Princeton computer geeks hack into a Diebold AccuVote machine and steal votes left right and center with utmost ease. Then they post a video of their exploits online. Sure it's a bit slow. But it teaches you stuff. Stuff about how terrifyingly unsecure these machines are. Stuff about how their malicious vote-stealing software is undetectable, and covers its tracks so you'd never know that the election was stolen. Stuff about how you can access the machines memory card slot by picking the lock in seconds flat.
In conjuction with other Diebold flops (they messed up in Alaska. California has banned them. They've been hacked before. And their parts roll through eBay for anyone to purchase - to mention a few) I don't know how much louder the evidence can shout failure. Democracy should not rely on such ineptitude - especially at the recieving end of ballots. There's enough of it in circulation as is.
It makes sense that the last two US presidential elections were so close. They created just enough votes for Bush to win, but as little as possible to prevent themselves from being caught.
Posted by: Jackie | September 18, 2006 at 10:20 PM
Bum Bum Buuuuhuhuhuhuhmmmmmm..... . . .
Posted by: Anne | September 18, 2006 at 11:34 PM
The sad thing about this, just like a lot of saddening issues, is how ridiculously easy it is from a mathematical standpoint to make a voting system that is both practically and theoretically anonymous, secure, and verifiable (i.e. after the election you can actually check to make sure that your vote was tallied correctly). Not only that, but you can easily do it in either a paper system or an electronic system (or both). Makes you want to bang your head against a something. Too bad science is so difficult to implement when it actually matters.
By the way Anne, how did that AI / machine learning thing in Vancouver go?
Posted by: Andrew | September 22, 2006 at 12:16 PM