At 01:55 PM 11/14/00 -0500, Matthew Gaylor wrote:
DIGITAL NATION
Online Voting, Even if Secure, Won't Solve Election Troubles
I was in a discussion about this a while ago, where I was defending absentee ballots (as making it easier to vote), and in the process learning about attacks on electronic and social voting systems. What I found is that every tech is going to have societal attacks even if the protocols are perfect. Spouses brow/beating spouses with home voting (regardless of tech); authentication (of dead pets..); collaborations breaking protocols, rigged tech, etc. Attacks and weaknesses. Hollerith cards have the recently apparent weakness that the perforations may not fall out. To say nothing of the recently evident human factors whining, as readily misinterpreted in phosphor as in ink. Though perhaps the "Are you sure [y] [n]" dialog box would increase reliability. Maybe the election observers the Cubans have volunteered will have more ideas..