Sender: •••@••.••• (Douglas Tooley) >Sender: •••@••.••• > >In a message dated 95-09-08 17:37:45 EDT, you write: > >> Many believe that bringing the NII to every person is an important >> goal, > >An answer may lie in converting the voting booths which populate the polling >places which we use now. Instead of a paper ballot with a small punch to make >holes in them, modernize them by making them electronic, much like an ATM. This is not something to consider. I work as a ballot official every election and the paper trail is crucial to the accountability of the system. These systems are based in part on cash control procedures. Not until the net is fully able to handle cash transactions, and has demonstrated the ability to do that over a period of years should we even consider having voting on-line. (and then we still need to worry about unique id's). In the interim the political force of the NII will be as a forum to discuss the issues. This may actually have more indirect impact than a ballot. As to the goal of bringing the NII to every person - libraries historically have worked to insure information access to all. They have done so with great integrity and effectiveness. No other access method is important as insuring that the funding is available to our libraries for these capital purchases and staffing. <><><><><><><><><><><><><><><><><><><><><><><><><><><><> Douglas Tooley Know any good lawyer jokes? •••@••.••• Seattle, Washington "Justice is incidental to law and USA order" ^ - J. Edgar Hoover <><><><><><><><><><><><><><><><><><><><><><><><><><><><> @@@@@@@@@@@@@@@@@@@@@@@@@@@@@@@@@@@@@@@@@@@@@@@@@@@@@@@@@@@@@@@@@@@@@@@@@@@@@@ Sender: •••@••.••• (Kurt Guntheroth) >Sender: •••@••.••• >An answer may lie in converting the voting booths which populate the polling >places which we use now. Instead of a paper ballot with a small punch to make >holes in them, modernize them by making them electronic, much like an ATM. >Have a small LCD screen, with push buttons for the ballots and have them all >linked together via an on-site LAN, connected via modem to a central >computer. It's a time honored computer-geek passtime to visualize the highly efficient, computerized, automated voting booth. But paper systems have an advantage that is so critical it may negate any efficiency that might be gained by computerization. It's trivially easy to audit a paper voting system. Individual booths can be audited by a virtually untrained person to insure that all the candidates are listed and the punch holes line up. Cards can be counted repeatedly by ordinary people using no technology at all. The poll workers are selected to represent all parties in an election and they audit each other. Although they tend to be very ordinary people, the ones I talk to are quite proud of the part they play in insuring fair elections. Now visualize the computerized voting booth connected by a LAN to city hall. How can a citizen determine whether their button presses are recorded? How can you tell if they make it to city hall? How can a citizen verify that the tally program is coded to fairly count each vote, rather than maybe drop a few percent off one candidate's tally? How do ordinary people reason about whether the system has been compromised by fraud? I would never say that fraud cannot happen in paper voting systems. The possibilities are without number and the historical examples are rich. But computerized voting takes the possibility of auditing the system out of the hands of ordinary people and puts society's trust in the hands of a few computer folks. It's much cheaper to buy or coerce these few people. It's much easier for one of them to take matters into his own hands. My distrust of computerized polling is very deep. @@@@@@@@@@@@@@@@@@@@@@@@@@@@@@@@@@@@@@@@@@@@@@@@@@@@@@@@@@@@@@@@@@@@@@@@@@@@@@ Sender: Gary Weston <•••@••.•••> > > Sender: •••@••.••• > > In a message dated 95-09-08 17:37:45 EDT, you write: > > > Many believe that bringing the NII to every person is an important > > goal, > > An answer may lie in converting the voting booths which populate the polling > places which we use now. Instead of a paper ballot with a small punch to make > holes in them, modernize them by making them electronic, much like an ATM. > Have a small LCD screen, with push buttons for the ballots and have them all > linked together via an on-site LAN, connected via modem to a central > computer. All of this is relativly easy to install with a tiny bit of The problem with this idea is that, without some sort of paper documentation, that is, ballots which can be tied to individual voters, there is no way to prove that a contested election was stolen or not. On the other hand, with control of the media in the hands of a few huge corporations, any hope that elections can be contested successfully by other than those supported by the major media is rapidly draining away anyway. People are reluctant to vote because they feel their votes are irrelevant. Giving them access to electronic voting is not going to do much unless the entire political system is overhauled to make buying elections mor difficult. @@@@@@@@@@@@@@@@@@@@@@@@@@@@@@@@@@@@@@@@@@@@@@@@@@@@@@@@@@@@@@@@@@@@@@@@@@@@@@ Sender: "Steve Eppley" <•••@••.•••> Subject: Re: Political participation for whom? [cr-95/9/10] R. Smith <•••@••.•••> wrote: >> Many believe that bringing the NII to every person is an important goal, > >An answer may lie in converting the voting booths which populate the polling >places which we use now. [snip] People need more frequent access to the net than 5 minutes per year. Something closer to an hour per day, please? ---Steve (Steve Eppley •••@••.•••) @@@@@@@@@@@@@@@@@@@@@@@@@@@@@@@@@@@@@@@@@@@@@@@@@@@@@@@@@@@@@@@@@@@@@@@@@@@@@@ Sender: "T. Bruce Tober" <•••@••.•••> Subject: Re: Political participation for whom? [cr-95/9/10] In your message dated Tuesday 12, September 1995 you wrote : > An answer may lie in converting the voting booths which populate the polling [snip] > that I have not addressed the terms of security. This is not a thing to be > taken lightly. We can all imagine what it would be like if a powerful entity > hacked into a system and corrupted the information. Scary stuff, however it > can be protected. It can? Seems they can't even protect against hackers getting into AT&T's or the DOD's computer networks, how the hell do you think they'll protect some backwater town's election system? tbt |Bruce Tober - •••@••.••• - B'ham, Eng| | ---&--- | |"A man's library is a sort of harem." Ralph Waldo Emerson| |"A book that is shut is but a block." Thomas Fuller | @@@@@@@@@@@@@@@@@@@@@@@@@@@@@@@@@@@@@@@@@@@@@@@@@@@@@@@@@@@@@@@@@@@@@@@@@@@@@@ Sender: Heidi Howard <•••@••.•••> In discussions of universal access, I have rarely heard anyone say that it would be a bad thing if everyone who wanted to get info from the internet could do so- the question is therefore, What does universal access mean, in scope? Does it mean email access (from which you can, with the right info, get any FTP thing from anywhere), does it mean a web browser? with graphics or without? The ability to use MUDs or to NUSH? Usenet posting? Starting any Usenet group or thread? And what level of copyright protection do all these users get? •••@••.••• * http://www.infi.net/~heidih * •••@••.••• I grant a license to forward this note for noncommercial purposes. (c)1995 "People do not care to play chess on the edge of a precipice." Mdm. S.Necker "You may know what you need but to get what you want better see that you keep what you have." S. Sondheim ~=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=~=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=~-~=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=~=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=~ Posted by -- Andrew Oram -- •••@••.••• -- Cambridge, Mass., USA Moderator: CYBER-RIGHTS (CPSR) World Wide Web: http://jasper.ora.com/andyo/cyber-rights/cyber-rights.html http://www.cs.virginia.edu/~hwh6k/public/cyber-rights.html FTP: ftp://jasper.ora.com/pub/andyo/cyber-rights You are encouraged to forward and cross-post messages and online materials, pursuant to any contained copyright & redistribution restrictions. ~=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=~=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=~-~=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=~=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=~
