IP: The Brazilian version of electronic voting machines

[Dave Farber <dave () farber net>]

> Date: Tue, 30 Jan 2001 22:19:55 -0200
> To: farber () cis upenn edu
> From: Michael Stanton <michael () ic uff br>
>
>
> Dave
>
> The recent electoral tumult in the US led many observers here in Brazil to 
> point to the advantages of the all-electronic voting machines used in 
> Brazilian nationwide elections in October and November, 2000. I understand 
> that the machines htemselves may have been offered for US use as a 
> replacement for the different forms of voting automation in use in your 
> country. What is not often heard abroad, or even here in Brazil, are 
> serious criticisms of the technology being used. In view of the growing 
> interest in developing an alternative to the present systems, I thought 
> you and your readers might like to read what I wrote about the matter back 
> in November, in the immediate aftermath of the Florida voting. The text 
> was originally published in Portuguese, but recently a translation into 
> English has been posted on Rebecca Mercuri's electronic voting page, and 
> may be found at 
> http://www.notablesoftware.com/Press/electronic_voting_in_brasil.htm.
>
> The article begins:
>
> "The main news of last week was, without a doubt, the still undefined 
> result of the US presidential election, and the vote recount in the state 
> of Florida. It seems that it will still take some time for the final 
> result of this election to be defined, and this has already been the cause 
> for a number of leader-writers and columnists in the Brazilian press to 
> suggest to our neighbours to the North that they ought to adopt the same 
> electronic voting technology which was used in the Brazilian municipal 
> elections in October this year, an experience without parallel in the 
> world for an election on this scale."
>
> Best wishes
>
> Michael Stanton
> Instituto de Computação
> Universidade Federal Fluminense
> Niterói, RJ, Brazil



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