On Monday, November 3, 2003, at 02:44 AM, ken wrote:
Major Variola (ret) wrote:
Currently voting is trusted because political adversaries supervise the process. Previously the mechanics were, well, mechanical, ie, open for inspection.
That really is worth saying more often.
If we here can't agree on how to make machine voting both robust and private, then EVEN IF A PERFECT SYSTEM COULD BE DESIGNED it is extremely unlikely that a large number of people could be persuaded that it /was/ perfect.
There are already people who are confused by, and in some cases afraid of, computer touch screen voting. Some of these people are the ones who refuse to use automated teller machines and insist on deal with real bank tellers. Some of them think the government is watching. Some of them are just weird. Trying to educate these people about Chaumian blinding is pointless. (And don't count on the younger generation...they are often less-educated than their parents and grandparents, and in the ghettoes, than their 60-year-old great grandparents.) I can see the PR campaign on WWF wrestling: "Using a combination of Diffie-Hellman and holographic mark inspection, Alice is assured that Vinnie the Votebuyer cannot interfere, by means of a standard ANDO protocol..." Those who propose sophisticated voting systems are sentenced to reread Clarke's "Superiority." --Tim May "Stupidity is not a sin, the victim can't help being stupid. But stupidity is the only universal crime; the sentence is death, there is no appeal, and execution is carried out automatically and without pity." --Robert A. Heinlein