It's the computers' turn to mess up elections

Boston Globe ^ | November 17, 2003 | Hiawatha Bray,

[sarcasm]

Nearly a year before the presidential election, concerned citizens are already crying foul. But nobody's arguing over butterfly ballots or punch cards this time, as they did during the interminable Florida recount of 2000. After all, it's the 21st century now. All future elections will be screwed up with the aid of computers. Various local elections throughout the United States early this month provided worrisome hints of the woes to come.

[Fledermaus]

It's simple, because government employees are morons. They can barely tie their own shoes and couldn't run a lemonade stand.

[BushCountry]

You have government employees that are morons and a lot of poll workers who have the technical saavy of a sandflea (mostly near retirement age). They are still using their coffee cup holder that comes shipped with their PC. You know, the CD-ROM drive.

Even if this weren't true, computers are a stupid device to use for voting.

1. Easily manipulated by pols and their supporters.
2. Easily hacked by a pimplefaced teenage thrillseekers.
2. Programming code: All you need is a bad line of code in the 500,000 lines used.
3. So, many physical things that can cause errors: a weak power supply, brownout voltages, stuck bit, bad RAM, the list goes on and on.

But, the screens sure do look pruttty.

[BushCountry]

bump

[xrp]

Not having a paper trail to verify votes (as we did in 2000) is very troubling. A computer glitch or an insider or outsider threat could elect the wrong candidate and what is left of our republic would be very much in danger.

[dawn53]

There never has been a "perfect", mistake free election method, there never will be.

Even if everybody was given a pencil and paper and recorded their votes with a big "X" beside their choice in a two party run-off, human error could enter the counting process.

Counting millions of votes is just not "fool-proof".

When Al Gore first challenged the results in Florida in 2000, I said to my husband, "Every election and every method in the future will be influenced by this."

No matter what method is selected, it will always be questioned, especially if the Dems don't get the result they're looking for, someone will cry "disenfranchised."

[dawn53]

I'd like to have a paper trail, I hate walking away from a touch screen with no record of how I voted.

On the other hand, I walked away from the ballot box, many times after putting my punch card in, never dreaming that one day someone would be eyeballing it, trying to decide how I had voted or if I had intended to vote for a candidate when no punch was made.

Fraudulent means of "throwing" elections exist even with "paper trails."

[mewzilla]

If we made election fraud a capital offense, we'd definitely see less of it.

[Vaduz]

You have listed the four reasons the hac's want them,hac's hack self elect.

[A. Pole]

Republican school board candidate lost by a handful of votes, then learned that at least one of the computerized ballot boxes had a glitch that may have subtracted some of her votes.

Just make sure that you win by a small margin like 51%. If you get greedy like Saddam Hussein did and you win 99.99% of votes, the sheeple might become suspicious.

[palmer]

Just as Microsoft Corp. owns Windows, Diebold Election Systems Inc. owns the code that runs its voting machines.

Diebold uses Microsoft, two peas in a pod, security through obscurity. But obscurity of MS's code and protocols is fading and exploits are getting easier. Same thing will happen to Diebold.

Open systems will eventually take over since this business is too important to be left to the fear mongers.

[xrp]

Open systems will eventually take over

Huh???

[Publius6961]

But nobody's arguing over butterfly ballots or punch cards this time, as they did during the interminable Florida recount of 2000. After all, it's the 21st century now. All future elections will be screwed up with the aid of computers.

Since the early sixties we in engineering have had a love-hate relationship with computers.
Bottom line is we realized that not only could there be major screwups, but the new paradigm is that it happens now at the speed of light.

We are far from taming this new monster.
As long as there are people in the loop it will remain GIGO. Garbage in... garbage out.

Sort of like climate modeling. But that's another story.

[palmer]

Open systems can guarantee no insider hanky panky with the votes. Whereas it is conceivable that an insider at Microsoft could affect election results on Diebold machines.

[xrp]

Open systems can guarantee no insider hanky panky with the votes.

Are you talking about open source operating systems?

[palmer]

yes, plus open source election software.

[xrp]

You've got to be kidding. Open source software is just as susceptible to backdoors and other exploits as closed source software. The solution is to not rely on technology to count the votes for us.

[palmer]

The susceptibility is not the issue. Read the Diebold emails and you'll see how OS and SW obscurity leads to lying to election officials.

[Lunatic Fringe]

First- floating point calculations in computers can be very inaccurate... when we are talking about millions of votes, the difference of a few pwercentage points could have meant the difference between a Gore victory and a Bush victory.

Second, the only thing computers should be used for is to PRINT the completed ballot onto a scantron sheet, making sure the voter cast his/her ballot for the candidates of his/her choice. That scantron should then be placed into the standard counting machines, which have proven to be pretty reliable.

[xrp]

I'm not disputing the Diebold emails. I'm saying that using computers for voting is a BIIIIIIIIIIG mistake, either open source or closed source. GOOD BYE REPUBLIC!

Benjamin Franklin was approached by a group of citizens asking what sort of government the delegates had created. His answer was: "A republic, if you can keep it."