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[Paul Smith <paul AT foundryzero.com>]

On Mar 12, 2004, at 10:03 AM, H. Wade Minter wrote:

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> On Thu, 11 Mar 2004, Thomas Beckett wrote:
>
> > Rachel Cox wrote:
> > > Yeah, I'm not very excited about electronic voting at this point
> > > myself. I'm eager for the time when I can be, but right now there are
> > > just too many questions for me to be comfortable with it.
> >
> > Well in North Carolina at least, if it ain't broke, don't fix it.  The
> > paper ballot and optical reader system we now use (in Orange, Durham 
> > and
> > Wake at least) works great, and there's a physical ballot and audit
> > trail.  The ballot itself is simple and easy to understand.  I have 
> > even
> > witnessed a local election recount on behalf of the Democratic Party 
> > and
> > I think the system works well.  I would be extremely suspicious of any
> > effort to replace this system with anything else.
>
> The big problem as I see it is that the big voting companies like 
> Diebold
> are absolutely opposed to, and fighting tooth-and-nail to stop, any 
> sort
> of audit trail for their computers.  They want zero paper trail for 
> their
> voting.
>
> Why on earth would anyone who wants fair elections be so opposed to 
> having
> a paper audit trail?  That's what gets my suspicions up about e-voting.
> They want to take an unproven system and remove any sort of 
> non-electronic
> accountability.
>
> Sketchy at best.
>
> - --Wade



	To further a very good point, I'll add that I believe that a voting 
system, electronic or otherwise, should not rely on anything that is 
secret or proprietary at all. I can certainly respect Diebold's need to 
protect their IP and internal processes from competitors, but the fact 
of the matter is that the need for transparency in the voting process 
far outweighs Diebold's business concerns. The internal workings, 
software code, accounting systems, equipment inventory and history, 
audits, reviews, records... all that stuff ought to be right out in the 
open and subject to public and official scrutiny.
	Maybe it's just me, but I wish our leaders were as vigilant about fair 
and transparent elections as they seem to be about juiced-up overpaid 
baseball players having an unfair advantage over non-juiced-up overpaid 
baseball players.

--P

--
Paul Smith
Foundry Zero
919.834.5433
www.foundryzero.com