IT pros take notice of elections problems!

[liam_laddie]

The newsletter of the Association of Computing Machinery (founded 1947, 88,000 membership,
e-mailed three times a week) <http://www.acm.org/about_acm/> is posting links to election reform
news items. This means top IT people, many of whom may not be politically involved or aware of
the serious issues within our elections systems, are getting heads-up info...good news, I'd say.
Two links from the March 29 "Tech News" are:

<http://www.usatoday.com/news/washington/2006-03-27-voting-machines_x.htm>
<http://www.post-gazette.com/pg/06086/677130-103.stm> :toast:

[Stevepol]

1. K&R

[FogerRox]

2. KnR

[skids]

3. Already know what the overwhelming response will be...

"Jeebus, I could code a complete voting system in a week. What's their damage, these companies?"

Hopefully that will be followed by a skeptical "They must not WANT their product to work."

[MissWaverly]

4. funny I thought that too

What company puts a product on the market that is so unreliable. Most have torture tests
before they put the product on the market, and to charge the prices they do for a beta
version. How absurd.

[skids]

6. Well, I wouldn't say most do "torture" level QA.

There are some pretty damn crummy products available that hardly even do anything remotely like what they are sold to do. Some people will sell you them before they are actually even written. Companies seem to have caught on that stuffed shirts like to play big guy by making the calls on product purchases, and don't mind bilking them one bit. After all when the project fails, both the vendors and the executive-class hotshots can blame the poor in-house techs that are trying to glue it together out of the box.

So it's not far from industry norms. That doesn't make it right, though.

[MissWaverly]

7. I must admit I have a different perspective

working in the health care industry, when our machines go berserk, people think we should
be shot at sunrise, hopefully after thumb screws have been applied.

:-)

[MissWaverly]

5. also what company has no concern about liability

We'll make thousands that will fail and no one will sue us for breach of contract. It's
a good thing car makers don't think like this.

[file83]

8. Probably because they realize that if the Republicans keep stealing

elections, their industry will eventually be completely outsourced to India!