Re: [ga] Re: A Question for the Candidates

[Barbara Simons <simons@acm.org>]

As I said earlier, I do not have the time to engage in further dialog.  I
have only one comment to make, which is that computerized voting systems
without voter verified paper ballots represent the greatest threat to our
democracy that I've seen in my lifetime.  While is may be true that most
email voting systems are simple to implement (I would not agree with Jeff's
comment that they are moderate in cost vs return - in fact, they tend to be
quite pricey), I strongly disagree with the statement that they are quite
safe.

The bottom line is that computerized voting systems that do not have voter
verified ballots make no sense.  There is absolutely no way of knowing if
your vote is appropriately counted, and there is NO BACKUP.  Think of what
it means to do a recount in this environment. You ask the computer what its
counts are, and it responds "the same as what I told you last time, dummmy,"
unless it is grossly broken.

This means that elections can be subverted by buggy software, hackers, or
insiders, and no one will be able to prove that this has been done.  At
least with butterfly ballots (incidentally, the Democrat who approved them
was a Republican before the election and reverted to being a Republican
after the election) we all could see what was happening.  While it's a nasty
business to observe an election being stolen without being able to stop it,
it's even worse if it is stolen and no one knows for sure.

ICANN is important, but the computerized voting issue is far more important,
as far as I'm concerned.

Jeff's comment that http://verify.stanford.edu/evote.html contains "scare
tactics and being panned fairly broadly on some aspect" is absurd.  The
webpage was created by David Dill, a Stanford computer science professor who
has no financial interest in any e-voting system and who is concerned only
with trying to preserve democracy.  I urge anyone who is reading this email
to check out the website.

I believe that computerized voting machines without appropriate backup
represent an enormous threat to democracy in any country in which they are
employed to elect governments.

Regards,
Barbara

On 3/11/03 11:00 PM, "Jeff Williams" <jwkckid1@ix.netcom.com> wrote:

>> I have always supported the principle of one person one vote.  But I have
>> recently been very involved with fighting against computerized voting
>> machines that have no backup.
> 
> Yes I am very aware of that battle, as you know of course.  I agreed
> with you on it for similar reasons.  However evoting is here, and here to stay
> as well as gaining acceptance.  Indeed some forms are not safe to use
> presently, others are difficult to implement.  But most well thought out
> evoting systems are quite safe, pretty simple to implement, and moderate
> in terms of cost vs return.
> 
>> In other words, there is no way to verify
>> that your vote is recorded as you think it should be.
> 
> Not true as you recently found out. Barbara.  This answer is very troubling
> in your pledge as it indicates that you say you support what you are not
> willing
> to support actualizing...

--
This message was passed to you via the ga@dnso.org list.
Send mail to majordomo@dnso.org to unsubscribe
("unsubscribe ga" in the body of the message).
Archives at http://www.dnso.org/archives.html