Re: Hand Recounts of votes recorded on DREs
A system in which the DRE and the paper ballot were both sabotaged
would require fraud from two fundamentally different sources. The
elections officials can fool around with the paper ballots but not the
DRE software. The DRE vendor can fool around with the software, but not
with the paper ballots.
We're seeing the experiment play out in front of us today. In the face
of unverifiable machine counts, the debate over who won which election
has degenerated into name calling and power politics. The failure of
verifiability goes to the heart of the democratic process. I cannot
imagine anyone thinking it is acceptable to perpetuate such a system.
-- cem kaner
On Dec 7, 2004, at 3:24 AM, Vern Williams 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.
>>
>>
>
> --
> Quote of the week...
>
> "Posterity -- you will never know how much it has cost my generation to
> preserve your freedom. I hope you will make good use of it."
>
> --John Quincy Adams
>
>
> Vern Williams, CISSP ISSEP CBCP CHSP IAM
> Senior Security Engineer / Analyst, SAIC
> Senior Member, IEEE
> Vern.Williams@IEEE.ORG
> Cell: 512-635-5315
>
> Any comments are my opinion and not the official position of SAIC.
> This email and any attachments thereto may contain private,
> confidential, and privileged material for the sole use of the intended
> recipient. Any review, copying, or distribution of this email (or any
> attachments thereto) by others is strictly prohibited. If you are not
> the intended recipient, please contact the sender immediately and
> permanently delete the original and any copies of this email and any
> attachments thereto.
>
>
Cem Kaner, Professor of Software Engineering
Director, Center for Software Testing Education & Research
Florida Institute of Technology, 150 West University Blvd., Melbourne,
FL 32901.
http://www.kaner.com, http://www.testingeducation.org,
http://www.badsoftware.com
Senior author of
Lessons Learned in Software Testing
Testing Computer Software, and
Bad Software: What to Do When Software Fails.