How Come There Aren't More Technologists On The Board Setting Voting Tech Standards?

from the questions,-questions,-questions dept

Tue, Aug 5th 2008 1:22am — Mike Masnick

Ed Felten raises a rather important question concerning the lack of knowledgeable computer scientists or other voting technology experts on the Election Assistance Commission (EAC) Board of Advisors. As Felten notes, the EAC is in charge of setting voting technology standards, and four slots (out of 39) on the board are specifically allocated for "members representing professionals in the field of science and technology." Already, only 4 out of 39 seats seems rather low, considering how important the technology choices are -- but it's even worse when the people filling those slots aren't actually technologists. Yes, Felten points out that three of the four slots are held by folks who are:

accomplished people who have something to offer on the board. But as far as I can tell they are not "professionals in the field of science and technology," so their appropriate positions on the board would be somewhere in the other thirty-five seats.

So, basically, as it stands, the group in charge of setting voting tech standards appears to have only one technologist on board, and that person, Barbara Simons, was only recently appointed.

Thank you for reading this Techdirt post. With so many things competing for everyone’s attention these days, we really appreciate you giving us your time. We work hard every day to put quality content out there for our community.

Techdirt is one of the few remaining truly independent media outlets. We do not have a giant corporation behind us, and we rely heavily on our community to support us, in an age when advertisers are increasingly uninterested in sponsoring small, independent sites — especially a site like ours that is unwilling to pull punches in its reporting and analysis.

While other websites have resorted to paywalls, registration requirements, and increasingly annoying/intrusive advertising, we have always kept Techdirt open and available to anyone. But in order to continue doing so, we need your support. We offer a variety of ways for our readers to support us, from direct donations to special subscriptions and cool merchandise — and every little bit helps. Thank you.

–The Techdirt Team

Filed Under: e-voting, eac, election assistance commission, technologists, voting

14 Comments

If you liked this post, you may also be interested in...

Reader Comments

Subscribe: RSS

View by: Time | Thread

Crosbie Fitch (profile), 5 Aug 2008 @ 2:31am

Farce
If the people in charge of voting can't even adhere to their own regulations governing how people may be elected to the board, then the whole thing is a farce.

I suggest we inform them that there are 39 seats left on the next 'B ark' spaceflight, and that they might nab them if they are quick.
[ link to this | view in thread ]
MadJo (profile), 5 Aug 2008 @ 2:50am

Re: Farce
Just make sure that the telephone sanitizers stay here... I don't want to be wiped out by a weird disease transmitted through dirty telephone handsets.
[ link to this | view in thread ]
Steve, 5 Aug 2008 @ 3:25am

NIST
The National Institute of Statistics and Technology provide the tech support to the EAC. There is also a technology advisory group that uses the NIST guidelines to provide industry guidance to the EAC.
[ link to this | view in thread ]
Tatheg, 5 Aug 2008 @ 7:05am

Re: NIST
You're serious? national institute of STATISTICS and technology. Yeah, I'm sure that they can help at least with 68.5% of the questions .... No, the board states that 4 seats are required to be filled with computer scientists or voting technology experts, these members are not present on the board. Therefor the board is not following its own rules ... Statistics, just a polite word for lie.
[ link to this | view in thread ]
Overcast, 5 Aug 2008 @ 7:21am

Because it's all about politics - not about sense, science, or technology.

It's the same reason Lawyers are running the country, if it was a system that made sense - it would be a mix of every type of affected party running a government: Military, Law, Science, Business, Common Workers, Media, etc.
[ link to this | view in thread ]
Fernando R, 5 Aug 2008 @ 8:05am

Brazil has 180 Million people and more than 130 million voters. Voting is mandatory here. We have a fully electronic, fully automated, foolproof voting system. Cheap, efficient, reliable. There is a dedicated cryptographed data network and hard copies of the votes of every electronic ballot, just in case. More than 95% of the votes are counted within 2 hours of the end of the election AND we DON'T have pregnant chads!

Why don't US authorities ask for some help from us?
[ link to this | view in thread ]
Anonymous Coward, 5 Aug 2008 @ 8:38am

Re:
I love those types of systems that can't be tampered with.
One question though, what happens when you plug it in?
[ link to this | view in thread ]
Anonymous Coward, 5 Aug 2008 @ 8:39am

Re: Farce
Sounds like what Europeans did a few hundred years ago ;)
[ link to this | view in thread ]
Matt, 5 Aug 2008 @ 9:21am

I dont understand the problem
I really do not see why we even need 39 people to deal with electronic voting.. the program itself I could have wrote in my High School Programming Class, and it would have been 100% accurate. Granted the real thing needs a decent look at security, but as Fernando points out how Brazil does it, just include a "Print" button. This really doesn't seem like its that hard of a problem. A couple of Kids from MIT could knock this thing thing out in a week. As far as tamper proofing the machines, simple, do not link the machines directly to the internet. Create a breakpoint. This leaves only physical tampering with the machines, in that case, arrest anyone that comes to vote wearing a tool belt.
[ link to this | view in thread ]
Anonymous Coward, 5 Aug 2008 @ 9:35am

Re: I dont understand the problem
Maybe you should hold off on giving your opinion until you graduate?

So, if we don't link them to the intertubes, how do you suggest we connect all these awesome machines to each other. Roll our private cable to every little voting shack in rural America? Or do you suggest they be kept 100%offline in any sense and then the results gets carrier pigeon'ed to the safehouse of the people MOST LIKELY TO TAMPER WITH THE DAMN THING ANYWAY....
[ link to this | view in thread ]
Fernando R, 5 Aug 2008 @ 9:53am

Re: Re: I dont understand the problem
To clarify: Brazilian electronic ballots are NOT connected to the Internet. They use floppy discs! Yes, low tech floppies. After the ballots are closed these floppies are physically carried to transmission centers and uploaded to the processing data center, in Brasilia (the capital), where the votes are added.
[ link to this | view in thread ]
Wolfy, 5 Aug 2008 @ 11:05am

This system is ideal for those who wish to rig elections. The commissioners DON'T want anyone on the commission who knows anything about technology... they might say something to the press and blow a perfectly good gig.
[ link to this | view in thread ]
Crosbie Fitch (profile), 6 Aug 2008 @ 3:16am

Re:
You're right, otherwise they would have 4 slots out of 39 for NON-technologists.

The only technological solution to voting will be produced by the people, not corporations nor the state that represents them.
[ link to this | view in thread ]
Truthbringer, 6 Aug 2008 @ 5:31am

The author seems puzzled?
I would have to guess he is new at covering Washington? There are two kinds of commitees formed by the US Government, the kind that are supposed to get something done (generally some legislation or regulation that commercial industry supports) and there are those that are NOT supposed to get anything done (usually dealing with legislation or regulation that commercial industry doesnt care about).

Bottom line here is, the special interests of commercial business dont care about this issue, so niether does washington.
[ link to this | view in thread ]