By The Way...

Friday, October 27, 2006
9:58:00 AM EDT
Hearing Soul on Fire -- Jenny Bruce
Here's an article on geek site Ars Technica on how to hack the election, if you were motivated, and didn't mind spending several years in prison if you got caught. Sort makes one a bit twitchy about the whole electronic ballot box thing.

I have to tell you, I'm as much a geek as anyone, but electronic voting for government elections makes me nervous, particularly in the case where there are no paper trails. The ballots where I live have been electronic for the last couple election cycles, and they have a print out, so I'm slightly less paranoid, but even so, every time I go to vote I wonder if what I put in really does match what comes out. I think a big paper ballot and a pencil really are the way to go. It's the one place I'm old fashioned.


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This entry has 1 comments: (Add your own)

• #1 Comment from plittle 
  10/27/06 12:08 PM | Permalink

    I've said it before. There's too much crap on the US election ballots. Didn't one county in Ohio have to make something like 37 selections on the ballot in the last election? Makes electronic voting almost necessary. You need to take local and regional issues off of federal ballots. Hold separate, local elections and referendums for those. There should be only one issue on a federal ballot: who will be your representative in Washington? Make hand counting of the ballots feasible, like we do here in Canada.
  -Paul
  http://journals.aol.ca/plittle/AuroraWalkingVacation/