The US mis-election - an oportunity for e-voting..

[Tim May]

At 11:58 AM -0500 12/10/00, Robert Guerra wrote:
>Declan:
>
>I completely agree with you that internet voting isn't quite ready 
>fom prime-time just yet. But given the current snafu I highly 
>suspect that there will be a lot of interest in the field.
>
>Certainly, I hope one of the few things the new congress will be 
>able to do is set-up a commission to propose new voting standards. 
>Hopefully they will pick a standard that doesn't give rise to 
>problems 30-40 years in the future...
>
>personally, if I had a say I'd say they should adopt the same system 
>Canada uses. They use a 100 year old system, had few if any 
>recounts, and managed to count all thier manual ballots in less than 
>72 hours.

It wasn't a close election, was it?

Didn't think so.

In the U.S., when the election isn't close, the ballots are counted, 
and recounted, by midnight of the day of the election...maybe by 
mid-morning the next day.

It's the _closeness_ that magnifies potential hinge points into court 
cases, redefinitions, and recriminations.

As for "Hey, kids, let's all put on an electronic vote!," it's been 
discussed many times here. And elsewhere. RISKS had a major 
discussion of the...risks.

As someone said in recentl weeks, if we really want to see elections 
stolen efficiently, make them electronic. No paper trail, no 
evidence, no chads, just pure gleaming bits.


--Tim May

-- 
(This .sig file has not been significantly changed since 1992. As the
election debacle unfolds, it is time to prepare a new one. Stay tuned.)