Interesting People mailing list archives
Electronic Voting - Is it safe?
From: Dave Farber <dave () farber net>
Date: Sat, 17 May 2003 08:01:17 -0400
------ Forwarded Message From: Dennis Paull <dpaull () svpal org> Date: Fri, 16 May 2003 22:13:42 -0700 To: Dave Farber <dave () farber net> Subject: Electronic Voting - Is it safe? Hi Dave, There is a major battle going on now among those who want to upgrade voting procedures from manual to electronic systems. For example, see: http://www.politechbot.com/p-04698.html http://verify.stanford.edu/EVOTE/NEWSLETTERS/v1n2.html <http://verify.stanford.edu/EVOTE/NEWSLETTERS/v1n2.html> http://verify.stanford.edu/evote.html Dr. David Dill, a leading researcher on this topic is the owner of the evote site at Stanford. He may be reached at: "Dr. David Dill" <elections () chicory stanford edu> There is a big problem, however. Most of these new machines do not supply a voter viewable paper (or other permanent media) audit trail. The result is that there is no way for the voters' intent to be recovered other than by trusting the machine to report truthfully what it thinks the voter intended. Given the huge incentive to bend election results by certain partisans, and the almost certain occurrence of programming bugs to crop up, it appears to me to be potentially destructive of our democratic processes to use these 'black box' voting machines. You have probably read of some of the dubious results that occurred during the '02 election. If not, I can refer you to suitable sites. I am asking your opinion as to whether you think a fully reliable computerized voting machine without voter viewable audit capability can be constructed. We would also need to understand the procedures to be used in testing and certifying such a system. If it is not possible, I hope that you would be willing to help make the IP subscribers aware of the potential failures of non-auditable election machines. Thanks, Dennis Paull 229 Correas Ave. Half Moon Bay, CA 650-712-0498 dpaull () svpal org ------ End of Forwarded Message ------------------------------------- You are subscribed as interesting-people () lists elistx com To manage your subscription, go to http://v2.listbox.com/member/?listname=ip Archives at: http://www.interesting-people.org/archives/interesting-people/
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- Electronic Voting - Is it safe? Dave Farber (May 17)