Touch-Screen Voting Could Present Problem for Floridians (Bluehair,AARP alert)

Foxnews ^ | 11-02-03

[Armed Civilian]

MIAMI

[NonValueAdded]

Gee, who saw this one coming? Sheesh.

[jackbill]

Despite the advances from optical scanners

Will someone, please, please, please tell me what "the advances from optical scanners" really are????? Please.

Here in Maryland, the State Board of Elections is spending $55 million to replace optical scanners with this monstrosity, which costs anywhere from 15 to 20 times what the optical scanning system costs. And for what? Please tell me.

And now, because of some complaints, the state will probably spend more to get a "paper trail". Why? Please?

I have decided that from now on I'll vote by absentee ballot - which will continue to be counted via the optical scanner. Go figure.

[meenie]

The more things change the more they stay the same. We should be able to have as crooked election systems as before. Paper ballots and pencils with large numbers of poll workers is as good as you can get. Canada has their elections with paper ballots and the returns come in faster than the United States with all their variations.

[MEG33]

I'm beginning to agree.

[Cobra64]

"There's no paper trail," said Rep. Robert Wexler, D-Fla., "And there's no assurance that what you put into the machines actually happens."

Yup. We need optical scanners and fingerprints. Just as we have for illegals coming into this country.

I'd trust the 'puters before I'd trust the unconfirmed "dead" voters in this country.

Even in NC, I'd betcha that most here are undocumented. Can't imagine what it's like in NM, AZ, or TX. This country is spinning out of control Here in NC, when you go to get a bottle of milk, there's more Guatalamans and Mexicans than in Central America. One has to wonder how these people would vote... if they knew the issues and could read/speak English?

America is going down the sewer in terms of PC.

[longtermmemmory]

1/4 of all broward digital machines need one form of repair or another.

[OneTimeLurker]

Not having a paper trail is stuuuuupid. That's something on which liberals and conservatives can agree.

[Cobra64]

IBM and Cray can do some very sophisticated transactions. Now we need paper? How about those that bank on-line? I just moved $80k from one account to another. I will say that Fidelity sent me a verification statement. If the electronic voting concept were SIMILAR to this, then I am not against the concept. It would quiet the doubtin Thomases and eliminate voter fraud unless the address were sent to a cemetary.... (well maybe). Need to get Kennedy's take on this notion.

[longtermmemmory]

Even if you are here LEGALLY, you can easily register to vote. (even though it is a felony)

This must be fixed.

[longtermmemmory]

however, this is politics. I do not underestimate the power of human stupidity to NOT want a paper trail. In fact even in paperless transactions, there is some human contact point that can be traced.

You should also note (not condemning you) that your transaction is NOT anonnymous. Votes are anonymous and can not (hopefully) traced to a specific person.

[OneTimeLurker]

No paper trail is stuuupid. That's something on which liberals and conservatives can agree.

[OneTimeLurker]

The way the voting machines work is that they store the vote. The only way to track the votes is to print up a report after all the voting is done. If the counting mechanism was tampered with it will only spit out the tampered result so no way to know if something went wrong.

With you transferring money, there is a sender and receiver so there is an automatic record (somebody sent somebody received). Plus the banks track it and your wire gets a Fed reference number. ATM transfers have two parties too(plus you can get a receipt at the time if you want). This is not the case with the elec. voting machines.

[Vinnie]

If the electronic voting concept were SIMILAR to this, then I am not against the concept. I

Imagine you are transferring the money knowing there is a bank employee that may have access to your transaction and wants some of your money. He could steal some or all of it with a few keystrokes and you would have to prove someone did it.
Want a paper trail now?

[pabianice]

Hell. Using colored rocks to vote would pose problems for those turkeys.

[savedbygrace]

"There's no paper trail," said Rep. Robert Wexler, D-Fla., "And there's no assurance that what you put into the machines actually happens."

Nooooooo. My world just came to an end. I actually agree with something Wexler said. Shoot me now.

[Armed Civilian]

BANG!! LOL Thankfully Wexler is no longer my congressman. We redistricted and now The Hon. E. Clay Shaw is.

[Libertina]

"It's easier for voters to use. Very, very easy for us to falsify and rig elections," said Theresa LaPore, supervisor of elections for Palm Beach County<

[supercat]

If the electronic voting concept were SIMILAR to this, then I am not against the concept.

In nearly all non-trivial electronic financial transactions, there are records which can be cross-checked to confirm that everything is legit. If you use your bank-by-computer to send $500 to your credit card company, you can call your credit card company to see that they received $500, and you can check your bank account to ensure that exactly $500 has been taken from it. In the event that $5,000 was taken from your account instead of $500, you'd be able to demand an accounting of where the extra $4500 went. If it went to the credit card company by mistake (whether because you miskeyed the amount or for whatever reason) you could ask the credit card company to send it back. In no case would money just "disappear".

For a variety of reasons, voting is required to be anonymous. Votes thus cannot be traced back to people. The only way to ensure the validity of an election, then, is to have the votes be traceable back to some form of alteration-resistant medium whose accuracy can be confirmed by voters when they vote.

[supercat]

Will someone, please, please, please tell me what "the advances from optical scanners" really are????? Please.

Well, I can think of some improvements that could be made to optical scanners. With a few tweaks, they could yield a system of vote tabulation that was exceptionally resistant to tampering and fraud--even insider fraud. But all of the DRE systems I've read about are horrible from that perspective.