ptalk > December 2003

e-Voting e-Vents

After announcing that they were rejecting Diebold Elections Systems' cease and desist orders and initiating a campaign of legal electronic civil disobedience, Why War? and the Swarthmore Coalition for the Digital Commons (SCDC) held a public meeting yesterday. In attendance were representatives of Swarthmore College, where both organizations are based and the site of the first hosting of the documents in this campaign. Overnight, word had spread of this action and Dean Bob Gross had received over 250 emails of support from individuals throughout the world including "tech celebrities" and Swarthmore College alumni. [...]

Responding to a raft of reports detailing flaws in electronic voting systems, California Secretary of State Kevin Shelley today announced that he is requiring all electronic voting systems purchased by California counties to provide a paper printout to allow voters to verify their votes and auditors to verify election results. [...]

[...] you don't have to believe in a central conspiracy to worry that partisans will take advantage of an insecure, unverifiable voting system to manipulate election results. Why expose them to temptation?

[...] So, how do you know that the machine actually counted your vote? You don't! Oh sure, you may see a screen at the end of the process that shows you what you selected ... but how do you know that those choices are actually tabulated? The answer: trust the companies that make the machines. But that attitude, if it ever made sense, has been shown to be not just wrong but foolhardy in the past several months. [...]