[LINK] Blind voter demands secret vote

Richard Chirgwin rchirgwin at ozemail.com.au
Sun Aug 26 18:19:28 AEST 2007


Saliya Wimalaratne wrote:
> On Thu, Aug 23, 2007 at 11:04:01PM -0700, David Goldstein wrote:
>   
>> Many people who are blind and vision impaired have advocated for years for a way to vote with privacy. Electronic voting gives them this ability. And for the problems that exist, instead of saying "no, can't have this... [for whatever reason you want to insert here]", how about look at it from a human rights aspect and then think, "how can we make this safe and secure". Something quite a few here seem unable to think of.
>>     
>
> The problems and benefits with e-voting in the "traditional" sense have 
> already been raised (to my mind, ad nauseum).  
Yep ... I have heard that the political term is "vomit point", as in 
"just when you think 'if I have to hear about it again I'll vomit', 
that's when the public starts to notice the issue.

> I think the concerns
> related to tampering are sufficient justification to say 'not like that 
> here, thanks'. 
>
> Electronic-ise the voter input; keep the paper trail for the tallies.
> The output that gets counted needs to be verifiable by the voter.
>
> I don't believe that this need be a 'slippery slope' situation.
>   
Well ... I still don't see the urgent need to introduce the electronics, 
even for the input, with the exception of cases such as the blind. 
What's the "pitch"? The benefit? Something that's really worth the extra 
dollars?

Let's do the envelope budget. There are roughly 8,000 polling places in 
the country; let's allow ten "booths" to replace the current booths; and 
allow $5,000 per voting computer, one per voting booth. That's $50,000 
per polling place, or $400 million nationwide. The last election cost 
$70 million, the next will cost $90 million, so what's the point of the 
other $310 million?

Richard
> Regards,
>
> Saliya
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