A particularly pessimistic compilation of tales where Bright Shiny Electronic Voting Machines have turned out to have not only had errors, but had errors of a magnitude such that the results of the issue or race at hand was backwards.
How do voting-machine makers respond to these reports? With shrugs. They indicate that their miscounts are nothing to be concerned about. One of their favorite phrases is: “It didn’t change the result.”
Except, of course, when it did.
Should be required reading. I like the idea of Bright Shiny Electronic Voting Machines, but I’m in the software biz — I know how errors can creep in, or not be discovered until stuff is in production. Which means some sort of non-computerized audit trail for these voting systems is absolutely essential.
(via RISKS)
But Dave, MicroShaft and Access are your friends.
“Trust, but verify.”
I think this is the underappreciated concern — not only with electronic voting machines but also programs like CAPPS II and other highly secretive data-mining security programs. The frequency with which we computer programmers say things like “ooops, it shouldn’t be doing that” should give *anyone* pause. Not having a backup process in place is just flat irresponsible.
Absolutely.
Unfortunately, neither the vendors nor the folks (low- and high-level) tasked with getting such systems in place have much incentive to detail the limitations and possible problems with them, or to react with more than a “everything’s fine here, we’re all fine, how are you?” to any reports of problems.