Microsoft Moves To Change NY State Election Law 222
myspace-cn sends us to Bo Lipari's blog where it is revealed that Microsoft has moved forcefully into New York State with proposed changes to NY state election law drafted by Microsoft attorneys. A document has been circulating (PDF) among the legislators for a while now. The proposed changes would gut the source-code escrow and review provisions in current law that were hard-fought-for and passed in New York in 2005. Microsoft is siding with the makers of voting machines that run on Windows — the company doesn't want its code inspected by outsiders. From the article: "Now the software giant has gone a step further, not just saying 'we won't comply with your law' but actively trying to change state law to serve their corporate interests... Adding insult to injury, these changes are being slipped into a bill that may be voted on Monday or Tuesday, June 18 or 19."
Un. Bee. Leev. A. Bull. (Score:2, Insightful)
Microsoft shouldn't be in the voting business (Score:5, Insightful)
Re:Wrong (Score:4, Insightful)
Companies lobby all the time to get laws changed in their favor. This is just "business as usual."
The real cure is electoral reform, including campaign financing. As long as "lawmakers" (I use the term liberally) can be tempted by companies with deep pockets and the hope of a seat on the board of directors after the bums are thrown out, this will just keep happening.
This is a symptom, not the disease itself.
Re:Microsoft shouldn't be in the voting business (Score:3, Insightful)
The only thing that works is a verifiable paper trail, so arguing about open vs. closed source on voting machines is totally moot.
Re:Microsoft shouldn't be in the voting business (Score:2, Insightful)
Answer: You don't.
how convenient (Score:5, Insightful)
* Microsoft wants their code closed in order to protect lock-in.
* Those in power take bribes from Microsoft and the voting machine manufacturers, and moreover, they want to be able to hand their offices to friends and supporters when their own terms are up.
Summary: things are happening that appear to be motivated by agendas antithetical to democracy.
Used car salesman (Score:5, Insightful)
When the used car salesman if performing gymnastics to guide your eyes away from some aspect of the car, that's where you'd BETTER look if you don't want to be ripped off.
What we have here is a salesman who is desperate to keep us from examining the source of the OS.
Re:Wrong (Score:4, Insightful)
Currently we can see some of the evolution of a bill into law, but much of the direct personal responsibility is masked by committee changes. A lawmaker would be far, far more careful if he knew everyone (media, citizens, etc) could see exactly what changes he made, and when.
The "when" is important, for instance, a change of a bill a day before being voted on should be a major red flag.
ATM failures (Score:2, Insightful)
Re:Microsoft shouldn't be in the voting business (Score:4, Insightful)
There's a reason so many Computer Scientists oppose eVoting, we think we could steal an election if we tried... and that's just a wee bit too easy.
Re:Wrong (Score:3, Insightful)
And a very significant part of the electoral process is haveing a voting system you can count on. From the proposed changes to the law, it looks like MS would like to make voting software from "off the shelf" Windows components. Why would they push for a differentiation between primarly-for-voteing or not, unless they were not going to be building this 100% custom? Do we really want our voting software to be compatible with home PCs? Do we want that software even based on a system that many many people have years of experience in finding weaknesses? Hell, if we are going to vote that way, just make the presidential election a web survey.
Re:Microsoft shouldn't be in the voting business (Score:5, Insightful)
Re:Wrong (Score:5, Insightful)
"Could you name one issue where current law diverges from majority opinion, backed by some recent survey?"
Totally irrelevant to the issue at hand, which is that companies have more "access" to legislators than the electorate does.
Electoral laws need reform.
But since you asked - the current war in Iraq. Current law funds it - current public opinion is that the invasion was a mistake and to get out.
Another one - the deficit. Current law says its okay to run huge deficits, and to keep raising the legal deficit ceiling. public opinion is WTF [ttp]
The debt ceiling was raised just over a year ago. It's going to have to be raised again in the VERY near future.
Ten trillion or bust? More like Ten trillion AND bust!
Corporatism (Score:4, Insightful)
Re:Loaded Words Much? (Score:2, Insightful)
Just use avionics (or gambling :) ) standards! (Score:3, Insightful)
Or, (google for the story) apparently writing the e-voting bill was really easy in Nevada, they said "Hey, we'll use the same audit standards that we already have for our slot machines" -- and all the Diebolds decided to skip NV as a customer...
Paul B.
Re:Wrong (Score:2, Insightful)
I'd say it's completely relevant -- if the law currently already does what "the people" want, what's the "value-add" of more stringent campaign financing rules?
But since you asked - the current war in Iraq. Current law funds it - current public opinion is that the invasion was a mistake and to get out.
No, it isn't. The Democrats control both houses and would have already done this if they didn't think it would get them kicked out of office at the next election.
Another one - the deficit. Current law says its okay to run huge deficits, and to keep raising the legal deficit ceiling. public opinion is WTF
I couldn't read the link (after trying some variants), but I suspect it simply says the public doesn't like deficits. But it's one thing to favor reducing debt in the abstract; it's quite another to accept the tradeoffs that that would require. Is the public willing to curtail lots of programs or raise taxes to pay down the deficit? Apparently not.
Re:Wrong (Score:5, Insightful)
No, that's a balance of power issue. Pulling the troops won't hurt the Democrats in the next elections -- not as a whole, anyway -- but Bush will veto any bill that contains a deadline, and Congress doesn't have a veto-proof majority on the topic. What ends up happening (theoretically) is that the troops eventually don't get supplies, and due to that the Democrats get hurt. The president simply has the upper hand on this issue, regardless of the feeling of the populace or the majority party in Congress.
Re:The power of the vote. (Score:3, Insightful)
Which is why I think we should return to traditional paper ballots, honestly. The field of computer security is simply too new and too fast paced to trust with the foundation of our democracy: elections.
At the very least, I feel that any software used in the election process should have its source viewable by the public. It doesn't necessarily have to be free/open source (though I think it would be beneficial), but people should at least be able to audit the code used to determine the nation's elections.
That is why we should have stuck with paper ballot (Score:5, Insightful)
Re:Quick solution (Score:3, Insightful)
Why an OS? (Score:4, Insightful)
I mean, what does a voting machine needs to do? Read a keyboard (or touch screen), write to a display device, print a receipt/results, read and write to a RAM card (to get the candidates and put the results).
So why do you need a whole goddammed operating system to do that? Are programmers becoming sufficiently incompetent to be unable to do those basic I/O tasks from scratch???
What's so difficult in booting from ROM? Set stack pointers, memory access registers, jump to start of POST routine and go.
It's not very hard at all.
So why do you need schwindoze (or schlinux) to do all those basic things????
Re:Un. Bee. Leev. A. Bull. (Score:4, Insightful)
Re:Wrong (Score:3, Insightful)
Re:Loaded Words Much? (Score:3, Insightful)
Because Microsoft isn't a citizen, and corporations don't have the same rights to representation as citizens. Or shouldn't have. In these plutocratic times they actually appear to have more representation than citizens, but that's not the way it should be. Not if you want to pretend you live in a democracy.