(BBV) Problems with e-voting? Blame the humans

[TrogL]

http://www.infoworld.com/article/04/10/19/HNvotingproblems_1.html?source=rss&url=http://www.infoworld.com/article/04/10/19/HNvotingproblems_1.html

(I don't know why this is dated yestersday. It just showed up and the creation date is today).

Voters worried that an electronic voting machine might accidentally eat their vote on Nov. 2 would be better off pointing the finger of blame at clueless poll workers than at shiny new touchscreen machines, according to information released by the Information Technology Association of America (ITAA).

Voters worried that an electronic voting machine might accidentally eat their vote on Nov. 2 would be better off pointing the finger of blame at clueless poll workers than at shiny new touchscreen machines, according to information released by the Information Technology Association of America (ITAA).

The article goes on to blame the world on workers forgetting passwords, ignores paper trails but has a nice long rant by Bev Harris.

The gist of the article is that journalists are being fed the answers they're supposed to use instead of doing their own research.

Naughty, naughty.


:spank:

[AndyTiedye]

1. I Fear Corrupt Humans AND Diebold Republican Electing Machinez

      We Make Democracy DIE

[chimpy the poopthrower]

2. Er. Kind of misses the point doesn't it?

I don't really care whether my vote is lost because of internal malfunction or because of human error while interacting with the technology. A vote lost forever is a vote lost forever and it's still related to the technology used. With paper ballot voting, the vote is still there to be counted even if it's missed the first time around.

[Kelvin Mace]

3. This is ITAA's main talking point

Any problem with the machines will be blaimed on humans (i.e. poll workers and voters) and the honus will be on us to prove otherwise, which is very hard to do when they won't let you near the machines.

David Allen
Publisher, CEO, Janitor
Plan Nine Publishing
http://www.plan9.org
http://www.blackboxvoting.com

[VegasWolf]

4. Hey, does infoworld still carry about 30 pages of help wanted ads

like they used to under Clinton?

New Information Shows Bush Indecisive, Paranoid, Delusional

[Lucille]

5. If humans, whether by incompetence, lack of training, or carelessness

can't successfully use BBV, that's called a design flaw. The machines are meant to serve the voters, not the other way around.

My most favorite quote from the article:

"How (DRE machines) perform will determine whether voters continue to express confidence in them, despite what they've been reading for the past year and a half," Seligson said.

Uh, one problem is voters can't tell how they perform since there is no paper trail.