February 16, 2009 8:55 AM
Will we vote by paper ballots only by 2014?
The Rocky's editorial says the Colorado Election Reform Commission is likely to recommend that by 2014, every county must use paper ballots to the extent they're allowed by federal law. County clerks could continue to use whatever technology they prefer until then, including electronic voting.
And we're not happy about it.
We refuse to believe it's impossible to devise safe and reliable voting systems using electronic devices to record and count ballots. After all, millions of Americans transfer billions of dollars from bank accounts every day without a hitch using their computers - and a growing number now conduct sensitive financial transactions via cell phones.Opponents of e-voting seem to assume that technology is static. They're saying hardware and software concerns cannot be identified while testing the equipment and corrected before actual votes are cast. Nor can glitches identified during testing be minimized over time.
This is a thoughtless view of the way technologies improve incrementally as they gain wider adoption.
Secretary of State Bernie Buescher, who's in charge of the management of state elections, sees his role as making sure that the election process has integrity and that Coloradans develop trust in whatever technology is endorsed by the legislature. He thinks the growing number of Coloradans voting by mail suggests a tacit endorsement of paper ballots. But he did tell us of casual surveys he's made of voters, asking them which technology they use and how confident they are of its accuracy and reliability. Confidence in e-voting, he said, was nearly 100 percent, while perhaps 30 percent of people who cast ballots by mail harbored some doubts. (This may reflect distrust of the post office, of course.)
We've always favored electronic voting with devices that give voters a paper receipt. That said, those who are uncomfortable voting electronically can use paper now. They can apply for mail ballots for any election, and even sign up to vote by mail permanently.
February 16, 2009
10:27 AM
am 760 writes:
Private companies, i.e. Diebold, should have nothing to do with elections. I have no problem going paper. The bottom line is transperency and accountability, something which we haven't had the last couple elections.
February 16, 2009
10:59 AM
Shaggy writes:
What does it matter anymore, the Democrats have sabotaged the election process so bad now it is rigged.
I noticed Barry made sure ACORN got a few Billion of our tax dollar money to further their corruption of America and Capitalism.
February 16, 2009
1:47 PM
whatever writes:
shag time to join sarah and the gang up in alaska where you can succeed. I don't know how someone like yourself, who is so scared of what the evil liberal will do, can live here day to day. It sounds like your a little snievling coward who can barely come out of his house because those evil libs, too funny, yet how pathetic you are.
February 17, 2009
7:39 PM
Kathy Dopp writes:
Mark Wolf says: "We refuse to believe it's impossible to devise safe and reliable voting systems using electronic devices to record and count ballots. After all, millions of Americans transfer billions of dollars from bank accounts every day without a hitch using their computers."
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Would Mark Wolf like us to deposit our money anonymously into bank accounts, have no receipts, or bank statements, and no bank staffers can know whose money is whose? Then we would have a banking system like our voting system.
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Banking is a far far easier system to secure than voting with secretly cast ballots.
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Not sure why Mark Wolf thinks he knows more than all the independent computer scientists who have informed us that invisible e-ballot voting is not possible to secure.
In fact, this January 2009 National Institute of Standards and Technology report that says (quote):
http://www.eac.gov/program-areas/voting-systems/docs/nist-response.pdf/attachment_download/file
"...high‐level auditability requirements that essentially demand that any error, whether randomly occurring or maliciously induced, is detectable (error is defined essentially as an incorrect vote total result), e.g.,
All voting systems SHALL be auditable.
NOTE: It would have to be clear, however, that the methods for voting systems to be auditable must be highly reliable and robust, and that today's DRE voting systems would not meet this requirement."
February 17, 2009
7:51 PM
Kathy Dopp writes:
Let's have people deposit their money into banks anonymously and do away with customer receipts that they can take home and do away with monthly banking statements.
Then banking and voting anonymously will be equally challenging to secure.
Not sure why this author thinks that all the independent computer scientists who say that e-voting cannot be secured from fraud and undetectable errors are wrong.
The following is a quote from the National Institute of Standards and Technology (NIST) report for the technical guidelines development committee of the US EAC of January 2009
www.eac.gov/program-areas/voting-systems/docs/nist-response.pdf/attachment_download/file
"...high‐level auditability requirements that essentially demand that any error, whether randomly occurring or maliciously induced, is detectable (error is defined essentially as an incorrect vote total result), e.g.,
All voting systems SHALL be auditable.
NOTE: It would have to be clear, however, that the methods for voting systems to be auditable must be highly reliable and robust, and that today's DRE voting systems would not meet this requirement."
February 17, 2009
7:52 PM
Kathy Dopp writes:
Oops - apologies for the double submission. Got an erroneous error message that caused me to resubmit.
February 17, 2009
9:20 PM
Mark Wolf writes:
Kathy Dopp:
The quote in the blog item is from the Rocky's editorial, not from me.
Thanks for participating in the discussion.