[LINK] Fwd: vip-l: Electronic votiing

[Craig Sanders]

On Thu, Nov 16, 2006 at 10:56:09AM +1100, Howard Lowndes wrote:
> Russell Ashdown wrote:
> >Simply put, would the proposed Electronic Voting model stand the test of 
> >an ATM's audit trail?  If not, why not.  Perhaps the Electronic Voting 
> >model is not seen to have any intrinsic value that is worth protecting 
> >from fraud where the ATM _is_ seen to have such value.
>
> Go and read Bruce Schneier' monthly newletter on the machine problems in 
> Florida - over 18,000 votes have gone missing and they are having a 
> recount - without them.
> 
> <http://www.schneier.com/crypto-gram.html>

more to the point, he points out the obvious facts that:

a) ATMs are relatively easy to audit (compared to e-voting machines)
because there is no requirement for anonymity.

b) banking security is generally a fix-after-the-fact procedure. if
an audit discovers a fraudulent or erroneous transaction, it can be
reversed and the whole mess eventually cleared up. that's not really
possible with an election, partly because of the anonymity and partly
because the only real way to fix a seriously compromised election is to
run the whole election again.


craig

ps: top-posting is evil.  replies go underneath quoted material, not above it.


-- 
craig sanders <cas at taz.net.au>           (part time cyborg)