[LINK] Fwd: vip-l: Electronic votiing

Craig Sanders cas at taz.net.au
Sat Nov 18 09:01:35 AEDT 2006


On Thu, Nov 16, 2006 at 09:47:21PM -0800, David Goldstein wrote:
> What absolute garbage. There is a potential for abuse in any means of
> voting. 

and some systems have far greater potential than others.

with the current manual system, a vote-rigger would have to corrupt many
thousands of people.

with e-voting, they only have to corrupt one programmer, or one tabulating
machine.

the risk is far greater, the potential for abuse is far greater.

> The potential for fraud is huge in the current system. 

actually, it's tiny. there are far too many eyes watching the entire
process for electoral fraud to be anything but a small-scale problem at
worst.

> 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.

if you need to rely on advice then you're not qualified to judge.
 
> 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.

no, it is a tiny potential for fraud. the number of blind voters
is miniscule, not enough to make any significant difference in any
electorate.

my opposition to e-voting has nothing to do with blind voters, it is
against e-voting in general because it enables large-scale (wholesale)
electoral fraud.


> 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.

frankly, i don't care very much. i'm far more concerned about the
security and reliability of the election for EVERYONE than i am about
the convenience of a few.

you seem to place the convenience of a few above the democratic rights
of all - in particular, the right to a fair, open, and above-board
election.


> 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.

this is more bullshit.  it's not about rights, it's about convenience.

convenience is NEVER a good enough reason to compromise security.


> 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.

bullshit. the fact that i am capable of seeing that security is far more
important than convenience does not mean that i discriminate against the
disabled. it means that the cost of catering to their convenience is not
worth the inherent reduction in security.

i guess you've answered the question by refusing to answer it - you're a
corporate shill.



> 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...

that's because you're a moron.  you demonstrate it in everything you write.

craig

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



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