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A Proud Member of the Reality-Based Community
About Me :
I'm a grownup nerd living in the Boston burbs. I write computer programs for a living and plays for fun.
I'm married to a wonderful woman, and we share a nice little house with our daughter and our cats.
I'm a humanist, a technologist, an artist, and an idealist. I believe in reason, freedom, love, equality,
and democracy. (Did I mention that I'm
an idealist? I did, OK.)
I'm also a pragmatist and an empiricist. I reject ideology and dogma, especially when they conflict with
practical facts (i.e., pretty much always). I particularly hate willful ignorance, which tends to go hand-in-hand
with ideology and dogma.
Like the alignment of the planets, this blog gets updated as I have the time, inspiration, and inclination to do so.
Like the alignment of the planets, this blog gets updated as I have the time, inspiration, and inclination to do so.
Wednesday, June 09, 2004
The Problem With Computerized Voting Machines
The shortest and most straightforward statement of the problem comes from Verified Voting:
As a technical professional, I am in favor of applying computer technology to the administration of elections. I believe that the way it's being done by Diebold et al. is exactly the wrong way to do it, and it leaves us vulnerable to all kinds of mischief.
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The shortest and most straightforward statement of the problem comes from Verified Voting:
"Computerized voting equipment is inherently subject to programming error, equipment malfunction, and malicious tampering. It is therefore crucial that voting equipment provide a voter-verifiable audit trail, by which we mean a permanent record of each vote that can be checked for accuracy by the voter before the vote is submitted, and is difficult or impossible to alter after it has been checked. Many of the electronic voting machines being purchased do not satisfy this requirement. Voting machines should not be purchased or used unless they provide a voter-verifiable audit trail; when such machines are already in use, they should be replaced or modified to provide a voter-verifiable audit trail. Providing a voter-verifiable audit trail should be one of the essential requirements for certification of new voting systems."
-- Verified Voting Resolution (http://www.verifiedvoting.org/resolution.asp)
As a technical professional, I am in favor of applying computer technology to the administration of elections. I believe that the way it's being done by Diebold et al. is exactly the wrong way to do it, and it leaves us vulnerable to all kinds of mischief.