Re: [MLUG - DISCUSSION] rage against the voting machine...

["Jonathan King" <EMAIL:PROTECTED>]

On 11/2/06, Christian M. Cepel <EMAIL:PROTECTED> wrote:
> I will remind people that when using the Ivotronic here in Boone County,
> every time you press the screen there is a record of it on a printed
> tape in a little window to the side of the touch screen.  Every choice
> you make can be verified on paper at any time while you're voting.  Once
> you submit it, it code stamps it and then it scrolls out of the visible
> window.

I'm glad to hear that this system has an audit trail. I think this
would prevent the specific problem noted with the machines in the
article.  What is not at all clear to me, however, is why we needed
the machines in Columbia in the first place. The optically scored
paper ballots they used to use were hands down the best system I have
ever used in 25 years of voting. They were better than the paper
ballots of Massachusetts, better than the voting machines of
Pittsburgh, better than San Diego, and loads better than the crappy
system we seem to have going in Maryland. None of the voting machines
I have seen so far are clearly superior to paper ballots and big black
sharpies; none scale up as well, none require less training, and none
are more intuitive to a wide range of voters.  Sure, you can screw up
a paper ballot (the infamous "vote on every page" directive in Florida
was a fiasco), but voting does not need to be as difficult as all
that. It really doesn't.

jking


> Jonathan King wrote:
> > Oh, this is just lovely. I *so* hope that it isn't true.
> >
> > http://www.bbvforums.org/cgi-bin/forums/board-auth.cgi?file=/1954/44823.html
> >
> >
> > So HOW in the world have we managed to make voting machines that are
> > about 1% as secure as the padlock on a 1940s era voting box?
> >
> > jking
> >
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