Robert X. Cringely’s “The Pulpit” column over at PBS this week(No Confidence Vote:
Why the Current Touch Screen Voting Fiasco Was Pretty Much Inevitable, December 4, 2003) raises a lot of questions about eVoting and the Diebold machines in particular. Cringely is in full rant mode here, but not without reason since the integretity of our elections are at stake. His most telling question for me is about the non-existent paper-trail in current machines. Pointing out that Diebold
makes machines that sell tickets for trains and subways, store checkout scanners, machines that allow access to buildings for people with magnetic cards, ATM machines and more, he notes (emphasis in original):
All of these are machines that involve data input that results in a transaction, just like a voting machine. But unlike a voting machine, every one of these other kinds of Diebold machines — EVERY ONE — creates a paper trail and can be audited. Would Citibank have it any other way? Would Home Depot? Would the CIA? Of course not. These machines affect the livelihood of their owners. If they can’t be audited they can’t be trusted. If they can’t be trusted they won’t be used.
Now back to those voting machines. If EVERY OTHER kind of machine you make includes an auditable paper trail, wouldn’t it seem logical to include such a capability in the voting machines, too? Given that what you are doing is adapting existing technology to a new purpose, wouldn’t it be logical to carry over to voting machines this capability that is so important in every other kind of transaction device?
…I’d love to know who said to leave the feature out and why?
He provides several interesting links to other stories about evoting as well.
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