[LINK] Fwd: vip-l: Electronic votiing

[David Goldstein]

What absolute garbage. There is a potential for abuse in any means of voting. The potential for fraud is huge in the current system. I've been advised, and am awaiting on further information, that indeed the security used in the electronic voting is of a high standard. I will post this when it's received.

Your analogy or whatever you want to call it is utter crap.

And people who are blind could vote before, only as long as someone else assisted them. Concerns of fraud were never mentioned here. They required a friend, relative or electoral officer to assist them. So how would they know they had actually voted for who they wanted. So huge potential for fraud here.

Further, the blind do not and have never had adequate voting provisions. Have you ever discussed the issues with people who are blind. Sure, some individuals don't care, but a lot do. They have never had the option of independent voting, of being able to vote in privacy.

You say e-voting can't be monitored. But then, no voting system can be perfectly monitored. It doesn't negate the need for high levels of security. Your argument is rubbish. 100 years ago, 500 years ago, the demands of the community were different. Today we expect and demand better rights for all, not just the disabled, but women, people of various religious and ethnic groups, and so on. Laws and opinions change.

The real question isn't am I "a corporate shill or just a sucker?" It's do you discriminate against disabled people. Obviously the answer is yes.

I couldn't give a crap about top-posting. I hate hard to find in-message replies, especially when it gets to about 10 replies...

David

----- Original Message ----
From: Craig Sanders <cas at taz.net.au>
To: link <link at anu.edu.au>
Sent: Friday, 17 November, 2006 8:21:35 AM
Subject: Re: [LINK] Fwd: vip-l: Electronic votiing


On Wed, Nov 15, 2006 at 07:53:38PM -0800, David Goldstein wrote:
> The issue is that society in all of its elements - Government,
> Business and the general community - should work to build an inclusive
> community. One element of inclusiveness is to care about and
> accommodate the needs of others.
>
> We do this in many ways - safety rails around the 20th floor balcony,
> lollipop people on school crossings etc. So yes, things are done
> differently for people who are blind. But we take into account that
> things are done differently for children by having the lollipop people
> at school crossings, by having safety rails on balconies and saying
> children and the elderly, and anyone else can care for themselves.
>
> I know there are many who subscribe to the survival of the fittest in
> our society, but as a whole we don?t do this. Even in the 21st century
> in Australia we are a somewhat caring society.

i'll say it again because you are being deliberately obtuse - STOP
MISREPRESENTING MY ARGUMENT.

MY ARGUMENT IS AGAINST THE POTENTIAL FOR CORRUPTION OF THE ELECTORAL
PROCESS.  THAT IS FAR MORE IMPORTANT THAN MERE CONVENIENCE AND AVOIDANCE
OF EMBARRASSMENT FOR SOME CITIZENS, WHETHER BLIND OR NOT.


> Dribble about enabling paraplegics to walk is just a paper tiger, or
> straw man, argument.

no, it was an analogy. look that word up in the dictionary if you want
to know how it works.  it's not a difficult concept.

> One can easily enable a person who is blind or vision impaired to
> vote. One can't enable a paraplegic to walk, at least most of the
> time.

blind people could vote before. this is not about enabling them to vote,
this is about undermining the electoral process, tossing out scrutiny
and security under the pretext of convenience.

> So the issue is how to enable people who are blind and vision impaired
> to vote. And nobody on this last has a viable alternative.

no, it's not. the blind have perfectly adequate mechanisms for voting.
there is no need to destroy security for mere convenience.

> And I don?t see that anyone really has any idea on whether the setup
> was secure or not. Rather, it?s fear mongering and guesswork.

the point is that e-voting CAN'T be properly monitored. it inherently
makes it possible for a small number of people, even a single
individual, to corrupt the entire election. that is NOT possible with
manual voting...to corrupt a manual vote requires the corruption of
a very large number of people, which makes it far more difficult to
achieve and far more likely to be exposed and stopped.

those wanting to profit from e-voting machines in this country have
tried before with arguments about how much faster and more efficient
there machines would be than manual counting. that argument was rightly
dismissed as complete garbage. now they're trying again by promoting it
as a disability issue which, as you have so adequately demonstrated, has
the great benefit of making it easy to demonise anyone who sees through
the bullshit as being discriminatory against the disabled.....avoid the
real issue and turn it into a bullshit argument about discrimination and
the rights of the disabled.

so, the real question here is: are you a corporate shill or just a
sucker?


craig

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



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