E-Voting Recommendations Problematic

from the is-it-that-hard? dept

It certainly took them long enough. Given that electronic voting machines were all the rage in the last election -- despite plenty of serious questions about their reliability and accuracy, you'd think that maybe the government would have come out with more detailed guidelines before the election, rather than after. Anyway, they finally did come out with their guidelines and they don't seem to be all that useful. Most importantly, they're just guidelines. No one actually has to follow them. Second, it doesn't say that voting machines should have a paper audit trail -- which still seems like a pretty important component, especially considering stories about how some voting machines' electronic audit didn't actually match up with the votes (isn't that what an audit is supposed to do in the first place?). Of course, one interesting thing to note is that, based on these guidelines, it appears the popular Diebold machines that so many election officials didn't want to give up, wouldn't actually meet these (somewhat weak) standards.
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  • identicon
    flipside, 7 Jul 2005 @ 10:59pm

    No Subject Given

    just an added note, i agree 100% with the problems and quirks associated with them, my question is, how hard is it really to make a machine that counts!!atomic clocks,men on the moon, machines on mars,particle accelerators,shit even a toaster is more complex a device than a damn voting machine!.ok.im done.thanks for humoring me.

    link to this | view in chronology ]

    • identicon
      eskayp, 9 Jul 2005 @ 6:18pm

      Re: flipside

      Thanks for humoring the rest of us.
      No doubt: the technology exists.
      The 'flipside' is that the integrity of the design
      and of those who desire to implement it
      is seriously lacking.
      Has anyone started a pool on how the NEXT
      election will be stolen?

      link to this | view in chronology ]


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