Reply #10: I don't get it. [View All]

[DubyaSux]

People trust poll workers to not stuff ballot boxes, hide ballots in their trunks, accurately guide the blind (i.e "Yes ma'am, you're voting for Kerry" snicker snicker) but put faith in a grand conspiracy to alter voting results.

Let's see. The evil software guy writes code that changes the complete results of an election to his favor (even though he doesn't know who will be in the election it tallies), makes it past fellow developers who are either in on the conspiracy or too incompetent to notice. Then, it makes it past in-house testers that are either in on this conspiracy or can't figure out some magic Trojan trigger (as if Diebold would have never thought about that). Then, it makes it past election official software developers who are either in on it, or too incompetent to see the code that can change results. The software serves no other purpose. That code will be under close scrutiny. Then, it makes it past election official testers who randomly pull machines out, set them to "election mode" (and yes, they do this regardless of what Ari Rubin says), perform a test vote and validate the results. This "magic code" makes it through all this.

Of course, we need someone on site to activate the Trojan horse. Wait. Not just on site, but EVERY SITE.

Now, after all of this, we want to believe that the owners of Diebold and the like are willing to invest millions and million of dollars into a system so they can seat who they want for president and ignoring the fact that if caught, they go to jail, get sued, and evoting technology becomes the biggest boat anchor loss they ever imagined while they go bankrupt.

Does anybody but me see how preposterous that sounds? It would take extremely risky criminal behavior supported by the biggest conspiracy ever. But we can stuff ballot boxes all day and nobody gets concerned.

It would be easier to try to defeat an ATM machine if you're thinking the system can be "hacked". Of course it can be hacked - if all management controls are removed. But I could vote for a candidate 100,000 times with punch card ballots if nobody is minding the store. I could throw out every ballot in a district if nobody was managing the system. We rely on people with punch card ballots, but leave those people out when "experts" hack the e-voting system.

And now people want me to have a receipt of my vote. Well guess what? I don't want one! I don't get one now and I don't want one later. My boss might want to see my receipt of vote to make sure I vote republican. If I refuse to show him or vote republican, he can fire me. Legally, he can't. But since most states are "hire-at-will", he doesn't need a reason. He can fire me for sport if he wants.

Then again, I changed my mind. Maybe I do want a receipt. I want to sell it to the highest bidder. If someone wants me to vote for Nader and gives me enough cash, I can show the receipt as proof of my vote.

I'm a programmer that develops smartcard technology for a security business. This is paranoia in the extreme. Ari Rubin sits on the advisory panel of another company (VoteHere) - one that doesn't make electronic voting machines. If a republican operative did this, they'd be dismissed because of no credibility. When Ari Ruben (the chief critic) was approached about this conflict of interest, he said "I forgot").

If you wanted every vote to count, you would be in favor of evoting. If you want to blame someone for results you don't like, stick with punch ballots.

I could give two craps about Diebold or whoever is making these things. But I'm tired of lost ballots, stuffed ballot boxes, and pregnant hanging chads.