At 11:08 AM 11/20/2004, Noel J. Bergman wrote: >William A. Rowe, Jr. wrote: > >> The only result (if proved true) is the complete loss of faith >> in any form of electronic voting by the general public for at >> least the next 20 years. > >You're kidding, right? Is there anyone here who has faith in unauditable >systems?
Let's make certain you read me right. I said "General Public". The ones who have microwaves, clock radios, electronic ovens, VCR's that still blink 12:00 since sometime in the 80's. And a PC that crashes at least once a week. If it works, they trust it, when it breaks, they don't. They will never understand the concepts behind the audits inside the computer. They can clearly understand the idea of an 'audit tape' being signed, and what happens if those are 'switched'. But right now, in general, they trust the 'machine' more than people. When that flips, they will have a very hard time regaining trust in the 'machine' - at least people apologize and resign or are fired, they are replaced by people who insist they are more honest and will restore confidence in the public trust (and have some record of service to back it up.) The machines won't proclaim they are safer. People will, but once the voting public knows that machines 'eat' or 'edit' their votes in such a way that nobody is ever aware of the changes, then they will balk. Once confidence is destroyed, no manner of encryption/transaction tracking/electronic audit will satisfy them. The only fraud arises from people (programmers, vote counters, multiple voters or 'impartial' observers), but the faith is in the machine now. That will soon be lost. One thing, paper receipts to the voter and to the voting precinct counters, will be the only method to restore the faith. Fraud will continue, but it will be back on the humans to answer for. Bill --------------------------------------------------------------------- To unsubscribe, e-mail: [EMAIL PROTECTED] For additional commands, e-mail: [EMAIL PROTECTED]
