need to do is put the heat on our government officials. Let them know we care about whether they do electronic voting right. Check the blue pages of your phone book for your state representatives and the "secretary of state", who supervises elections. Call them. Insist that independent security experts review and approve the electronic systems. Insist on a system that can be audited: banks accept nothing less and banks are only handling money, not our democracy.
"The condition upon which God hath given liberty to man is eternal vigilance;" John Philpot Curran, 1790
|
So why are people protesting the idea? Are they just paranoid?
No. The more expertise someone has in computer security, the more alarmed they get about the current generation of electronic voting machines. The vendors have been making silly mistakes and refusing to let outside experts look at how their machines work. I do mean silly mistakes. Security experts have dropped their jaws and wondered "WHAT were they THINKING?". If you think problems are unlikely, remember that a virus got into cash machines at Bank of America.
What's the answer? Should we voters insist on getting paper receipts when we vote, like some of the activists suggest?
Paper receipts aren't enough. Building a secure system is like keeping yourself healthy -- no one single thing will do it, you have to get a bunch of things right. Get one security detail wrong, and it ruins the security like smoking ruins your health.
We'd get the best of both worlds if you voted on a computer and it printed out an old-style paper ballot. Then the computer could help you understand the ballot, but we'd have paper available for recounts.
What we need to do is put the heat on our government officials. Let them know we care about whether they do electronic voting right. Check the blue pages of your phone book for your state representatives and the "secretary of state", who supervises elections. Call them. Insist that independent security experts review and approve the electronic systems. Insist on a system that can be audited: banks accept nothing less and banks are only handling money, not our democracy.
"The condition upon which God hath given liberty to man is eternal vigilance;" John Philpot Curran, 1790
# posted by Frederick @ 5:29 PM Email to a friend:
Haloscan: they provide trackback