Truck and Barter: See! SEE!!

July 28, 2004

See! SEE!!

By Ian

Now, I don't want to say I told you so...but my views on electronic voting are pretty evident.

So I'll just point to this article and let you come to your own conclusions.

Touchscreen Vote Records Lost in Florida
MIAMI - A computer crash erased detailed records from Miami-Dade County's first widespread use of touchscreen voting machines, raising again the specter of elections troubles in Florida, where the new technology was supposed to put an end to such problems.

The problem with these things goes beyond tampering to simple user error. Who doesn't back up copies of voting files daily? But here we do get to see an example of the problem with events that might be low-probability, but exact a very high cost. To me, the cost is still way too high for the small benefit of convenience.

N.B.:Actually, it's not me that "told you so." I just pointed to what other, more learned people, had told you. But still, I think it's pretty interesting...

Posted at July 28, 2004 09:03 AM

Comments

Why is it not possible to simply put a receipt printer in a locked box behind each touchscreen voting machine that will then print the results of each voter? If there is no paper trail to electronic voting, then it is by design.

Comment by Rob at July 28, 2004 02:11 PM | Permalink

That's largely my argument as well. The points I've heard in response are simply that it raises costs, and the maintenance required to install new paper when a machine runs out is time consuming and costly (in terms of having to get people willing to spend the time to learn how).

Agai, how that's more costly than losing entire election results, I don't know.

Comment by Ian at July 28, 2004 03:52 PM | Permalink

Like nobody has ever lost paper ballots?

Comment by Fred Boness at July 28, 2004 10:00 PM | Permalink

It's a lot harder to lose or steal boxes and boxes and boxes of paper ballots than to mistakenly erase a folder with the results. Certainly there are some lost in transition, from carelessness or what have you. But the ease with which electronic data can be irrevocably lost is, to me, worrying.

The cost of failure is just a lot higher with no paper trail electronic voting than either paper-based votes, or electronic votes with a paper receipt.

Comment by Ian at July 29, 2004 08:30 AM | Permalink

You might be interested to know that the Backup diskette was found in the Supervisor of Elections files - there was a change of Supervisors after the election (Miami's are appointed) and apparently very few people remembered the procedures that were in place to store backups.

Actually we used to have machines that were pretty reliable and trustworthy - those old lever actuated voting machines originating in the 1890's. As I remember, they were also castigated for being subject to manipulation. As any auditor will tell you, the devil is in the details.

On the other hand, I have actually counted paper ballots - it is amazing what people can find to do to those things and still scream about their votes not counting.

Comment by L yn at August 6, 2004 12:12 PM | Permalink