[ale] OT: Free Showing of "Invisible Ballots", Thursday, 3/16, 7:00pm, UUCA

[Joe Knapka]

Jim Popovitch wrote:
> While no one can say that electronic voting is 100% secure and valid, it 
> has also been shown (for decades) that manual voting is full of fraud, 
> much fraud.  There have been cases of paying people to vote, dead people 
> voting, etc. (btw, mostly for liberal leaning candidates).
> 
> The technological solution at least offers means for improvement. As we 
> have seen recently in Georgia there is a large number of people against 
> showing proper ID to vote (even though they have to show ID to cash a 
> check at the bank).  So I say enable technology to solve the problems 
> that people themselves can't.  Should we trust everyone, No.  But you 
> have to trust someone, else your life is shallow and difficult. ;-)

I shouldn't have to trust *anyone* with my vote.  I should
be able to anonymously and securely verify that my vote,
as cast, has been properly accounted in election results.
It is perfectly possible to do this (see "Applied
Cryptography" by Bruce Schneier; there's a whole chapter
on election protocols), and clearly any such solution will
involve electronic voting.  However, existing electronic
voting systems do not implement anything like the proper
security measures, and are therefore far *more* vulnerable
to tampering than are paper ballots. With the Diebold
machines, a *single person* with the right password can
completely and un-traceably change election results (which 
is just one among a great many other flaws). Yes, election
fraud has been committed with paper ballots, but at least
in that case, you need a conspiracy in order to accomplish
such a thing. So until a secure and voter-verifiable system
exists, just say no to electronic ballot boxes.

(And incidentally, "voter-verifiable" does NOT mean simply
printing out a copy of the ballot.  That's a meaningless
gesture whose purpose is merely to lull the sheep into
a false sense of security.)

-- JK