Electronic Voting - A Non-Partisan Issue

Privately Owned Systems Mean "Black Box Voting"

'The digital voting machines offer no independent way of double-checking the results they spit out at the end of the day. Election officials must simply take the machine's word for it. They're what engineers call a "black box," a device whose function isn't understood by those who use it.'

Boston Globe

UPGRADE

It's the computers' turn to mess up elections

By Hiawatha Bray, 11/17/2003

The complete article is currently (3/28/04) available on the Boston Globe website at-- http://www.boston.com/business/technology/articles/2003/11/17/its_the_computers_turn_to_mess_up_elections/

Quotes--

Nearly a year before the presidential election, concerned citizens are already crying foul. But nobody's arguing over butterfly ballots or punch cards this time, as they did during the interminable Florida recount of 2000. After all, it's the 21st century now. All future elections will be screwed up with the aid of computers. Various local elections throughout the United States early this month provided worrisome hints of the woes to come. ...

It wasn't supposed to be this way. Replacing punch cards with digital touch screens was supposed to deliver the accuracy we've learned to expect from computers.

Now that you've stopped laughing, you're probably all thinking the same thing. Anybody with a PC knows that computers can be wildly unreliable. What's being done to ensure that computerized voting systems are trustworthy?

Not nearly enough, according to the activists trying to force major modifications in digital voting systems. Bev Harris, author of the book "Black Box Voting," is the godmother of the movement. Harris said she's in favor of computerized voting, but not the way it's usually done. ...

'Maybe the software shouldn't be secret. The Australian government has developed a digital voting system based entirely on open source software. All of the code is published so everybody knows exactly how it works. Voters who happen to be computer programmers can quickly identify glitches that could ruin an election.'

FAIR USE NOTICE

This site contains copyrighted material the use of which has not always been specifically authorized by the copyright owner. We are making such material available in our efforts to advance understanding of environmental, political, human rights, economic, democracy, scientific, and social justice issues, etc. We believe this constitutes a 'fair use' of any such copyrighted material as provided for in section 107 of the US Copyright Law. In accordance with Title 17 U.S.C. Section 107, the material on this site is distributed without profit to those who have expressed a prior interest in receiving the included information for research and educational purposes. For more information go to: http://www.law.cornell.edu/uscode/17/107.shtml. If you wish to use copyrighted material from this site for purposes of your own that go beyond 'fair use', you must obtain permission from the copyright owner.