[ale] Re: Vote Today - Message from Marie

[Irv Mullins]

On Tuesday 05 November 2002 11:35 am,  Matt wrote:

> As soon as whatever you vote with/on is removed from your view, there is
> ALWAYS the potential for corruption to occur.  Why not just have a little
> faith in the process that's being used and get on with your lives.  If you
> feel the process is so flawed, don't use it.  Make them work a little
> harder by having to actually fabricate votes rather than just changing
> yours.

There always has been, and will continue to be, vote fraud.
However, consider this: with paper ballots, fraud is basically a local 
industry. Cheating by one party in one area is likely to be cancelled out by 
cheating by the other party in another. And any massive cheating will involve 
lots of people, with increased chances for that fraud to be discovered, 
reported, etc. 

With computer 'ballots', a single rogue programmer could change the 
results of a national election, and, the way things are set up in Georgia, 
there would be no way to even detect such fraud. You don't see how 
your vote is recorded - just how it appears on the screen. Who's to say 
they are the same? Just because you and everyone you know voted for 
Joe Blow, if the machines say Sue Smith won, how are you going to contest 
that?  

How long before some programmer at some voting machine company
sells out for a few million$ and moves to South America? 
Sure, the voting machine companies have committees to audit their 
code. Just like Microsoft audits the security of their code.

Irv

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