On Thu, 21 Oct 2004 10:29:52 -0400 > But, it's your vote, you can vote for anyone that you wish, I'll defend > that right to the end, even if Kerry wants to take it away.... > > My vote will be PROUDLY cast for Bush, just like it was 4 years ago. The problem is that neither you nor I nor any of the rest of the people who are voting will know whether the result of the election reflects the will of the people or not. We have no way of knowing if your vote for Bush will be counted as a vote for him or not. There are computer based voting machines in use in this election that are known to be insecure, that were not designed to follow any of the academic work that has been done on the theory of secure electronic voting, that are running on operating systems that are known to be insecure, that are using a network that is known to be insecure. These machines do not produce a voter verified paper trail (e.g. printing out a voter's choices on a paper ballot which is displayed to the voter and then retained in a ballot box at the poling place [which could be a roll of paper tape inside the voting machine]). You will cast your vote, I will cast my vote, and neither of us will know if our votes have any effect on the result ! of the election, or if the election will be decided by security vulnerabilites. Yes we can (in some, but not all juristictions) request a paper ballot. But we know that these, like absentee ballots, will not be counted unless the results reported by the voting equipment chosen by the local voting officials are so close that the number of paper ballots is large enough to potentially alter the result. Ignore all the flames about the politics - emotions are high all over about this election - the important issue is that because insecure computer based voting machines without paper trails are being used in some places in this election, we will not know whether the results of this election, regardless of who wins, reflect the votes that people actually cast.
-Paul
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