Re: Hand Recounts of votes recorded on DREs
Dear Vern,
I am surprised that you think that my comment about patriotism had anything
to do with you. I have never questioned your patriotism. My reference
about patriotism was not aimed at any individual.
Rather, I was simply stating the obvious. Our committee bears a heavy
burden. If we produce an inadequate set of standards, we may be undermining
democracy. To do so would, in my opinion, be unpatriotic.
To repeat: we must not endorse any voting system that lacks transparency,
one where the voter must have faith in secret code, secret and inadequate
testing, and secret test results. Secret is not a word that should be used
to describe voting systems.
It is not rhetorical to say that software has bugs. We know of cases in
which buggy software has already been used in actual elections. Have any
election outcomes been changed because of buggy software? I don't know, and
neither does anyone else on this committee - though there are several cases
that are highly suspect.
We also know that election fraud has occurred many times in the past. I do
not believe that human nature has changed so fundamentally that election
fraud will not occur in the future, if an opportunity is provided.
I am certain that you agree that we must make it as difficult as possible
for the outcomes of elections to be changed, either because of unintended
software bugs or intentional manipulation of software. And, I am certain
that you agree that to do otherwise is not simply irresponsible but in fact
unpatriotic.
Regards,
Barbara
P.S. You refer to the accuracy of DREs, but we both know that there is no
audit trail for paperless DREs. We also know that current testing is
inadequate and that even the best of testing (ask Microsoft or Sun or the
other software vendors), which we certainly don't have for DREs, cannot
detect all software bugs. Finally, we know that it's possible to write
malicious software that would be triggered only during an election and could
even erase itself afterwards. Given the vast sums of money being spent on
elections, it would be relatively cheap to bribe or blackmail a programmer
or someone else with access to the voting software. Unfortunately, this is
reality, not "flat earth" rhetoric.
On 12/7/04 0:24, "Vern Williams" <vernonw74@earthlink.net> wrote:
> Barbara,
>
> I believe I have the right to my opinion and you have not earned the
> right to call me unpatriotic. I dedicated 20 years of service to
> defending our democracy and would ask what your investment has been. I
> have been interested in evaluating the issues based on science and
> reason, not on paranoia. You call yourself a computer scientist and I
> hear much "flat earth" rhetoric from you and very little reason.
> Systems can be programmed to perform their functions with audit trails
> to confirm the veracity of the results. There are many who have been
> investing in the actual process of democracy for a long time and not
> just throwing stones from the outside. The real lunacy is to presume
> that the results "recorded" on paper are somehow less corruptible than
> modern voting systems with checks to warn a voter of undervotes and
> prevent overvotes when the vast majority of attempted election fraud has
> been with votes recorded on the very paper you consider so perfect and
> incorruptible.
>
> The people working to run elections and produce voting systems that are
> easy to use, reliable and produce accurate results are the ones who can
> help us find ways to improve the process of recording votes. I only
> hope that your name calling will encourage the committee to work hard to
> prove you wrong. That we can develop standards that help produce the
> next generation of better and more reliable and accountable voting
> systems. Not go back to the "paper age" or was that the stone age? Oh,
> and by the way the reason we are recommending testing and evaluation of
> the voting equipment is to provide an acceptable level of assurance that
> your unfounded accusations do not happen. It would be interesting if
> you would compare the accuracy of the DRE voting systems with Mark Sense
> and see which is more accurate. Maybe the ACM would be interested in
> those results.
>
> Sincerely Disappointed,
> Vern Williams
>
>
>
> Barbara Simons wrote:
>
>> Pete's comment is so obvious I cannot understand why anyone would even
>> question it. A "hand recount" of paperless DRE votes should come up with
>> the same tally that the DRE originally produced, unless the DREs are really
>> really broken.
>>
>> BUT, suppose there was a software bug (or malicious code) that corrupted the
>> votes so that they were originally incorrectly recorded, as happened in
>> Mahoning County, Ohio, where numerous voters reported that when they
>> attempted to vote for John Kerry, the vote showed up as a vote for George
>> Bush. We don't know - and can't know - whether or not those machine
>> correctly recorded the intent of the voters, but if it recorded them
>> incorrectly, then those same faulty records will appear in the printed paper
>> versions.
>>
>> I find it amazing that anyone would defend a system that has the lack of
>> transparency of paperless DREs.
>>
>> Since the standards produced by our effort are likely to be adopted
>> nationally, we bear a tremendous responsibility. We have the opportunity to
>> develop standards that will minimize the options for corruption and maximize
>> openness and transparency. To do otherwise is irresponsible and even - dare
>> I say it - unpatriotic.
>>
>> Regards,
>> Barbara Simons, writing from Australia - which is why I have been unable to
>> participate in email and phone discussions.
>>
>> On 12/5/04 16:43, "Pete Klammer" <pklammer@comcast.net> wrote:
>>
>>
>>> A "hand recount" of paperless DRE votes is patently absurd, meaningless, and
>>> futile.
>>
>>