Paperless democracy’s test
Ed Cone writes about what conclusions to draw from the fact that Maryland’s use of electronic voting machines on Tuesday seemed to go well: “‘Election officials will think that this validates the system, that now we can all see that it works just fine – but that’s not the case,’ says Michael Wertheimer, a systems-security consultant…”
My favorite bit:
A sampling of voters at Lutherville, Md., on Super Tuesday showed that the systems worked well on the surface. “The machine was easy to use,” says Charlie Mitchell, 49. “The only thing I wondered about was what I had read about these machines – were the votes getting counted or not? I don’t know.”
Oh, I see. Let me paraphrase: “The system worked perfectly and I was very happy with it, except for the gnawing fear that it disenfranchised me of my most basic right as a citizen.”
Electronic voting, without a voter-verifiable paper trail, inevitably introduces doubt into the system that should be the paradigm of lock box security.
(It is inevitable because the digital only has a symbolic relationship to the real, analog world. But that’s a different story…the same story about why computers that model thought aren’t themselves thinking. But I digress.)
Cross-posted at Loose Democracy
Categories: Uncategorized dw
It’s a blog. Digress at will.
E-Voting and Trust in Democracy
Joho the Blog: Paperless democracy’s test reads Ed Cone, and gets right to the meat of the one of the key issues: Ed Cone writes about what conclusions to draw from the fact that Maryland’s use of electronic voting machines on Tuesday seeme…
They use voting machines in India (altho I have never voted in India so this is based on hearsay). However many of the population are illiterate. So candidates are represented by symbols. So the machine look like one-armed bandits. Which given the state of Indian democracy may well be very appropriate metaphor.