"E-Voting Critics Grow Louder"

This is also in the BBV Announcement Pending thread... but I think it needs it's own to get the maximum amount of attention.

Please read & rate it a 5!

Thanks. :)

E-Voting Critics Grow Louder
Mon Dec 15, 2:00 PM EElizabeth Heichler, IDG News Service

As the U.S. presidential primary season approaches, a debate is raging about electronic voting--and IT professionals and computer scientists are among the loudest critics.

The issue has grown in urgency thanks to the Help America Vote Act of 2002, the U.S. Congress's attempt to forestall a repeat of the infamous Florida election debacle of 2000. The bill, known as HAVA, makes as much as $3.8 billion in funding available to states in the short term for replacing older punch card and lever election equipment--reforms that must be implemented by January 2006.

Manufacturers of the latest generation of electronic touch-screen voting devices, known as direct recording electronic machines (DREs), are poised to reap the rewards of the spending spree. But controversy roils over whether the systems are secure and bug-free.

:kick:

Is any voting system really safe?

and who're we to trust about the security of these systems? the manufacturer? or independent 3rd party auditors?

Optical scan ballots are good because even if someone wanted to steal an election, it would be difficult to steal enough paper ballots to affect the outcome.

With paperless touchscreen machines, code which throws a certain percentage of each vote for one candidate to another could affect the outcome.

Op Scan is counted by computer program.

Ballots are rarely recounted by hand. Usually, they run them through the machine again.

It is the op scan system that produce negative 16,000 votes for Gore.

Op scan DOES produce a v-vpb. That's part of it. The other part is using the v-vpb for actual recounts and audits.

Paper provides protection but does not provide correction unless it is used.

So by all means, vote on paper. Then demand actual, physical, hand recounts of elections.