http://www.scoop.co.nz/mason/stories/HL0307/S00065.htm
Its a Microsoft fucking Access database that anybody with a copy of "Access for Dummies" can change the votes in.
um, doesn't it always come down to that the numbers are stored in a database somewhere and if someone changed those numbers, short of a recount, they changed the election?
Maybe I am not that bright, but I don't get the big issue past if you can hack into the system at the hq, you can change numbers. Which I would answer - yeah isn't that true now?
Chet
It's more interesting that you can fake up the audit trail.
Paper can be recounted by hand.Originally Posted by Chet
Its a rather transparent system that most everyone understands and can double check. Ballots are taken and put into a box. No one is allowed to look in the box, and you have people follow simple rules to make sure that the boxes are taken and tallied without being tainted. If there are problems, everyone gets out the ballots again and counts them. Most of the people that work polling places are elderly types, and everyone understands the system. We get the election results in a few hours (ok, most of the time, I am aware of a few occasions where it drug on for a few weeks), and everyone is happy.
In contrast, in a computer system, people punch their votes into a magic box that isn't understandable by anyone save the people that put the system together (and who aren't telling anyone) and the magic box spits out the winner.
I program computers every day. They're not magic miracle boxes, and voting and elections are very important things.
They used paper in Florida didn't they? Case closed.
They used obsolete paper. Hanging chads are so 1960s. Its called a marker and optical reader. Voter fills in the box with a provided marker. No hanging, windowed, door chads or anything.
edit: After thinking a little more, the best solution is a hybrid paper/electronic system. The user is lead through the simplest touchscreen interface system possible, which then confirms all the votes and catches all the overvotes, this prints out a paper ballot which can be verified easily, and then this paper is put into the ballot box with electronic values transmitted back to HQ.
If there's any question, this entire system can be audited.
Someone care to poke holes in this?
Why couldn't the polling stations just resend the data? Paper isn't magic, it can be faked as well.
You actually program? If that doesn't make you an expert, I don't know what does!
Chet
The chads might have been important if they had ever actually recounted the votes. But they never did.
All the chad nonsense was useful and effective propoganda.
I haven't read enough to know whether or not they were counted or not, but your point is very valid -- it was good propaganda.
A simple to use electronic voting machine
PRESS THE CANDIDATE YOU WISH TO VOTE FOR FOR PRESIDENT FOR 2004:
John McCain - Republican Party
Howard Dean - Democratic Party
Bob Libertarian - Libertarian Party
Fred The Crazy Man - Natural Law Party
ARE YOU SURE YOU WANT TO VOTE FOR Fred the Crazy Man: (YES/NO)
The machine then sends the vote for Fred The Crazy Man to HQ and prints out a piece of paper saying there was a vote for Fred The Crazy Man and this paper is put into a sealed box.
I like it XPav, I like it.
Like you the idea of an entirely electronic system makes me nervous. Yes, Chet is right, you can fake paper, but I think it's harder than cheating with the electronic system because you have to fake lots and lots of paper to make it worthwhile (unless you have an unusual situation like last election, where faking just a few hundred votes is enough). With electronics the cost of cheating goes down, because you only have to cheat in one place and cheating millions of votes and cheating one vote has potentially similar costs (if you can hack the system for one vote, you can hack it for millions).
Your hybrid situation solves the incorrect vote problem (particularly with the double check in your most recent post) and still gives us a trail we can use for auditing purposes.
What's more frightening are recent stories tracing the ownership of companies providing the electronic balloting machines/software to individuals with strong political ties. What's still more frightening are court rulings that no audit of the software or ballots from electronic machines can be conducted due to the "rights of privacy" that the providing corporations posess, under the psychopathic American legal standard that corporations posess the same rights as individual citizens.
I believe that Diebold is using the DMCA to protect their software from scrutiny.
Can't states just say, "we won't buy your voting machines until we see under the hood?"
Of course they can say that.
Will they? I live in California -- I'm not exactly thrilled at the competence of my state government.
That's exactly why you need to vote for Arnold.
Unless Ahnold has 10 billion sitting around, I'm not sure how he'd do any better at the budget crisis.
It's pretty clear (to me at least) that Arnold enjoys the attention, but isn't all that interested in the job. My impression is that he enjoys being a multi-millionaire who works a few months out of each year to garner continued international acclaim. Being a governer involves the kind of focus and skills that he are far beyond his acting skills.
Maybe he could yell out "You're Vetoed" each time he shoots a state Senator.
*insert comment about how a system is only as secure as its weakest link*
- Alan
And don't even get me started about the Electoral College!
Wacko Perot got 19% of the popular vote. How many ec votes? 0!
The 2 party system sucks!
Good. I don't like the idea of electing a leader who gets 49% of the vote, so I like the idea of electing one who gets 30% even less. The two party system forces both candidates to at least pay lip service to the Moderates. Neither candidate can be too radical, and still be elected. I think that's the way the system was built, and that's the way it should keep working. All a 3rd party candidate does is hands the election to one of the other two. (Perot to Clinton, Nader to Bush.)
From what I've seen, I think the 2 party system does exactly the opposite. Because candidates have to go through the primaries, they play to either the far left or the far right. Once they've gained their parties nomination then they try to head back to the center.Good. I don't like the idea of electing a leader who gets 49% of the vote, so I like the idea of electing one who gets 30% even less. The two party system forces both candidates to at least pay lip service to the Moderates. Neither candidate can be too radical, and still be elected. I think that's the way the system was built, and that's the way it should keep working. All a 3rd party candidate does is hands the election to one of the other two. (Perot to Clinton, Nader to Bush.)
I've been pretty disgusted watching the primaries. Consider Bush for example. I was initially attracted to his message of "Compassionate Conservatism". But then he wasn't doing as well in the primaries as he wanted. First he announced his tax cut plan because he needed to garner votes and he knew that would play well with the conservative base. Then he gave the talk at Bob Jones (or whatever university it was that didn't allow inter-racial dating), again to play to the far right. Polls showed that most of America didn't think we needed a tax cut, but the far right did. I'm sure polls will show that even if they don't believe in inter-racial dating, Americans believe if people want to do it, it should be okay, but again talking at Bob Jones played to the far right. Once the primaries was over, Bush was stuck with the tax cut that he had promised to win the primaries. Hell, I probably would have voted for him if it wasn't for his tax cut plan -- it's not like I was a big Al Gore fan. That tax cut was just plain wrong for the country and most of the country knew it. It probably ended up costing Bush a fair number of votes in the final election, but it was the necessary price for him to win the primary. The 2-party system and the primaries actually forces candidates to be more radical not less.
If all of America had chosen between Bush, Gore, and McCain, I suspect McCain might have actually won. But we never had that choice because of the two party system. McCain couldn't win the primary because he was too much of a centrist, too many of his supporters were Democrats not Republicans, and they didn't get to vote for him in the Primaries. People in the center get shafted by the 2-party system.
And because we only have two choice, all the big money goes to them, so they're BOTH in the pockets of big business. Even big businesses which aren't based in our countries. So we import more and more, export less and less, and we get crap like NAFTA.
Some of these things might still happen with a more open party system. But if there were multiple parties, I think government might have to work harder to reach consensus, and also work harder to please their constituents (the ppl who vote for them, not their PACs)
It is Bob Jones (here in liberal SC - although I think they may have lifted the inter-racial dating ban...not sure) When we moved out here in 94, we voted to amend the constitution so inter-racial marriages were no longer unconstitutional (sigh).
However, in primaries here, you can vote in either Rep or Dem primary, just not in both - so we voted in the Republican primary so we'd hopefully have a better choice in the national election. It'll be interesting to see how next year goes with our primary moved up so early.
But it's really depressing to see how few people vote - and how ignorant so many people are... I teach math at a community college and on past tests have had a bonus question "There are ___ states in the United States." Many (in some classes over half) of the students get it wrong.
In California we could vote in either primary too, except the parties sued to block it. If I remember correctly the final decision from the courts was that we could vote for either party in non-presidential elections and for presidential elections we could vote for the other party and the vote would be tallied and reported, but it wouldn't count (or some such nonsense) -- any Californians out there who can correct me on this one?. Anyway, as I recall the bottom line was parties still maintained their power and the at least California primaries reinforced the parties power and helped non-centrist candidates.
In California we can vote for any candidate we want, but it only matters if we're a member of that party. For everyone else its the "beauty contest".
That's why I was registered Republican for the 2000 Primary election -- so I could vote for McCain.
I agree with everything but this; the estimated effect of free trade since 1970 or so is a .2% drop in the wages of the bottom quintile of workers. That's it.So we import more and more, export less and less, and we get crap like NAFTA.
For CA residents: http://action.eff.org/action/index.asp?step=2&item=2718
Reviving an old topic...
Diebold, the makers of highly insecure voting machines is now using the DCMA to suppress information. A Wired news story reports on Diebold's ongoing campaign to shut down web sites posting internal Diebold memos that expose how slipshod their security is.
Oh, hey, Democracy is overated anyway. Freedom only leads to terrorism. Let's all shop at Walmart and grow mullets.
(OK, I'm kidding! Lots of people are keeping a close eye on this stuff. Frankly, Diebold appears to be run by right wingers in cahoots with the Axis of Bush. They must be stopped before another election is stolen.)
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