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Florida Literally Scraps Touch-Screen Voting
Posted by
kdawson
on Sat Oct 13, 2007 12:15 PM
from the do-not-want dept.
from the do-not-want dept.
Kaseijin writes "Florida Governor Charlie Crist is getting his wish. The New York Times reports the state will replace touch-screen voting machines with optical-scan models by July 1, 2008 — the most aggressive timetable of any jurisdiciton rethinking this approach to voting. The touch-screen machines most likely will be sold to other jurisdictions or stripped for parts."
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great idea (Score:5, Funny)
Much better idea (Score:4, Insightful)
Parent
Translation: (Score:5, Insightful)
Re: (Score:2, Insightful)
Re:Translation: (Score:5, Insightful)
Parent
Re:Translation: (Score:5, Insightful)
By your logic, we should allow states to allocate their delegates to the Electoral College by coin toss, cockfight, or single combat, if a bunch of political appointees in that state think it's a bright idea.
I think we should rigorously enforce some sort of minimum standard of quality for elections. Above and beyond that, sure, states can choose what brand and type of machines they want. But we all have an interest in making sure that elections are fair, unbiased, and transparent. Auditless electronic voting systems prohibit that by design, and for that reason they ought to be illegal. Leave them for supermarket taste-tests where they belong.
Parent
And, (Score:2)
Re: (Score:3, Informative)
I suppose you could use the systems for some non-critical voting purposes.
Re:Translation: (Score:5, Insightful)
Parent
Re:Translation: (Score:5, Insightful)
Touchscreen "ballot printers" would go a long way toward eliminating overvotes and reducing undervotes (since a voter must be permitted to abstain from a particular race or issue).
As long as the Official Legal Ballot is durable and readable by unaided humans. The human can then manually scan his/her selections on the paper ballot before committing it to the official count. If the touchscreen system failed to record the voter's intent accurately, the voter can place the the machine-printed ballot in a rejection pile and fill in a paper ballot using manual methods (pencil, pen, etc.)
The point is that the voter must be able to audit his/her voting selections on the official legal record before committing it to the secure but open vote counting process.
Parent
Re: (Score:3, Insightful)
I agree. (Score:3, Insightful)
My reason for making the suggestion about transforming DREs into very expensive pencils is that local governments are notorious for their inability to face the economic "sunk cost" problem: They claim that they paid lots of very limited money for the machines and they insist on Getting Their Moneys Worth. They also say that g
Re: (Score:3)
Sure, like your typical Homeowner's Association:
Item 1: Do you
A. think satellite dishes are inappropriate for our community
B. think satellite dishes are unacceptable in our community
They could sell tons of these used voting machines to associations, since it really doesn't matter which way you vote anyway.
Parts? (Score:5, Funny)
Re:Parts? (Score:5, Interesting)
Parent
Re:Parts? (Score:5, Interesting)
Sadly though, those $5000 machines will probably only sell for $200 tops online.
Parent
Re:Parts? (Score:5, Insightful)
Parent
Re: (Score:2, Funny)
Re: (Score:2)
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"Proprietary firmware on closed system prevents hacker access"
Hm.. Were have I heard that one before?
Re: (Score:3, Funny)
The proof is in the pudding. The elections were NOT hacked, because it's not hacking if you have a password.
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Re: (Score:2, Funny)
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ah my eyes! (Score:3, Funny)
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That's exactly how it worked the last time I voted. I marked the paper, the paper was scanned by the counting computer, the counting computer gave me a receipt to tell me what candidate it had counted. No no manual counting (which is rife for abuse) unless needed, and I get a verification
GREAT: accurate, fast, anonymous, auditable (Score:2)
It wont matter (Score:2)
Re:It wont matter (Score:5, Funny)
Parent
Re: (Score:2)
More important than rapid counting to make the 11pm news.
Literally? (Score:3, Funny)
Re:Literally? (Score:4, Funny)
Gah, don't be so literal.
Parent
Re:Literally? (Score:4, Informative)
Parent
Auditing. (Score:5, Insightful)
Re:Do you trust the counters? (Score:4, Informative)
You are aware that it was Bush's campaign that filed the first court challenges to the Florida ballots, right?
I'm sure you'll happily apply the entire rest of your comment to Bush now that you know he's the one who caused the inevitable Caesar.
Parent
Do they blend? (Score:3, Funny)
Aggh,someone had to ask it.
Paper? (Score:3, Insightful)
As a Canadian, I've never voted with anything other than a paper ballot, and I have never had a reason to question the voting process as a result.
Re: (Score:2)
Pencil and paper.
It Just Works.
Complete audit trail, recounts take from a few minutes to a few hours, depending on the election. Yes, if there are several votes taking place at the same time, it's a little more complicated to separate out the different coloured ballots, some of which are always put in the wrong boxes, but hardly a big deal.
Re: (Score:3, Interesting)
How many do you propose. In my county in November 2004, I voted for 54 different things. (President, Congress, Ohio House, Ohio Senate, State board of education, a bunch of judges, a bunch of county executive offices, several county tax authorizations and a lot of municipal tax authorizations.)
Admittedly, that was particularly severe, even for a presidential election.
I've been a pollworker for seve
Re: (Score:3, Informative)
Here's one example: Chicago, Illinois, November 2004 [nist.gov]. 10 pages of choices, with 15 elected offices, confirmations of 74 judges, and one referendum. We're talking about 1 or 2 orders of magnitude longer than a Canadian ballot.
I do not support unauditable voting computers. I just wanted to explain why the voting problem is much different in the U. S., and give you some idea w
Re: (Score:3, Funny)
America is the land of opportunity, like the opportunity to question the integrity of the voting process! I hope I've answered your question.
Another benefit of optical scan counting (Score:4, Funny)
I LIKE eVOTING because... (Score:3, Funny)
You've been Punk'd (Score:3, Insightful)
Oh you poor beguiled Floridians. You've just been taken for the old bait and switch. If you had paid attention to the debacle of the last presidential election you would know that it was the optical scanners that were compromised, not the touch screens! An in-depth statistical analysis was undertaken by a mathematics professor of the exit polls compared to the "counted" tally. A vast number of anomalies showed up in Ohio in districts with optical scanners. Calculating the odds of those discrepancies show that it was less likely for Bush to have won that election than for him to have been hit by lighting and win the lottery on the same day (paraphrasing of course).
Re:Will the new system be any more reliable? (Score:4, Informative)
There are enough problems with arguments about whether a vote should be counted or not as it is, in any system. With optical scanning of a ballot paper, surely there will be arguments about whether what the scanner counts as a vote or not is actually the correct definition of what is a vote or not? The voting system is likely to be attacked by people who disagree with its definitions whatever it is.
The main advantage of the optical scanning system is it leaves a paper trail. If there is a dispute at the end of the election, it is possible to manually recount the ballots. Compare with the touch-screen voting, where no independent verification is possible. The ballots are also plain pieces of paper, so there's no issue of hanging chads or dislodging chads during a recount as in certain elections in the past.
Parent
Re:Will the new system be any more reliable? (Score:5, Informative)
1) you fill them out with a special black pen.
2) if you make a mistake, ask for new sheet and start again.
3) you place it into the optical scanner.
4) Green Light - your ballot is correct and you are done.
5) Red Light - you get a new ballot and start again.
Advantages:
Positive and Negative feedback if the ballot is clean and correct.
Voter SEES what is they choose, clearly.
Disadvantages:
Paper pile. But need only until election is confirmed.
Parent
Re: (Score:2)
If there is any doubt as to the accuracy of the machine you can simply do an old style human based count.
This is the most important feature.
You also mention that you could destroy the pile of paper ballots after the election is confirmed. This is an option, but it is also an option to leave them in secure storage in case anyone ever wants a recount at a later date.
The only downside I can think of is that people are unable to deface a ballot as a prote
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In addition, it's far easier to handle breakdowns - the markers, whether pen, pencil, or felt, can be replaced quickly and easily. They don't go bad often if they're of a decent quality. Paper ballots are pre-printed and can be replaced. You can have a lot of optical scanners, if one goes down, disregard it's count, feed the b
Re: (Score:3, Informative)
Maybe next time there is a perceived problem, congress wont rush headlong into an expensive act with a fasttrack deadline because we have to "do something!"
Sometimes you have to take the time to figure out what the real problems are and address them properly before pissing your money away on waste and potential changes that make things worse. In the case of lever machines and pucnh cards, the replacements were a waste of money and possibly made things worse.
Sadly, the real problems were "figured out" long ago, and Congress merely told jurisdictions to take action quickly.
Unfortunately, there were missteps in many jurisdictions. The reasons for the missteps are up for debate, and are very politically charged, but basically includes:
In short, their inability to execute wasn't due to the timeline - it was