Why we shouldn't have touch screen e-voting in NY.

[Bill Bored]

True story:

Friends, I don't know about you, but I never really took that "screen calibration" excuse for the touch screen vote switching too seriously until yesterday when I tried to add $6.00 to a NYC MetroCard (used to pay for the subway) on a Touch Screen machine at the station.

Let me tell you it was a nightmare! I was pushing the "6 button" and other numbers kept coming up over and over again! I kid you not. I was expecting to see George W. Bush's name instead of the dollar amount any minute, but it was only a numeric display. I pushed the "0" and it didn't register at all. Finally, after about 20 tries, over at least a 5-min. period, I was able to correctly enter 3 lousy digits, two of which were the same. I finally got "6 0 0" to work, and put in my money.

You mean to tell me there are people who actually have to cast VOTES on these things? No way.

Considering that this was a random event and I had never used one of these particular machines before, I can see where those election incident reports come from, even without the hacking and configuration errors and all the ways to rig the machines to switch or ignore straight party votes, single-click vs. double-click corrections, the possibility of switching the names around on the ballot, etc.

Combine this with the crappy fraud-inviting software design and it really is a disaster waiting to happen, or should I say, that HAS happened to our election system!

At least with Op Scans, you have a paper ballot you fill out by hand which is a much better end-user interface than a touch screen, even if the scanners are hackable.

So add to all the other problems with TS/DREs, the real possibility of downright screen mis-calibration, which up until now, I thought was just a diversion from other programming or configuration errors or hacks. It's not. It can happen. And if it can happen, it can probably be targeted too. Send the mis-calibrated touch screens to the Democratic precincts and let those poor bastards wrestle with them, right? That and a token will get them on the subway.

It's just one more reason to BAN these machines from anything as important as voting.

(Still, I bet if I had tried to enter "666" it would have worked on the very first try!)

[buckup]

1. Calibration ... Hacking

Agreed. Screen calibration can be a major problem. I have this problem every so often on those digital screens that you sign at Trader Joe's market after you slide your credit card. It's a little disconcerting when where you push the pen down is an inch away from where the writing actually appears.

Also, in regards to "hacking"... many nerds agree that if people do go to evoting, not only do we need paper ballot copies made, but ALSO... the programming code of the machines should be made public so that other nerds can keep the machines in check.

Though, that's assuming that the copy of the software you give to the public is the same as the copy of the software you put in the machine...

[Bill Bored]

2. Right, and random auditing of the paper records, or ballots. nt