US Elections Dominated By Closed Source. Again. 403
An anonymous reader writes "Another American election is almost here, and while electronic voting is commonplace, it is still overwhelmingly run by closed source, proprietary systems. It has been shown that many of these systems can be compromised (and because they are closed, there may be holes we simply cannot know about). Plus they are vulnerable to software bugs and are often based on unstable, closed-source operating systems. By the inherent nature of closed software, when systems are (optionally!) certified by registrars, there is no proof that they will behave the same on election day as in tests. The opportunities for fraud, tampering and malfunction are rampant. But nonetheless, there is very little political will for open source voting, let alone simple measures like end-to-end auditable voting systems or more radical approaches like open source governance. Why do we remain in the virtual dark ages, when clearly we have better alternatives readily available?"
Alternatives? (Score:4, Interesting)
So here's a question:
Does there currently exist a complete open source voting solution? Something that you could drop in in place of a Diebold or what have you.
It seems like we'd make more headway with local governments if we could say, "Here it is, it's free, it's ready to go, all you have to do is okay it." and I'm not sure if that solution yet exists?
Re:Because... (Score:3, Interesting)
Re:Because... (Score:5, Interesting)
But again, that is not germane to the question at hand, because you need a really REALLY close election to pull off that kind of tom foolery.
Even manual counting with 5 sets of eyes on every ballot would not protect against this kind of corruption in a tight election.
Even if you could link ballots to voters (and were willing to suffer the inevitable intimidation and reprisals and vote buying of that practice), there is no way to assure the ballots found in the trunk are not tied to people who ALSO have other ballots tied to them, perhaps in different precincts, or different counties.
Close elections are a fundamental problem not solvable by technology, and for the most part, in the grand scheme of things, if society is unable to clearly choose between A and B there is probably no significant difference anyway, and you end up with a tempest in a tea pot over an emotional issue.
Re:Because... (Score:3, Interesting)
You can actually get +5 Troll, but it would require some really weird mods.
Post with a Karma bonus score: 2
Mod Troll score: 1, Troll
Mod Troll score: 0, Troll
Mod Troll score: -1, Troll
Suddenly people realize that you are being oppressed
Mod Interesting score: 0, Troll (it uses whatever you have the most mods for)
Mod Informative score: 1, Troll
Mod Underrated score 2, Troll
Mod Insightful score 3, Troll
Mod Informative score 4, Troll
Mod Interesting score 5, Troll (Your total mod counts are Troll: 3, Informative: 2, Interesting: 2, Insightful: 1, Underrated: 1)
Extremely unlikely, but technically possible.