Europe Rejects Digital Voting Machines | Newsweek Politics

We Do Not Trust Machines

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A better way is to expose the software behind electronic voting machines to public scrutiny. The root problem of popular electronic machines is that the computer programs that run them are usually closely held trade secrets. (It doesn't help that the software often runs on the Microsoft Windows operating system, which is not the world's most secure.) Having the software closely examined and tested by experts not affiliated with the company would make it easier to close technical loopholes that hackers can exploit. Experience with Web servers has shown that opening software to public scrutiny can uncover potential security breaches.

The electronic-voting industry argues that openness would hurt the competitive position of the current market leaders. A report released by the Election Technology Council, a U.S. trade association, in April says that disclosing information on known vulnerabilities might help would-be attackers more than those who would defend against such attacks. Some computer scientists have proposed that computer code be disclosed only to a limited group of certified experts. Making such disclosure mandatory for all electronic voting machines would be a good first step for the Obama administration, consistent with his talk about openness in government.

He'd better hurry, though, before a wave of populism kills electronic voting. State and local governments across the United States, much like European governments, are getting increasingly impatient with e-voting. Riverside County in California is considering asking voters to choose between e-voting and paper ballots in a referendum. Voters would be justified in dispensing with e-voting altogether. At the moment, there's very little to like about it.

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The Riverside County, CA idea about asking voters to indicate a preference between e-voting and paper on a referendum is a stupid and self-serving idea on the part of three of the five members of the ruling Board of Supervisors. They have spent about $30+ million buying Sequoia machines (remember the Venezuela-Chavez elections - all on Sequoia) and have violated directives by the CA Secretary of State Debra Bowen to limit their use to voters who are "disabled or have special needs".

The Registrar of Voters, Barbara Dunmore, has pushed e-voting beyond anyone's worst nightmare. In the November 2008 Presidential Election, more electronic votes (72,000) were cast in Riverside County than in ALL the other 57 counties in CA combined (excluding Orange County). And of those, Dunmore reports that 9,000 were "provisional" electronic ballots, and that there is no way to validate if the electronic count of votes from those 9,000 ballots was accurately reported by the central tabulator (the computer that counts all the electrons posing as votes).

Then in a special election in March, Dunmore reports that 41% of voters who went to the polls selected e-voting as their preferred choice. She didin't mention that offering e-voting as a choice is not consistent with State certification requirements and she didn't post a warning stating: "WARNING: The State of California has determined that Electronic Votes cannot be fully verified. Paper ballots are available."

Since the County of Riverside won't tell voters the truth about electronic voting (and they are VERY VERY aware of the dangers posed by e-voting as reported over 7 elections by SAVE R VOTE at www.savervote.com) , they are considering raising this meaningless referendum on the ballot to "prove" the voters "prefer" electronic. Why don't they just ask people if they "prefer" going 120 on the freeway, or not wearing helmets on motorcycles? All three represent very dangerous and selfish activities, but e-voting is the most dangerous. It can be manipulated at will, and after all, it's only our Democracy that is at stake!

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Posted By: mkf1 @ 05/31/2009 4:21:20 PM

Paper voting has a long record of fraud. Paper votes create apathy in voters, leading to low poll turnouts, exactly what interest groups want. Electronic voting reduces fraud, increases voter turnout, decreases interest group influence. Most importantly, electronic voting leads the way to removal of middlemen politicians who subvert the intent of the voter!
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Posted By: leftisbest @ 05/31/2009 3:01:01 AM

The Riverside County, CA idea about asking voters to indicate a preference between e-voting and paper on a referendum is a stupid and self-serving idea on the part of three of the five members of the ruling Board of Supervisors. They have spent about $30+ million buying Sequoia machines (remember the Venezuela-Chavez elections - all on Sequoia) and have violated directives by the CA Secretary of State Debra Bowen to limit their use to voters who are "disabled or have special needs".

The Registrar of Voters, Barbara Dunmore, has pushed e-voting beyond anyone's worst nightmare. In the November 2008 Presidential Election, more electronic votes (72,000) were cast in Riverside County than in ALL the other 57 counties in CA combined (excluding Orange County). And of those, Dunmore reports that 9,000 were "provisional" electronic ballots, and that there is no way to validate if the electronic count of votes from those 9,000 ballots was accurately reported by the central tabulator (the computer that counts all the electrons posing as votes).

Then in a special election in March, Dunmore reports that 41% of voters who went to the polls selected e-voting as their preferred choice. She didin't mention that offering e-voting as a choice is not consistent with State certification requirements and she didn't post a warning stating: "WARNING: The State of California has determined that Electronic Votes cannot be fully verified. Paper ballots are available."

Since the County of Riverside won't tell voters the truth about electronic voting (and they are VERY VERY aware of the dangers posed by e-voting as reported over 7 elections by SAVE R VOTE at www.savervote.com) , they are considering raising this meaningless referendum on the ballot to "prove" the voters "prefer" electronic. Why don't they just ask people if they "prefer" going 120 on the freeway, or not wearing helmets on motorcycles? All three represent very dangerous and selfish activities, but e-voting is the most dangerous. It can be manipulated at will, and after all, it's only our Democracy that is at stake!
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Posted By: jbz7879 @ 05/29/2009 3:35:01 PM

ELECTRONIC DEVICES ARE VICIOUS -I WANT TO GO VOTE PHYSICALLY AS IT IS MY BASIC HUMAN RIGHT AS A EURO CITIZEN -
I PAY 45 PERCENT OF MY EARNI AS NGDS TAXES SO THEY BETTER ACCOMODATE MY VIEWS AND MY ILK