Reply #13: OpedNews: An Exit Strategy for Electronic Voting [View All]

[freedomfries]

An Exit Strategy for Electronic Voting
Bruce O'Dell
http://www.opednews.com
August 24, 2006

Even though there are fundamental technical considerations which should rule out use of electronic vote tallying technology, some of my Information Technology colleagues are still trying hard to salvage it (see, for example,
the web site of the research group called ACCURATE).

When it comes to electronic voting technology, we do not
need a better mousetrap – we need an exit strategy.

I've done my best to explain why, in detail, elsewhere – but the main points bear repeating.

Voting systems are national defense systems (!) deserving the highest level of protection. Undetected compromise of our nation's voting systems is equivalent to our being invaded and occupied by a foreign power, since the American people lose control of their lives and destinies in either case - except that "coup by covert election manipulation" occurs under the reassuring guise of business as usual. I am ashamed that my profession has enabled voting systems to be deployed with mechanisms inadequate to protect mere financial transactions - much less, to safeguard the foundation of our national sovereignty.

Voting is inherently hard to protect. All the conventional techniques for electronic auditing of transactions rely on strong proofs of identity and complete transparency. We can conduct electronic financial transactions well enough that embezzlement is the exception and not the rule because all counterparties to a financial transaction are required to provide strong, legal proof of identity to the others, all parties to electronic financial transactions are strongly motivated to verify accuracy of results, and the laws regulating resolution of financial disputes are mature. None of these conditions apply to voting. Voting is private and anonymous. You cannot provide a voter with a record of her transaction sufficient to prove how she voted after the fact (or you enable sale of votes, coercion and a host of other problems...). But if you do not provide such an unambiguous receipt, all that electronic vote-auditing protocols can do is simply enshrine a computer's assertion that it recorded your touch on a screen or your mark on an optical scan ballot as you intended. Any program that generates an electronic audit trail - no mater how complex - can easily be programmed to consistently lie about what truly happened when your choice was presented to the machine for tallying. Electronic auditing of electronic vote tallying simply shifts the issue of trust from one suspect set of software to another.
...
http://www.opednews.com/articles/opedne_bruce_o__060824_an_exit_strategy_for.htm