Another case of electronic vote-tampering?

[Kelvin Mace]

http://salon.com/tech/feature/2003/09/29/voting_machine_standards/index.html

When the IEEE, the world's leading professional society of engineers, decided in the summer of 2001 to create a technical standard for electronic voting machines, most everyone concerned with the elections business thought it was a grand idea.

For the most part, the IEEE operates just as you'd expect a bunch of engineers to behave -- the group is rigorous, open-minded, dispassionate, and reluctant to embark upon any major endeavor unless everyone with an opinion has had an opportunity to hold forth. "Consensus" is the IEEE's main buzzword; and while that ethic can lead to some frustration, it also explains why so many industries and government agencies ask the IEEE to draw up technical standards for new technologies. People trust the IEEE's open process, and when it sets down certain specifications -- governing everything from aircraft gyros to wireless networks -- the specs are widely respected by technologists.

*snip*
The parties involved are arguing about big things -- about whether, for instance, electronic voting machines should be required to produce a "voter-verifiable" audit trail, which many security experts say is the only way to guarantee security in electronic systems -- and tiny things, such as the order in which topics are discussed in the meetings they hold. To hear members of the committee tell it, the whole process has become a circus -- a circus that illustrates how difficult it might be to eventually create a national standard for voting systems.

Advocates of the audit-trail requirement claim that the IEEE standards group has been hijacked by a "cabal" representing the voting equipment industry; this industry coalition has systematically attempted to "disenfranchise" its critics by abusing technicalities in the meeting bylaws, these activists charge.


More proof the fix is almost in.

David Allen
Publisher, CEO, Janitor
Plan Nine Publishing
1237 Elon Place
High Point, NC 27263
http://www.plan9.org

[lcordero]

1. YES! YES! YES! YES! YES!

I hope that openbsd or the EROS operating system try and make their version of an embedded operating system.

[sonias]

2. Glad to see more coverage

But what we need is more computer scientists interested in voting security, who can hold their own and outsmart the voting equipment industry thugs. Oh and it looks like they have to have plenty of free time since they do this on their own time. I'm sure the industry guys are getting paid for their time. This is totally stacked against an open process that will favor democracy.

Sonia